Hand Me Down

Everett Ward Gardiner's life began in scandal, wandered through shame and reinvention, and ended in dignity. http://oconnor.home.blog

A finish to the story of my great‑grandfather, Thomas O’Connor — a man whose life began hopefully in Ireland, endured immigration, hard work, three marriages, and ended during the Great Depression in a place few families ever talk about openly: Stockton State Hospital, one of California’s largest mental institutions. His story is not an easy one. But it is deeply human. And like so many family sto...

This episode centers on the baseball life of my grandfather Gerald Desmond and the baseball scrapbook he kept as a child from 1906 to about 1914. http://oconnor.home.blog

A statue and windows in our parish church in Sacramento make a connection to ancestors on both sides of my family. Episode link

My great-grandfather migrates from Nebraska to Colorado and on to California during the 1920s, leaving a great deal behind in his wake. Episode Link

I thought it would be worth remembering my great-grandfather on this 100th anniversary of his passing. Episode Link

In 1898, my 2X great-grandfather Baldwin Gardiner was shot and killed after a botched robbery and a daring chase over San Francisco rooftops. Episode Link

In this episode, I take a look at my family’s relationship to one of the major industries that employed several of my ancestors – the railroads. Episode link

With COVID raging and the current occupant of the White House suggesting wild cures, I look back into my family tree where a not-so-reliable treatment scam figured into the life of one of my third great-grandfathers in 1830s Jacksonian America. Episode link

In this episode, as I shelter-in-place under the coronavirus epidemic, I look into how some of my ancestors endured the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. Episode link

In this episode, a great-uncle endures drought and hardship on a Dakota farm once part of the territory of the Lakota Sioux that was broken up and sold under the Dawes Act of 1887. Episode link

In this post, I continue the story of Baldwin Gardiner, who over the course of his life appears to have been a name borrower, a home-wrecker, and a financial absconder in 19th-century San Francisco. Episode link

In this episode, I pick up the saga of the O’Connor family after settling in Nebraska, particularly the story of my great-grandparents Thomas O’Connor and Rose Burry. Episode link

In this episode, I introduce a 2x great-grandfather on my mother’s side who, among other things, was a Confederate POW during the Civil War and an early settler of the town of Fresno. Episode link

In this episode, we continue Michael O'Connor's journey from Ireland in 1884 to a homestead outside of Grand Island, Nebraska. Episode link

In this episode, I take a look at the long public service career of my great-grandfather, Michael Desmond, who held municipal offices during the Progressive Era of the early 20th century. Episode link

In this episode, my second great-grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Ward, gets divorced, then marries, and dies – all on the same day. Episode link

In this episode, we visit a non-Irish branch of my family tree and explore what brought them from a little village in Switzerland into the heartland of America. Episode link

This episode started out as an attempt to find out more about a duplex that I own in East Sacramento, but I ended up learning more about the people who built it. Episode link

In this episode, we take a closer look at the first Baldwin Gardiner from New York and his journey to California during the Gold Rush. Episode link

In this episode, my great-great grandfather Michael O'Connor participates in the very first boycott, and in a way, initiates his own. Episode link

In this episode, my great-grandmother Mary Morley Desmond writes some words during the worst of the Great Depression. More at oconnor.home.blog

In this episode, my great-grandfather and his brother go looking for trouble, and hope to prove the truth of that old adage “it’s not who starts the fight that matters, it’s who finishes it.” More at oconnor.home.blog

In this episode, I look into members of the family who were of age 100 years ago during The Great War – World War I – and tell the story of my great-uncle James Flanagan who served in World War I. More at oconnor.home.blog

In this episode, I begin the story of my great-great grandfather Baldwin Gardiner of San Francisco. It will take multiple posts to tell his story. Trust me. I think. More at oconnor.home.blog