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Family Directory

The Michael Sullivan Family

Compiled and contributed by Ron Seymour

Born around 1815 in County Cork, Ireland, Michael O’Sullivan was the fourth son of Mary Desmond O’Sullivan. His father’s name has been lost to history and he may have died in Ireland before the family came to America.  Michael was just a teenager when the family including two sisters stopped off in Troy, NY for a few years before moving on to Iowa. He was in his early twenties when the family arrived in Dubuque in 1836 and he went to work in the lead mines (although in what capacity is unknown) and then later was a laborer/carpenter and helped his brother, John on his large construction projects.

Twenty-seven year old Michael married eighteen-year-old Ellen Casey in St. Louis and brought her to Dubuque in 1842. She was born on November 25, 1824 in Fermoy, County Cork, Ireland. It is unclear if they knew each other from the old country or if he may have met her while on a visit to St. Louis. Ellen’s two brothers operated a grain shipping business in Dubuque but it is not clear exactly when they started their enterprise.

However they met their marriage would not be the only St. Louis connection in the Sullivan family. Michael’s youngest sister, Margaret, would get married in St. Louis and Michael’s son would marry a girl with deep family ties to St. Genevieve just south of St. Louis.

After their marriage they resided at 258 Bluff, just across the street from St. Raphael’s Cathedral and Ellen would live there for the rest of her life. During the summer of 1849 a number of cases of cholera occurred. A board of health was set up and Michael served on the 1^st Ward Committee helping Doctors carry out sanitary regulations. The first ward was called “Little Dublin” due to the large Irish population there. The Dubuque Herald later said that nearly all who lived there were guilty of the crime of being poor. Whiskey was their greatest enemy, the newspaper said. There is no way of knowing the drinking habits of the Sullivans but they certainly could not have been accused of being poor.

Like many Irish, Michael Sullivan had also dropped the “O” from their name by 1850. His occupation is listed as a “Miner” and tragically he died at the age of forty in September of 1856.

While the exact cause of his death is unknown there was another cholera epidemic in Dubuque in 1856 and it is possible he died from that. He was buried in the old 3^rd St. Cemetery, probably next to his mother who had died in 1839 and was one of the first burials in the cemetery. Unfortunately the location of his grave and the graves of hundreds of others have been lost due to poor record keeping and neglect of the cemetery.

In addition to his thirty-one-year-old widow Michael left two young children, Mary Ellen, aged 10 and Frank J. aged 6. Another son, Joseph had died in infancy. Michael owned a considerable amount of property as well as some mining rights and although he died in testate (without a valid will) indicating that his death was unexpected, his estate was estimated at $50,000 or the equivalent of about a million and a quarter dollars in today’s value (based on the Consumer Price Index).

Frank’s two children prospered as adults. Mary Ellen received an excellent education and as most young unmarried women did, became a schoolteacher and eventually the Assistant Principal at the Third Ward School. Frank became a traveling salesman for a buggy manufacturer.

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That the Sullivans were fairly well off is described in the following article written by Dr. Homer Calkin titled “The Irish in Iowa” and published in The Palimpsest in February, 1964.

“Of the 13,045 inhabitants of Dubuque in 1860, 13.9 per cent or 1,800 were born in Ireland. This included 992 married adults, 317 single women, 183 single men, 98 widows, 18 widowers, and 182 children under sixteen. The 992 married adults represented 535 families.

“Among the men there were 305 day laborers, most of whom lived in the First Ward. In addition, there were fourteen teamsters and twelve draymen. Nine ran boarding houses or inns while another eleven were saloon keepers. Sixty-three were following the trades-carpenters, tinners, painters, bricklayers, plasterers, and stonecutters and masons. As might be expected near the Dubuque lead mines, fifty-six were miners. River and rail transportation employed some as mail agents, express drivers, ferrymen, boatmen and baggage men.

