The Search Box

There's a new feature over in the left hand column, a SEARCH box. Type in the subject or name and search this blog for your own self or a topic like dogs.

Left to right: Elizabeth Daly Valentine,

 her son Commissioner Lewis, his wife Teresa  and daughter Miriam 

at his Swearing-In Ceremony in 1934

 For example: Type in Lew and three or four pages of posts referring to Lewis Valentine come up at the top of the text. 

Try  Brooklyn or Grandpa

You can also search by Label. Many of the posts have the names of the families in the labels, which you will see at the bottom of each post. See the labels at the bottom of this one.

Click on the family name or topic there and you'll see all the posts with that label. If you are looking for a particular person or family try both search methods.

PS: I've been trying out the Search box and find it's hard to work. Just keep trying is all I can suggest.

Grandpa

William McNally  in 1945 at 65

The grandchildren's perspective on Grandpa was a cranky guy with a cigar and a beer.

In 1957 on his way to Lora's wedding, 77 years old

If you had 42 (?) grandchildren you might be cranky too when they showed up. 

You'd be going straight to the Frigidaire to check on the Rheingold situation.

 

He's always on the sidelines in my memory.

His name was William, but what did people call him?

Maybe his friends call him Mack.

His children called him Pop.

And then in Jack's box of pictures is a whole different view.

1945 in the basement bar

A photo portrait of a happy guy who was probably a lot of fun.

With Buddy and friends in 1944

At Jack and Edna's wedding in 1950. He's about 70.

With Jack in 1939, Jack is about 15, Pop is about 59

An affectionate guy!

 

Dalmatians: Timmy, Teddy and Smokey

 Dalmatians are traditional coach dogs because they work well with the horses.

Memory is elusive. For much of our lives Jane and I have discussed Timmy, a succession of Grandpa's fire house dogs. When Jane was young she demanded a dog, so we got a Dalmatian because that was the McNally family dog. She named him Timmy.

Jane and Timmy about 1952

 Georgi notified us that she and her mother Anna recall the McNally's dog's name was Teddy.

Jane said, "I've been living a lie all these years."
What else have we misremembered?

Here are Georgi's comments:

Teddy and Smokey were both dalmatians. Teddy was the dog at the firehouse where Grandpa worked and when Teddy was "retired" Grandpa took him home. As the firehouse dog Teddy would run before the fire truck to clear traffic. Mom said that when they all piled into the car to go to church, Teddy would run in front of the car. She said everyone knew them - first came the dog, then came McNally and his kids. Smokey was Teddy's son, and was more my Mom's [Aunt Ann's] dog. She trained him and took care of him. She even taught him to stand on his hind legs and shadow box with her.

Bud and Jackie with a puppy in 1940

I sent this picture to Ronnie and Buddy and Ronnie emailed back:

That handsome guy [in the photo] says the puppy is definitely Smokey-although he is not sure which number. Grandpa brought home at least 2 or 3 Dalmatians from the firehouse and they were all named Smokey.

Cele and Jane and Timmy in Cincinnati. That's our tan Studebaker coupe, I believe.

Jane named the dog Timmy because our Halesite neighbors the Robinsons had a cocker spaniel named Timmy (actually they had two black cockers named Timmy.)

John, Chris, Jim, Jerry, Geoff Robinson and Timmy #2.

Jane's Timmy did not last as the family pet for too long. Like most Dalmatians he was a rambunctious youth and he knocked Jane over a lot, so a new home was found for Timmy and we got a beagle named Wimpy (or maybe it was Muffin.) I can't remember.

Walter O'Malley and William McNally

"Was Walter O'Malley---who in 1957 decided to move the Dodgers from Brooklyn to Los Angeles---one of the most evil men who ever lived, alongside Hitler and Stalin?"
From a NY Times book review of Michael D'Antonio's Forever Blue: The True Story of Walter O'Malley.

I'd imagine William Henry Conrad DeKalb McNally would answer in the affirmative.

The Dodgers last game in Brooklyn was September 24, 1957.

Grandpa died February 5, 1960.

Simple cause and effect. My mother was sure that Walter O'Malley killed her father.

