HEALY, Michael SR 1826-1910

HEALY, MURPHY, JOYCE, VAUGHAN

Posted By: Mark KERNAN (email)
Date: 3/6/2004 at 18:20:53

Allamakee Journal June 15, 1910
Lansing and Waukon, Iowa
M. HEALY, SR., ANSWERS ROLL CALL
Ft. Dodge Daily Chronical, June 3

With the advent of the midnight hour, and lacking but two days of being the second anniversay of the death of his beloved wife, who had shared the battle of his life for more than fifty years, the life lamp of Michael Healy flickered out and his soul passed out into eternity. For the past couple of weeks he had been in failing health and it was realized the end was near, death being due to old age and complications.

Michael Healy first saw the light of day in the parish of Donoughmore, county Cork, Ireland, on April 17, 1826, and was therefore a little over eighty-four years of age at the time of his death. In 1846, with the nearing of his majority, he emigrated to America, settling in Boston, where he made his home for a time.

January 1, 1850, he enlisted in the United States regular army and served for a period of five years in Texas, Louisiana and the southwest, and in recognition of his faithful service for his adopted country he was during recent years made an honorary member of Fort Donelson Post. No. 236, Grand Army of the Republic.

March 4, 1856 Michael Healy and Miss Katherine Murphy were joined in the holy bonds of matrimony, and to them it was given the privelege of walking side by side through life for a period of fifty-three years, when the esteemed wife was summoned to her reward, passing away on June 5, 1908. The same year of their marriage Mr. Healy settled in Allamakee county, Iowa, whe for a period of eight years he followed farming. He was aman held in high esteem by his neighbors and in recognition of that esteem he was elected county treasurer in 1862, serving for four years. Later he removed to Lansing, Iowa, wherehe engaged in law and the real estate business until 1882 when with his family he removed to Fort Dodge, and where he made his home for the remainder of the days which were alloted to him.

To Mr. and Mrs. Healy were born four sons and five daughters, all of whom survive, with the exception of the late Thomas D. Healy, who died in this city January 15, 1909. The children are: Mrs. Ella Joyce, Mrs. P.H. Vaughan and Misses Kate and Anna Healy, all of Fort Dodge; and Elizabeth, known in religion as Sister Mary Leo, who resides in Philadelphia, and Michael F., William M., and Robert of Fort Dodge. And while these may be regarded as those who have suffered the most in the passing of this kindly, generous man, the blow falls on the entire city, for he had a word of cheer for all, a kindly greeting for even the stranger and the hungry never went unfed from his door, and many an eye filled with tears at the word of his passing, and were it left to mortal man to look over the pages in the great book of life kept by the recording angel he would find not one blot on that page which was assigned to Michael Healy, when over eighty-fours ago, as a baby he came to brighten a little house on the Emerald Isle. Honest, courageous, a man without a fault - Fort Dodge weeps with the afflicted family, for she mourns the passing of a worthy citizen.

While is is recorded that Michael Healy was as good a soldier as ever wore the blue, and during the yellow fever scourge in the southland, his hand it was that ministered as gently as a woman to the afflicted, and to him fell the duty of closing the eyes of many of those under his personal care, and they went out of this life with a prayer of thanks on their lips for his kindness, the one act of his life which Mr Healy regarded as the proudest was when in 1818 he took a "Father Matthew" pledge of total abstinenceand that pledge was never broken by him. Many citizens will remember him as a loyal worker in the first temperance society ever organized in Fort Dodge, and even when at the davice of the attending physician it was thought best to administer a little brandy during his last sickness to sustain the feeble spark of life, he refused, determineing rather to go before his God with that pledge kept inviolate. And he kept it to the end. And thus it was in life, that Michael Healy's word was as good as his bond, and no man can say he ever made a promise that was not fulfilled with scriptural measure.

Among the relatives who ahve arrived in the city to be present at the final tribute to the deceased on Monday morning are, J.W. Hinchon, of Algona, a brother, Mrs. Edward McGeough of Waukon, a sister J. H. Murphy of Owatonna, Minn, a nephew, and two grandsons, Father Walter Vaughan of Lyons, Iowa and Thomas Joyce, now a medical student at the University of Michigan.

The funeral services will be held on Monday morning at ten o'clock from Corpus Christi, Father Sunders officiating, and burial will be made in the family lot at Corpus Christi cemetery, by the side of his wife and son.