“There were fifteen merchants and fourteen grocers. Only one Irishman was a butcher, grain dealer, druggist, poultry dealer, or confectioner, although eighteen were shoemakers and sixteen tailors. Only eight were manufacturers of any kind. Their products included glass, carriages and wagons, stoves and cabinets.

“Most of the single women were servants, 196 in all. Some worked in the boarding houses and hotels, while many worked for the wealthier families of Dubuque. Widows were more likely to be washwomen, housekeepers and dressmakers.

“Fifteen men could be classed as professionals. They were lawyers, printers, teachers and an editor, an architect and an engineer. Only two held government positions…only 151 owned real estate. It was worth $543,950, or 10.8 per cent of the total in Dubuque.

“Fully 199 had personal property worth $99,200, or 7.4 per cent of the total. There were exceptions, of course. Among these were J. SULLIVAN, a mason, who had property worth $40,000…and the widow (of Michael), Ellen SULLIVAN, worth more than $50,000 at the age of 35.”

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On Nov. 10, 1874 Frank, now 25, a traveling salesman for a buggy manufacturer married 23 year old Celeste (called “Lessie”) Gregoire.

 She was a niece of US Senator George W. Jones and was from a prominent family from the historic French village of St. Genevieve sixty miles downriver from St. Louis. Lessie’s grandfather, Charles Cyril Gregoire, was a young French aristocrat who escaped from France during their revolution and sailed to Santo Domingo. He resided there for several years and then moved to Philadelphia. One of his sons, A. L. moved west to St. Genevieve where he married 22 year-old Mary Pratt in 1834. She was a member of another old French family who lived at Pratt’s Landing just below St. Genevieve. Two years after their marriage they moved north and settled on Menominee Creek west of Galena where he ran a smelting business.  President Tyler (1841-45) issued A. L. Gregoire a patent to the land on which the city of East Dubuque now sits and A. L. established a farm on a portion of the land. He died in the late eighteen fifties leaving several minor children including Lessie, Amanda, and Louise. Apparently their mother was having difficulty raising the children so their uncle Charles was appointed guardian for them on April 15, 1865.

The following day the Herald provided a description of the wedding in a column entitled “An Interesting Wedding.” The paper noted “notwithstanding the fact that no formal invitations were issued, as the wedding was intended to be quiet and devoid of display” the church “was filled to its utmost capacity with the friends and acquaintance of both parties, and a large sprinkling of the curious and interested.” Since “both are members of old and respected families…their marriage was an event of more than ordinary interest.” Could it be that the cause of all the interest was that she was in a family way? Might that explain that what should have been a high profile wedding between two prominent families was instead intended to be “quiet and devoid of display?”

The wedding took place at five o’clock at St. Raphael Cathedral with Fr. Moore officiating. The Daily Times noted that Frank J. Sullivan was “one of Dubuque’s promising young men, long connected with Levi’s palace store, and Miss Celeste Gregoire, (was) the accomplished daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Julien C. Gregoire.”                                  Both papers listed the gifts the couple received including an “elegant gold watch and chain” Frank gave to his new bride. Mrs. John D. Sullivan (Frank’s aunt) gave six solid silver forks and Frank’s mother and sister gave them a set of solid silver salt and mustard spoons and case. John Deery, who would marry Frank’s sister the following year, gave the couple a lamp with a bronze statue. Frank’s cousins Maggie and Katie Sullivan from Bankston presented them with napkin rings.

After the reception at the bride’s parent’s house on Alpine Street the newlyweds left on their honeymoon. One newspaper said the couple took a train to Chicago “where they will pass a portion of the ever beautiful and never to be forgotten days of Love’s Young Dream” while the other paper said the “bridal pair took the C D & M train south for St. Louis, and will be absent a couple weeks on a bridal tour.”

The 1875 City Directory show that Frank was working as a clerk at J. Levi and he, his wife and sister are all living together at his mother’s home at 258 Bluff.

