Saturday, February 3, 2024

Brennan family history

 


 

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a 1976 novel written by Alex Haley. It tells the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th-century African, captured as an adolescent, sold into slavery in Africa, and transported to North America; it follows his life and the lives of his descendants in the United States down to Haley. The release of the novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation, Roots (1977), led to a cultural sensation in the United States. The novel spent forty-six weeks on The New York Times Best Seller List, including twenty-two weeks at number one. The last seven chapters of the novel were later adapted in the form of a second miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations (1979). It stimulated interest in African American genealogy and an appreciation for African American history.

The book was originally described as "fiction", yet it sold in the non-fiction section of bookstores. Haley spent the last chapter of the book describing his research in archives and libraries to support his family's oral tradition with written records.

The series generated an increased interest in genealogy. Although Ancestry.com can provide some help, both the Mormons and the Irish historical society can be of assistance also.


I have Irish roots on both my dad’s side and my mom’s, and I have a fair amount of information already, but I need to dig deeper to get more information on the Brennan side.

 I explored the roots of the Brennan side of our history on September2, 2015. Included in that story are more stories, which makes them a story within a story.

You can find the overall story at the link below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2015/09/roots.html

 If you dig a bit deeper, you can find articles related to one main topic. For example, there are stories that focus on Larry Brennan:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2015/12/ (my dad was a farmer)

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/05/my-dad-mail-carrier.html (mail carrier

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2012/02/ghost-of-larry-brennan.html (Larry the ghost) 


A little know fact is that my mom has an unusual connection to the sparrows of Capistrano:

 https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2009/10/my-mother-bird.html

 

Despite all the time that we spend gathered with our cousins, there are some things that you don’t know about me:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/06/honest-john-rest-of-story.html

 

Mark’s brother Tom (my namesake) DID go to Alaska during the Alaskan gold rush, and I had always been under the impression that he had been killed by a falling tree. I just learned that his actual cause of death was scurvy. His story can be found below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2010/08/tom-brennan-in-yukon.html 

Our cousin Michael was able to find a picture of Tom’s grave in Dawson, Alaska.

 

 

My paternal grandparents are Mark Brennan (born 8/20/873) and Josephine Harris (born on 3/2/1877), and both were born in Washington County, Minnesota.

Mark’s parents were Patrick Brennan and Bridget Snee. They were born in County Sligo, Ireland.

Bridget Snee’s brother Pat married Winnie Stenson, who is Martin Stenson’s aunt. As a result, my parents on both sides were related long before Larry and Mae got married on 9/2/1946.

Josephine's parents were George Harris and Alice White. George was born in Pennsylvania in 1824, and Alice was bon 11/27/1843 in Galena, Illinois.

The marriage of Mark and Josephine produced 8 children (Marie, Agnes, Alice, Josephine, Clement, Laurence, Dorothy, and Marjorie.)

Josephine died in 1920, and Mark died in the summer of 1929, just a few months before the start of the Great Depression. As a result, the operation of the Brennan farm became the responsibility of Laurence (age 20) and Clement (age 18)

Marie married Ed Bloomstrand, and they settled in Hastings.

They had 3 children (Edward, Steven, and Frances).

Edward perished on Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. Steven married Mary, and Frances married Don Badger, and they had 5 children (Leslie, Kathy, ….

*********************************************************

Alice never married, and eventually moved to St. Paul, where she worked for many years at the Midway Bank.

 Agnes also never married. She lived in a small apartment in Hastings for many years. She worked at Smead Manufacturing Company until she was well into her 80’s. Like most of her generation, Agnes was very frugal, and she also did not trust the stock market. As a result, she left an estate valued at slightly under $400,000.to her nieces and nephews – and most of the money was in passbook savings accounts. She also had roughly $100,000 in IDS stock, and a LOT of savings bonds.

Agnes was born on 10/25/02, and she died on 9/28/96 in Prescott, Wisconsin. She was 93 years old.

*********************************************

Josephine married George Olson, and they had 6 children (Susan, Mark, Peter, Jenny, Christopher and Char. For many years, George and Josephine hosted the Brennan family picnic at their farm in Afton, Minnesota. During the summer months, they ran a resort on Paul Lake.

