My
paternal grandfather, John Jordan Flannigan, around the time of his graduation
from the Commercial Program of the Indiana Normal School (now Valparaiso University),
June 1900 My
paternal grandfather, John Jordan Flannigan, around the time of his graduation
from the Commercial Program of the Indiana Normal School (now Valparaiso University),
June 1900 John Jordan Flannigan, my paternal grandfather, was born 20 June 1877 in Aurora, Illinois, the first of ten children born to Anthony Flannigan (1843-1924) and Margaret Jordan (1852-1937). Anthony Flannigan, the son of William Flannigan and Margaret Collins, was probably born in County Roscommon, Ireland, but his family moved to rural County Mayo when Anthony was a boy. Margaret Jordan was born in Castlebar, County Mayo, on 1 January 1852, the daughter of Myles Jordan, Crown Solicitor for County Mayo, and Margaret Shields.
After John Jordan Flannigan's birth, Anthony and Margaret Flannigan quickly added to their family. In rapid succession were born William Collins (1878-1964); Edward Jennings (1881-1956), Patrick Henry (1883-1954), Francis (1885-1936), Mary (1887-1953), Margaret (1889-1900), and James (1893-1908). Two other children died in infancy. Anthony, Margaret and all of their children, except for John Jordan, are buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Aurora.
John had dreams of becoming a lawyer, but instead he settled for a commercial course at the Indiana Normal School in Valparaiso, Indiana. (The school later became Valparaiso University.) While a student, John became caught up in the fervor surrounding William Jennings Bryan's runs for the presidency in 1896 and 1900 and became a supporter of the Populist ticket. At Valparaiso, he learned bookkeeping, accounting, shorthand, and typing. Around 1901, he moved to Chicago with a few of his brothers and lived in the Alexandria Hotel at Ohio and Rush Streets on the Near North Side. The neighborhood around the hotel was rough in those days, and the Flannigans kept a gun in their hotel room. John took a job as a bookkeeper at the Armour Packing Plant in the Union Stock Yards and soon moved to the South Side, taking up lodging at 55th Street and Lafayette Avenue in St. Anne's Parish.
Around 1907, John moved to a boarding house on Langley Avenue and 41st Street in the South Side's Grand Boulevard neighborhood, and in 1908 met a neighbor, Mary C. Henning, whose parents ran a boarding house at 4137 Langley Avenue. John and later his brothers William, Edward, Patrick, and Frank lodged with the Hennings for a number of years. On 27 April 1912, John Flannigan and Mary C. Henning were married at Holy Angels Church on Oakwood Boulevard. John had recently bought a 1912 Velie automobile, and the couple drove to South Bend, Indiana, for their honeymoon at the Hotel Oliver.
In February 1913, the Hennings and the newlywed couple moved to a house at 4068 Lake Avenue (the street name had recently been changed to "Lake Park," as it is still known today). Their first child, John Jordan Flannigan, Jr., my father, was born in the family home on 20 December 1913. Around this time, John Flannigan, Sr., took a job as a clerk with the City of Chicago, and then became a bookkeeper with the T. C. Keller Coal Company, whose offices were in downtown Chicago. John was always devoted to his mother-in-law, Mary Henning, and in 1913 accompanied her to a recital by the great Irish tenor John McCormack at Chicago's Auditorium Theatre. John and Mary's second child, William Henning, was born on 6 September 1916.
The Oakland neighborhood on Chicago's South Side where the Hennings and Flannigans lived was for many years an all-white enclave. Neighborhoods to the north and west , however, experienced racial change from white to black populations. In fact, Chicago's famous Bronzeville neighborhood, a mecca of music and entertainment for African-Americans, was immediately west of Oakland. There was plenty of racial tension, however, and there was little mixture between the neighborhoods' residents. On 27 July 1919, the South Side of Chicago erupted in a deadly race riot after an incident at the 27th Street Beach when a young black boy unknowingly drifted into the "white" swimming area and was stoned to death. Marauding gangs of whites and blacks took over the streets for several days before the Illinois National Guard was called in. John Flannigan sent his wife and children to Aurora via train to escape the strife. Despite the tensions surrounding the riot and increasingly strong pressures to move away, the family did not leave the Oakland neighborhood until after World War II.
The
office staff of T. C. Keller Coal, 37 West Van Buren Street, Chicago, John J.
Flannigan (fourth from right), circa 1922
In October 1919, John and Mary bought an 1880s rowhouse at 4112 S. Ellis Avenue, about two blocks from the Hennings' home on Lake Park Avenue. The Flannigan family owned this home until it was sold in 1953. Today the house is a Chicago Landmark, a rare surviving example of rowhouse construction that was typical in nineteenth-century Oakland. The family belonged to Holy Angels Parish, and their children--a third child Eva Mary was born 6 November 1924--attended Holy Angels School.
John Flannigan loved to travel and the family took frequent car trips to sightsee and to camp. In 1923, the family drove to New York and Washington in John's 1914 Reo Touring Car, and during the trip witnessed the funeral train of President Warren Harding as it sped from San Francisco to Washington. While in Washington, John Flannigan took his family to the S Street home of ex-President Woodrow Wilson, a man he deeply admired, and his son John, Jr., watched as Wilson waved to the gathered crowd. John was a lifelong Democrat, attending rallies for Al Smith during his run for the presidency in 1928 and later closely following the career of Franklin D. Roosevelt, a particular hero. In 1929 the family visited the Dakotas and Minnesota.
Starting in 1926, John Flannigan began buying vacant lots in the West Pullman neighborhood of Chicago's Far South Side. He secured construction loans, and with his father-in-law John N. Henning, a talented carpenter, John Flannigan built several frame bungalows on Yale and Harvard Avenues near 123rd Street. After the completed houses were sold, John Flannigan took back second mortgages to assist the homebuyers. This plan would have worked well but for the 1929 stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression. As things turned out, the real estate venture failed and the family was barely able to hang on to their family home on Ellis Avenue.
Left
to right: Patrick H. Flannigan (1883-1954); William C. Flannigan (1879-1964);
Mary Henning Flannigan (1885-1961); Mary Flannigan (1887-1953); John J. Flannigan
(1877-1944); Edward J. Flannigan (1881-1956); back steps of 4112 Ellis Ave.,
Chicago, 1942
Things had gone poorly for John Henning, too. To raise money to open a dance hall, he had mortgaged his family home and then had run into financial difficulty. John Flannigan assisted in the management of the dance hall, named the Club Lake Park, located in a large hall at 39th Street and Lake Park Avenue. Various family members furnished music and food, and the Club ran successfully for a number of years until the Hennings' mortgage was retired.
John Flannigan never completely recovered from the blow of his failed real estate venture. He worked a series of jobs, including as a groundskeeper for the Cook County Forest Preserve District in the south suburbs and as a census taker in the 1940 census. In 1933, upon the opening of the Century of Progress World's Fair on Chicago's lakefront, John remodeled the family home and converted it to a licensed tourist home for fair visitors. Because the home was close to the south entrance to the fair grounds, business proved strong, and the family was able to make ends meet.
John Flannigan was anxious when both of his sons were drafted during World War II, and he followed the war's progress anxiously, studied maps of troop movements, and wrote frequently to his sons. He developed stomach cancer in late 1943 and died unexpectedly on 29 March 1944 while his son William was serving in the Army in Europe and his son John was stationed at Camp Blanding near Jacksonville, Florida, preparing to be shipped out for active duty in Europe. John Flannigan was buried with his mother-in-law in Mount Carmel Cemetery in west suburban Hillside, Illinois, on 1 April 1944.