Thursday, October 21, 2010

John Charles Slowey - Wisconsin to South Dakota

John Charles Slowey is my 2nd great grandfather.  He was born February 24, 1861 in Wisconsin.  I believe this to be true - not because his death certificate shows his date of birth (oh no, that would be too easy) - but because his death certificate DOES give me his exact age of 67 years, 2 months, and 0 days.  John died on April 26, 1928.  I simply did the math.

It turns out that death certificates are chock full of information!  John died on April 26, 1928, in Yankton Township, Yankton County, South Dakota at Sacred Heart Hospital at 2:15 a.m.  He was the husband of Theresa Slowey and was a farmer.  His father was Patrick Slowey, born in Ireland, and his mother was Catherine McCabe, also born in Ireland.  He was sick from March 29, 1928 until April 26 when he died.  It looks like his cause of death was "multiple abscess of the lung" as a result of pneumonia that he contracted while in Irene, South Dakota.  He was buried on April 28, 1928 in Catholic Cemetery in Mayfield, South Dakota.  The undertaker, Joseph Frick, signed the certificate.  I wish I could read his doctor's name.  The "informant" for the certificate is listed as "Mrs. John Nooney."  I wonder how she fits into this puzzle ...


Whew!  All that from one piece of paper (which, it turns out, I have had in my possession since January 2000).

Obviously, I have some serious digging to do in order to discover more information about my great great grandfather.  Next stop ... census records!

4 comments:

kathleen hall said...

My great grandfather is Bernard Slowey the oldest brother of John Charles. Our records show John was born feb 04 1859. He was the fifth of ten children.
Kathleen Slowey Hall
Tampa Fl

Unknown said...

Kathleen - OMG I'm so glad you found my blog! Please contact me at lostancestors [at] gmail [dot] com. I would love to discuss the family with you!

jack the stroller said...

us nooney's pop up everywhere , i am from ireland westmeath and share that first and last name .

Unknown said...

Thanks Jack! I have since discovered that "Mrs. John Nooney" was actually John Charles' daughter Katie. I'm still trying to prove my way back to Ireland - as I'm pretty sure that's where all the Sloweys came from.

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