From County Kerry to Detroit: Hussey-Shea Family

If someone asked Edward James Hussey where he was from, the man known to his family as “Biggs” would provide a straightforward answer: he was from Detroit, born and raised. And if they were lucky, Biggs would hum a few bars of the U. of D. fight song.

If someone wanted to know how his family came to be in Detroit in the first place, they needed to know a bit about County Kerry, Ireland.

Once upon a time ….

But first, a note on names: things are going to get confusing. On the paternal side, Edward James Hussey (Biggs) was the son of Edward John Hussey, who was the son of Edmund Hussey – but who often went by the name “Edward” himself. On his maternal side, Mary Gertrude Shea (Nanny, Biggs’ mother) was the second person in her family to hold that name, and she was related to both James Cornelius Shea (her father) and James Franklin Shea (her brother). Because so many characters in this story share identical first names I have included their middle names throughout much of the narrative. The characters themselves probably did not use their middle names in daily conversation, but it seemed the only way to make certain the identities of each are clear in the story.

The Hussey-Corridan Family

Edmund Hussey was born in County Kerry, along the southwestern coast of Ireland, sometime around 1840. His ancestors had arrived more than six centuries earlier, during the Norman Invasion of Ireland in 1172, and because they were Norman, the family name reflected French origins. The group who arrived from Normandy as “De La Huse” or “De La Hoese” became Husee, Huse, and eventually Hussey in Ireland.

The family split into two branches over time: one branch held the Irish feudal barony of Galtrim in County Meath, about 30 miles northwest of Dublin, while the other branch – the one from which Edmund was descended – held the barony of Corcaguiny in County Kerry. Today we know the barony of Corcaguiny by a different name: we call it the Dingle peninsula.

The peninsula extends further west into the Atlantic Ocean than any other point in Europe. It was – and remains – a remote and wild place, separated from the interior of Ireland by mountains, bogs, and moors where wolves roamed freely as late as the 18th century.

The Hussey family represented Corcaguiny in the Irish parliament for several hundred years. A history compiled in 1872 noted that “for centuries among the Irish-speaking and Catholic inhabitants of the barony of Corcaguiny the old name of the town [of Dingle] was interpreted to mean ‘Dingle of the Husseys.'” You can interpret that any way you like, but know this: an entire chapter of a history book is entitled “Dingle of the Husseys.” ¹

The family was prominent for centuries but its fortunes declined during the Protestant Reformation. When the name “Edward Hussey” was presented to Queen Elizabeth I in 1602 it was on a list of “certayne men sworn to continue in rebellion.” The queen was not amused. The Crown confiscated the Hussey family’s land in County Kerry, just as it confiscated the land of nearly every Catholic in Ireland. Over the next century the Husseys regained and forfeited their property at regular intervals, but their fortunes “must have been greatly reduced in penal times [1695-1793], as they seem to have clung firmly to the Roman Catholic faith ….”² The 200+ years following Edward’s rebellious period were not kind to the family.

We know that Edmund Hussey was born in County Kerry around 1840, but we cannot be certain of the names of his parents. Edmund’s death certificate states that his father’s name was Peter, but that certificate was completed in 1920 by someone without first-hand knowledge of his family of origin.³ The government in Ireland never created birth certificates for County Kerry in the early 1800s, but a remarkable number of Catholic parish ledgers are available for review. I have examined the baptismal records for County Kerry for the years around 1840 and have not discovered any child named Edmund who was born to a father named Peter Hussey. I have, however, discovered a child named Edmund born to Patrick Hussey and Janeta (Sinead) Murphy in 1838.⁴ It is possible that this is “our” Edmund Hussey, and that his father’s name on the 1920 death certificate is erroneous; it is equally possible that Edmund’s father really was named Peter and that his baptism records are missing or illegible, as are many others from this era. We will likely never know.

Baptismal Register entry for November 3, 1838 in Abbeydorney, County Kerry. The entry is in Latin and records the baptism of Edmundum Hussey, the son of Patritii Hussey and Janeta Murphy.

