MOM & POP WRIGHT
As told by Mary Wright Grochowski
James and Anna Brennan Wright were the forebears of our present day family. They were affectionately known as Mom and Pop and were the parents of eleven children, grandparents of thirty-nine grandchildren and great grandparents to over two hundred children.
Pop came from Ballingary, Tipperary County, Ireland. His father, John, came to America in 1887 to obtain work in the coal mines and to establish a home for his family. A year later, in 1888, his oldest children – Johanna and Richard – came to help him and a year after that his wife, Mary Meany Wright, came with Bridget, Mary, Michael and James (our Pop).
They lived in a home on Railroad Street in Larksville. Pop always told the story of arriving by train from New York and walking up the tracks from Kingston to their coal company home. The family later moved to a house on the corner of State and Murray St. (later occupied by the Salek family).
They had a small farm there where their mother was called Granny Wright by all.
Mom Wright, the daughter of Timothy Brennan and Anna Cosgrove Brennan, was Born on
February 2, 1881 in Plymouth, Pa. (Timothy was the son of Thomas and Mary Comerford Brennan who immigrated to the United States circa 1830-1834 from Kilkenny. Anna was the daughter of John and Mary Burke Cosgrove). Mom was one of eight children – Margaret, Thomas, Catherine, James, Anna (Mom), Timothy, William and Joseph.
Mom and Pop were married in 1901 in St. Vincent’s Church in Plymouth, Pa. They made their home in Plymouth, Pa. where five of their eleven children were born:
John (Jack) – 8/29/1901
Anna (Nanc) – 11/22/1903
Timothy (Tim) – 6/26/1904
Mary- 6/22/1906
Margaret (Peg) – 6/20/1908
They attended St. Vincent’s School in Plymouth. They moved to Murray St. in Larksville where three more children were born:
James (Jim) – 3/17/1911
Richard (Dick) – 9/11/1914
William (Bill) – 6/22/1916
They then moved to a converted school house at 84 State Street where the last three children were born:
Michael (Mike) – 1/14/1920
Fidelis (Fidel) – 4/23/1923
Regina (Rea) – 6/24/1926
Yes, they produced eleven children in twenty-five years. There were three grandchildren born before Rea.
Pop worked in the mines and then became a custodian in the State Street School building. He was well liked and, aside from his janitor work, he would give haircuts to any boy the teachers sent to him.
Mom died on December 3, 1936. She was buried from their home on State Street. The fifteen grandchildren born at this time were able to view her. Pop died on December 22, 1962 of carcinoma of the stomach. They are buried in St. Ignatius Cemetary, Pringle, Pa.
Mom and Pop lived in very hard times but were able to raise their eleven children to be a close knit family who cared deeply for each other and who rewarded them with generations of grandchildren who continue to honor them.
MOM WRIGHT – a short history of the BRENNAN FAMILY
The following information about the family of our GRANDMOTHER, Anna Brennan, was gathered by Mary Wright Grochowski.
Anna (born in 1881 in Plymouth, Pa) married our GRANDFATHER, James Wright (born in 1880 in County Tipperary, Ireland). That marriage was celebrated in St. Vincent’s Catholic Church in Plymouth in 1904.
Anna and James had eleven children. Eldest to youngest: John, Anna, Timothy, Mary, Margaret, James, Richard, William, Michael, Fidelis and Regina (Rea). We have remained a tight-knit family throughout the years, and this website is a celebration of our roots.
The Brennan side of our family has deep roots in the United States. Our GREAT-GREAT GRANDFATHER, Thomas Brennan was born in 1788 in County Kilkenny, Ireland. There, he married Mary Comerford and together they immigrated to the U.S. around 1830-1834. We are not certain of dates in these early years. They settled in Cass Township, Schulkill County, PA.
Thomas worked in the coal mines, and they had nine children: Margaret, Thomas, Mary, William, James, Timothy (our GREAT GRANDFATHER), John, Michael and Patrick.
