Our Last Irish Family

Thomas Steven Quaid and Mary O'Day were my great grandparents. They're also the last truly Irish couple in my family history. Even though they were married in Chicago. And even though she was, in fact, Canadian.

Mary O'Day and Thomas Quaid, with oldest children
Rose Marie and Charles. Probably taken in 1902.

A long time ago I met an Irish woman, and when I said that I was Irish she gently drew a distinction between the phrase "I'm Irish" meaning that "I have some Irish ancestry", and meaning that "I am actually, you know, from Ireland." She was Irish; I just had an Irish name. I suppose Thomas and Mary embodied the transition between those two senses of the phrase for our family.

Thomas in Limerick

Thomas Quaid was born in Limerick on December 15th, 1865 to Charles Quaid and Mary Nealon. Charles grew up on a farm in nearby Ballymacamore and Charles and Mary's first child had been baptized there, but a few years before Thomas was born they had moved to the city.

Thomas Quaid's birth registration

Three days after giving birth, they baptized Thomas in St. John's Cathedral. The cathedral was so new that it wasn't even finished yet. They lived on nearby Mungret Street, so it wasn't too long of a walk.

Thomas Quaid's baptism at St. John's in Limerick

In 1864 Charles was a gatekeeper and then for a few years he was a store clerk, but by the time Thomas was entering his teens Charles had become a pig buyer in Limerick's massive bacon trade. This was a decent living, and among Charles' six sons, five were involved in the bacon business, one way or another. The sixth was Thomas.

Leaving, or Fleeing

Thomas left Limerick and by 1889 turned up in Chicago. That much we know, but that's about all we know about his emigration with any confidence.

In the 1900 Census, Thomas claims to have emigrated to the United States in 1882. That's clearly absurd; he would have been just 16. There are mistakes in the census, and this must be one of them. And yet, he says the same thing in the 1910 census. And then in 1920, too. To be fair, he's in the 1930 Census twice, and in both cases his immigration details are wrong (and differently wrong, at that).

Leaving the country at 16 would speak to a sort of desperation. The Quaid household in Limerick wasn't especially poor; Charles had a good job and his sons who remained, both older and younger than Thomas, followed in his footsteps. It's true that three of his siblings eventually emigrated, but they were all adults, and the women at least had stable situations lined up in America before they set sail.

One real possibility is that those census reports are simply wrong, despite the repetition. Maybe it was a story that Thomas told. Maybe Mary had the wrong impression, and in each case was the person who spoke to the census enumerator. Clearly the people informing the two 1930 Census reports were weak on Thomas' history. If you accept that premise, then there was a Thomas Quaid from Limerick who arrived in New York on April 19, 1889, sailing on the Bothnia. He would have been a much more credible 23 years old. The timing is tight and there is some potentially contradictory evidence, but this could definitely be our man.

If on the other hand Thomas really did arrive in 1882, then we must turn to family legend to help explain it.

In the 1880s Ireland was still part of the United Kingdom, as it would be for another 40 years. English rule had always been oppressive, and Irish opposition was increasingly paramilitary. The situation across Ireland at that time would be echoed in The Troubles that raged primarily in Northern Ireland 100 years later.

Family stories link Thomas' emigration to this political environment. One story that my grandfather told was that Thomas spoke a line from a play, something blandly disloyal toward the Queen, and for that he was forced to flee. Another story had it that it was due to his singing "The Wearing of the Green". My mother once wondered whether he was a union rabble-rouser, whatever that might mean, but that seems an unlikely role for a teenager.

It's certainly not unheard of for Irish Republican Brotherhood members to flee the country, as future Limerick mayor John Daly did in 1867. But in those cases the stakes were much higher than a cheeky stage utterance or a patriotic song.

Commemorating Robert Emmet actions of 1803,
in Chicago 100 years later.

In this context it is interesting to note Thomas Quaid's admiration of Irish patriot and rebel Robert Emmet. Thomas gave my grandfather Arthur the middle name Emmet, and then named another son Robert Emmet Quaid. This presumably speaks to Thomas Quaid's sympathies on the subject of Irish independence. But vocal support for Irish independence was mainstream in Irish American circles, so that's no surprise. In fact, the legend of Robert Emmet seems to have been particularly popular among the Irish émigré community in New York and Chicago, so Thomas' admiration of Emmet may have developed in Chicago rather than Limerick.

Thomas Quaid's Irish patriotism, quite ordinary in the United States, is thin evidence for more radical Republican activity as a teenager. But I suppose we can't rule it out. And moreover my grandfather presumably didn't invent those stories, which were after all most likely told to him by Thomas himself.