What we know for certain is that Edmund Hussey was a young boy in County Kerry during the worst years of the Potato Famine. Edmund would have experienced the time as an Gorta Mór, “the Great Hunger.” The famine devastated Ireland, and it devastated the families living on the Dingle peninsula more than most. The area’s remote location, dense population, excessive dependence on the potato, and pre-existing extreme poverty were only made worse in “Black ’47.”⁵ We also know that when he emigrated to America he traveled without any family members, and he is not known ever to have mentioned or recorded the names of any family members. All of those facts suggest that Edmund Hussey’s family did not fare well during the famine and that by the time he emigrated he may well have been the sole surviving member of the family.

On July 5, 1860, Edmund boarded the S.S. Emerald Isle in Liverpool; after five weeks in the dark and dank steerage compartment he arrived in New York on August 13, 1860.⁶ From there he traveled to Indianapolis; we do not know how or why he selected that destination, but he found a growing city desperately in need of laborers.

Edmund experienced something new when he arrived in Indianapolis: he was the only person named Hussey in the entire city. He had come from a land where Husseys were so numerous that the family’s name was synonymous with the Dingle peninsula; now his name was unique. Edmund is the first ever Hussey known to have lived in Indianapolis.

Indianapolis City Directory for 1864. The directories for 1861-63 do not include any person named Hussey, and directories prior to 1861 are not available.

He was hardly alone, however. The population of Indianapolis exploded in the 1860s as the city served as a major staging area and hub for the rail transport of troops, ammunition, food, and supplies during the Civil War. It was during this period that the Van Camp company began canning pork and beans in Indianapolis; keep reading to learn more about the Hussey/Van Camp connection almost 40 years later.

One of the city’s new residents was a young woman from County Kerry named Hannah Corridan.⁷ Hannah’s Uncle Thomas Corridan, her cousin Phillip Corridan, and their families had emigrated to the U.S. in the mid-1850s, entering via Canada.⁸ Hannah arrived in America in April 1862 aboard the S.S. City of Washington.⁹ Her hometown of Ballyheigue is very near Edmund’s likely home on the Dingle peninsula, so it is possible that the couple knew each other in Ireland; it is also possible that Edmund and Hannah met for the first time while each were working within the close-knit Irish community of Indianapolis. Wherever they met, they quickly fell in love. When they married in September 1863 Edmund gained a large extended family; Hannah was one of several children born to Lawrence Corridan and Hanora Delaney, many of whom (plus their Uncle Thomas, cousin Phillip, and their families) lived near Edmund and Hannah at 644 South West Street for decades.¹⁰ The apartment building no longer stands but the site is easy to find; it is one block southwest of today’s Lucas Oil Stadium.

Indianapolis ca. 1870. The Hussey and Corridan homes are marked in red; the blue box indicates the site of Lucas Oil Stadium today

After a brief stint as a teamster driving a delivery wagon, Edmund Hussey was a laborer. Laborers walked to work, which meant that their homes were near factories. Edmund had plenty to choose from: the Caledonia Paper Mill, the foundries and steel furnaces at the Capitol City Rolling Mill and Indianapolis Rolling Mill , the hog pens and slaughterhouses at the Coffin, Greenstreet & Fletcher and Barnes & McMurtry packing houses, the lumber yards at the Sheffield Saw Works, the brewery at C.F. Schmidt, the heavy assembly operations at Parry Planter Cotton carriage works, Woodburn Sarven Wheel Works, and Dern Bros. Steam Pump Works, and at least one firm that specialized in “pelts and tallow” were all within a short walk from home – as were the railyards, operating around the clock.¹¹

Just one of those factories creates a loud, smelly mess; all of them packed in close proximity, well … yuck. The atmosphere was so foul that when a paper mill and a meat-packing plant in the Hussey’s neighborhood shut down the most important fact for the Indianapolis News was not the economic impact of the closures; it was that the neighborhood “is having some little rest from the usual stink.”¹² Squealing pigs, the whine of bandsaws, heavy presses crashing into metal, freight cars rumbling and screeching day and night; the stench of animal carcasses, sewage canals, a brewery, and a paper mill. Day after day, for years on end, the Husseys and Corridans worked, ate, and slept in a sensory landscape that we would be unable to tolerate even for a moment.

*Indiana State Sentinel (Indianapolis)*, April 29, 1875, p. 9, col. 2.

