The descendants of Bridget Whelan
Revised Nov. 2, 2002

Table of Contents:

  1. A convict family
  2. Gold!
  3. A bad time and place to be Irish
  4. Children on the stage
  5. 'Festive little Maggie Moore'
  6. 'They were an era'
  7. End of a marriage
  8. Phantom cable cars?
  9. J.C. Williamson
  10. Harry Roberts
  11. Voices of the period
  12. Playbills
  13. Music

IV. Children on the stage

Besides, socially the girls were going to have enough problems because three of them were actresses. Maggie said in her memoirs (according to Ian Dicker, anyway) that her father died when she was eight, in 1859, the same year she went on the stage. This may well be the case, but Francisco, the youngest of Bridget's seven children, seems to have been born in either 1861 or 1863, depending of which source you believe. Nevertheless, despite the social stigma attached to it (back then, being an actress was little better than being a prostitute), three of Bridget's six daughters went on the stage.
Two of them were Margaret Virginia and James; the identities of the other two are unknown, but they were older than Maggie, which eliminates Katie and Francisco. Supposedly one of Maggie's elder sisters married an actor named Moore, and the others took the stage name Moore as well. The question is when Maggie adopted this stage name; if she did so at the time she went on the stage, in 1859, then this actor must have married Mary Burke -- at 15, she would have been the only one anywhere near marrying age. But if it were Mary, the marriage didn't last very long, because she married my great-great grandfather in the mid- to late-1860s.

Apparently one of Bridget's sisters left Ireland at some point, perhaps due to the potato famine, and ended up in Virginia City, Nevada in the 1860s. She evidently became ill, and Bridget went with some of her daughters to take care of her. This explains why Mary and Ellen both married men from Virginia City and remained there for the rest of their lives.

In 1867, Ellen married Sam Pidge; they appear to have had only one son, Paul. Sam Pidge's occupation was listed in the 1880 census as "gambler," and he was somehow connected to the foreclosure of a saloon in Virginia City in the 1890s, according to Doten. Ellen died Oct. 19, 1892. Paul Pidge, it seems, moved to San Francisco shortly afterwards, married Mary Ellen Reilly, daughter of Irish-Canadian immigrants, and had two children: an unnamed daughter and a son, Francis J. Pidge. Francis, I believe, died in Bellevue, Washington, in 1994; I have yet to ascertain if he had any descendants, though I believe he was married to a woman named Mary, and that Mary Pidge has relatives in the Modesto area (where I live).

By 1869, Mary Burke had wed Mattias Riehm, a moulder (that is, a carpenter who applies the finishing touches to a home, like wainscoting) who had been born in Illinois in June 1836 to parents from Cologne, Germany. Mott (as Mattias was known) and Mary had at least eight, possibly nine, children. Their eldest son, Edward Redmond Riehm, was listed in the Territorial Enterprise newspaper of Virginia City as having died Oct. 28, 1872 at the age of 3 years, 11 months and 9 days, but the others survived, including their fourth son, John, my great-grandfather, who married a divorcée named Cordelia LaFrance (née Dandurand). Mary and Mott's three eldest surviving children are listed in the 1880 Census as having been born in California, and Grace's and Edward's death certificates both state they were born in California, but John (born 1875) and his younger siblings are listed as having been born in Nevada. No Riehms (or Reihms or Rhiems or Rheems -- the name is mangled in any number of ways) appear in the 1870 census of California. (Grace's death certificate is problematic as it states she was born in 1881, yet she was 9 in the 1880 Census. Of course, it's possible the elder Grace died and Mott and Mary simply recycled her name, as they did with their two Edward Redmonds.)

Mary Burke Riehm died Dec. 21, 1884 at the age of 40 years, nine months, according to the San Francisco Call. The funeral was held at her mother's home at 15 Polk Street in San Francisco (which in 1999 was a vacant lot just north of Market Street). This seems to indicate she was buried in San Francisco or Colma, but I do not know where her grave is. Mott lived on at 35 South G Street, eventually marrying Martha B. Moody in 1898, and died sometime in the 1920s, supposedly well into his 90s.

Mott's appearances in Doten's journals don't say much about his personality, as they are almost always in connection to Maggie Moore (he meets Mott and Maggie on the street in Carson City on March 17, 1897, the day of the Fitzsimmons-Corbett prize fight; later in 1902 or 1903, he bumps into Mott at the train station, and he says that Maggie frequently asks about him in her letters). There are two interesting facts in the journals that have nothing to do with Maggie, however. One is his first appearance in Doten's journal, as far as I can tell, on July 21, 1888:

Match fight at Simon Fraser's saloon [in Virginia City], between Matt [sic] Riehm's bull slut Susie, and Billy McKeighan's wildcat, caught in a trap in 6 mile canyon -- I visited the cat in the PM -- It is a young lynx -- At the fight it was given no show -- Its hind claws had all been pulled out and it was almost choked to death by a strap round its neck before the dog was let at it -- It was not much of a fight -- The dog chewed its flanks for about 15 minutes till it died -- Dog not much hurt -- The contest was a brutal fraud on the cat & its abettors...