My mother thought that Thomas may have originally landed in Canada. I don't know where she got that idea from, whether it was an explanation for a lack of immigration records or by analogy with the better-documented paths of Thomas' brother and the O'Day family. But it's worth noting that those confounding census questions noted above ask about when Thomas entered the United States, not when he left Ireland. So if we accept them as accurate then it doesn't leave much room for a Canadian interlude.

If Thomas had been forced to leave, then he might have been sent to a relative in the United States. Thomas' uncle David was farming in California by this time, and he may have had an Uncle John living in San Francisco. As we'll see below Thomas later hosted someone named Francis Quaid, possibly another relative.

Quaids in the 1882 Chicago City Directory.
Anyone look familiar?

There were a handful of Quaids listed in Chicago directories in the 1880s, and any of them could have taken in a desperate youngster. In fact, it appears that one of the two Jeremiah Quaids in the 1882 directory was from Ballymacamore, the small farming community outside of Limerick that was the home of Thomas' grandfather.  Jeremiah had been a farmer in Ballymacamore, but emigrated in 1873 with his wife and nine children. There were only a couple dozen households at most in Ballymacamore, so it seems likely that Jeremiah was related to Thomas somehow.

The Canadian Side of the Family

Sanborn insurance map showing the O'Day house at
3350 Emerald Avenue in 1912. Next door was a public bath.

In the 1889 City Directory for Chicago, there was a Thomas Quaid renting a room at 3350 Emerald Ave (Street View). There’s no reason to believe that this was our Thomas, except that the owner of that house just happened to be James O’Day, Thomas’ future father-in-law.

James had grown up in Canada, just outside of Toronto in Hamilton. He was born at sea while his parents were sailing from Ireland in about 1846. In 1874 he married 17-year-old Honora Lynch. She was born in Canada, the daughter of Irish immigrants who had lived there since at least 1852.

James and Nora's second child was Mary, my future great grandmother, born November 21, 1876 in Hamilton. They called her "Minnie". Shorty after her birth they moved to Chicago, where Mary's four younger siblings were born.

Hog Butcher for the World

In Hamilton, James had been a butcher. He would continue in that line in Chicago, but he wasn’t a neighborhood “how are the pork chops today” kind of butcher. Instead he worked in Chicago’s massive stockyards, less than a mile away from the house on Emerald. Those stockyards housed tens of thousands of pigs, cattle and sheep at any given time, and “processed” literally millions of them annually. In the 1900 Census, James described his occupation as “cattle killer”.

The Stockyards of Chicago

That 1889 directory shows that 23-year-old Thomas was also a butcher, but he wouldn’t make a career of it. A more lasting effect of boarding with the O’Days was that it gave him the opportunity to meet Mary, his then 13-year-old future wife. Uhh... this is a little too close to a Saturday Night Live skit; maybe we should just move on.

Does this directory entry offer evidence that Thomas was in Chicago before the 1889 immigrant mentioned above? Apparently not. The city directory did their canvassing in May, so if Thomas Quaid really did arrive in April 1889 he could still have squeaked into that 1889 directory.

The next we hear from Thomas is that on February 17th, 1890 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was described as 5’ 10 ¾”, light blue eyes, brown hair and a ruddy complexion. He had signed up for a 5 year stint, but he lasted less than two months – on April 13 he was discharged for some sort of illegible disability. In the 1930 Census Thomas noted that he had served in the military, and in particular in the Spanish American War, which didn’t start until eight years later. Maybe he re-enlisted, but I doubt it. As mentioned above, there are a few errors in those 1930 Census entries. But does it suggest that Thomas was prone to spin stories?

Citizen, Husband, Clerk

On October 15, 1894 Thomas became a United States citizen. He was living at 97 S Clinton St, downtown, and working at the John V Farwell Dry Goods store at 148 Market St. This building apparently took up the entire block at the corner of what is now Monroe and Wacker. His character witness was Swedish immigrant Carl E. Carlstrom, a fellow clerk at Farwell. Carlstrom swore that he had known Thomas for a full five years, which would be consistent with an arrival in 1889.

If Carl Carlstrom says he's OK, then that's good
enough for the United States of America

While we’re talking about immigration, there’s a Declaration of Intention, the start of the immigration process, for a Thomas Quaide that seems to have been filed June 8th, 1887. If that’s our Thomas, and it’s the correct date, it would be the earliest record I have found for him in the United States. But the year could possibly be 1889; the handwriting is scandalous.

