Aunt Nellie Keohane - her early life.

I sent for Aunt Nellie's baptismal record for our family reunion in 2006. It states that Ellen Keohane is born 25 June 1893 in Kinsale. She is baptized two days later in St. John the Baptist Church in Kinsale. Her parents, as we know, are Hannah Kiely and Patrick Keohane.

One of the sponsors is James Keohane who is probably Patrick Keohane's brother - this is the brother who dies of sunstroke out in Somerville in 1896 - 13 years after Aunt Nellie is born. No wonder she remembered him.

The other sponsor is Margaret Spillane. There are a couple of Margaret Spillanes on www.irishgenealogy.ie, but I don't have enough information to make a guess if any of them are Aunt's Nellie's Godmother. 

One day when she was small, Aunt Nellie's mother told her to mind the turkeys while she went into town. While her mother was in town, one of the turkeys got away and ran into the branch of a tree - breaking its thin neck!! Aunt Nellie was afraid that her father would find out and kill her. She hid the turkey under a bush until her mother came home. Her mother told her that everything would be alright. Maybe they had turkey for dinner!

I have Aunt Nellie on tape saying that her father used to say “Nelleen, you look just like Nell Leary. I (Aunt Nellie) used to be below at the fire.” Her maternal grandmother is Nell Leary Kiely – Hannah Kiely’s mother. Aunt Nellie said that when her grandmother died, Nell Leary was in or past her mid 90’s. 

We know that Nell's daughter and Aunt Nellie's mother, Hannah Kiely, dies young - around the time of young Jim Keohane's birth in 1898. The census showed us that Patrick Keohane is a widower in 1901, and young Minnie Keohane is the housekeeper. Aunt Nellie is 6 years old and is going to school. 

Back in these days the local pub and shop are the places people go not only for groceries or a pint, but also to find out the local news and to find out what is going on in the rest of the county and the world.  There were no TVs or radios - not everyone could read or even afford a newspaper. 

The Dunderrow Pub - now The Field Pub - was the local pub. Aunt Nellie used to talk about how the Keohane children used to hide under the bed or kitchen table when they heard their father Patrick Keohane coming home drunk from the Dunderrow Pub. She always hated that pub. I'm sure that she would be horrified that many of her grandchildren and great grandchildren have enjoyed a pint there.

1987 - Patrick Breen, Christine Manning Breen, John Huliston, and Joanne Manning 

Aunt Nellie's great nieces in Dunderrow Pub - left to right, Christine Manning Breen, Joan Huliston Vachon, me, Patricia Manning Schiavoni, and Diane Huliston Pierce. Great great nephew Rick Schiavoni is behind Christine. ? 1997

Another trip to Dunderrow Pub - Dan Murphy, Rick Schiavoni, and Patricia Manning Schiavoni.

Aunt Nellie also said that after her mother died, Patrick Keohane used to bring home women from the Poor House (run by the Poor Law Union of Kinsale.)  These women used to keep house and look after his children. Aunt Nellie said that she and Aunt Hannah used to poke the women with a hat pin.  They were small – they wanted their mother not these strangers.

Aunt Nellie also talked about her brother, young Jim Keohane, being locked out of the house one night by his father when he was a teenager because he was late coming home. Aunt Nellie said their mother, Hannah Kiely Keohane, appeared to her, and showed her that she (their dead mother) covered Jim with a cloak, and watched over him that night while he slept outside in a ditch.

Once a week no matter what the weather, "little Nell" had to walk into Kinsale to deliver eggs to the Acton family home. Acton’s Hotel is the original home of the Acton family who settled in Kinsale in 1860. They developed a number of businesses in Kinsale. Sydney Acton opened a family hotel on this site in 1946. Aunt Nellie said that when she returned to Kinsale she always stayed at Acton’s Hotel. I wonder what she thought about the days she used to deliver the eggs to the Acton family - as she laid in bed in their hotel!! She paid for me to stay there the first night we were in Kinsale in 1981.

Back: Rita and Michael Walsh, Joanne and Ellen Manning

Front: Aunt Nellie and John Manning outside at Actons's

The 1911 census does not list Aunt Nellie in the Keohane household. She must be out working.