The other is that before he remarried, he had to kick some sort of habit. One of Doten's journal entries lists him as the beneficiary of some kind of treatment that was good for addictions to alcohol, tobacco, morphine or opium, but does not specify which problem plagued Mott. Doten, whose own drinking problems probably precipitated his close interest, observered the process, carried out by a physician in Carson City. It was an inpatient program consisting of a series of injections and allowing the addict to indulge as much as he wanted in his substance of choice until he was sick of it. Doten observed that Mott and others he knew who took this cure looked much younger when they ended, and later said that only six people out of more than 100 who went through the program fell off the wagon. The program cost a total of $130.

James Sullivan Jr., like his elder sister Maggie, adopted the surname "Moore" and went into show business at an early age as a jig dancer. He later became Maggie's business manager and adviser. At least one person who knew him well questioned his honesty. But more about that later. James died in Petersham, a suburb of Sydney, on Feb. 19, 1914.

James and Bridget's youngest daughter, Francisco (yes, that is her name, though she often went by Frances), married Capt. John Felt Osgood (J.F.O.) Comstock on Aug. 2, 1876. It would seem that J.F.O. Comstock's father, George, came to California about the time of the Gold Rush, because J.F.O. was born in San Francisco in 1853. How old Francisco was at the time of her marriage is an open question. Maggie says her father died when she was eight, which would have put his death in the latter half of 1859 or the first half of 1860. A genealogical resource called "The Comstock Family in America" says Francisco was born Sept. 24, 1861; the 1880 Census also says 1861, but the 1900 Census puts her birthdate as September 1863. Of course, Maggie could have been a little hazy on the dates... nevertheless, Francisco was fairly young at the time of her marriage -- somewhere between 14 and 17. John eventually became superintendent of San Francisco's Underwriter’s Fire Patrol. Unlike Mary, Ellen and Maggie (see below), Francisco remained in her eponymous city throughout her life. John and Francisco had four children, two of whom survived into adulthood: James Williamson, born July 1879 (and named after Maggie's first husband) and George Elmore, born July 1880. James became an "orchardist," married Angelina Emily Brown in 1900 and died in November 1940; they had one daughter, Frances Hope, born in May 1904. Frances married James Douglas Franklin in 1926, but never had any children, and died in 1987. She ran a women's clothing store in Redwood City. George became an engineer and was in charge of San Francisco's high pressure pumping plant. He married Anna Ludin in 1912; they had one daughter in November 1914; he died in November 1917, exactly 20 days before his father's death. In 1942, the daughter was still living in San Francisco and was unmarried; she may still be alive for all I know. I can't find a death certificate in California for her, though in 1942 she would have been only 27 or 28, so she may have eventually married and/or moved out of the state. (In an earlier version of this essay, I raised the question of whether J.F.O. Comstock was related to Henry Tompkins Paige Comstock, the man for whom the Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nev., was named. The answer is yes, but not in a meaningful way. The Comstocks in America all (unless they adopted the surname on a whim) descend from William Comstock, who emigrated to America not long after the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts. The Comstock surname subsequently died out in England. J.F.O. is descended from William Comstock's second son, Samuel, while H.T.P. Comstock is descended from the youngest son, Christopher. They were sixth cousins once removed.)

Bridget survived her eldest daughter's death in 1884 and may have died in 1890, aged 73. Katie served as maid of honor at her sister Maggie's marriage to J.C. Williamson in 1873, and in the 1880 Census was listed as a dressmaker living at home with her mother. And Delia, who I thought disappeared after the 1852 California census, may in fact have married twice -- first to Ben Yellott, a bartender, and then (briefly?) to John Conroy, a farmer, in 1890. (Conroy may have died the same year; I can't be sure.) By her first marriage Delia appears to have had a daughter, Maggie E., who was 2 years old in the 1880 Census. Maggie apparently married a Mr. Edwards in the mid-1890s, and had two children, William A. and Gladys Catherine Edwards. Cathy, as she was known, married John Graziano and had one son, John Michael Graziano, in 1942. The irony of this is that after 1979, Cathy, John Michael and his wife and two sons moved to the Yuba-Sutter area, where I was living. John Michael died, age 40, in 1983; Cathy lived on until 1991. I think John Michael's widow still lives in Yuba City. I believe Delia Sullivan Yellott Conroy died in 1912; I haven't found a death date for Maggie Yellott Edwards yet. (If these Grazianos happen to read this, I hope they will drop me a line, especially if they can help confirm or deny the connection. It would be nice to meet some other living people on this side of the family!)


Contents

Surnames

 

Contact

 

First Page

 

Index


Contact

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http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~merlaan


Created 20 Feb 1999 by Reunion, from Leister Productions, Inc. Revised January 10, 2003