Dinner for Two - 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

This post is part of a project called 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, created by Amy Johnson Crow.  The prompt for this week is invite to dinner.

I would love to have dinner with my great grandmother, Laura Josephine (Shaw) Sullivan/O'Sullivan, also known as Marie Eleanora Chauvin.  For many years Laura was the penultimate brick wall in my genealogy research.  According to the family Bible she was born on January 22, 1878 in Montreal, Quebec.  I had looked for Shaws in Montreal for years, but never found a family that seemed to match what I knew.

Notre Dame Basilica, Montreal

I knew from later records that Laura's mother's name was Mary Ann McCarthy and she was born in Ireland.  I knew that Laura's father's name was Joseph Shaw.  In 2008 I made a research trip to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  I found an 1881 Canadian census for a Chauveau family with a French father named Joseph and an Irish mother named Mary A.  There were three daughters, with names and ages similar to Laura's known sisters, as shown below:

Josephine Chauveau compared to Josephine Shaw
Marie E. Chauveau compared to Laura Shaw
Louisa M. Chauveau compared to Mary Louise Shaw

Since this census was not available on line at the time, I had a copy printed to take home with me, just in case.  Fast forward to 2011, I was watching Who Do You Think You Are? with Rosie O'Donnell.  She was in Montreal viewing her great grandfather's baptismal record at Notre Dame Basilica.  I was sure if Rosie could find her great grandfather, I could find Laura.  I located Laura and all her siblings that evening in the Drouin database on Ancestry.com, as shown below:

Commonly Known As	Baptismal name	Date and Location
Joseph	Joseph	March 6, 1874, St Vincent de Paul, Montreal, Quebec
Joseph (buried)	Joseph	Sept 11, 1874, St Antoine de Pade, Montreal, Quebec
Josephine Shaw	Josephine Sophronie Chauvin	Dec 25, 1876, St Bernard de Lacolle, Quebec
Laura Shaw	Marie Elionore Chauvin	January 22, 1878, St Bernard de Lacolle, Quebec
Mary Louise Shaw	Marie Louise Chauvin	March 27, 1881, St Joseph, Montreal, Quebec
Edith Amelia Shaw	Emmilee Ida Chauvin	April 22, 1883, St Brigide, Montreal, Quebec
James Simon Shaw	James Simon Chauvin	Feb 6, 1886, Notre Dame Basilica, Montreal, Quebec

Mary Ann (McCarthy) Shaw and a daughter

In these records, the parents were identified as Joseph Chauvin and Mary Ann McCarthy.  Laura, her siblings and her mother emigrated to Boston by train in 1886.  I haven't found any record of her father, Joseph, in Boston, other than his mention in family obituaries.
Some of the questions I would like to ask Laura are below.
1. How did you lose your hearing, and what was it like living as a deaf person in the early 20th century?
Family stories vary about how Laura lost her hearing.  I was always told that she had scarlet fever as a child, which left her deaf.  June was told that she lost her hearing because of an explosion where she was working.  My grandfather spoke to her with a kind of sign language. 

We know that she belonged to a group for deaf people and that she had deaf friends.   My cousin June has a panoramic photo of a large group of deaf people, including Laura, visiting Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

2. How did you cope with losing all your immediate family members in a 5 year period, from 1898 to 1903?
In 1898, Laura's sister Josephine was the first to die, from pulmonary phithisis.  She was followed by sister Mary Louise from consumption of the lungs in 1900 and Edith Amelia in 1902 from phithisis.  Her mother, Mary Ann (McCarthy) Shaw, died in 1903 from phithisis.  This left Laura, age 25, with five young children, and her brother, James Simon, age 17, as the only surviving members of the family.
Despite her deafness, and the prevalence of tuberculosis in her family, Laura lived to be 88 years old.



Name	Date of Death	Cause of Death	Burial
Josephine A. Shaw	May 5, 1898	Pulmonary Phithisis	Calvary, Mattapan
Mary L. (Shaw) Callhan	Feb. 28, 1900	Congestion of the lungs	Calvary, Mattapan
Edith Amelia Shaw	June 5, 1902	Phithisis	New Calvary
Mary Ann (McCarthy) Shaw	Aug. 28, 1903	Phithisis	New Calvary



3. When did you come to Boston, and who came with you?


Other than Laura, who married in 1897,  the Shaw family has not been located in Boston in the 1900 census.  According to various birth marriage and death records they lived at 29 Spring Street, 5 Ransom Court and 42 Wall Street, all in the West End.  James Simon Shaw's naturalization papers, filed on February 13, 1922, state that he emigrated by rail on the 21st of January 1886.  He gave his birth date consistently as January 21, 1884, but he was baptized on February 6, 1886 in Montreal, Quebec.  He may not have known his actual birth date, and may have believed that he came to Boston around the age of 2 years.


Copyright 2018, Kathleen Sullivan. All Rights Reserved