Aunt Nellie told me that she worked for a local farmer and his brothers – they were single. Nellie said that she had “to empty their shit pots every morning.” Remember there was no indoor plumbing in those days. I think she pointed out the farm as up to the left as you face Dunderrow Pub.

I found an 18 year old Ellie Keohane working for the Bradfield family in Leighmoney More in 1911. Benjamin Bradfield is the 35 year old head of the family - he is a steward. I wasn't sure what a steward was. 

According to http://www.historyhome.co.uk/c-eight/ireland/ire-land.htm, most substantial proprietors (land owners in Ireland) employed land stewards to manage their lands. I'm more used to the term land agent.

http://www.aughty.org/pdf/estate_own_manage.pdf tells us that 

"On absentee estates a great deal depended upon the efficiency of the estate agent. In general, the employment of agents (except in the case of smaller estates managed by their owners) was the most common form of estate management in nineteenth century-Ireland. Some of the greater estates employed a number of sub-agents supervised by the chief agent who, in turn, was accountable to the landlord himself. Agents were responsible for collecting rents (which were usually collected twice a year on appointed gale days in May and November and often in local hotels or estate offices in nearby towns) as well as eliminating arrears; keeping accounts; drawing up leases and ensuring that their covenants were adhered to by the tenants; supervising estate expenditure; overseeing improvements; carrying out evictions; and valuing property. They often had to ... seek abatements of interest on existing liaise between landlords and tenants, receiving petitions from tenants, particularly for reductions of rent [5]. Land agents were responsible for all aspects of estate administration and in the final analysis for managing expenditure on estates in their charge.[6]
Besides his estate duties, an agent often served as resident magistrate, represented his employer at poor law guardian meetings or organised voters at elections. Because of the importance of these functions and the moderate financial rewards on offer (an agent's normal income was 5 per cent of rents collected but a fixed salary of £800 to £1,000 per annum from single estates was not unknown), the profession attracted younger sons of landlords throughout the nineteenth century. Agents were often local solicitors, retired army officers, or wealthy gentlemen.
Other more routine administrative duties on an estate were carried out by bailiffs, stewards and agriculturalists."

Also in this house is Elizabeth Bradfield - she is Benjamin's 30 year old sister. She has no occupation. And look - Benjamin has two brothers - John, 28, and Willie, 24. Both are farm servants.

The family is Church of Ireland - they all can read and write - they are all single - they were all born in County Cork.

So this must be Aunt Nellie and the brothers for whom she had to do such foul things as empty their chamber pots! I suppose she had to empty the sister's pot as well!

Map shows Leighmoney More - note Bradfields near the top above Horsehill Beg. I suppose the Bradfields lived near there?

This next form shows us that in 1911 W. H. Heard is the landowner where Benjamin Bradfield was living. The house where the Bradfields live is a first class house with 10 rooms and 10 windows in front. Mr. Heard also owns the gate house lodge which is unoccupied. So Benjamin Bradfield must work for Mr. Heard.

The other two neighbors are William Seymour who owns his land and Timothy Coffey who must be renting his house from William Seymour.


If we take a quick look back at the 1901 census, we see that 60 year old widow Catherine Bradfield was the head of the family - she was listed as a housekeeper, domestic servant. Her 4 sons were listed as farm servants - James was 35, Benjamin was 30, John was 20, and William was 17. Daughter Eliza, 27, was listed as a general domestic servant. None of her children were married at that time. And except for James who is not listed, none of them are married in 1911.

From the following form, the family is in a house with 10 windows in front, and they occupy 10 rooms. But in 1901 the landowner is Emily A Pratt. I wonder if she sold the place and land to William Heard? I wasn't able to find anything about this gentleman.

Aunt Nellie also worked for a farmer who lived near where the chemical plant is located now. It may have been here that she worked with her best friend and first cousin Mollie Reardon from nearby Horsehill Mor.  She told me a story about finding this farmer dead - she called Mollie - neither wanted to tell the wife - I think it was the wife who sent one of them for help – the other had to sit with the body. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the exact details now, but Aunt Nellie was laughing telling me, and it was funny when she told the story.

