Unlike his elder brothers Edmund and John, Thomas Austin Holahan did not take an office job, rather working as a laborer until he settled on the lifelong profession of plumber. His prospects were not all bad as he was married at age 25 to Ida Margaret Osterndorff (~22 years old) in 1890 and had had 4 living children by 1900, though this US Federal Census would have us believe that there had been six children born to the family. Within the first five years of their marriage, Thomas Holahan had well established himself as a plumber, enough so to set up shop as “Holahan and Clark”. By 1898, however, there is no more reference to this shop in Trowe’s (NY) City Directory.
Much like his father John Holahan, Thomas Holahan and family do not venture far from their dwellings about W 123rd to W 127th Street from 1890 to 1910. The seemingly constant labor as plumber pays off for Thomas as he was able to move the family to 111 Morningside Ave, Manhattan, NY by 1915 and remain there for the subsequent decade. The paper trail for Thomas Holahan becomes scarce after 1930 and as with all stories, his ends in 1944 at the age of 79; no cause of death was given. His wife Ida would only survive another five years before her death in 1949. Both Thomas and Ida passed away in Jackson Heights, Queens, NY and were buried in St. Charles Cemetery. St. Charles is a Catholic cemetery and would suggest that the Holahans kept close to the Irish Catholic roots.
Stereotypical Irish Catholic in NYC
There were probably 12 children born to this Catholic family, two being missed between censuses, with the 10 known children being: Eleanor Margaret, John William, Ida, Thomas, Marie, William James, Edmund Thomas, Theresa Marie, Estelle May and Marguerite (as described by Estelle’s genealogy notes). Little Thomas did not survive beyond two years (d. 1901), whilst Marie died at the age of 8 in 1908. The causes for their deaths are not specifically known, though the Census Bureau notes that tuberculosis was the leading cause of death for the first decade of 1900, followed by cancer, diphtheria/croup, other forms of TB, Scarlet fever and typhoid. Whilst in 1908, the Center for Disease Control gives the ten leading causes of death as: typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria and croup, tuberculosis, cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, and diarrhea and enteritis.
All of the eight surviving children received an 8th grade education with most pursuing a career working from the bottom up and doing so successfully. John William Holahan started as a messenger for a drug store after completing school, eventually becoming a licensed druggist and owning his own pharmacy, albeit working long hours (84 hours during the week of 21-24 March 1940). He married Margaret Creed and had 4 children: Mary Jane, John, Edwin and Carole. William James Holahan married a woman named Elizabeth Bailey, had at least three sons (Richard, Charles and William) and worked as an electrician in Chicago. Unfortunately William Holahan and family disappear from the written record after 1940, though it is believed that they emigrated to Australia.
Edmund Thomas is known to have a variety of occupations over the course of his life but seems to have settled as a bank clerk. He married Catherine Loughlin and had a daughter Mary later into their marriage. Theresa Marie Holahan’s occupation before her marriage to Frederick Barrett is unknown but it would appear that she became a housewife after the birth of Jean M. The second youngest child to Thomas and Ida Holahan, Estelle May, remained the great communicator to all the extended Holahan clan perhaps because she never married. Her occupation is unknown. Lastly, the youngest child, Marguerite, worked as a mail clerk for a magazine before her marriage to a man named Stanley Snyder. They are known to have one child, a son named Robert.
Eleanor Margaret Holahan
The age difference between the eldest and youngest recorded children of Thomas and Ida Holahan, Eleanor and Marguerite, is 18 years. If Thomas was indeed married in 1890 and the census record is to be believed, then there was probably a child before Eleanor, making for 20 years of child birth and rearing by Ida Holahan! …Eleanor Margaret Holahan was a stenographer before she married John McCue in 1913 and had her first child, William Robert McCue in the following year and daughter Helen E McCue in 1916. By this timeline, aunt Marguerite was only 3 years older than nephew William and 5 years older than niece Helen. In the surviving McCue snapshots, Marguerite, William and Helen were often photographed together in their early years; images to appear in subsequent posts.
Here ends the rough overview of the Holahan family from Ireland to New York City, where four generations of Holahans would reside for over a hundred years, beginning in 1850, as it is currently known in 2013.
Stereotypical Irish Catholic in NYC
There were probably 12 children born to this Catholic family, two being missed between censuses, with the 10 known children being: Eleanor Margaret, John William, Ida, Thomas, Marie, William James, Edmund Thomas, Theresa Marie, Estelle May and Marguerite (as described by Estelle’s genealogy notes). Little Thomas did not survive beyond two years (d. 1901), whilst Marie died at the age of 8 in 1908. The causes for their deaths are not specifically known, though the Census Bureau notes that tuberculosis was the leading cause of death for the first decade of 1900, followed by cancer, diphtheria/croup, other forms of TB, Scarlet fever and typhoid. Whilst in 1908, the Center for Disease Control gives the ten leading causes of death as: typhoid fever, measles, scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria and croup, tuberculosis, cancer, heart disease, pneumonia, and diarrhea and enteritis.
All of the eight surviving children received an 8th grade education with most pursuing a career working from the bottom up and doing so successfully. John William Holahan started as a messenger for a drug store after completing school, eventually becoming a licensed druggist and owning his own pharmacy, albeit working long hours (84 hours during the week of 21-24 March 1940). He married Margaret Creed and had 4 children: Mary Jane, John, Edwin and Carole. William James Holahan married a woman named Elizabeth Bailey, had at least three sons (Richard, Charles and William) and worked as an electrician in Chicago. Unfortunately William Holahan and family disappear from the written record after 1940, though it is believed that they emigrated to Australia.
Edmund Thomas is known to have a variety of occupations over the course of his life but seems to have settled as a bank clerk. He married Catherine Loughlin and had a daughter Mary later into their marriage. Theresa Marie Holahan’s occupation before her marriage to Frederick Barrett is unknown but it would appear that she became a housewife after the birth of Jean M. The second youngest child to Thomas and Ida Holahan, Estelle May, remained the great communicator to all the extended Holahan clan perhaps because she never married. Her occupation is unknown. Lastly, the youngest child, Marguerite, worked as a mail clerk for a magazine before her marriage to a man named Stanley Snyder. They are known to have one child, a son named Robert.
Eleanor Margaret Holahan
The age difference between the eldest and youngest recorded children of Thomas and Ida Holahan, Eleanor and Marguerite, is 18 years. If Thomas was indeed married in 1890 and the census record is to be believed, then there was probably a child before Eleanor, making for 20 years of child birth and rearing by Ida Holahan! …Eleanor Margaret Holahan was a stenographer before she married John McCue in 1913 and had her first child, William Robert McCue in the following year and daughter Helen E McCue in 1916. By this timeline, aunt Marguerite was only 3 years older than nephew William and 5 years older than niece Helen. In the surviving McCue snapshots, Marguerite, William and Helen were often photographed together in their early years; images to appear in subsequent posts.
Here ends the rough overview of the Holahan family from Ireland to New York City, where four generations of Holahans would reside for over a hundred years, beginning in 1850, as it is currently known in 2013.
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