The Harringtons
So, now, let's start by introducing Nell Harrington, Martha's mother, the so-very-lovely lady with the beatific face, shown in the photo above with her precious little firstborn child, Eleanor, circa 1905. Born on December 5, 1875, Nell grew up in Lake Linden, on Michigan's rugged Keweenaw Peninsula, where in the mid-1800's, one of the world's richest supplies of copper was discovered. Nell was, therefore, a "Yooper," that is, a resident of the UP (Upper Peninsula of Michigan which, for you non-Michiganians, also has a Lower Peninsula, where the coolest O'Brien-Harrington descendants live in the Ann Arbor-Detroit area -- and no, there is no such thing as a Looper, but don't ask me why.
Incidentally, the two peninsulas are separated by two of the five Great Lakes, Michigan to the west and Huron to the east, but are connected by the world famous Mackinac Bridge, the scene of a bizarre tragedy just a few years ago when a Yugo, with a young woman at the wheel, was suddenly caught in a freak gust of high-powered wind and launched up over the bridge's siderail into the icy waters some 200 feet below. Sorry, there is no happy ending to relate.
Of course, back when the O'Briens and the Harringtons lived in Copper Country, there was no bridge. Nor were there any highways, or for that matter, very many decent roads. People living in the far north were dependent mainly on the waterways and railways and dusty horse and buggy trails to move about.
The seventh of twelve children (and now you know how her parents, Sylvester Harrington and Mary Shea, managed to make it through those Siberian winters, so much a part of the lore of Michigan's Northern Peninsula), she married Michael Edward O'Brien on February 4, 1903, at Holy Rosary Church in Lake Linden. The two of them seemed to have much in common: They both were born and raised in the area; the parents of both had immigrated from Ireland; they both came from large families; both of their fathers were copper miners; and both were willing to risk leaving the only life they knew for something completely different: Detroit.
Known for stove manufacturing (remember that monstrosity on
Just as we have our internet, cell phones, plasma TVs, and Hubble telescope, the people of that generation were also being hit with an unprecedented series of innovations, thanks to, among many others, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Marconi, and of course, Thomas Edison, all of whom were living and inventing in the same era. It was an amazing time to be alive, and the perfect time to leave the harsh and, by comparison, backwards U.P.
As the auto industry took root and sprouted, attracting workers and entrepreneurs alike, some of the purely Detroit products that we know so well also began to ramp up in popularity.
After that commercial timeout, let's return to our story: Nell was 26-years-old when they married, rather late for a woman in those days when 22 was the norm, but she quickly made up for lost time as the photo below illustrates, possibly with the encouragement of her mother, whose constant state of pregnancy while Nell was growing up must have been a considerable influence. For Irish-Catholics, women were put on this earth to "go forth and multiply," and Nell's mother, Mary, was as fecund as they come. Although she didn't reach her mother's impressive reproductive level, Nell did turn out a fine, large family nevertheless.
Click here to compare daily life in 1900 with that of 2000.
This shot, probably from early 1909, shows Michael and Nell with their rapidly expanding brood. By then, they had been mates for only six years, so clearly, there was no dawdling about on the family front: They had a job to do, and they did it with alacrity, which is also indicative of a strong Irish work ethic, the same work ethic that saw the Irish contribute so much to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, the Titanic in Belfast, and the early skyscrapers in New York City. (Although, one could argue, with no television, radio, computer, PDA, cell phones, hot tub, video games, or for that matter, probably not even any electricity yet, what else was there to do at night?)
Still to come: Margaret, Martha, and Rosemary. At this time, the O'Briens were living in Laurium, just four miles northwest of
Fast forward seven years. Motherhood seems to have taken a toll on Nell, 40, who appears somewhat worn-out in this photo, which shows her with all six of her daughters, who are, no doubt, the very explanation for her fatigued appearance: Directly in front of her are the three oldest girls, Eleanor, Anne, and Kitty; then, in front of them, Margaret, Martha (whose face is obscured by her adorable ringlets and curls), and Rosemary. Sadly, Nell would pass away in just a few short months, on February 9, 1917, barely into her 41st year, and just days past the 14th anniversary of her marriage to M.E. O'Brien. When we were growing up, Mom always told us that her mother had contracted food poisoning, and that's how she died. However, in her history of the family, Rosemary (Fenech) Enthoven cites an ectopic pregnancy as a possible cause, something her father, Dr. Harold Fenech, suspected -- though, as she noted, that couldn't be proven.
2/2007 - The headline here speaks for itself. What is pertinent to us is that included on this list is "Mrs. Michael E. O'Brien, charitable worker" (AKA, Nell Harrington O'Brien). Grandma Nell died 90 years ago this month. (Thanks to the Chassell-based Harringtons for passing this clipping along.)
Two years later, on December 23rd, 1919, the family suffered another blow when little Rosemary succumbed to diptheria, a rare childhood illness that modern medicine has all but eliminated with an innoculation. She was just six. One can only imagine the sorrow that pervaded the O'Brien home that
We have Anne Franco to thank for this photo (and, for that matter, for so many others on this site), which shows her mother, Eleanor, as an infant with her mother Nell; her grandmother (left, front), Mary Shea Harrington; and her great grandmother, Mary Shea. A real rarity: Four generations! Upon seeing this shot, Michael J commented on the rather stern- and forbidding-looking matriarch, Mary Shea, dressed from head to toe in black, her hair pulled back so hard that the skin on her face is stretched thin across her cheek bones. 'As a kid,' he asked, 'would you have wanted this woman babysitting you?' Ahhh, NO! However, insofar as she was our Great Great Grandmother, she must have been a dear old soul, as gentle as the fluttering heartbeat of a deeply sleeping sparrow, right?
1880 Census
In this magnified, cropped, and unfortunately, blurry copy of the June 1880 Census, the young family of Sylvester, 40, and Mary Harrington, 33, are listed. At this point, eight of the twelve children that the couple would eventually contribute to the population of
Although you can't see it in this small extract, the census indicates that both Sylvester and Mary were born in
Click here to learn more about what it was like to be mining copper in Michigan.