An article appeared in the Personal column of the newspaper on May 17, 1876 noted “Mrs. D. Myers accompanied Mrs. Frank (Lessie) Sullivan last night, on a visit to St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve.” Mrs. Myers was born Matilda Pratt in Perryville, MO on Sept 25, 1843. Matilda’s and Lessie’s mothers were sisters. Perryville is just a few miles south of St. Genevieve.

Three days after Christmas, 1875 Frank’s thirty-year-old sister Mary Ellen was joined in marriage to a prominent Dubuque attorney, John Deery who would never reveal his true age.

In contrast to Frank’s wedding the year before Mary’s was covered in great detail by both newspapers with the Daily Herald devoting almost a half page to describing it including a list of the gifts received and the names of the donors. “Miss Sullivan has been regarded as one of the most popular and efficient teachers in our public schools” while “Mr. Deery, during a residence of twenty years in Dubuque, has also won the high regard and respect of the community and of the whole Dubuque bar of which he was an honored member.”

Deery was born in Donegal Ireland and as young boy he came to the US and settled in Machias, Maine. He later became engaged in newspaper work of some kind. Sometime in the 1850’s he moved to Boston and studied law. He moved to Dubuque in 1857 and became the assistant editor of the Northwest, a newspaper being run by Col. Heath. Deery was admitted to the bar in 1860 and set up a partnership with Thomas M. Monroe specializing in real estate and probate matters.

The ceremony was performed by Bishop Hennessey with two or three other priests concelebrating. It was reported that people lined the sidewalk and the steps of the church. The bridal party entered the Cathedral at four with Frank escorting his sister and the groom escorting their mother. Before the ceremony began the Bishop spoke “at considerable length upon the sacredness of the marriage state, the duties of husband and wife toward each other, and the duties of Christians generally.”

          After the nuptials were completed the bridal party left the church and crossed the street to the family homestead where their relatives and a few friends gathered to celebrate and “enjoy the bounteous feast prepared.” As was the custom there were two cakes. The bride’s was “surmounted by a bride in miniature” and the groom’s “with a pair of united hands, symmetrical and suggestive.”

Again the newspaper detailed a list of gifts and the names of the donors including Deery’s gift to his bride a “very elegant gold cross set with pearls and a heavy gold chain.” Her cousin, William J. Sullivan, presented her with a solid silver card case and her Banston cousins, Katie and Maggie Sullivan, gave her a silver berry spoon.  Mary’s Ellen’s aunt, Elizabeth Sullivan, gave solid silver teaspoons and her daughter gave solid silver napkin rings. It seems silver was the gift of choice in those days.

General and Mrs. Jones gave the couple a silver sugar spoon, gold lined. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper (of the Cooper Wagon Works) gave them a Camp chair and footrest. Mr. and Mrs. D. D. Myers presented them with a “beautiful photographic statuary entitled ‘Spring’ richly framed.”

Mary Ellen’s uncle, Daniel Casey gave the couple some gold lined silverware with the initial’s M. E. S. on them.

After the party, the couple left on the evening train for Chicago where “they will spend a fortnight with friends and relatives, and on their return to Dubuque will settle down to marital felicity at the Lorimar House.” This being the hotel Deery owned.

A little over two years after her marriage to John Deery, Mary Ellen (Sullivan) gave birth to a son. They named him Auliffe and called him Ollie; tragically she died at her mother’s house from complications of childbirth five weeks later on Holy Thursday, April 18, 1878. Her son followed her to the grave three years after that.

  Frank and Lessie lost their newborn son, Gilbert Nelson Sullivan who died of cholera on July 25, 1880 at four months and twenty days.

      Just a few months after burying their son, Frank and his wife suffered another horrible tragedy the day before Thanksgiving in 1880 when his two of Lessie’s sisters were drowned. As is usually the case, there are different versions of what exactly happened on Thanksgiving eve. What is certain is that St. Mary’s of East Dubuque was getting ready for their annual church festival the next evening. Amanda Gregoire, 34, and her sister, Mrs. Julia Chouteau, 39, were members of the parish and went to Dubuque on Wednesday morning to sell tickets for the fund-raiser. The sisters made a couple stops in East Dubuque, first at Mrs. Henry Hall’s house where they discussed some preparations for the next day. Mrs. Hall asked them to stop by again on their way home for tea and the girls agreed.