Thomas and Minnie's marriage license and their ages, reported in
The Chicago Daily Tribune on November 6th, 1894.

The next month, on November 14th, 1894, Thomas and Mary were married at the Nativity of Our Lord Catholic Church. He was 28, and she was a week shy of her 18th birthday. They moved in with Mary's parents on Emerald. Thomas continued to work at Farwell’s, about 4 miles away, most likely commuting on one of the new electric trolley lines.

Thomas S Quaid and Mary O'Day
Wedding Day, 1894

About a year after their marriage, Thomas and Mary had a daughter named Mary, who sadly died four days later.

The couple moved out on their own, first to a house on the next street over, and then to 2584 Bernard, north of downtown. This place is so far from every other place they lived that it’s tempting to think that the address is wrong. Chicago renamed and renumbered over 500 streets in the 1910s, including dropping lots of duplicate names. They did renumber this street -- the Quaids' place at 2584 would have been approximately here. It’s also possible that this is a different Bernard Street, but I can’t find Bernard among the changed names, nor a more suitable Bernard on old maps.

All through this time Thomas was working at Farwell’s, describing his role in various sources as clerk, foreman and manager, but not necessarily in that chronological order. In 1899 Mary's little brother Fred started working there, too.

As an aside, if a married Thomas Quaid did re-enlist in the Army and serve in the Spanish American War, it would have been during this period. The family is missing from the 1898 directory, and they reappear on Bernard in 1899.

Tea & Coffee

Mary's older brother Andrew O’Day went into the coffee and tea business. In 1899 he and partner George Brown opened Brown & O’Day at 3443 S. Halsted, near the house on Emerald.

Illustration of the Halsted Street fire.
Chicago Tribune, March 1, 1901, page 5.

Their store was damaged in 1901 when, according to the headline, “Halsted Street Becomes a Flaming Thoroughfare”. It seems a trolley collided with a gasoline wagon stuck on its tracks, and then some fool drove through the spilled fuel and sparked an inferno. Brown & O’Day is glossed as a China Shop, so maybe they had branched out. Perhaps that excitement was too much for George Brown, because by the next year he had dropped out. Andrew O'Day opened Monarch Tea in the same location, installing himself as president and his little brother Fred as vice president.

I had initially assumed that they sold dry coffee and tea, but in 1910 Andrew’s brother Arthur lists his occupation as “espressing”, so perhaps they sold drinks as well. That same census report shows John Hughes and his family living in the rear of the property on Halsted, and Hughes gives his occupation as driving a coffee wagon. There was a lot of coffee business going on.

Andrew ran the store for several years, and afterward held other jobs in the caffeine trade. His nephew Arthur Quaid, my grandfather, didn't know him very well. In later years Arthur only recalled that Andrew had a large family, and that he would buy crates of Christmas wreaths from Southtown Produce to sell.

Entrepreneurs in 1902.
From The Chicago Daily Tribune, March 7th, 1902, page 13.

I mention all this because Thomas and Mary tried to duplicate Andrew's success. In March 1902 they incorporated the Nonpareil Tea Company "to deal in teas, coffees, etc.", with $2,500 in capital. Thomas was president, someone named Joseph C Klepeck was the secretary, and Mary was some sort of officer, sometimes also listed as secretary. The other new incorporation that day was King Tea, with different principals but an identical purpose and capitalization.

The store was at 2987 Archer, not far from the O’Day home on Emerald. Thomas and Mary lived across the street in 2990 Archer. The shop appears to have survived just a couple of years; by 1904 they had moved on. Perhaps it was competition from the Monarchs and Kings, or perhaps the tea had pareil after all. Joseph C. Klepeck, for his part, appears never to have quit his day job.

Little House on South May Street

The business might not have worked out, but the family was growing. In 1897 they had Rose Marie, and in 1900 Charles was born. Most of Thomas’ siblings named their first or second son Charles, after their father. In 1903 they had Andrew, possibly named after Mary's grandfather Andrew Lynch and perhaps with Mary's coffee-merchant brother in mind. Next was Thomas Brendan Quaid, born in 1904. He died of pneumonia in 1912. My grandfather Arthur named his eldest son Thomas Brendan, honoring both his father and this boy, his older brother, who died when Arthur was 4.

Thomas described his occupation as a teamster in 1904, and then a driver the next few years. I wonder if that actually means he moved from driving a team of horses to a truck.

