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CHRISTINE B STEELE MCMAHON
Christine was the first born and oldest daughter of Eugene and Mary Ann Steele. A early census from 1880 spells her name as Christina but to her family and friends, she was just Christine.
During her formative years, she attended the Rincon School. Below is a brief description of the school from the website San Francisco Genealogy:
Rincon School
This is now exclusively a girls' school, and is located in a fine large twelve class building, on the school lot on Silver street, near Second street. It has five hundred and sixty-two girls in attendance.
This school was instituted on the 8th of January, 1852, in a small one-story building near the corner of Folsom and First streets. It was transferred from this dilapidated structure to a large rented building on Hampton place, leading from Folsom to Harrison streets, and near Third street.
The present building for the Silver Street Primary School, on Vassar place, leading from Harrison street, between Second and Third streets, was erected for this school in 1861. It was transferred to it in 1861, where it has remained until it was transferred to the present building, in September 1875.
It was first organized as a mixed grammar school for boys and girls, but in January, 1865, the sexes were separated, and the boys were transferred to Lincoln School.
Since that time, the original school structure (s) have long been torn down and replaced by more modern buildings of the 21st century. Below is a picture of the Rincon Neighborhood as it looked during the mid 1800's when Christine attended school there.
As you can see from the article above, Christine even made the Roll of Honor in 7th grade!
During her young adult years, Christine was a member of the Young Ladies Institute- a church charity league that did good deeds throughout the city wherever it was most needed.
Now known as the Young Ladies Grand Institute, their website (https://www.ylionline.org) provides a short background history on how it began:
In my early days of research, I found out that Christine was not the only family member to join the Young Ladies Institute!
Her Aunt Nellie Ellen (Filben) Fennelly (picture below left) was also a member who may have influenced Christine to join!
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Below are two colorized and enhanced photographs of Christine with other members of her group.
Born on February 25, 1872 in Shelby Tennessee, John was one of six children in the family of Tim & Anna McMahon. His father Tim was born in 1830 and came from the area of Doora and Kilraghtis, Clare, Ireland.
His mother Anna was born in 1828 and came from Monaghan, Ireland.
It is unclear when Tim and Anna's families arrived in the US. But on December 3 1861, Tim and Anna would marry in Shelby Tennessee.
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Shelby, Tenn as it looked in the late 1890's
The family first lived in Shelby before moving to the area of Pawtucket, Providence, Rhode Island. It appears that some of the family stayed there but in/or around 1890 the parents Tim and Anna moved to California to be near their son John.
According to an 1896 voter registration, John's first job was that of a collector (by definition - this meant sales and bills of anything would negotiate the need for an actual person to come door to door to collect debts.)
Over the years of my family ancestry research, sometimes you never know what you are going to find and it will pop up in the strangest places!
For example, Ancestry.com has a section called, U.S. Family Photo Collection, c. 1850-20oo.
Just to see if I could find a picture of John and/or his family, I entered his name into the U.S Family Photo Collection not expecting any results! But what showed up next took me completely by surprise!
For there it was, a family photo taken in 1890 that shows John and his siblings.
Added to the photo was a little story provided by an ancestry member who may have been related to the McMahon Family!
Not seen in this photo is older sister Mary Ann born on April 15th 1861 but died Oct 30th 1924 in San Francisco.
According to the ancestry member who originally posted this photo: Josie never married as she had a love gone wrong, both James and Barney contracted measles dying at ages 47 and 31 and Annie married a Mr. Miller.
Several years ago, I had to stay home from work with a really bad cold. Aside from laying down and sleeping, I decided to work on family ancestry to see if I could possibly identify this photo below from the 1800's album.
Looking at this photo, I kept wondering who these people were?!
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Young ladies and gentlemen smiling and having fun waiting for the photographer to take the picture! BUT who are they, brothers/sisters/good friends? !?
Sitting at the computer it was driving me crazy - UNTIL............................
John
Annie
James
Barney
Josephine
Christine
I began to compare the faces in the family group photo to this one and soon realized that this group photo was of Christine and John along with his siblings. Perhaps taken during the siblings visit to California?! At any rate, I was delighted to finally figure out who these people were!
Josephine
James
Barney
Annie
John Joseph
John lived on Fell street, (possibly in a boarding house) until his marriage to Christine on April 25, 1898.
Shortly after their marriage, Christine and John took up residence at 49 Erie St before moving in 1900 to the address of 410 Foerster St Sunnyside~ a property which still exists today!
Also living with them was our great grandma Nell who was 14 at the time. As described in a previous posting, Nell came to live with them to help (her then pregnant) sister Christine with the various house keeping tasks until the baby was born.
Below are two pictures of the Foerster St Sunnyside home. If you are wondering how I got these pictures, they came from the real estate website known as Red Fin.
View from the backyard
A son Norbert was born to Christine and John on June 13, 1900
In August of 1901, John would start a new job as a Morse Patrolman at Union Iron works.
Morse code was invented by Samuel Morse in 1837. Based upon my research, I believe that the term, "Morse patrolman", meant that if a patrol man was near a telegraph machine, he could send a Morse code to the station or the powers that be for assistance.
In John’s case his job was somewhat like a security guard for the premise and would be near a telegraph in the main office, should something happen. Below is a picture of what John might have looked like as a Morse Patrolman.
However, no job comes without a bit danger. In early August of 1901, the San Francisco Call published this article
Union Iron Works as it looked during John McMahon's time there.
Within that same year, Christine was pregnant again but tragically died in childbirth on November 3rd, it is not known whether the baby survived.
John and his son Norbert relocated to the address of 1211 Webster St. A census taken at that time, shows John's new job as carpenter. Then in 1906, seven months after the big quake, John would marry a woman whose first name was Ella.
Originally I had thought her last name was Kaley, but this SF Call marriage licenses announcement dated Nov 15th 1906, showed a very different last name.
I have spent a lot of time researching out this Ella yet the trail has run cold with many unanswered questions:
¶ Ella was born in Ireland in/around 1880 but to whom?
¶ Ella was a dress maker who had her own business but have yet to find the advertisements unless it was simply by word of mouth that she received clients?!
¶ One daughter was Cornelia born in 1900 but who was her biological father? Marian was born in 1908. But what became of them?
¶ I was able to find out that Cornelia died on September 27th 1974 but what of Marian?
Sadly, the marriage of Ella and John was short lived. John died two years later on August 6, 1908. Norbert who was six at the time, would continue to live with Ella and his stepsisters.
After losing her husband John, Ella would experience another sad event two years later when her stepson Norbert died at age 8. Exact cause of death unknown but could be due to typhoid outbreak that was occurring at the time. It is unknown as to when Ella passed on.
On February 16th 1886, the John McMahon's mother Annie would die at age 58.
Her husband Tim would live to the ripe old age of 90 passing away on May 14th of 1920.
In concluding this post, I would like to share a small story.
Growing up, I always heard about my Mom's Uncle Norbert -sometimes known as Norb or Nobbie. As a kid, I had never heard of that name before and it sounded a bit strange.
Yet now I know why Norbert was so special to all our parents, Aunts and Uncles. He was both a kind and gentle person who opened his heart to everyone. Born on the same day of Halloween as myself, I always knew who Norbert was at later reunions or funerals because he almost always wore his red suspenders.
When Nell's older sister Christine gave birth to a boy, she named him Norbert and when Nell gave birth to her 7th child and her third son, she must have named him Norbert in honor of her nephew. I have created a gallery below of the best photos of Norbert to whom in memory this post is affectionately dedicated to!
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