Sometimes it helps to keep asking questions about family puzzles. Sometimes it helps to just be lucky. And other times, it takes having knowledgeable strangers just knowing where to look for answers. This time it took all of the above.
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| Catherine Callaghan Pasonault, Bernard Callahan, Margaret M Callahan McGee at the McGee farm in Omaha, Nebraska |
Here is the picture that triggered the questions. Margaret Callahan McGee is my great-grandmother. Margaret’s much younger brother Bernard was a regular family-visitor when my mother was growing up. The third woman in the picture was the puzzle. This sure looked like a sibling shot, especially since there were other, bigger group shots that they were in also. I had an unverified note on one old picture that her name was Kate Pasonault, and her husband’s name was Ernie. Previous research by Mary McGee Clarys on the Callaghans/Callahans had unearthed a family of 8 children (4 boys, 4 girls), and two of them (Margaret and Bernard) had immigrated from Ireland to North Dakota. So who was this other woman? Neither Mary nor I were ever successful at figuring out the Pasonault connection — or even if there was one.
So this summer on our trip through family history in North Dakota, Gerald Maurseth from the Cando Pioneer Foundation, helped us find Ernie Pasonault. Ernie’s full name is Joseph Ernest Pasonault and professionally he usually went by his first two initials. At the Pioneer Foundation in Cando, North Dakota, there are many photographs, and most have “J E Pasonault” and the title of the photo handwritten in white at the bottom of the picture. He must have scratched his name and title into the photo as he was processing them. Ernie was the town’s first official photographer.
While I was still traveling, Mary Clarys went to work on finding more about Ernie Pasonault since the town photographer had to be at least a little bit famous, and now we had his full name. She was successful almost immediately. Ernie is pretty renowned in North Dakota from his photography work. Many of Ernie’s photographs were preserved by Bill Shemorry. When he died, the collection passed to the State Historical Society of North Dakota, and they are now in a digital collection available at digitalhorizonsonline.org.
So with this little bit of data, Mary and I kept poking around trying to find someone with more information about Catherine’s family. At one point, I just gave up and decided to ask for permission to use the family photos in the Shemorry collection. Since the pictures are owned by the State Historical Society of North Dakota, I followed the directions on the photo collection to contact Emily Schultz to request permission to use the photos. When I wrote Emily, in addition to seeking permission to use the images, I also told her about the family puzzle and asked if she had any information on Catherine. Emily went straight to work on our mystery. After searching through the Shemmory Collection, Emily was only able to find a record of Catherine’s birth date but not any family information. But she didn’t stop there. She passed the puzzle on to Jim Davis, Head of Reference for the State Historical Society of North Dakota.
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| Joseph Ernest Pasonault, Kate Callaghan Pasonault, Margaret Marie Callahan McGee, John Carney McGee |
Jim Davis found several impressive records about the John Carney McGee family and the Joseph Ernest Pasonault family. And in an archived research package on North Dakota Pioneers, we see the connection between Catherine Callaghan Pasonault and Margaret M Callahan McGee. The research was done sometime between 1936 and 1942, when John and Margaret were still alive. Margaret makes a statement that she has 4 brothers and 4 sisters. Her only siblings in this country — Kate Pasonault and Bernard Callahan. And the address to the McGee farm (with the bench that is in many family photos) is 4428 Emile Street, Omaha, Nebraska, which today is part of the Nebraska Medical Center.
This puts a whole new spin on trying to figure out why Margaret would come from Ireland and its temperate climate to the intense cold of North Dakota. Her sister Kate had built herself a beautiful life with an up and coming young photographer. I can imagine Kate encouraging her sister to come to join her. But now, why did Kate come? Who would have paid Kate’s travel expenses? Ernie was only a student when they married and an immigrant himself from Canada.
Just a side note on the spelling of the family name. It looks like Kate kept the original Irish spelling of the name, and Margaret and Bernard chose an “Americanized” spelling.
Much thanks to Emily Schultz and Jim Davis from the State Historical Society of North Dakota! I still have much to digest from the data Jim collected, and Emily sent.
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