In 1906 the couple were joined by Thomas’ much-younger brother John Pier Quaid, who had just escaped his first marriage in Canada. By the next year John had moved on to many further adventures.

Thomas and Mary had a daughter Catherine in 1906, then my grandfather Arthur in 1908. Catherine was a family name on both sides, and Mary had a brother named Arthur so perhaps that was a family name on her side.

The Quaid family home on South May, from 1908 to 1928.

In 1908 the family moved to 7410 South May, where they lived for many years. This is the house my grandfather grew up in. It was built in 1895 and still stands, just. It has three bedrooms, 1.5 baths, 1500 square feet of living space. Wait, 1500 square feet? How is that possible? Is it a Tardis? At any given time 10 people lived there.

When they moved into this new house, 44-year-old Thomas took a new job as a clerk in a laundry. He was also active in local politics. In September of 1908 he co-founded the Chandler Improvement Association, with a stated aim of improving the neighborhood. He was its first president. In 1914 the association was revived, and in this iteration Thomas was among the executive committee at large. Reports about the association in the hyper-local newspaper The Suburbanite Economist tended to follow these announcements for a couple of weeks, then drop off.

Greatly exaggerated report of death
The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 6th 1910, page 3.

In 1910 Thomas was run down by a car and badly injured. Apparently he had just hopped off a streetcar when an automobile driven by Roy E. Dick struck him, “probably fatally”. He did of course recover. 1910 seems awfully early to be run over by a car, but automobile ownership had more than doubled in the previous two years, and I suppose everyone was a novice driver. That’s no excuse for Roy, though -- as it turns out, he was a chauffeur.

According to the 1913 city directory, the Quaids were joined that year by Francis Quaid, a pressman (i.e. a press operator) for the Chicago American newspaper. I know nothing about this mysterious Francis. I'm confident that he was not a child of Thomas and Mary, nor was he Thomas' sibling, and this is the only year he appeared in the directory. By the next year Francis was gone but Thomas had become a pressman himself.

The Quaid household continued to grow. James Michael was born in 1911. Robert Emmet was born in 1913, but died the same day. Esther O’Dea was born in 1914; some 58 years later she visited our family in Scottsdale. Donal Kevin was born in 1916, and Anna Mae, the youngest child, was born in 1919.

On The Payroll

Thomas Quaid’s involvement in local politics apparently extended to helping elect Republican William Hale “Big Bill” Thompson mayor of Chicago in 1915. Big Bill is regarded as the most corrupt mayor in the history of Chicago, and that's really saying something. One of his biggest supporters was prominent Chicagoan Al Capone. Thomas' son, my grandfather, passed down the story that Thomas always defended Big Bill, believing that it was his staff that was crooked, not the mayor himself.

A newspaper story in 1920 detailed the corrupt disbursement of $50,000 intended to “aid [Chicago Corporation Counsel Samuel] Ettleson in preparing the legal details to insure the repayment of the money [$1,653,000] loaned to the bankers.” The article mentions Thomas Quaid by name as its first example of graft. From the The Chicago Tribune, September 11, 1920, page 5:

Some of the others credited with receiving money from the $50,000 fund had not been employed frequently by many banks in connection with loans of $1,653,000. Thomas Quaid of the thirty-second ward in [sic] one of these. He was peddling vegetables when William Hale Thompson arrived as mayor of Chicago. He appreciated the greatness of “his honor” and worked diligently for his election. Then he was given a one-horse garbage team at $4.50 a day. But when Ettelson needed aid in this large financial transaction he summoned Thomas Quaid and put him on the payroll for $125.

Sure enough, it was around this period that Thomas Quaid was employed by the City Health Department. A 1919 article describes one of the cases the 54-year-old rookie undertook. From the Chicago Tribune, November 2, 1919, Page 21:

WARRANTS OUT FOR 2 ARRESTS IN SUGAR CASES

Poole Announces Perfect Case of Profiteering Under Lever Act.

Federal warrants were issued yesterday for the first set of alleged food profiteers to be caught in the meshes of the recently amended Lever act, providing prison sentences and fines for those who profiteer in the necessities of life.

The warrants order the immediate arrest of Charles F. Kielczwski and A. A. Zdroziewski, proprietor and manager, respectively, of the Mutual Grocery company 4424 South Ashland avenue, who are charged with selling 1,732 pounds of granulated sugar for $303.21, or at a rate of 17 ½ cents a pound.

Strong Case Claimed.

The case against the two men is pronounced perfect by City Food Director Russel J. Poole, who presented the evidence to the federal authorities.

