John’s wife, Ann Dolan, was also born in Killargue on February 1, 1855. She was the daughter of John Dolan, a farmer, and Catherine (Kitty) Banks. Banks is not a common surname in this part of Ireland, so it is possible that Catherine was related to John’s mother, Winnifred. Her baptism took place on June 29, 1856 in the Killargue chapel and her sponsors were Pat Banks and Anne Martin. Ann had one sister, Mary (b. 1853) and a brother James (b. 1860) and possibly more siblings. The Dolans and Banks are believed to have moved to Leitrim from neighbouring County Sligo in the mid-nineteenth century.

John and Ann were married in the Chapel of Killargue on May 8, 1874. John was 24 and he listed his occupation on the marriage certificate as farmer, as did his father. Ann was a “spinster” and a housekeeper. Thomas Banks and Catherine Booley were the witnesses and Father Peter McCann was the Catholic Curate who officiated.

John was born during the great Irish Potato Famine, a blight that lasted from 1845-1849; Ann was born just afterwards. Life in such times was exceedingly difficult. One third of the population was dependent solely on the potato for survival, and no other food was readily available. At least one million people died of starvation and disease, and a further million emigrated to Canada, the United States, and Britain. The following description was written shortly after the Famine about an area very close to Killargue and gives a glimpse of what life for the Feeheleys and their neighbours was like:

"Few counties suffered more severely than Leitrim during the famine. A vast number of the poorest class of the population were taken away by death and emigration; but some of them still linger in the mountain-districts, and continue to drag on a wretched existence from year to year, always in distress, and often on the verge of starvation. In rambling over the mountains to the north of Manorhamilton, about a mile from a place called Castletown, I came upon two or three hovels belonging to persons of this class, which were certainly as bad as any I had previously seen in any part of Ireland. One of these houses was built by the side of the road and in the immediate vicinity of a bog. It contained two rooms, the largest being twelve feet long by nine feet wide; the other, which served as a sleeping room, was of much smaller dimensions. The floor of the latter was strewn with hay, just as a stable would be littered for horses. It contained no bed or furniture of any description, and the only articles which I saw in the outer room were a stool, an iron pot, a frying pan, and two or three mugs. There were six children in the cabin, three of whom belonged to a strolling beggar woman who had sought and obtained hospitality in the previous evening. The others were the children of the owners of the house; and the eldest of them, a good looking, clean and very intelligent boy, ten years of age, told me that his father was away working for a gentleman, and that his mother had gone to Manorhamilton to sell a creel of turf. The land, he said, was the property of a clergyman; and his father held under a tenant who allowed him to reclaim a portion of the wild moor, and promised to pay him at the end of three years. “Now Denny….denies that he made any promise, and wants to take the garden from us without giving my father anything.” The boy pointed out to me the field, something over an acre, which his father had reclaimed and cultivated. Last year he grew potatoes, oats, and cabbage. The potatoes had been exhausted for some time and the family were surviving on Indian meal [corn]. The extreme paleness of the little children proved that they were not sufficiently fed.”

Perhaps the Feeheleys were better off than those in the above account; they did manage to find the money for passage to Canada, although they could have been sponsored by emigration societies. The only artifact I am aware of that made it with the family to Canada that still exists is John’s shillelagh, a stick or cudgel used for defence or as a walking stick (see picture above). It is now in the possession of my uncle, Michael Feeheley. No gold at the end of the rainbow for us!

There were two stories my Aunt Trudy told me about her grandfather, whom she admitted she did not remember very well. One time, when she was a little girl, they were having dinner and Aunt Trudy didn’t want to eat what was on her plate. Her mother asked her grandfather John what he would do with a little girl who didn’t want to eat her dinner. He replied, “I’d shove it down her throat.” This gruff response had quite the effect on my aunt. It demonstrates an appreciation for food and aversion to wasting it; not surprising considering the deprivation in his homeland and even in Canada during the Great Depression.

The second story involving John Feeheley is quainter. Aunt Trudy’s mother, Marie Labree, had her parents, who were French Canadian, and the Feeheleys over for dinner. The two grandfathers were trying to converse, one with a thick French accent and the other with a thick Irish brogue. John waited for Mr. Labree to leave before telling Marie, “I didn’t understand a word that man said!”. Marie replied, “That’s ok, he told me he didn’t understand a word you said either!”. Obviously John never acquired a Canadian accent.

Aunty Trudy said her grandmother Ann was a “lovely lady” and she was very fond of her. She remembered her strong faith, and she attended Mass regularly. In fact, she died of pneumonia caught as a result of going to church in the dead of winter. The most interesting memory was of her grandmother smoking a pipe, a common habit for Irish women of the time.

EMIGRATION AND LIFE IN TORONTO

John and Ann had ten children, five of whom were born in Ireland. They moved to Toronto in 1882 with Thomas, James, Mary (Minnie), and Catherine (Kate), and little baby John. Once in Canada, they had Winnifred, William, Sarah, Margaret, and Ellen. No one seems to know why they those chose to move to Toronto, when the United States and the United Kingdom were more popular destinations for Catholic Irish. Toronto was very “Orange” and the majority of the Irish in Toronto were Protestants and sometimes hostile to Catholics. There were even riots between the two, especially near St. Patrick’s Day and Orangeman’s Day. In Toronto, however, there were no “Irish ghettoes” as there were in some American cities. While some areas had more Irish than others, and sometimes whole streets were Irish, Toronto’s neighbourhoods were based more by class than ethnicity.