Edmund Hussey and Hannah Corridan must have been made of strong stuff; the noise and odor did not dampen the spark between them. The couple welcomed six children in 12 years, including Edward John Hussey, their fifth child, born in 1875. Around the time Edward John was born, Edmund applied for a license to set up a tavern in his home, no doubt searching for ways to supplement his income. The application must have been rejected, but that did not affect Edmund’s plans – until he was arrested (with his cousin-in-law, Phillip Corridan) for violating liquor laws.¹³ Was he selling nickel beers? We’ll never know.

Whether the court gave him the choice of going to jail or leaving town, or Hannah was fed-up with the stink of downtown, or the couple simply wanted a change of scenery, the family moved to a farm 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis shortly thereafter. They remained for only a brief period, after which they returned to Indianapolis, to the same block on which they had lived earlier, and where much of the Corridan family remained.¹⁴

During their time on the farm, unbeknownst to them and an ocean away, a girl was born who would change the life of their son, Edward John, and the lives of all members of today’s Hussey family. Later she would be known as “Nanny.” For now, she was known as little Mary Gertrude Shea.

The Shea-Franklin Family

Mary Gertrude Shea was born in London, as she was fond of reminding anyone within earshot. Like everyone else in the story so far, however, she also had roots in County Kerry. Her father was James Cornelius Shea, born near Caherdaniel along Kenmare Bay in May 1857.¹⁵ James was the oldest of six children born to Cornelius Shea and Mary Moriarty, natives of County Kerry who were married in Caherdaniel in 1855.¹⁶ When James was about 10 years old, his mother died; his father remarried (to Honora Moran) and had at least three more children. All of the boys shared the middle name “Cornelius,” and all nine of the children emigrated to America and lived in Indianapolis.

Marriage Register entry for Cornelius Shea and Mary Moriarty, 26 May 1855, Cahirdaniel Parish, County Kerry,

James Shea left County Kerry around the age of 18 and worked briefly at an ironworks in Wales. By 1879 he was living in the Greater London area, working as a conductor on a tram car, which is likely how he met a young woman named Georgina Caroline Franklin.¹⁷

Georgina was born on the Isle of Wight, in Hampshire, England around 1856.¹⁸ She was the daughter of Emma, a nurse, and Henry Franklin, a ship steward. Henry died sometime before 1871, at which time Emma and Georgina moved to London, where they lived at No. 1 Weymouth Street in the Marylebone district.¹⁹

Camberwell Registration District, Peckham, County of Surrey, England, vol. 1d, p. 1088, no. 1, marriage entry of James O’Shea and Georgina Caroline Franklin, 12 May 1879.

After who-knows-what on the tram car, James Cornelius Shea and Georgina Caroline Franklin were married on May 12, 1879. They lived in Peckham, a working-class suburb of London south of the River Thames, and were married at the Church of Our Lady of Seven Dolours.²⁰ Georgina’s mother, Emma Franklin, died just a few months later.²¹

In November 1880 James and Georgina welcomed their first child, Mary Gertrude Shea; sadly, she died as an infant.²² Perhaps because of that experience, when Georgina was expecting her second child the family moved nearer to central London where Georgina would be able to deliver a child in the newly established Queen Charlotte’s Hospital for Women. They were living at 12 Little Queen Street (the address has since been renamed 12 Forset Street) in Marylebone on March 27, 1882, when their second child, Mary Gertrude Emma Shea, was born. It was common practice for a family to re-use the name of a child who died in infancy, and James and Georgina likely added “Emma” as a middle name to honor Georgina’s mother. In practice, Nanny never seems to have used the name “Emma” and was simply “Mary Gertrude Shea.”

Marylebone Registration District, St. Mary’s, County of Middlesex, England, vol. 1a, p. 559, no. 13, birth entry of Mary Gertrude Emma O’Shea, 27 March 1882.

By 1884 James, Georgina, and Mary Gertrude Shea had moved east along the Thames and were living at Little Thurrock in Grays, Essex, England. That is where the family’s third child, James Franklin Shea was born.

