My Trails into the Past

I interviewed my Aunt June and asked about all of her aunts and uncles. She had stayed a year in Anaconda, Montana with her mother’s sister, Nellie Goe. One of her memories of Aunt Nellie was: “She had lots of bridge parties, where she wore long dresses and her maid dressed in a black dress with a white apron. She always had a new deck of cards.” [1] It’s a lovely memory and I thought there might be newspaper articles in the “gossip” columns that described these bridge parties. The Anaconda Standard newspaper is available up to 1927 on Newspaper.com and I was able to find several articles about parties where they played bridge. Although these are before June's visit, they still support the story. Helena “Nellie” Sullivan married Harold H. Goe on 13 August 1912 in Portland, Oregon by the priest from Holy Rosary Catholic Church at Harold’s home. [2] She had been living in Portland with her grandparents, John and Margaret Gleeson. They moved to Anaconda, where Harold worked at the ...

I am participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge (April 2016), where we write 26 blog posts featuring each letter of the alphabet. S is for Sullivan Sisters Five daughters were born to John H. Sullivan and Anna Marie Gleeson. The first two were born in Mitchell, South Dakota (actually Dakota Territory). Helena M. “Nellie” was born 25 May 1883 and Loretto M. was born 28 February 1885. Rosemary Sullivan  was born in 1889 and the birth might have been in Mitchell, but I haven’t been able to pinpoint when the family moved to Montana. Rosemary died in infancy. Once the family was in Anaconda, Montana, the last two daughters were born: Ethel Elizabeth  on 11 February 1891 and Anna Marie "Anne"  on 15 October 1892. Their mother, Anna, died young on 3 January 1912. The five Sullivan children Later that year, Nellie married Harold Hutchinson Goe on 13 August. He worked for the Anaconda Copper Mine and they lived in Anaconda their entire ...