In his race to get the first conviction under the amended Lever act, Mr. Poole “planted” Thomas Quaid, one of his investigators, in the shipping department of a wholesale grocer. Quaid received a tip that the Mutual Grocery company was selling sugar at 17 ½ cents a pound, and, dressed in overalls and posing as a helper, he accompanied the driver to the firm’s wagon to the “Mutual” concern.

Poole’s Statement

Mr. Poole’s letter to Mr. Clyne requesting “prosecution forthwith” follows:

“On Friday, the 31st ult., Mr. ____ purchased five barrels from the above named (Mutual) firm and sent a driver and truck to above number with an order for the sugar and obtained and paid for the same. The price asked was 17 ½ cents per pound. The name of the driver of the truck was Fred Byer, who was accompanied by Thomas Quaid of this office, who paid the money for the sugar in the presence of the driver and took a receipt for the same.

“The witnesses above named, the purchaser of the sugar, together with the receipt for the money paid, are available and ready to be produced. The amount of sugar delivered was 1,732 pounds and the sum of money paid was $303.21. A sample of the sugar is now in possession of this office. The manager of the store is A. A. Zdroziewski, with the title of buyer. The shipping clerk who delivered the sugar is Walter Matt.”

Mr. Poole requests that all persons or firms that believe they have evidence of violations of the Lever act communicate with him.

I think the younger Thomas Steven Quaid looks a little like Kevin Costner, so going undercover in early Chicago is definitely bringing The Untouchables to mind.

The Lever Act, in case you’re wondering, was an attempt to control profiteering on food and fuel, primarily during World War I. In 1920 the Supreme Court struck it down as “vague, indefinite, and uncertain”. And that's why sugar goes for more than 17 ½ cents per pound today. Don't blame Thomas Quaid, blame the Supreme Court.

Fond du Lac

On September 28, 1925, Mary “Minnie” Quaid died. She was 48 years old. According to her death certificate she had been suffering for four years with “organic heart disease.” Her obituary says that she had been ill for 23 months, so it must have been especially severe in those final two years. She died at home of “acute edema of the lungs”. She was buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery with her son Thomas Brendan.

Almost everything in this story centers around Thomas Quaid, but unfortunately it also includes everything I know about Mary as well. I have just the two photographs of her, both shown above. At least they are good photos. We know more about Thomas because he shows up in records and in the newspaper. Mary does not. And she died when my grandfather was a teenager, perhaps too young to appreciate her story and pass it along.

Thomas Steven Quaid
probably taken in the late 1920s.

By this time, Thomas was a dairy inspector for the city. His work brought him out to rural Wisconsin, inspecting milk stations and farms supplying Chicago. Living in the city with a job that involved extensive travel through farm county paralleled his brothers' careers as pig buyers back in Limerick. In any case he found himself staying in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin long enough to show up in their 1928 City Directory, in addition to his Chicago entry. In Fond du Lac he met Clara Kroner Gaudette, the 48-year-old manager of The Little Book Shop. Clara was a widow with a grown son and a young daughter. Her husband Frank had been killed ten years earlier in a gruesome railroad switching yard accident.

Clara and Thomas were married in 1928. They set up a household in Fond du Lac at 281 Johnson St, another house that still stands. They lived there with Thomas’ children Esther, Donal and Anna, and Clara’s daughter Virginia Gaudette. James Quaid might also have lived with them, but by 1930 he was married and off on his own in Chicago.

The Quaid/Gaudette family in Fond du Lac. Compare to current Street View.

I’m not sure how you can live 150 miles away from Chicago and still maintain your cushy city job, but it couldn't have hurt that Big Bill Thompson had been re-elected in 1927. Thomas did indeed maintain this lifestyle for a bit, and in fact shows up twice in the 1930 Census, once in Fond du Lac and once in Chicago. In the latter case Thomas and his 15-year-old daughter Esther were staying with his daughter Catherine Quaid West and her family. Esther would go on to marry into the same family in 1936.

In 1930 the Quaids moved back into the old neighborhood in Chicago. Thomas suffered from a chronic gallbladder abscess, and while in the hospital recovering from a routine operation to drain the gallbladder, he contracted pneumonia. He died on October 11, 1933 at the age of 67. He was buried next to Mary and Thomas Brendan in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.

So that's the story of Thomas Steven and Mary O'Day Quaid, or at least what little I know about it. They came from large families, they had lots of children and those children had lots of children, so there are a lot of people who share their history. I'd love to fill in gaps in their history here, so if you have any stories about Thomas and Mary to share, please let me know.