My paternal grandmother, Mary C. Henning Flannigan,
and my father, John Jordan Flannigan, Jr.,
on his christening day, 14 January 1914, Chicago

Mary Cecelia Henning, my paternal grandmother, the second and last child of John Nathaniel Henning and Mary Coleman Henning, was born at her parents' homestead claim near Crow Lake, Jerauld County, Dakota Territory (now South Dakota) on 7 July 1885.  Her father, John Henning (1861-1947) was the second son of Thomas Henning (1831-ca. 1898), a carpenter from Wilmington, Devonshire, England, who was raised in Port Dover, Ontario, Canada, and Sarah Melissa Hendrix Smith (1824-ca. 1890), a widow from West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, who was living in Aurora, Illinois, where she met her second husband in 1855.  Sarah was the eldest child of parents from Berkshire County, Massachusetts, and Albany County, New York; their ancestors had come to Connecticut and Massachusetts in the 1640s.  (Through this line of the family have come tantalizing but so far unsubstantiated stories of my ancestors' involvement with witchcraft during the Salem hysteria of 1692.)  Thomas and Sarah's son John Henning was born in Dixon, Illinois, in August 1862, and grew up in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, where his father worked in home construction.  John Henning's wife, Mary Coleman Kendergan, was born near Tuam, County Galway, Ireland, around 1844, and, as an infant, came with her mother, Bridget Nolan Kendergan (1821-1884) and stepfather, Walter Kendergan (1821-1895) to Orange, New York, settling finally in the 1860s on a farm in Byron, just south of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin.

Life was not easy for settlers in Dakota Territory, but things became much harder for the Hennings in the late 1880s when drought ruined the family's flax and winter wheat crops.  The Hennings finally were forced to abandon their homestead claim, and with John Henning's father Thomas, who forfeited an adjoining claim, my grandmother's family moved to Omaha, Nebraska, and then to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  In the early 1890s, the Henning family moved to Minonk, Illinois, and later to nearby Toluca, a center for coal mining, situated on the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad.  Thomas and John Henning designed and built churches and homes in Minonk and Toluca.

Mary C. Henning, from a tintype probably taken in Milwaukee, Wis., about 1890

It probably was in Toluca that Mary Henning and her older sister Eva Marie Henning Tripp (1883-1981) first became interested in music; the two sisters were in demand as violinist and pianist, respectively, in the Baptist church in Toluca, although the girls attended St. Ann's Catholic Church.  For a time, Mary took violin lessons from a blacksmith in Toluca and then later road the train to and from Streator, Illinois, where she studied with another teacher.

Mary C. Henning at right, with her sister Eva M. Henning, left, and an unidentified girl, center, probably taken in Minonk, Ill., around 1893

After Thomas Henning's death in the late 1890s, John and Mary Henning and their two daughters relocated to Chicago.  The family rented an apartment on the South Side near 37th and State Streets, and then, in 1900, purchased a rowhouse at 4137 South Langley Avenue in the Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood.  Mary Henning completed her education at Hyde Park High School.  She worked as a secretary at the American School, a correspondence school still operating in the Chicago area, and later worked in a law office in downtown Chicago.  About 1906, Mary and her sister Eva decided to embark on musical careers and began musical studies in earnest.  Their first engagement as a musical duo was as accompanists at the Shakespeare Theater on 43rd Street between Drexel Boulevard and Ellis Avenue around 1910.

Some staff members of the American School, 850 E. 58th Street, Chicago, ca. 1908. Mary C. Henning is fifth from left in the last row.

When this venture proved successful, they obtained positions in orchestras at many movie theaters and vaudeville houses, including the Colony Theater at 59th Street and Kedzie Avenue, the Grove Theater at 76th Street and Cottage Grove, and the Peerless Theater near 39th and Grand Boulevard.   The Henning sisters were an effective duo; my great-aunt Eva had a fine grasp of music theory and harmony and could devise and arrange scores to accompany movies and vaudeville acts.  My grandmother, in addition to playing the violin, handled the business end of their partnership and arranged bookings.  The two sisters also played in a number of restaurants and spas.  For example, in the summer of 1912 they were members of an orchestra in residence at Green Lake, Wisconsin, a popular resort community.  Mary and her sister Eva joined the Chicago Federation of Musicians in 1910.