Orsett Registration District, Grays, County of Essex, England, vol. 4a, p. 349, no. 361, birth entry of James Cornelius (sic) O’Shea, 25 October 1884, image copy of register entry; General Registry Office, Southport, England. The birth register indicates a middle name of “Cornelius” but the child was always known by the middle name “Franklin.” It is unclear whether the family changed the boy’s name after birth or whether the person registering the birth made an error.

James’ father died in Ireland around the same time.²³ James and Georgina’s parents were both gone, they had no family in England, and several of James’ siblings had already emigrated to America and established homes in Indianapolis. On January 6, 1886, James, Georgina, and their young children boarded the S.S. Helvetia in Liverpool to join them.

Shea and Franklin locations 1871-1884; Mary Gertrude (Nanny) was born in 1882 at the location furthest west, her brother James was born in 1884 at the location furthest east; James and Georgina were married and lived in the central locations prior to Nanny’s birth.

At least four Shea siblings (John, Michael, Nora, and Hannah) were living in downtown Indianapolis in 1886, all of them near the site of today’s Lucas Oil Stadium. James and Georgina chose to make their home in the slightly less crowded area of West Indianapolis, likely because they had children while none of the other siblings were married. The White River separated West Indianapolis from downtown and provided enough of a barrier that for several years “W. I.” had a very distinct identity.²⁴

James worked very briefly on a farm and then turned his attention to the business of home construction. He and Georgina added two more children to their family (Norine in 1887 and Cornelius in 1889)²⁵ and adopted another (Augustus Wilford, born in Wales in 1879, who immigrated to America in 1892).²⁶

A biographical sketch published in 1893 – almost certainly written in the third-person by James himself – deserves quoting at length:

[About 1888] he began extensively to engage in the building business and in all has put up about thirty-seven houses …. This branch of human endeavor continued to occupy his time and attention for a considerable period, and owing to his keen discernment and shrewd but always honorable business management it proved an exceedingly profitable source of revenue. In 1890 he laid in a stock of general merchandise and opened his present establishment … which is constantly growing under his wise and honorable commercial policy.
Pictorial and Biographical Memoirs of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana (Indianapolis: Goodspeed Bros., 1893), p. 355.

The “present establishment” mentioned in the sketch was Shea Hall, a grocery store and public meeting space at the corner of Belmont and Morris Streets in West Indianapolis. When the 1892 school year opened, Shea Hall served as a temporary schoolhouse while teacher assignments were finalized.²⁷ The record does not reflect whether young Mary Gertrude was horrified or whether she was delighted; she was 10 years old, so it could have gone either way.

Georgina Franklin Shea died in March 1893, leaving Mary Gertrude without a mother and James as a single father with five children.²⁸ The family was fortunate that James’ sister Nora had moved nearby in West Indianapolis; she had earlier married one of the men working with James on construction projects (William S. Kemp) and helped James with his own young children.

A few months after Georgina’s death James Shea’s business fortunes took a sharp turn downward. Several properties that he built – or promised to build – were listed for sale at a Sheriff’s auction, and by 1899 a bank foreclosed on the properties.²⁹

Green flags indicate Edmund Hussey family homes; heart pins indicate homes of James Shea family. The blue pin marks the site of the Van Camp Catsup Bottling Plant.

James had long since moved downtown and was working as a carpenter on South Capitol Street, on the eastern edge of – you guessed it – the site today of Lucas Oil Stadium. His daughter Mary Gertrude, however, likely remained in West Indianapolis with William and Nora (Shea) Kemp for a few years. We know that she was living with them in June 1900, even though they had moved to downtown Indianapolis, near James. James Shea and William Kemp operated a “Shea Brothers” grocery in 1900-01, suggesting that the families remained attached emotionally, if not as near one another as they once were.³⁰

Private Edward John Hussey, 158th Indiana Infantry Regiment, Co. H, 1898. He was later promoted to Corporal.