Timothy, our GREAT GRANDFATHER, was born in Mackeysburg, Schulkill County in 1844. He married Ann Cosgrove in 1865 in St. Kieran’s Church in Heckscherville. Ann’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Ireland. Ann Cosgrove was born in Schulkill County in 1851. She died at age 56 in 1907. Timothy enrolled in the U.S. Army at age 20 during the Civil War. He served in Company C, 45th PA Regiment in Alexandria, Virginia. Ann’s brother, William Cosgrove, also served having enrolled in 1862.
Timothy was discharged in July 1865, married a year later, and lost his arm in a mine accident in October, 1866. He became a fire boss in the mines.
Timothy and Ann had 8 children: Margaret, Thomas, Catherine, James, Anna (our GRANDMOTHER), Timothy, William and Joseph. The children were born between 1870-1889. When our great grandmother Ann Cosgrove Brennan died in Plymouth, a large funeral gathering took place with many members of the Ladies Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians present.
We have some information about their other children: Margaret married John Murray (born in England) and they had 9 children – James, Timothy, Thomas, Julia, William, John, Margaret, Ann and Mary. Thomas fought in the Spanish American War. He is buried next to his father in St. Vincent’s Cemetery, Plymouth.
Catherine married Charles Mangan and they had three children – Ann (married John McGuire), Mary (married Christopher Sheridan and
When Charles Manga died, Catherine re-married John Early and they had a child who died in infancy.
James married Sadie Walker and had one stillborn child. William was a train operator for Nottingham Coal Company in Plymouth.
Joseph married Elizabeth Barry and they had nine children.
The Brennans were a very large family, moving from mining areas in Schulkill County to Plymouth, Pa over the years. We are very proud of our Brennan roots, their immigration in the early years of the coal mining industry, and their contributions to family and country.
God Bless our large family and those of us who came after.
WRIGHT FAMILY MEMORIES
As told by Jack Hughes, First Born Grandson
(March, 2015)
I, Jack Hughes, (son of Gene and Nance), was the first grandchild of Mom and Pop Wright, so I grew up with almost all of my aunts and uncles. I don’t remember much of my first five years but after that, I used to spend much of my summers in Larksville. It didn’t matter where I stayed – I was welcomed everywhere.
Jimmy Wright and I were always together and we played a lot of baseball. If I stayed on a Saturday night, we had to take a bath. Aunt Anna would put a blanket on the doorway between the kitchen and dining room and fill the galvanized tub with water that was heated by containers on the coal stove. The girls took the first baths and the boys the last (for obvious reasons). The water was continually heated from the water on the stove.
Jimmy and I were together most of the time. When we went to Louie Levinson’s store on Wilson Street, Louie used to call us Hans and Fritz, the Katzenjammer Kids. That was a cartoon in the Times Leader newspaper.
Pop Wright was the supreme boss! He bought a car but never drove. It was a Studebaker sedan (somewhere between a 1930-1933), but was only used when Pop said it was ok. I remember every Sunday we went to church at St. Ignatius in Kingston with all the boys except Uncle Jack. Uncle Dick usually drove. There was a garage in the back yard but it wasn’t used much. Maybe it was kept there in the winter time. The car was also used to take a bunch of us to Harvey’s Lake on the weekends.
Mom had a rocker which was in the dining room near the door leading to the upstairs. I remember sitting on her lap and I remember her hugs. She was the best ever! Pop’s chair was on the opposite side of the big dining room table. He listened to Father Coughlin on the radio every Sunday afternoon for about an hour. No one dared to say a word while he spoke – which was more politics than a sermon.
Uncle Jack: I thought he was the smartest man I ever knew. He was a councilman in Larksville for a long time and appointed Mike to the police force. He was an excellent carpenter and built a work shop in his back yard. He also put a toilet in Mom & Pop’s house – with the help of Uncle Bill. That was a first around there at that time. When we lived in Wilkes-Barre, Uncle Jack tore down the wall to the upstairs and built a beautiful open stairway.
