James P. Munsey and Delia Cashin

I have always been astounded by families that can trace their heritage back hundreds of years.  I wondered as a child (and continue to wonder as an adult) why, in our family, heritage only went back to two grandparents:  Andrea Reste on my father's side and Catherine Kessler on my mother's side.  Since we had no contact with my paternal grandfather, our ancestry  began and ended with my grandmother Kate.  There was really no discussion, no story-telling, no information given or requested about prior generations.

 

We did know that James P. Munsey was our great-grandfather and that he was a horse-drawn ambulance driver at Bellevue.  My mother actually had a picture of him that was on the piano in Equinunk. In fact, the 1915 City Directory lists his occupation as "Chauffeur, Ambulance, Bellevue." But beyond that, nothing. Clearly, this had to be the next subject of my inquiry.

 

James Munsey was born in about 1875  in Manhattan.  His future wife, Delia Cashin, was born in about 1879 in Ireland, or the Irish Free State as it was known at the turn of the Century.  They were married on December 11, 1898 at St. Gabriel's Church on East 37th Street in Manhattan.

 

St. Gabriel's, located at 308 East 37th Street, was organized in 1858.  Rather than building the church, the first Pastor chose to begin construction of two schoolhouses, which were completed in 1859.  Services were held on the first floor of the Boys' School until 1865, when construction of the Church was completed. Some 1400 people attended the opening Mass in 1859. 

The church was constructed in the 13th Century Gothic style with a magnificent marble altar the cost more than $10,000.00 in the 1880's.  The church closed in 1939 and was demolished to make way for the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The parish, including the sacristy and altar, were re-located to the Bronx by Cardinal Spellman in 1939.

St. Gabriel's was the center of the Irish-American community in Murray Hill, with the schools being a major source of pride. In 1914, for example, the schools enrolled about 1500 students from a parish of about 14,000.  The parish was so Irish that in a 1914 tome called The Catholic Church in America,

the leadership is described as follows:  The pastor, Father Livingston, was assisted by Revs. Turner, Larkin, O'Connor and Harris.  "The chapel for Italians at 307 East 36th Street, is attended by Ercole J. Rossi."  Apparently, Italians needed their own chapel and priest on the block over from the main church. 

 

James P. Munsey and Delia Cashin were members of this community when they were married in 1898,  James Munsey lived at 621 Second Avenue (at 34th Street) while Delia lived at 344 East 40th Street, which is between First and Second Avenues. After their marriage they moved into a rooming house run by James Munsey's mother, Susan Munsey, at 33rd Street and Second Avenue and then to an apartment of their own at 356 East 32nd Street, at First Avenue.  They literally spent their whole lives in the same ten square blocks.

 

Aunt Susie and Uncle Gary lived in the same neighborhood some 50 years later.  Their apartment, where I stayed over many times, was on 21st Street,  between 2nd and 3rd Avenue.  The apartment was a rent-controlled railroad flat that they lived in for most of my life.  At some point in I think the early 1970's they had to move, my grandmother found an apartment in the East 30's which Aunt Susie, in true Munsey fashion, rejected because it was "too far uptown."

 

Their marriage certificate also fills in a number of other blanks and adds a generation to our family tree.  I learned that James Munsey's parents were Patrick Munsey and Susan Kane and that Delia Cashin's parents were John and Delia Cashin.  Unfortunately, her maiden name is unintelligible on the marriage certificate.

 

In any event, we can now trace our heritage on the Munsey side through my great-great grandparents and back through about 1850.  Not quite back to the Mayflower, but we're getting there.