Portrait of a Matriarch

Julia Sullivan Dockery

At long last, though not writing about a member of my own family, I find the portrait of the matriarch of this inlaw-of-inlaws, the Dockery family.

Julia Sullivan Dockery, sitting for her likeness to be taken in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, is by now undoubtedly widowed. I could find no record of her husband Michael for the 1900 census, and eventually located a death record that seems to match, dated January 3, 1891.

While Michael had passed in their hometown of Mequon in Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, perhaps for this photo Julia had chosen to move in—or at least visit—her daughter Sarah, who in 1890 had married Edward E. Blewett in nearby Cedarburg. In that case—and this is something I have yet to figure out—the photograph must have been taken before 1895, when Julia’s daughter Sarah’s husband seems suddenly (and without any documentation I can find) to be out of the picture and is replaced by new spouse George W. Woodworth, in a marriage ceremony back in her hometown of Mequon, in April, 1895.

At any rate, though I’ve been able to find strands of information on Julia’s descendants to accompany the photos I’ve scanned lately, I’ve yet to find much of anything substantial on Julia, herself. I do know that she is the sister of the mother of the woman (Sarah Swanton) who married into my husband’s Tully line in Chicago. I did find a census record stating that Julia was born in February of 1832 in Ireland, and I already have a record that she is the daughter of Irish immigrants Thomas and Ellen Stack Sullivan. But that is about it for my discoveries.

Hopefully, though, that will be enough to help some others pick up that strand and weave it into the tapestry of their own family lines.