In the late 1890’s, Slater House was home to my Scottish and Irish ancestors. James F Devenney married my great grand aunt, Elizabeth Brown (1898-1973). Elizabeth lived in Slater house as early as 1905, when she was 7 years old.
Although James and Elizabeth were married in 1918, their first son Thomas was not born until 1921. During the 1920 Census, Elizabeth and James both lived at Slater House, with her brothers John and Charlie. Charlie’s wife died the year prior and his children, Hazel Mae and Harold lived there as well.
James Devenney was fun to research. It turns out that in 1919 bunch of families were attending an Independence Day picnic for mail carriers. As the picnic ended, some 75 people got on the trolley, staffed by Devenney and Zetlinger. Zetlinger panicked when greasy tracks made his brakes fail and shouted a panicked warning to the crowd. Something to the tune of “run for your lives, we’re all going to die, we have no brakes.” This caused a pandemonium as you can imagine, and one family began throwing their children off the train. Others jumped from the train, some were injured but Devenney calmly and cooly blocked the doors to keep other passengers from jumping and pulled the emergency brake (maybe it has a different name on a train but the story isn’t harmed by calling it an emergency brake. In this situation, that’s exactly what it was.)
In addition to saving the day at the 4th of July picnic, he worked as a driver for most of his adult life, winning so many safety awards I lost count, I’m pretty sure he never once had an accident. Wait, when he was 78 years old he hit a tree and escaped injury, so I think he’s still got a perfect safety record, no thanks to the dog.
James and Elizabeth’s first son Thomas died in Germany in 1945. I have several other clippings of James and Elizabeth celebrating anniversaries and weddings and retirements and life with their friends and family. Newspapers are an excellent resource for salvaging details about the personal lives of your ancestors that you’d never find in their birth and death certificates.
James and Elizabeth Devenney are shown here in the 1920 Census for 114 Slater St. They’re the last two shaded entries, living in the household of her parents John and Mary Brown. Although unshaded, the household of William Orr is also living at 114 Slater in this year. Agnes Orr is the daughter of Elizabeth McDonald, as is Mary Brown. So Elizabeth Devenney is living in a house with her new husband, her parents, her aunt and uncle and her grandmother, plus a handful of cousins. I can not even imagine what that would feel like. If her smile is any indicator, it must be quite lovely.