"That summer, I joined thousands of fans signing petitions imploring O'Malley, city officials, and anyone who might help to keep the Dodgers in Brooklyn. I attended a clamourous 'Keep the Dodgers' rally in the city. And I wrote a long, personal letter to O'Malley, begging him to consider what the move would do to the community and all the fans."  Doris Kearns Goodwin who was 14 at the time.

My memories of my grandfather are tied up in Dodger history. We visited him in the summers. I recall him sitting in his chair, Rheingold at hand, his cigar almost as terrifying as the look on his face if we made enough noise to drown out the game. (This may have been ANY noise.) Was he listening on the radio or watching on television? 

 

"For some people, the departure was an immense wound, a betrayal, a rejection. Walter O’Malley, the Dodger owner, had played with our emotions, made fools of us, and some people never forgave him. I didn’t go to another major league baseball game for twelve years; my father, an Irish immigrant made into an American by baseball, lived another 28 years and never entered a single ballpark."

"I erased baseball from my life that year. I wouldn't read about it. I didn't watch a single game on television...Like most Giant and Dodger fans I could never root for the Yankees."
Pete Hamill who was 22 at the time.

August 1940

Buddy, Jackie & Grandpa

The puppy may be Smoky. 

The Fire Department

Georgi found several records about Grandpa William McNally's working life. He had delivery jobs as an iceman and a coalman before he joined the New York City Fire Department in March, 1909 when he was 27. She found his service record, which listed him with the following companies.

• March 1909- Hook & Ladder Company 53
• January 1913- Hook & Ladder Co. 103 (Number change rather than transfer)
• July 1933- Hook & Ladder # 158
• April 1938- Special Service Squad Division Licensed Places of Public Assembly
• December 1945 - Retired

 

19th-century view of Grandpa's Ladder Company #3, later the 53 and 103.

The building may be the same one remodeled in the picture below.

 

Underneath the facade in this 1997 photograph

of the building at 183 Concord Street

 is supposed to be the old Hook and Ladder Station #3.

The record is confused by the companies' name changes, but after looking at online department histories here is what I've been able to figure out.

McNally joined the Hook and Ladder Company #53 (the old #3) when it was located at 183 Concord St. in downtown Brooklyn. In January 1913 several new companies were added and the old companies were renumbered so the 53 became the 103. It looks as if he spent most of his career (24 years) at the fire station on Concord St. This is the job he had during the years most of the children were born. The station wasn't far from the neighborhood on Adelphi Street.

Hook & Ladder Company 103 at 480 Sheffield in 1937.

William McNally worked at this new station for less than a year after the company moved here.

The truck is a Seagrave 85' ladder.

Hook & Ladder 103 on Sheffield. It was closed in 1974.

In 1932 Ladder #103 moved to 480 Sheffield in a Brooklyn neighborhood called East New York. McNally transferred to Hook and Ladder #158 in Queens the next year, probably because he wanted to be closer to home. Georgi figured they moved to Queens Village sometime between the birth of the youngest Tommy in 1929 and the 1930 census which found them in Queens.

I designed this quilted tribute to Grandpa and the Fire Department of New York after 9/11, based on some antique quilt blocks. I added Timmy the Dalmatian fire dog. (Jane is going to write more about Timmy.)

A 19th-century fire department badge

Now that I've read some Fire Department history I realize that William McNally worked in a Hook and Ladder Company, not an engine or pumping company.When he joined the department in 1909 they were making the transition from horse drawn equipment to motorized. In 1910 the company obtained a 65 foot motorized Seagrave Aerial truck.

 

Top: Seagrave employees showing off a new ladder truck about 1900. Bottom: A longer horse-drawn ladder apparatus in New York City (where you need long ladders.)

A motorized Seagrave ladder truck in Seattle, 1911.

Hook & Ladder Company #158 in Queens

Grandpa worked here about 5 years in the 1930s.

Having a brother-in-law who was Police Commissioner of New York City from 1934-1945 couldn't have hurt his career. In 1938, when he was about 57, he transferred to the Special Service Squad, Division of Licensed Places of Public Assembly, where he apparently was responsible for fire prevention rather than fire fighting. Their mission: "Enforcing all laws and Rules of the Board of Standards and Appeals in relation to the protection against fire and panic, obstruction of aisles, passageways and means of egress, standees, fire prevention and fire extinguishing appliances and fire prevention in all licensed places of public assembly."

