The Kellys I Know

When John and Johanna Falvey Kelly arrived in the United States sometime before July of 1869, they brought with them their three surviving children who had been born in County Kerry, Ireland. This included their eldest son, Timothy, and two daughters, Catherine and Mary.

The reason I know the family made it to Fort Wayne before July, 1869, is that this was the date when their next son arrived. Patrick Timothy Kelly was born on July 18, 1869, conveniently placing an incontrovertible marker on the Kelly family immigration timeline. Thus, the family had to have crossed the Atlantic sometime after their youngest daughter, Mary, was born in County Kerry in 1867, and before Patrick's arrival in 1869.

Once the Kelly family settled into their new home in Fort Wayne, they welcomed one last child into their household: son John, arriving in 1876.

The oldest and the youngest were the only Kelly children to have never married. John's son Timothy, because he died of an accidental gunshot wound at the age of sixteen, never had the opportunity. John's youngest son, named after him, never carried on the family name either, living in his parents' home as a single man until his death in 1925 at the age of forty nine.

The other Kelly siblings all married. The eldest daughter, Catherine, married widower John Kelly Stevens and became the mother of my husband's paternal grandfather before her untimely death. Her younger sister, Mary, married local railroad man Patrick Phillips and became the mother of four daughters. Their next youngest brother, also named Patrick, married a young widow named Emma Carle Brown from Logansport, Indiana. He adopted her then-sixteen-month-old son, Frederick Brown, and together they welcomed seven additional children into their family—all told, a total of four sons and four daughters.

Each of these Kelly children I can locate in the Fort Wayne Catholic Cemetery—and quite a few of the grandchildren, as well.

When it comes to questions about the Kelly family plot, though, what I need to see is who, among the burials in lot number 232 of Section C, belong to the family of John and Johanna Kelly. Of course, there is John, himself, who died in 1892. His wife Johanna joined him in 1903. Their son John, who died in 1925, was also buried in the family plot. And the tragic youth, their young son Timothy, was the first of their immediate family to be buried there in 1876.

Another burial in the plot remains a mystery: the one year old child named William may have been the son of John and Johanna—or he may have been the son of Timothy and Ellen. I haven't located any documentation to determine the relationship, yet.

With one exception, the remainders of the burials appear to belong to the family of Timothy and Ellen. Since we are trying to find any further clues about this other family sharing the same burial plot, we'll begin discussing what can be found on Timothy Kelly's family from these burial records tomorrow.