At Maguire Bros. store Julia bought a pair of gloves. One of the men in the store cautioned the ladies to be very careful, that the ice might not be safe.  The ladies responded that many had already crossed that day and the day before and that light vehicles such as buggies had crossed. Julia commented that she was not afraid to cross and her sister said that if Julia was not afraid neither was she.

The sisters then walked across the frozen river, following the tracks made earlier by a team of horses. They made the rounds of various businesses on Main Street selling a goodly amount of tickets and then stopped by the home of their sister, Mary Louise Preston who lived near 14^th and Main. The Prestons asked the ladies if they thought the river was entirely safe to cross and the ladies “answered in a jolly way, that they had no fear” but it may have been false bravado. After dining with the Prestons, the sisters made a few more calls “for their charitable entertainment (and) wended their way to the levee about 5 o’clock.” Then began a series of unfortunate events, any one of which might have prevented the tragedy.

At the levee they asked the fireman on the ferryboat, who lived in East Dubuque if he was going across. He told them he was not, that he had to go uptown first. The girls expressed some disappointment at having to cross alone saying “misery loves company” and “thus betrayed a timidity” that regrettably “was not great enough to deter them from making the attempt” and taking the bridge instead.

At least three men were standing on the levee as the ladies stepped out onto the ice. They were talking and paying little attention to the sisters until one of the men exclaimed “Those ladies are going too far up” meaning that they had left the beaten track and had gone further north. Unfortunately none of the men called out to the sisters to advise them of this fact and the men all left.

Another man, a Mr. Black worked on the Illinois side of the river and had just crossed over on the ice to Dubuque when saw the women, whom he knew well, go out onto the ice. As he reached the pavement he turned around and took another look at the ladies and thought to himself that they were going a little too far north. He said later that he felt half inclined to notify them but he knew they had crossed in the morning and decided it was not necessary so he continued on his way.

John Raup lived on the levee and he saw the ladies crossing just about dusk, and remarked to someone that he thought “they were somewhat out of the way.”

Nick Weis, “a young lad” lived in East Dubuque and worked in Dubuque. He had just gotten off work and “I started for home between 5 and 6 o’clock. I came down Third Street, as that is nearer, and I could just as easily get upon the ice. When but a short distance I saw two ladies walking ahead of me, and all of a sudden they called for help. One was in the water, and the other had started back, and wanted me to give her my hand. I was badly frightened, and ran back to the shore where Mr. O’Connell lives and told him that two ladies were in the river and one was already drowned.”

O’Connell picks up the story from there: “He (Weis) was very frightened and could hardly speak. My wife was in the room with me, and she ran down to the riverbank and begged us to hurry up. All this time we heard a voice crying ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ it was repeated about a dozen times.” O’Connell also said the boy told him “one of the girls wanted him to reach her his hand, and (then she) started back on the ice crying ‘Oh, Amanda! Amanda!’ or something to that effect.” O’Connell took a lantern and some rope and said he went out on the ice as far as he felt was safe and called out very loud but received no reply. He returned to shore and sounded the alarm and soon men “walked all over the ice…with lanterns and long poles searching for the tracks of the ladies.”

At daybreak the next day, Thanksgiving, Percy Preston the girls’ brother-in-law, and several others started searching again. A light dusting of snow covered the ice and almost obliterated the tracks made by the ladies the previous evening. However, they party of men were able to follow the tracks and about a quarter of the way across the river near the sand bar that ran out from the Third Street extension they found the hole in the ice. The hole was small and the ice surrounding it was weak and very dangerous and it did not appear that the ice had been disturbed and it certainly did not indicate to the men that two human beings could have fallen through. A number of footprints leading to and from the hole told the story. It was apparent that Julia had walked into the hole first and Amanda, becoming terror stricken left her and started for help. Seeing the boy, Weis, she hailed him and then returned to try to help her sister but she too fell through the ice.

