Jeremiah Finn, 1848,
and
Johanna O'Keefe Finn, 1852
Jeremiah Finn was born in Rathdowney, Laois,
Ireland in 1848, to parents Patrick and Ann Finn. The family emigrated to
the United States around 1863 according to the
1952 Lima News obituary for his sister Anna
Finn. A New York, U.S. Arriving passenger list from 1872 has a
Jeremiah Finn, 21, grocer arriving from Ireland but the age
is a couple years off. There is a U. S.
naturalization record in 1884 for a Jeremiah (Jerry) Finn with no other
information regarding residence, age, etc. Johanna O'Keefe
appears to have been married in Lorain County
Ohio to John Mahoney, who died in 1859. She was living in Lorain with her
three children, Cornelius, Mary, and John in
1870. By 1880, she was married to Jeremiah
Finn and living in Lima, Ohio. By then, the children were going by the
last name Finn, though John went by Mahoney later in
life. The 1880 U. S. census listed the Finn
household at 102 Elizabeth Street in Lima, Ohio with Jerry Finn, 34,
Jemima Finn, 33, Cornelius, 14, Mary, 12, John, 10, Patrick,
7, William, 5, Anna, 2, and Jeremiah, 1 month.
Jeremiah's occupation was listed as "works in car shop". Jeremiah and
Johanna would go on to have another eight children:
Tracy (Teresa), Nancy (Frances), Frank, Hugh,
James, another Cornelius (after the first one died), Edward, and Margaret.
A July 16, 1881 story in The Democratic Times read
as follows: "Cornelius Finn, a
young man who has been for some time been employed in Tom Fitz's grocery
store, died on last Wednesday with lockjaw. He was trifling with a
toy pistol on the Fourth of
July, and shot himself in the hand, the wound however, not giving him much
trouble. He was able to attend his duties in the store, and worked until
Tuesday last, when owing to the
violent pains in his hand he was compelled to cease work. On Wednesday he
was attacked with lockjaw, from which he suffered until Wednesday
evening when death relieved his
sufferings.". Cornelius was about fifteen years old at the time of his
death. Their other son Cornelius also died very young. Born in 1890, he
died
in 1904. The Lima News obituary
(5-30-1904) said that Cornelius Finn was thirteen years old at the time of
his death. The article stated that young Cornelius had been ill for
two months, and then as he was
seeming to be getting better, died suddenly of heart failure. Mary Amanda
Mahoney Finn was a nun living in Oklahoma in her adulthood.
Jeremiah Finn, the younger, was a cigar maker
with F. Gardner. Frank Finn was living in Minnesota in 1913. A railroad
worker, he was murdered by a co-worker after Frank
called him a "cheap skate". John Davis, the
co-worker confessed to the murder and received a life sentence.