098

 

 

Catherine Doyle

 

 1888 -

 

The fifth child and third girl of the Michael Doyle family was named Catherine, born at St. Thomas, MN on 5 Jun 1888.

 

The 1895 State of Minnesota census shows Catherine as a seven year old. Little else is known about her youth. Whether she went to Minneapolis to work prior to the family's move there in 1909 is not known. However, we do know that one month after the Michael Doyle's family move to Minneapolis, Catherine went to Lincoln, Nebraska (Nov. 1909) to help out her sister, Margaret, who had just brought new daughter, Beatrice, home from the hospital. Catherine stayed only a short time.

 

A humorous story is told of the early years in Minneapolis when the family members all lived together.

 

It seems a delivery man was pounding, impatiently, on the door. Catherine, who was upstairs, opened the window and yelled out, "Hold your horses!"

 

The man responded, "Don't have horses, lady, got a pig!" He was delivering a fresh, dressed pig which had been sent by St. Thomas relatives.

 

Such an experience in these days would be unusual, but then it was quite normal for farm relatives to send a "hog" in late fall to the city relatives who quickly salted it down and stored in large crock jars on a cold porch. Some of it would be ground, cooked and canned into meatballs for later use. The editor has fond early life memories of the arrival in Minneapolis late each fall of his grandparents with a hog and½ of beef for the "children".

 

Family tradition indicates that some time later Catherine went to Montana, likely Butte, to work. While there she met a young man from a prosperous family and after a whirlwind courtship they were married and she became Mrs. Brown. This was about 1915.

 

In short order she realized she had made a mistake. She returned to Minneapolis and secured a divorce, including the return of her maiden name.

 

At this point, Catherine entered St. Mary's Hospital School for nurses training and satisfactorily completed the course.

 

In the winter of 1922-23, sister Helen's husband, Jim, was working in Indianapolis, Indiana and had taken his family along. During that period Catherine went to visit them, liked the city and started a job hunt.

 

She was successful in locating a position as a nurse at General Motors Indianapolis Plant and there she stayed until her retirement in about 1953, after 30 years of service.

 

On retirement, Catherine returned to Minneapolis and, together with her sister, Anastasia, purchased a home at 3921 Aldrich Avenue South. There the two sisters remained until Stasia's death on 5 May 1972.

 

By that time Catherine was 84 years old and was having difficulty caring for herself. So, in June 1972, the decision was made for her to move into the Texa Tonka Retirement home in St. Louis Park. She is living there at this writing as she gets close to the 90 year mark.

 

Catherine, in the later years after returning to Minneapolis, was great for the family ego. When relating the accomplishments of her nephews and nieces she always managed to inflate their net worth, job title and success. She made no pretense of hiding the fact that she strongly favored certain nephews and nieces, but all "understood" Aunt Catherine and even the less favored ones never seemed to resent her inequitable treatment.