In 1908, Mary Henning was introduced by a neighbor to a new boarder living on her block, John Jordan Flannigan (1877-1944), originally of Aurora, Illinois, who worked as a bookkeeper in the Armour Packing Plant in the Chicago Stock Yards.  Eventually, John Flannigan and his brothers William, Edward, Patrick, and Francis, became boarders at the Hennings' home on Langley Avenue.  John J. Flannigan and Mary C. Henning were married at Holy Angels Catholic Church on 27 April 1912.  After honeymooning in South Bend, Indiana, the newlyweds continued to live in the Henning home.

Mary C. Henning Flannigan's sister, Eva Marie Henning (1883-1981), with her nephew, John Jordan Flannigan (1913-1986), on the front porch of 4068 Lake Park Avenue, spring 1914

In February 1913, Mary's parents purchased a home at 4068 Lake Park Avenue, close to the shore of Lake Michigan, and the Flannigan and Henning families took up residence there.  On 20 December 1913, Mary and John's first child, John Jordan, Jr. (1913-1986), my father, was born in the Lake Park Avenue home.  A second son, William Henning Flannigan (1916-1999), was born there on 6 September 1916.  A daughter, Eva Mary (1924- ), was born 6 November 1924.  In October 1919, my grandprents purchased a rowhouse at 4112 South Ellis Avenue; this was to be the family's home until January 1948.  The house still stands today and has been designated a Chicago landmark, recognizing its importance as a rare surviving example of  the kind of rowhouse construction once common in Kenwood-Oakland.

My grandmother loved to sing and studied for many years with Lila Breed, a voice instructor in Chicago.  She also was an avid fan of opera and particularly enjoyed performances by such legendary figures of the Chicago Opera as soprano Claudio Muzio and tenor Giovanni Martinelli when they visited Chicago.  She encouraged music study in her children and grandchildren as well.  Unfortunately, her career as a theater musician was cut short by the advent of talking motion pictures in 1927.  Nevertheless, she continued to use her entrepreneurial abilities by joining forces with her husband to operate a dance hall called the Club Lake Park, near Pershing Road and Lake Park Avenue, during the Great Depression.  My grandmother, great aunt, and other friends and family members furnished musical entertainment at the dance hall, and the enterprise provided a much-needed antitode to the gloom and despair of the early 1930s.  When "A Century of Progress," the world's fair celebrating Chicago's centenary, opened on Chicago's lakefront in 1933, Mary and my grandfather John took advantage of the fair's close proximity by remodeling the family home into a licensed tourist home for visitors to the fair.

My grandfather passed away in March 1944, and in 1948 my grandmother and her children moved farther south along Ellis Avenue to an apartment at 8222 South Ellis in the Chatham-Avalon Park neighborhood.  The next year, she and her family moved to an apartment at 8339 South Ingleside Avenue.  In 1952, she purchased a two-flat with her sister and brother-in-law at 8128 South Langley Avenue, where she lived until 1959.  Although she seldom played her violin in later years, she continued to enjoy music and was an avid collector of phonograph records.  She also especially enjoyed those hallmarks of early television, professional wrestling and The Groucho Marx Show.

One of the highlights of my grandmother's last years was a trip she took to Europe with her sister and two of her children in the spring of 1958.  She visited Dublin, London, Paris, Lourdes, and Rome, before returning home on board the S. S. United States.  My grandmother moved to 7125 South Constance Avenue in 1959, where she died on 26 May 1961.  She is buried with her husband, parents, sister and brother-in-law in Mount Carmel Cemetery, Hillside, Illinois.

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