This last job seems to have had a lasting effect on at least one of his children. My mother Cele never went into a "place of public assembly" without pointing out the fire exits to us. In 1945 Grandpa retired from the Fire Department at 64, about the same time Lewis Valentine retired as Police Commissioner.

My mother took pride in her father's job with the Fire Department of New York. She always implied they were the bravest men in the world. It may take courage and skill to fight fires in Dubuque but New York City with it's giant factories, office buildings, tenements and theaters was the ultimate challenge.

Read about Ladder Company #103 in The Pride of Sheffield Avenue by Mike Boucher

http://nyfd.com/brooklyn_engines/engine_290/engine290_history.pdf

http://nyfd.com/brooklyn_ladders/ladder_103.html

 

 

McNally Mysteries

William H.C.D. McNally (1880-1960).

He is 65 years old in this photo from 1945.

We know a lot about Grandma's ancestors, the Dalys and the Valentines, but much less about Grandpa's, the McNallys.

We've been told that William Henry Conrad DeKalb McNally was born in Brooklyn on June 18, 1880 to John Louis McNally and Mary Ann DeKalb. Georgi's genealogical research finds him in the 1900 census, when he was 20, living with a grandmother Annie Berry, his younger brother Patrick and his step-uncles (or maybe no relation at all) William Berry and James Berry, who Georgi guesses are Annie Berry's stepsons.

Where are his parents? Aunt Ann recalls that her grandfather was named John McAnally, a railroad worker born in Ireland. Many of us heard that he worked for the New York Central Railroad, as an engineer or conductor and was killed when he was hit by a train.

Mary Ann DeKalb, our great-grandmother, is a mystery too. She is supposed to be from either New York, Illinois or Ohio, daughter of an engineer named Conrad DeKalb.

My memory is that I was told that Mary Ann DeKalb's father worked for the railroad and helped build the subway system in New York City. The DeKalbs were so well known, I remember hearing, that a city was named after them in Illinois.

There are numerous cities and places named DeKalb in the U.S., all named for the Baron deKalb, Johann von Robaii, (1721-1780),  a German soldier who came over to America to assist the colonists in the revolution. DeKalb Avenue in Brooklyn was named for the Revolutionary War hero.

Georgi cannot find any reference to anybody named Conrad DeKalb in American records.

I was also told that William McNally was one of fourteen children and that a pair of twin brothers were killed in a railroad accident (on their birthday!) Aunt Ann was told there were 18 McAnally or McNally children by two wives. Aunt Patty recalled that John and his second wife Mary Ann had ten children but only three lived to adulthood with four dying the same day from influenza.

The three who survived are Grandpa Will, his younger brother Patrick Edward (1885-1964), and an older brother Frank (whose dates might be late 1870s to 1964).

The Lehigh Valley Railroad

We find no references to John McNally or McAnally. An engineer on the Lehigh Valley Railroad named John McNally was killed in a terrible wreck on November 11, 1898. Stories appeared in newspapers around the country telling about the head-on collision between two trains in the mountains near Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. But that John McNally lived in Pennsylvania and is probably not William's father.

So here are the questions:

Who is Great-Grandma Mary Ann? Was she a DeKalb?

Where did the name DeKalb come from? Who are our DeKalbs?

What happened to Great-Grandpa John McAnally or McNally?

What happened to the rest of those 14 or 18 McNally children?

Middle Names

William Henry Conrad DeKalb McNally

&

Anna Marie Collette Valentine McNally

These pictures were labeled by Ben as "about 1906" but we've all been told that's Anna on (or near) her wedding day, November 29, 1905. There are many copies of that photo in the family. Cece said she was shocked to see it in a magazine picture and then realized that the picture was of Jane's living room in an article on restored bungalows.

The bride and groom each had an impressive string of names. This may be the reason my mother Cecelia was given only one name at baptism. Her middle name Grace was her confirmation name, one she chose. I'm guessing most of her sisters and brothers were also given one baptismal name and their middle names were their confirmation names. My confirmation name is Agnes, the same as Aunt Vera's.