Mark (12/8/47 - 8/30/20) is the cousin closest to me in age. Like me, he was an avid biker, and the best tribute that anyone could say about him is captured in the video from the Schoeneberger Funeral Home:

https://www.schoenebergerfuneralhome.com/obituaries/mark-olson

Susan married Jim Mack. When George and Josephine finally got too old to host the annual reunion, the site shifted to the home of Jim and Susan, but it also was held at a few other places.

 Clement married Miriam Jeans, and they had one child, a daughter named Jean (3/15/43 – 9/8/21).

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2015/12/my-dad-was-farmer.html

Although Clement was a farmer, he loved to write stories, and produced BOXES of stories over the years. The boxes eventually found their way into Jean’s garage in Las Vegas, but they eventually got passed on to some of our cousins.

Jean married Dave Zimmer, and they had 1 child, a daughter named Beth and a son. After their divorce, she married Michael Riley, and they had two children (Eric and Michael). Jean died in Las Vegas on 9/8/21).

 

Dorothy married Ed Farley, who was a farmer. They had two daughters,  Lois and Ruth.

 Laurence joined the Army in the early months of the war in 1942, but Clement (due to draft exemptions for farmers) remained on the farm until 1966, when he sold the farm in 1966 and moved to Forest Lake.

Larry married Mae Stenson (10/23/13 - 3/19/98) on 9/2/46.

During WWII, Mae lived in San Diego and worked at Consolidated Industries, which made airplanes. When the war ended, she traveled back to Minnesota on the train. A few days  earlier, Larry took a train from Dover, Delaware, and arrived in St. Paul, Minnesota at almost exactly the same time as Mae's train from California. A little more than a year later, they got married at Guardian Angels church in Hastings.

Their marriage produced two children, Tom (8/28/47) and Mary (4/12/50). 

Tom married Sharon Lennartson on 10/6/72, and they had two children, Brian (9/6/76) and Kelly (11/16/79). Both are married. Brian and Kim are parents to Alexander and Saoirse and Kelly and Chris are parents to Cody, our grand dog).

Like many of his generation, Larry Brennan was frugal. He saved most of the money he made while in the army, which allowed him to pay $5000 cash for his first house at 958 McLean. After the birth of their second child, in April of 1950. they knew they needed a large house, so paid $12,000 for 2059 Third Street, where Larry lived the last 44 years of his life. Since he hated  debt, he paid off the 20 year mortgage in 8 years. 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2015/09/

Laurence decided he wanted a change from farming after the war, so he went to work for Cudahy Packing company in St. Paul Park, where he worked until the plant shut down in 1954. For a short time thereafter, he worked the night shift at Zinsmaster Baking Company.

Harry William Zinsmaster and R. F. Smith founded the Zinsmaster-Smith Bread Co. in Duluth in 1913. Zinsmaster bought out Smith in 1918, and the company expanded to include locations in St. Paul, Minneapolis, Hibbing and Superior.

During daytime hours, Laurence studied to become a mail carrier, a job that he started in 1955, and retired from there in 1976

When he joined the post office, he also joined the postal union.

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2022/02/

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2021/05/my-dad-mail-carrier.html



In 1971, Laurence and Mae celebrated their 25th anniversary by taking a trip to Ireland, where they met with Luke and Mary Stenson, who were distant relatives of Mae. When my family and I traveled there in 1999, we also met with Luke and Mary, who still had a copy of the group picture she had taken in 1971.




For most of his life, Larry was in good health - but it all came of and end in 1994.



Marjorie marred Don Lundequam, and they had 5 children (Donald, Michael, Joseph, Paul and Mary Beth). Michael and Linda had 6 sons, which led to 12 grandchildren.

Don (5/19/48 – 6/5/70) joined the Army in 1970, and became a warrant officer – and a Huey pilot. He perished when his helicopter was shot down. He had been “in country” for only about 90 days.

 

https://www.virtualwall.org/dl/LundequamDJ01a.htm

I'm a firm believer that it is important to know our past, due to the fact that it help guide us into the future. Part of our joint past is the Brennan clan from long ago, and the family crest can be seen below:




 

 

 

 


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