Friday’s Faces from the Past: McGinnis Family Portrait

Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis (1858 – 1940) Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 – 1984) Francis Eugene McGinnis (1891 – 1961) John Charles McGinnis (1894 – 1944) Alice Gaffney (McGinnis) Schiavon (1895 – 1963) Some time during the late 1930s, the now-adult McGinnis children: Benita, Alice (my maternal grandmother), Gene, and John, gathered at the family home at 8336 Drexel … Continue reading "Friday’s Faces from the Past: McGinnis Family Portrait"

Thankful Thursday: “The One”

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 – 1984) Phillip C. McCormick (1892 – 1981)   93 years ago this week, my great-Aunt Detty – Benita McGinnis – mailed a rather flirtatious, if not somewhat mysterious, penny postcard to a certain Mr. P.C. McCormick: (Postmarked May 14, 1921) Mr. P.C. McCormick  #112 W. Adams St. Chicago, Ill. Dear Egg, Just … Continue reading "Thankful Thursday: “The One”"

Sentimental Sunday: Sunday Dinner

Making Memories Around the Table Left to right:  John Charles McGinnis Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis, Alice McGinnis, Thomas Eugene McGinnis, (John’s wife) Edith (Hoag) McGinnis, cousin  Eileen Kelly, and Benita McGinnis.  Photo taken at the McGinnis home, 8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, sometime between 1914 and 1920.   Like many a family in the early twentieth century, my … Continue reading "Sentimental Sunday: Sunday Dinner"

Mystery Monday: Is this Lizzie Gaffney?

Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Gaffney           (1884 – 1960) Benita (McGinnis) McCormick           (1889 – 1984) “My cousin poses,” Benita wrote under this photograph, taken in western Ireland in 1913.  Could this be Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie”  Gaffney? Compared with the photo below, there seems to be a strong  resemblance, but it is hard to say for sure.   … Continue reading "Mystery Monday: Is this Lizzie Gaffney?"