I looked at the 1911 Irish Census for Ballythomas East, but the three families residing there - the two Desmond families and the Ahern family - live in 2nd and 3rd class houses - they also have families so I eliminated them as the couple for whom Aunt Nellie worked.

So I looked at the 1911 House and Building Return for Ballythomas West again. We saw that Patrick Keohane owns his 2nd class house - this is the house that his son John Keohane bought for his family before he emigrated.

Now look at house #2 which is owned by Daniel Bowen. It is a private dwelling with 11 farm buildings - it is a first class house with 7 rooms and 6 windows in the front. A good size house!
Daniel Bowen also owns the land where the Patrick Sweeney family is living in a 3rd class house - probably made of mud with a thatched roof. Patrick likely works for the Bowens.

I wonder if this is the farmer and his wife for whom Aunt Nellie and Mollie Reardon worked?

The individual return lists 60 year old Daniel Bowen as head of the family - he is a farmer. His wife is 50 year old Mary Anne Bowen. They are both Roman Catholic and are able to read and write. They have been married for 24 years. The next column reports that they have had no children born alive. I wonder if that means that Mary Anne was never pregnant? or if it means that she never had a successful pregnancy? 
Both Daniel and Mary Anne were born in County Cork.

Look at this farm building return for the Bowens - neither the Keohanes nor Sweeneys had any farm buildings while the Bowens had: a stable, a coach house, a cow house, a calf house, a dairy, a piggery, a fowl house, a boiling house, a barn, a potato house and a shed! I guess they could afford to pay for a couple of servant girls.

If we look back to 1901, it looks like the Bowens were living in the same 1st class 7 room house. Daniel Bowen owned the land where the Patrick Sweeney family was living in a 3rd class dwelling. They were the only two families living in Ballythomas West.  Makes me wonder how John Keohane got the house - did he buy it from Daniel Bowen?

If we look at the listing for the family in 1901, the head of the family is Daniel Bowen, 46. His wife is Maryanne Bowen, 40.  Daniel's aunt Johannah Bowen is 68 years old and is living here also - she is widowed. Interesting that the family's general house servant Mary Ahern is 70! I presume that Aunt Nellie would have worked for them after the aunt and the servant died - she never mentioned either.

Aunt Nellie eventually goes to England to find work - maybe she was tired of emptying chamber pots! She stayed with her sister Minnie at some point. Aunt Nellie told me that she liked living in England - there is something in my memory that she worked at a hospital or a home for soldiers. Aunt Nellie said she was not happy when her brother John Keohane saved the money for her passage and instructed her to come to Boston. I know she told me that she did not want to go to America, but her brother insisted. 

http://ezitis.myzen.co.uk/thirdlondon.html tells us that:

"There were many private hospitals for Officers funded directly by donors that were not controlled by the County Director. Those asterisked are accepted by the War Office through the Red Cross." 

One of those asterisked hospitals was  "*9, Cedars Road, Battersea."  I noted this one in particular because Battersea is where Minnie Keohane is living - and I think Aunt Nellie went to Minnie when she went to England.

• 
  
  http://www.edwardianpromenade.com/women/nursing-military-hospitals-on-the-home-front/ explains:
  
  
  Over the course of the war, numerous country estates and London mansions were converted into hospitals and convalescent homes for military casualties or as temporary lodgings for the scores of Belgian refugees who escaped their occupied country in 1914. At the Duke of Bedford’s Woburn Abbey, the riding school and indoor tennis court were converted into a 100-bed hospital, and Blackmoor, the Hampshire home of the Earl and Countess of Selborne, was converted with the countess as commandant, and the drawing room, dining room and smoking room turned into wards, the hall into the men’s living room, the library as the nurses’ sitting room, and the billiards room became a store (not until Easter 1919 was the home turned back to its pre-war appearance). Even Highclere Castle was converted to hospital use, with the Countess of Carnarvon turning to her (rumored) biological father, Alfred de Rothschild for funds with which to equip her home with the finest service. 
  According the present Lady Carnarvon (of Highclere Castle) in an article in The Telegraph:

  Thirty nurses were recruited. The family’s personal physician was hired as medical director. Arundel, a bedroom on the first floor in the northwest corner of the house, became an operating theatre. All the castle’s 41 south-facing rooms had to be fitted with exterior blinds. And when the men started to arrive, “it was like moving a house party of 50 people into the castle on a permanent basis” – with the same number of staff. 

