Looking for 3rd Great-Grandparents John and Catherine Horan

We managed another quick trip to Fall River on a beautifully clear, somewhat windy Sunday afternoon in early December.  I’d written the offices of St. Patrick’s cemetery hoping the final resting place of John and Catherine Horan might be on record with one of the several Irish Catholic cemeteries in Fall River.  Prior to 1890, burial records for many Irish immigrants were sparse or poorly maintained, but I’d found their death records and knew the original family plot had to be somewhere in Fall River.  How exciting to receive a large packet of records for all known Horan family members from St. Patrick’s that week.  One of the smallest and oldest Catholic cemeteries in Fall River, St. John’s, had closed in the early part of the century and was open to the public only one day a week for just a few hours. St. John’s church was one of the first Catholic churches in Fall River. When it was consumed by fire, the larger St. Mary's Cathedral was built upon the same site.  As the Irish Catholic immigration grew in the boom years of Fall River, so did their places of consecration and community establishments.  John and Catherine were indeed listed with the old church records.  We headed back to Fall River asap that weekend to walk the grounds and find our elusive ancestors before the winter snow set in and delay our quest to find our first immigrant ancestors.

St John’s cemetery is surprisingly well-maintained by the Church, given the age and forgotten families long laid to rest here. Our children, Sydney, Christopher and Colin have embraced this family history project with much enthusiasm and are now quite experienced at our ground strategy. We each walk row by row of an area and read and decipher the markers, hoping we'll be the one who finds the family name.  It has been a great lesson for the children in investigation as well as understanding respect, honor and reflection of our ancestors.  12 yr old daughter, Sydney, won accolades this day for finding her 4th Great-Grandparents John and Catherine Horan.  Though small and not particularly crowded, St John’s has many headstones that have fallen or weathered and the type is unreadable. It was a bit sad to think these deteriorated headstones had gone unvisited by family members like us who had no idea where their ancestors had been lain to rest. It was a surprise and emotionally moving to see the first Horan monument was quite large and prominent in its position near this old tree.  Likely quite a lovely position in the springtime when the tree is in full bloom.  

The two eldest sons are buried with their parents. Their one daughter, Ellen and her husband, Mark Shay, likely cared for the aging Horans and ultimately erected the fine family marker here.  We said a prayer for our ancestors and reflected for a moment on the place we stood. We finally found our first immigrant grandfather from County Galway and his family more than 100 years later.

*IHS - Greek orthography for ‘Jesus’, Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus, saviour of mankind) or In Hoc Signo [Vince] (In this sign, conquer (www.historyfromheadstones.com; Irish gravestone inscriptions).


Irish Proverb

Is maith an scéalaí an aimsir.
Translation: Time is a good story teller.