What was Toronto like when they arrived? It was a growing, prosperous town for the most part, with a population of under 200,000 almost entirely of British or Irish stock; it was the second largest city in the Dominion. Dozens of wharves dotted the waterfront, taking in cargo from all over the British Empire and United States. Railways connected the city with its hinterland, and factories were everywhere, especially along the water. The city was still the largest centre for whiskey production and pork in the Empire, hence the nickname “Hogtown”. Bloor Street was the northern border of the city, and streets had just started being paved. Horse-drawn streetcars and buggies transported people around, and cars had yet to make their appearance. It was also know to be a bit dull to outsiders, where on Sundays everyone went to Church, shops were closed, and even tobogganing and using slides was prohibited! That was Toronto the Good!

Within the year of moving to Toronto, tragedy would strike the family twice. Their youngest, John, only nine months old, died of bronchitis and a month later their eldest, Thomas, died of “consumption” (tuberculosis). It must have been hard to be in a strange land and experience such losses, a test to their faith and resolve. Of course, they would have been used to seeing children die in Ireland; today it is hard to believe children could die of such things as bronchitis.

If you look at the Toronto City Directories, you can see that the family moved around frequently. The earliest record shows the Feeheleys living at 2 Virgin’s Lane in St. Paul’s Parish in Corktown in the east end of downtown, an area known to be slummy. In the area was the Gooderham and Worts Distillery. A few years later they were at 23 Richmond Street East. By 1901, the family lived at 27 Edward Street in St. Patrick’s Parish (now Our Lady of Mount Carmel). That house would be across from where the World’s Biggest Bookstore is today. According to the 1901 census, this neighbourhood appeared to be primarily Irish, Italian, and Jewish. Later they would live with their daughter Sarah and her family at 421 Quebec Avenue in the city’s west end.

John held many jobs, including driver, caretaker, gardener, clerk, and general labourer. Ann worked at a laundry on Yonge Street in addition to raising her children. They were solidly working class.

Above: Wellington Street East and Front Street in about 1885, around the time the Feeheleys arrived in Toronto. The building in the centre is on the site of the Gooderham (Flatiron) building. The Hot House Café, owned by Andrew and Elinor (Orsini) Laffey, would be where the buildings on the right are.

THE SECOND GENERATION: THE CHILDREN

(1) Thomas, named for his paternal grandfather, was baptized March 30, 1875 in Killargue. His sponsors were Pat and Catherine Banks. He died of “consumption” (tuberculosis) in Toronto on July 30, 1883 at the young age of eight. He’s buried in the “poor section” of St. Michael’s Cemetery (Yonge St. and St. Clair Ave.).

(2) Catherine Mary (Kate) was born in Killargue on September 16, 1876 and baptized September 23, 1876, sponsored by John and Catherine Dolan. She married Anthony Urbonus in Toronto on November 30, 1907 and had two children: John and Margaret. Before marriage, she was a capmaker for Hughes Levi & Co, a “tailoress”, and a furrier.

[3) James John, born in Ireland, was baptized on August 28, 1878 and sponsored by James and Anne “Feely”. In Toronto, he married Anne Turner on November 15, 1905 and they ran a grocery store on Euclid Avenue. They had no children, although Anne, a widower, did from a previous marriage. James died on February 14, 1908 and he was buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery, Toronto.

(4) Mary (Minnie) was baptized July 11, 1880 in Killargue and sponsored by “?” Dolan and Catherine Banks. The Killargue parish register records that she was “married to William White Sept 1923 at St. Francis’ Church, Simcoe St. Toronto.” They had no children. Toronto City Directories list her as a tailoress and Simpson’s employee. She died Dececmber 24, 1951.

(5) John, named for his maternal grandfather, was born in 1882 in Killargue right before the family emigrated. He made it through the perilous voyage overseas, only to meet an early death at nine months of age from bronchitis. He died June 1st, 1883 and is buried in the “poor section” of St. Michael’s.

(6) Winnifred was the first Feeheley born outside of Ireland, in 1885. She was named for her paternal grandfather. Unfortunately, on February, 1888 she died of croup. She is buried in the poor section of St. Michael's Cemetery.

(7) William John was born in Toronto on July 13, 1886, the first Feeheley to be born in Canada. He was baptized at St. Paul’s Church and educated at St. Patrick’s School. He married Marie Labrie at St. Cecilia’s Church and had two children, Charles (my grandfather) and Gertrude (Louise). He worked as a shipper for Fred Armstrong & Co., then as a manager for Dominion Stores on St. Clair Ave. W., and was later the caretaker at St. James’ Church. He lived at 487 Armadale Avenue. And died there on September 12, 1957.

(8) Sarah Ann was born in Toronto on September 15, 1890. Some of the jobs she held before marriage were “operator” and tailoress. She married Emilio Orsini, an Italian immigrant and the owner of Swansea Construction and Orsini Construction, in 1915. They had five children: Frank, who became a Basilian priest; Eleanor, a Sister of St Joseph; Gerald; Rita; and Basil. In old age, John and Ann Feeheley lived with Sarah and her family at 421 Quebec Avenue until their deaths.

(9) Margaret was born in July 13, 1895 in Toronto. She married Bartley Donnelly and died January 7, 1966.

(10) Ellen was born in Toronto on November 10, 1897 and died at only eighteen months of pneumonia on June 14, 1899.

John died of “old age” on June 9, 1932 at the age of 88. Ann died of pneumonia on May 9, 1937. Both are buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Toronto. Their descendants today can be very proud of these hard-working people, who left a familiar home behind for the great unknown. They suffered hardships, but persevered in a new land through hard work. Their toils contributed to the success of all of us today.

TORONTO CITY DIRECTORY LISTINGS FOR THE FEEHELEYS