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Mary (Mayme) Doyle

1880-1932

 

The Mary, who went through life known as Mayme, was the first child born to the marriage of Michael Doyle and Honora Carney. She was born in St. Thomas, Minnesota on 26 Mar 1880. We will refer to her as Mayme from this point on.

Aside from the fact that she shows on the 1880 and 1885 censuses in her parents household, no details of her early life are known to us.

We can speculate that Mayme first met her future husband, Fred Mosher, when he married her Aunt, Mary Carney, in 1900. Mary Carney was the younger sister of Mayme's mother, Honora, by approximately 13 years, but she was only about 8 years older than Mayme.

Fred and Mary Carney were married on the 9th of October, 1900 and Mary died the 2nd of May, 1901 in Maple Lake, Minnesota. She is buried in Maple Lake. Her official death certificate is incorrect by approximately 2 months and her tombstone age of 23 years seems to be off by about 8 years. (Note: if the reader is confused, a quick check of the Michael Doyle and Cornelius Carney family group sheets should clarify.)

The Minneapolis City Directory for the years 1901 and 1902 show a Mary Doyle, domestic at the Holmes Hotel, 806 Hennepin. This could well have been our Mayme.

 

We are uncertain as to the date of marriage for Mayme to Fred Mosher but we can assume that it took place about 1903 or 1904 as the Minneapolis City Directory of 1904 shows Fred Mosher with a residence address instead of as a boarder for the first time in 1904. The years 1904-06 show:

 1904 Frederick R. Mosher, Mach. r. 611 Western Ave.
1905 Frederick R. Mosher, Helper, M&St.La.R. r. 611 Western Ave.
1906 Frederick R. Mosher, Helper, Northern Ex. Co. r. 923 Hawthorne (1)

The 1907 and 1908 City Directory carries no entry for Fred but by good fortune we know of their whereabouts during this period. Mayme's younger sister, Helen, at age 10, came down from St. Thomas, Minnesota to stay with Fred and Mayme during the school years, going home to St. Thomas in the summer. During this period Fred and Mayme lived on Franklin near Chicago (1)

It is of interest to note that Wm. A. Burgoyne, clk. Eliel-Jerman Drug, also shows as residing at 923 Hawthorne in 1906. Likely Fred and Mayme as well as Will & Margaret Burgoyne had apartments in the same building.

Avenue and Helen attended Adams Public School at Cedar and Franklin. Fred and Mayme both worked in downtown Minneapolis and walked to work together. However, Helen does not recall where either worked.

Helen recalls, with pleasure, that Mayme was an excellent cook and housekeeper. She also recalls that after hours of play outside, there was always hot cocoa and cookies awaiting her in Mayme's kitchen.

The 16 May 1908 Le Sueur Sentinel reported, "Mr. and Mrs. Fred Mosher returned to their home in Minneapolis Sunday." Then in the 26 Sep 1908 Sentinel this item was carried, "Mrs. Fred Mosher is visiting friends here

The 1901-11 City Directories show these entries:

 

The following year Fred evidently became a fireman. Family tradition indicates Fred had a relative who was a Chief on the Department and that it was through his efforts that Daniel and Cornelius Doyle were successful in getting on the Fire Department.

The 1912-17 Directories show Fred as follows:

 

 

Mayme has been described as kind, honest, good-hearted and, at times, a bit crotchety. Fred was a happy-go-lucky type and very kind to the small nephews and nieces, though not above teaching the male tots how to swear and chew "snoose". (Copenhagen chewing tobacco)

Though they never had children of their own they were good about giving shelter to other members of the family. Dan and Rose Doyle stayed with them briefly right after they were married while waiting to get into their first apartment. Nephew, Bert Burgoyne, stayed with them c. 1932-33 while in Medical School at the University of Minnesota.

Fred and Mayme lived on 28th Street into the 1920's and then moved to 2640 Birchwood Avenue in St. Louis Park. It wasat the St. Louis Park home where father, Michael Doyle, died and was waked from in 1923.

Later Fred and Mayme moved to a house in the 4800 block of York Ave. So. in Minneapolis. After Fred's retirement from the Fire Department, they moved to a cottage they had built on the river about 3 miles north of St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin.

While there, Mayme became quite ill and returned to Minneapolis for surgery. It was unsuccessful and resulted in other complications. The operation was performed with spinal puncture as the form of anesthetic. Family tradition indicates that something went wrong as Mayme never recovered control of some parts of her body. She lived only briefly after this surgical procedure.

Mayme died in 1932 at the home of her sister, Nonie, in St. Louis Park. She had a painful death from Cancer. The writer, quite young at the time, was in the group praying at her bedside when she died, and vividly recalls her pain and constant prayer, "Jesus, Mary and Joseph pray for me." RIP.

Mayme is buried in the Catholic Cemetery at St. Thomas, Minnesota. Her marker reads Mary Mosher, 1880-1932.

Fred had two more wives before his death, the last of whom, Ruby Orr, survived him. His death occured in the late 1930's.

This section cannot end without a vignette from the writer's memory of Fred Mosher.
Fred was known to take a drink now and then and lose his inhibitions. On Christmas Eve in the late 20's and early 30's, the Doyle family traditionally gathered at one of their homes. One of the Uncles would arrive attired as Santa Claus with a bag full of presents.

Santa would call on the small children individually to perform for him before that child received a gift. The wide-eyed innocence of the children and their desire to please Santa was very touching to their elders. During these recitals Fred would stand in the background and let out an occasional oath. Santa would tell the children to make that man stop swearing or Santa would have to leave. Naturally, the small children would plead with Uncle Fred to stop. His response was usually, "To hell with Santa Claus."

Needless to say, Santa never walked out and in spite of everything, the children always loved Uncle Fred.

 

N.B. Since this was written the 1900 census has been opened to Genealogists. It shows a Mary Doyle, b. May 1882, Ireland, age 18, living at 806 Hennepin - Holmes Hotel. She is listed as an employee and is enumerated with the Albert L. Hager household.

Hager is a familiar name to the Doyles as first cousin, Nora Regan, later married Arnie Heger and lived in Minnapolis.

The fact of variant birth information is not alone enough to rule out this being our Mary (Mayme) Doyle who later married Fred Mosher. Many other examples of conflicting census data are readily available

 

 

 

 

 

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fter months of delay (procrastination), theorizing that we should not start production of this work until we had progressed further back into our "Family Tree", we have decided, "plunge ahead or it will never get finished". We can always write an update.

Also, readers may be able to provide information which will allow expansion of the current material. They might even provide clues to aid in our search for ancestral details not yet discovered. Often the seemingly insignificant clue is enough to break into new areas where information is abundant. Please give us your comments, suggestions and most of all, your scraps of information.

Old letters, obituaries, legal papers, newspaper clippings, family bibles or prayer books, diaries, guest books, pictures with names and places noted, local town or church histories in manuscript form — all these and many other items can be of immense value to the genealogist in putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

In return let us advise that we have additional information on many of the kindred family lines, which are not included in this book and which are available to you upon request.

Finally, it would be truly miraculous if the reader could not find spelling, punctuation and typographical errors plus informational inaccuracies and omissions. For these we apologize. We ask that you provide us with any additional or correctional information which you might catch in our book.

This is important as when the corrections have been made we intend to supply copies to various genelogical and historical societies so those who come after us will have some starting reference points.