Established in 1888, Mt. Olivet cemetery, located at Van Dyke and McNichols in Detroit, is an immense, serene, sprawling place that contains some 325,000 burial sites and memorials. Residing among this principally Catholic congregation of the deceased are a striking number of our matriarchal ancestors, Harringtons and O'Briens alike, found in Section 41.
Upon his death in June, 1916, Sylvester Harrington, Nell's father, was the first family member to be interred at Mt. Olivet. At that time, his wife, Mary Shea Harrington, purchased Lot 36 (17'x18') for $198.90, which turned out to be a pretty good investment given the number of her offspring who would eventually find their way here.
Just eight months later, in February 1917, Nell Harrington would unexpectedly die, prompting M.E. O'Brien to purchase Lot 35, which adjoins the Harringtons' space, for her burial and in anticipation of its eventual use by other family members. He paid $223.13 for the 17'x17.5' parcel, ample enough for some twelve dearly departed; and thus, far too prematurely, Nell joined her father in perpetual rest.
M.E's older brother Timothy, who was just 53 and about whom we know virtually nothing, was next in line to claim a place in the O'Brien family plot. His date of interment was December 7, 1918.
In late 1919, the O'Briens would reconvene at Mt. Olivet for another sad service: Little Rosemary, the youngest child at six-years-old, would contract diptheria and die in quick succession. According to cemetery records, she was buried on Christmas Eve, and such unfortunate timing must have added immensely to their heartbreak.
Mary Green O'Brien, M.E.'s mother, had departed from the Keweenaw after a half-century as one of Copper Country's pioneers to live with her son in Detroit. Her final years were spent with the family at 1158 Putnam Ave. and there she died on February 22, 1923. Great-grandmother Mary had lived a good, long life of 87 years starting so humbly on Bear Island in Bantry Bay, County Cork, Ireland, and now she would be placed next to son Timothy but hundreds of miles from the loved ones she had been forced to leave behind in Copper Country: her ill-starred husband, Patrick, who had been killed in a Hecla & Calumet mine 33 years earlier; her son Daniel, who had also died in a mining accident at just 16-years-old in 1876, or thereabouts; and her oldest daughter Mary Ellen, dead at 17 in 1878. Then there were her beloved firstborn boys, John and William, both of whom died in infancy in Boston before Mary and Patrick migrated west to Northern Michigan.
It would be nearly 30 years, 1952, before M.E.'s devoted sister, Annie, died and took the place reserved for her next to her Mother. A spinster who had spent so many years of her life in service to her brother, M.E., and her nieces and nephew after Nell's death, she was always remembered with loving thoughts by Martha whenever we saw her photo and asked about "the white haired lady whose wan face was almost the same color as her hair."
M.E. would be the final member of our O'Brien family laid to rest in Section 41, fully 50 years after he had purchased the original plot or Nell. At last, they were together again.
Presently, there are several open and available plots in the O'Brien section, and direct descendants -- in this case, sons and daughters of Eleanor, Anne, Kitty, John, Margaret, and Martha O'Brien -- have burial rights at Mt. Olivet.
Any volunteers?
The Harringtons
As for the matriarchal side of the family, we know very little about them, mainly because with Nell's premature death in 1917 and her sister Lyle's passing in 1953, we had no grandmother to indoctrinate us, and Martha never got around to it (or if she did, we weren't listening).
Whatever the case may be, it appears that the majority of the Harrington clan -- having also migrated down to a booming Detroit from the Keweenaw as copper production tailed off -- is interred here.
From the 1880 and 1920 U.S. Census reports and from geneological research conducted by Eleanor and John O'Brien, we know that Nell's parents, Sylvester and Mary, both immigrated to the U.S. from the "Irish Free State" (as some census recorders referred to Ireland) in the mid- 1850s.
Like Patrick and Mary O'Brien, fate took them Upper Michigan where they also became mining pioneers, eventually linking up with the O'Briens through the union of their daugher Nell and M.E..
From the genealogical data, we are aware of their many offspring: twelve children, all born in the UP, starting with Timothy in 1864 or 1865 and continuing all the way to 1889 with the birth of Victor, an amazing quarter-century of procreation. The fact is, Mary Shea Harrington was quite young (14) when married (if the inscription on her headstone giving her birthdate as 1849 is valid), and she began giving birth without delay. When Victor, her youngest of the 12 surviving children was born in 1889, Mary was just 40. (We don't know if there were any other children who died at birth -- quite likely, as that was a common occurrence in those days.)
Nellie, incidentally, was precisely in the middle, child number six.
This last headstone, awaiting a final inscription, is reserved for Victor Harrington Jr., son of the youngest of the brood. Eighty years old, he now lives in Temperance, MI (we tracked him down via the internet), and we hope to talk to him soon (assuming he'll talk to us) in order to fill in some of the genealogical blanks.
Others buried in this Lot include Rose L. and Elva D. Harrington, presumably spouses. The missing include the first three children Daniel (1864-5), Honora (1866-7), and Mary (1869-70), all of whom, it is likely, are interred in the Keweenaw.
Most surprising, Lyle's gravesite is nowhere to be found. Given that like her sister Nell, she was both a Harrington and via her marriage to M.E., an O'Brien, this is befuddling (perhaps, we just missed it, or maybe she's buried with her first husband, Mr. Kettenhofen).
In summary, the graves of both parents and eight of the twelve Harrington children are accounted for at Mt. Olivet, leaving us a little more investigative work, and, perhaps, a trip to Copper Country for answers.
-to be continued-