When the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor in 1898 war fever had swept the country. Edward John Hussey enlisted immediately, intent on fighting in the Spanish-American War. It was a very, very short war, however (America won, by the way), and although Edward’s unit left Indiana, like many other units it never had the chance to leave the U.S. Nonetheless, he was one of the few men in his Company to receive a promotion during their months of training in Georgia, indicating that his dedication, competence, and leadership made him stand out among his peers.³¹ Shortly after he returned to Indianapolis his mother (Hannah Corridan Hussey) passed away.³² Edward moved back in with his father, brothers, and Corridan cousins, but he started a new type of job: rather than work as a factory laborer he began working in an office at the 200 block of North Delaware Street.³³

The Hussey-Shea Family

Later in life, Mary Gertrude spoke of having once worked at a ketchup factory. The only such factory in Indianapolis was the Van Camp plant, a massive operation along the White River.³⁴ The plant was demolished years ago and today is the site of a warehouse-style data center; you can find it just a few blocks west of … Lucas Oil Stadium. More importantly, Mary Gertrude crossed North Delaware Street every day on her way to the Van Camp plant from her home with Aunt Nora and Uncle William Kemp. Mary Gertrude Shea and Edward John Hussey would have crossed paths daily on their way to and from work in 1899.

Mary Gertrude was 17 years old, Edward John was 24, and they were madly in love. Mary Gertrude’s father, James, would understandably have had some reservations about his daughter’s relationship with a man so much older than she was, and a former soldier to boot. She was not to be deterred. If her father would not permit them to be married in Indianapolis, they would find another way to be together.

Church of the Immaculate Conception, Mattoon, Illinois as it appeared in the early 1900s.

On November 21, 1900, the Mattoon Daily Journal reported that at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday morning Mr. Edward Hussey and Miss Mary Shea, both from Indianapolis, were married in the Church of the Immaculate Conception.³⁵ By way of explaining the somewhat unusual circumstances, the newspaper added that “Miss Shea had been visiting Mrs. Lord, who works at the Dole House,” a local hotel. The Indianapolis papers neglected to cover the event.

Any reader in Mattoon who got to page eight of the Daily Journal, where the article appeared, might have concluded that “Mrs. Lord” was an elderly matron or relative, and that Mary Gertrude had been swept off her feet by Edward while visiting. In reality, Mary Gertrude and Edward planned the entire event. Mamie (Brickley) Lord was a childhood friend of Mary Gertrude’s. She was married only a few months earlier, after which she and her husband moved from Indianapolis to Mattoon. Mr. & Mrs. Lord’s relocation to Mattoon provided Mary Gertrude Shea and Edward John Hussey with a perfect excuse to tell their families that they were going to visit some friends out of town (true) and then get married while they were there (an aspect of their plans they probably “forgot” to tell anyone in advance).

The couple settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, where Edward John had an apartment as a traveling salesman, soon after marrying. Mr. & Mrs. Lord of Mattoon also moved to Terre Haute for a few years, and Edward John’s father, Edmund Hussey, joined his son and daughter-in-law there about 1902.³⁶ Edmund’s oldest son (Lawrence) died in 1901,³⁷ which must have been a crushing blow as it came on the heels of the death of Edmund’s wife (Hannah Corridan) in 1899. It must have been a great comfort for Edmund to stay with his son Edward, Mary Gertrude, and his grandchildren, Martin and Norine, for a few years.³⁸

Edward John worked as a collections manager for a merchant on the “Beach Block” in downtown Terre Haute from about 1901 through 1908. His father, Edmund, then returned to Indianapolis, where he stayed with his eldest daughter Anna (Hussey) Casserly until passing away in 1920.³⁹ On the other side of the family, James Shea (Mary Gertrude’s father) had remained in Indianapolis throughout, and he passed away in 1923.⁴⁰

In 1909 Edward John and Mary Gertrude relocated to Rockford, Illinois. He worked as a credit manager for Menter & Rosenbloom, a clothing store that was a pioneer in allowing customers to buy items on credit in a systematic way. The family lived in Rockford from 1909-14 then moved to Saginaw, Michigan. From 1915-16 Edward John worked at Gately’s, a large local department store “with everything to furnish the home and clothe the family – cash or credit.”⁴¹

The family’s final move was in 1917. Edward John Hussey and Mary Gertrude (Shea) Hussey established their home in Detroit, where he began work as the credit manager for a jeweler. The couple would live in Detroit for decades, but they had only just arrived when, on September 14, 1917, Edward James Hussey was born at their home on 200 Harmon Street. … And they all lived happily ever after.

That, dear reader, is the story of how Biggs came to be “from Detroit.” Cue the U. of D. fight song.