Nance: My mother – she was like Mom Wright – the best! (You can read more about Jack’s memories of his mother on the Hughes family page).
Uncle Tim: He never said much – I guess because the others did all the talking. Every Saturday Mom used to have the big meal which was steak and beans and other veggies. Uncle Tim aways broiled his steak using the toaster utensil. He used to do the crossword puzzle in the paper and I always looked at it after he finished. He usually completed them. I think that’s why I started doing them – and still do them (at this writing I am 91 years old)!
Aunt Mary and Aunt Peg were usually washing clothes, ironing shirts, etc. They were like another mother to me – they were great!
Uncle Jim was also quiet. I think he worked for Louie Levinson and also helped Pop as Janitor of the school. He and Aunt Helen had a store next to Levinsons with a little card playing and the like in the back room.
Uncle Dick was the jokester in the family. You never knew what he would come up with. One night we were all there. The kids were in the kitchen, most of us eating our favorite snack of homemade bread (there wasn’t any other kind) with butter and sugar. Uncle Dick told us that they had to remove Uncle Jim’s appendix because they couldn’t reach the doctor. They put the lights out in the dining room and kitchen and put a bed sheet between the dining room and the living room (where he performed operations). The light was left on in the living room and we could see the silhouettes. He used a large knife to make the incision and Uncle Jim groaned. Uncle Dick said to his helper, Uncle Bill, “I guess we didn’t give him enough ether and we don’t have anymore”. Uncle Bill then hit the table near Uncle Jim’s head with a hammer and it looked like he knocked him out. Uncle Dick proceeded to remove something like the liver and the kidneys and told Uncle Bill to throw them away because Uncle Jim wouldn’t need them anymore. He then started to pull out his appendix, which was actually a 10 or 15 ft. rope. After that he shook Uncle Jim and said, “Ok, Jim, you’re finished”. Then Dick and Bill came out and said they had to wash the blood off their arms (ketchup, of course). That was a long story, but it was the kind of thing our family did,
Uncle Bill was also a good story teller. Sometimes we affectionately called him an Irish Blatherskite. He used to work as the truck driver for a wholesale dealer from Wilkes-Barre. He often came to our house in the Heights for lunch which was usually leftovers. He was in the Tank Battalion during World War II under General Patton. He used to say Patton got some of his ideas from him.
Uncle Mike – now, he was my hero! I got all of his hand-me-downs and liked them all! When Mike was in the army he came home for a week’s leave. One night – or afternoon – he drove the Studebaker over to our house with Rita and Fidel. He then drove to St. Ignatius Church were he and Rita got married. Fidel was the bridesmaid and I was the Best Man. We then went to dinner at a restaurant. In a couple of days his leave was over and we didn’t see him for about four years. What a great guy he was! He was in all the invasions in the Atlantic which were North Africa, Sicily, Italy and France.
Fidel was my buddy. She was about fifteen months older than me and we were like brother and sister. She was the tomboy in the family and could play ball as good or better than any boy – except Jimmy. She was the only one I can think of that had a bike and she rode it all over Larksville. When I was in the navy, Fidel used to write to me every month or so. The letters were hilarious. She told me all about the animals in the neighborhood, cut faces off some pictures and pasted them on others. I would get about three or four of them at one time because we were at sea and didn’t get them until we came to port. All of my buddies used to read them and got a charge out of them. I think she would have made a good author.
(Jimmy and I were in the navy for about three years each. Jimmy was on a Destroyer, the U.S.S. Harrison, mostly in the South Pacific. He was in most of the invasions over there, probably ten or eleven of them. I spent my time half in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and the other half in the Pacific. After invading France we went back to New York and had the ship and invasion boats repaired from the damages we took. I was on the amphibious boats which took the troops onto the beaches).
Rea was like a kid sister to me. She used to be with Mollie a lot.
When Fidel was born, the church wouldn’t baptize her with the name Fidelis because it wasn’t a Saint’s name, so Mom called her Mary Fidelis which was ok. The same with Rea (Regina) who was then baptized Catherine Regina.