The location of the hole was almost two hundred feet north of the path they intended to take. It was noted that there was “quite a current which has successfully resisted the cold weather and remained unfrozen.” The girls’ brother-in-law, Percy Preston found a package they had been carrying in water nearby confirming the location. That day over twenty-five men began the gruesome task of recovering the bodies. They cut the ice and began dragging the river. They reported that one or both of the bodies were “secured and dragged a considerable length, but unfortunately lost while the line was being drawn to the surface.” A large crowd gathered to watch the recovery efforts and a special police force was called in to keep the crowd back. Late in the day a telegram was sent to Sabula to obtain the services of divers who had the equipment and knowledge to search under water.

The divers went into the water on Friday and “immediately upon getting to work, made a dive and ascertained the direct line of current. According to his direction holes were cut through the ice” and around five o’clock grappling hooks “first secured the body of Mrs. Chouteau.” By then it was too dark to continue and so recovery operations were suspended until the next day.

The next morning around ten o’clock Amanda’s body was recovered. Both sisters were taken to the home of their sister and brother-in-law, the Prestons, who lived at145 W. 14^th St.

Then began the discussions of what had happened. One of the divers said that the water where the ladies went in was “very shallow.” Mrs. O’Connell said “I heard the poor girl (Julia) utter her last appeal for help several minutes after my husband left, and I think she must have been in the water holding onto the ice.” It seems likely that the heavy clothing the ladies were wearing became water-logged and the weight would have been too much to allow them to crawl out of the icy cold water. Hypothermia would have set in and rendered them unconscious within fifteen to twenty minutes. If it had not been so dark O’Connell might have located their position and maybe a rescue could have been successful, however that must remain pure speculation. But it was a tragic accident that could have been prevented at several points as it played out to its fatal conclusion if someone had only spoken up.

The sisters were buried next to their mother Mary P. Gregoire, who had died nineteen months earlier on March 16, 1879 at age 66. Julia Chouteau’s husband worked in Kansas City and her fourteen year old son attended St. Joseph (Loras) College.

Frank died in New Orleans around Jan. 1, 1889 leaving a thirty-eight year old widow, a son Valle’ now age 15 and daughter Marie age 13. His body was brought back to Dubuque and buried next to his sister at Key West in the Deery family plot. The circumstances surrounding his death are unknown.

Frank’s mother, Ellen Casey Sullivan died on March 5, 1891 of heart failure. “Her sufferings are over” wrote the Herald and “her near kindred in blood are all dead. She mourned the death of her son and daughter, and especially her grandchild Auliffe Justin Deery… She had two brothers and one sister all dead.” She was buried at Mt. Olivet in Key West next to her son, Frank and daughter, Mary Ellen Deery.

After his death, Frank’s widow and two children moved in with her brother, Felix, on his farm in East Dubuque and lived there until Felix died three years later.

Lessie moved back to Dubuque for a few years until her death on September 4, 1902 at age 51. “Death was caused by paralysis of the brain with which the deceased was stricken Tuesday” said the newspaper. She was buried in the Deery plot in Mt Olivet Cemetery near William Newman, her uncle by marriage.  

       Felix Gregoire died on Jan. 21, 1892 at 8:30 in the evening after falling from a windmill on his farm. He was 53 years old.

It was also noted that he was the nephew of Gen. George W. Jones.

Both of Frank and Lessie’s surviving children moved to California where their son, Valle’ married Mary Johnson and they had two daughters. He died on Dec. 7, 1939 in Long Beach after a month long illness and was buried there. Marie married a man named Arine. She died a few months later in 1940 and was brought back and buried next to her aunt, Mary L. Preston and near her mother.

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