Saturday Night Genealogy Fun -- Pick a Day in the Life of an Ancestor

Calling all Genea-Musings Fans:

It's Saturday Night again -

time for some more Genealogy Fun!!

Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing is to:

1)    Michael John Neill wrote "Pick a Day" on Thursday in his Genealogy Tip of the Day blog and I thought it would be a good SNGF topic.

2)    Read Michael's post, and then write your own post.  Tell us your day, and your person, and then answer the ten questions.

Here's mine:

I shall select my paternal grand-aunt, Helena M. Sullivan, who was the wife of Harold Hutchinson Goe. The day is January 2, 1920, the date of the 1920 census, though they were enumerated on January 7.

Helena and Harold Goe lived in Anaconda, Deer Lodge County, Montana at 611 Maple Street, which they owned with a mortgage. Harold was 39 years old, while Helena was 37. By this time, their two children had been born. The oldest was Elizabeth A., who was six, and their son, John H. was four and seven-twelfths. Her husband worked at the brickyard in a copper industry.[1] In actuality, it was the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, where he worked his entire career.[2]

For news of the day, a headline for the following day in the Anaconda Standard was “Nation-wide Raid on Red Radicals on in Earnest.”[3] This was a time period when there were many arrests of people of the Communist party. The federal government agents had 4000 warrants and made arrests in major cities of the country.

Locally, women in Butte, a town in the next county of Silver Bow, began boycotting eggs in order to reduce the market price and increase the quality of the eggs in the market. They claimed many eggs being sold at 80-90 cents a dozen were not fresh and were unfit to eat.[4]

Helena was a homemaker and did not work outside the home. She was a member of Woman’s Auxiliary of the American Institute of Mining Engineers.[5] She and Harold enjoyed playing bridge and were members of a bridge club. They hosted the games often.[6]

Helena had three sisters, one brother, and a father still living.  Her sister, Loretto, was married to James LeRoy Patterson and they lived in Anaconda at 310 Pine Street. Her sisters, Ethel Elizabeth and Anna Maria, lived with the Pattersons. Ethel was a stenographer and Anna a teacher.[7]

Her brother, John Cyril “Jack” Sullivan, lived in Los Angeles in the household of Marcel and Maggie Dougherty as one of two boarders. They both worked in construction as a cement finisher.[8] However, the location of her father is not known for sure. He was an electrician for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company. He appeared in records before 1920 and afterwards but cannot be found in the 1920 census.

Helena and Harold were Roman Catholics and would have attended Mass at St. Paul Church at Park Avenue and Cherry. There were actually two churches in Anaconda, but this is the one that Helena and Harold’s funerals were held, so I can assume they considered this their parish.[9]

Three other families lived on the same side of Maple Street. David and Irena Corklary lived at 607 Maple and he worked as a manager of a silver mine. Edward E and Carol Pickel lived at 615 maple and he worked as a mechanical engineer in the cooper industry. At 617 Maple lived Michael and Mary V Doyle and he worked as a foreman at the Great Railway (likely the Great Northern Ry).

On the other side of the street, at 610 Maple, were John and Ellen Calnan. He worked in building with cement. At 608, were Faya and Billie Shummery, who worked as a civil engineer at the Smelter. Two families lived at 604: Mark S & Ada Wooden, who worked as a draftsman at the Smelter, and Warner J & Josephine Herbert, who worked as a civil engineer at the Smelter. Finally, at 602 Maple was Annie M Forsyth. Her son, Harry F worked as a draftsman at the Smelter.

Most of the neighbors on this block of Maple Street had in common working for the Anaconda Copper Mining Co, which was the major employer in town. It is possible that Helena was friendly with the ladies on the block perhaps meeting for coffee or to borrow a cup of sugar, though none of these names came up in articles about the Goe society activities.

My aunt, Virginia with
Harold & Nellie Goe

---

[1] 1920 U.S. census, Deer Lodge Co, Montana, Anaconda, ED 25, sht 4b, dwelling 90, family 100, Harold Goe; NARA T625, roll 969.

[2] Anaconda Copper Mining Company, Anaconda, Montana, application for employment, Harold H. Goe, 26 Jul 1919.

[3] “Nation-wide Raid on Red Radicals on in Earnest,” Anaconda Standard, 3 Jan 1920, p. 1, col. 6.

[4] “Boycott on Eggs by Butte Women,” Anaconda Standard, 3 Jan 1920, p. 1, col. 2.

[5] “W.A. of A.I.M.E.,” Anaconda Standard, 3 Oct 1920, part II, p. 8.” The regular business and social meeting was held at the home of Mrs. Harold H. Goe.

[6] “Evening Bridge Club,” Anaconda Standard, 10 Jan 1926, p. 28.

[7] 1920 U.S. census, Deer Lodge Co, Montana, Anaconda, ED 23, sht 7a, dwelling 146, family 153, James Patterson; NARA T625, roll 969.

[8] 1920 U.S. census, Los Angeles Co, California, Los Angeles, ED 302, sht 1, dwelling 9, family 9, Mancel Dougherty household; NARA T625, roll 111.

[9] R.L. Polk & Co’s Anaconda City Directory (RL Polk: Butte, 1925), p. 19, Catholic Churches; citing “U.S., city Directories, 1822-1995,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2469/ : accessed 5 Feb 2022), > Montana > Anaconda > 1925 > Anaconda, Montana, City Directory, 1925 > image 10.

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