Update To The Sad Story of Ellen Hennessey & Edward Welch

      

Welch monument in St. Anne's Cemetery Palmyra, NY

     This tale began with a blog about Oliver Ryan, the only child of my second great-grand-uncle Cornelius Ryan. Cornelius came to America from the townland of Golden Garden in South Tipperary with his parents Alice O'Dwyer and Cornelius Ryan Sr. in 1860, settling in Palmyra, New York.  Cornelius met another young immigrant, Anne Hennessey, there in Palmyra and the two were wed in 1869 at St. Anne's Catholic Church in the village.  The following year their son Oliver was born.  Tragically, Cornelius passed away when Oliver was seven and his mother Anne when he was eight.

     In surrogate court held at Lyons, New York, Ellen Hennessey Welch, a sister of Oliver's mother, was named his guardian along with her husband Edward Welch.  Tragedy struck Oliver's young world once again when Ellen died shortly after that.  To say Ellen's much older husband Edward was undone by her death would be an understatement, the grief stricken man fatally shot himself on her grave on 25 May 1879.

     Not surprisingly, newspapers of the time were less than accurate with the facts.  One reported Edward shot himself two weeks after her death, others remained silent on the timing.  I knew two weeks wasn't accurate because Edward had made his will on April 22nd, a will in which he left everything  to Oliver, making no mention of Ellen at all so she had to have been gone by that time.  Yesterday, I couldn't stand staying at home any longer, I had to do some genealogy!  Outdoors of course.  So I drove to the cemetery where Ellen was buried.  And I stayed there, walking up and down until I found her and Edward.  For some reason I hadn't noted the location of their stone on my last visit and the dates on it were so heavily encrusted with lichen back then that I couldn't read much of it.  Yesterday I came prepared with a soft toothbrush and a squirt bottle of water.

     It cleaned up quite well, the photo looks even better than the stone actually.  In the first blog I theorized Ellen had died earlier in April before Edward made his will.  Looking at the photo above you can see it says Ellen passed on Mar 31, 1879.  Edward's epitaph below looks like it says May 29th was the date of his death, though newspapers maintain he shot himself on the 25th.  However, several also report he was still alive when he was found lying unconscious on Ellen's grave so perhaps he lingered a few days before joining her in the afterlife.

     I don't know why it took me so long to go back to the cemetery, but I'm glad I did, it was wonderful to get out!