  Not all estate owners were as generous: Lord Wemyss declined his wife’s suggestion to turn Stanway into a hospital, and even threatened to close the house altogether! This reaction was rare, however, and both nurses and owners of great estates experienced many traumas and hardships on the Home Front, which did much to shake up Edwardian society."

  As we know Highclere Castle, mentioned above, is the setting for Downton Abbey.
  
  

  

   http://cdn.cstatic.net/images/gridfs/5491d9d9f92ea1603c00a0bf/Highclere-Castle-1024x682.jpg

  
  

  
  

  I found another interesting article on http://www.redcross.org.uk/~/media/BritishRedCross/Documents/Who%20we%20are/History%20and%20archives/Auxiliary%20Hospitals.pdf.
  
  

  "Role of the British Red Cross
  

  
  
  One of the many important services that the Red Cross provided during the First World War was auxiliary hospitals and convalescent homes for wounded servicemen. The Red Cross prepared for this before the conflict even began, finding some suitable properties that could be used as hospitals should war break out. However, they did not anticipate how important this service would be in the recuperation of so many servicemen.
  As soon as wounded men began to arrive from abroad the Red Cross’ temporary hospitals were largely available for use, with equipment and staff in place. 
  
  Hospital personnel
  Auxiliary hospitals were usually staffed by:
  

  • >  a commandant, who was in charge of the hospital except for the medical and nursing services
    
  • >  a quartermaster, who was responsible for the receipt, custody and issue of articles in the provision store
    
  • >  a matron, who directed the work of the nursing staff
    
  • >  members of the local Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), who were trained in first aid and home nursing. 
  • 
    In many cases local women from the neighbourhood volunteered in the hospitals part-time, although it was often necessary to supplement voluntary work with some paid roles, such as cooks. (Aunt Nellie perhaps?)
    Auxiliary hospitals drew on members who were too old or young for work in a military hospital. Many were unable to leave home for six months due to family commitments, but were willing to sign a three-month hospital contract. Auxiliary hospitals also attracted members who found work in a military hospital too strenuous and others who ‘preferred to be head cook in a small auxiliary hospital to assistant cook in a large military hospital’. (Now this sounds like Aunt Nellie!)
    

  
  

  
  

  Anyway, Aunt Nellie not so happily leaves Liverpool 8 May 1920 on the S.S. Caronia and docks in New York 18 May 1920. She is a 25 year old single housemaid. She is able to read and write; she speaks English. She is from Ireland and is an English citizen. Her last permanent address is London, England. Her nearest relative in England is her sister Mrs. Bennett of 61Winstanley Road in Battersea. Her final destination is Boston, Massachusetts. 

As we already saw, this sister is Minnie Keohane Banham -      not Bennett.

 

Nellie has a ticket to her final destination – she paid for part of it, her brother paid for part of it. She is joining her brother J. Keohane, 17 Adams Street, Boston, Mass. Nellie has not been in the U.S. before, but she does not intend to return to Ireland. She plans to remain in the U.S. permanently and become a citizen. She is in good physical and mental health.  She is 5’4” – she has a fresh complexion with brown hair and brown eyes. She was born in Kinselle.

http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/ships/1905/CARONIA_362.jpg

The S.S. Caronia was a Cunard Line ship that was built in Clydebank, Scotland. I found it interesting that she was the first ship to send a warning to the S.S. Titanic about the ice fields and icebergs that the Titanic was approaching.

So Aunt Nellie went through Ellis Island. Did anyone meet her there? How did she know where to go to get to Boston?

I know that Aunt Nellie was Godmother to my mother, Ellen Keohane Manning, in 1921 - a year after she arrived in the United States. So she made it safely to Boston!!