The Grace family appears to have immigrated over to the US in May 1881, arriving on the SS Greece, which departed from London. So the family traveled from New Ross to London first, before crossing the Atlantic to Castle Garden in New York.
There is a passenger list which includes the Graces, which I have to admit was a thrilling thing to find. The whole family is listed (though Ellen's first name is smudged out a bit and illegible). Richard (written as Rich Grace, age 42, and with laborer listed as his occupation); his wife, age 35 (while Ellen Dreelan was close to Richard's age, Ellen Murphy Leahy was younger than he was), and the children. "Michl" was 18 and also listed as a laborer; "Brid" was 14 and listed as a spinster (which seems odd at that young age). Some people seeing Bridget's abbreviated name misinterpreted it as "Bird," and have that as her nickname in their trees. Not sure how they see that, because it clearly looked like "Brid" to me, and the names are clearly abbreviated. Plus, I've never seen her referred to as "Bird" anywhere else. Following her was "Pat," age 12, also listed as a laborer; "Margt," age 10, and listed as "child," followed by Thomas, age 7, John, age 4, and James, age 2, all listed as "child."
For awhile, I wasn't sure where they could have gone next, though I know they ended up in Clarendon, PA. Eventually I found that they went straight there upon landing in the US. There was another Grace family in Clarendon that I firmly believe were cousins. The patriarch was a man named Thomas Grace, and I briefly considered that he could be an older brother to Richard, but the age difference was decades, and it seemed likelier that he was an uncle rather than a brother. But they lived on the same street at times, and Richard bought property from their daughter, Bridget Grace Malone.
I did also find a death notice for Ellen in 1899 of "grippe," (essentially the flu), and even an obituary in the newspaper. The wonderful thing about her obit (only to a family historian is an obituary "wonderful") is that not only does it list every child, but also WHERE they were at the time, which opened up a lot of information for me in my continued search. It also left a big mystery as yet unsolved, because it listed every child ... except Patrick. Where was he? At the moment, still missing. I really think he passed away, but I can't find any information to support that, but it may be mostly because there's not a lot of sources available with death information from the 1880s into the 1890s in Warren County. Later in the 1890s, yes, that's how I found Ellen's death notice in a source only on FamilySearch, and unindexed.
So I'm still in search of Patrick, but of course he has an incredibly common name, so it's not going to be easy. And while Ellen's death essentially closed the door on her story, it was kicked back open again more than a year later.
I was exploring around on the Pennsylvania State Archives website, seeing what sources they had, when I found that they had some records from state hospitals, including the Warren State Hospital. That triggered something in my head, as I remembered that Margaret Grace had died in the 1950s in the Warren State Hospital, which was essentially a mental hospital. I sent an inquiry ... and yes, they had a record on her. So I ordered it, and after a time, it was emailed to me. And it was wondrous. It was a medical file, but there were also interviews with her, and even family information. For someone who the family knew very little about, I was about to find out more about her than anyone else alive knew.
The key thing was that she completely reinforced my finding that Ellen Dreelan died, and Richard Grace remarried, because she admitted that in an interview. But then it got sad, because it turned out that Ellen Murphy Leahy was very cruel to her. She was never allowed to play with other children, and had to spend all her time cleaning the house. She was suffering from senility and paranoia when she was in the hospital, but her interviews and history gleaned from people in Warren who knew her indicated she had been that way for a long time. She was also very superstitious, and believed she could talk to those who were dead, which of course would trigger people in the US to think she was crazy, but later research indicated was a surprisingly common belief in Ireland, where a lot of people believed in spirits, fairies, and thought they could communicate with the dead. It was interesting that among the interviewees about her was an acquaintance who thought she didn't have any mental issues, but was just eccentric.
One thing I found interesting was that when interviewed, Margaret could remember when Ellen died, and had the exact date right (she also had Richard's death date right). But oddly enough, she couldn't remember Ellen's name. According to the interviewer, she said her mother's name was Deland Richards. So why could she remember the exact date, but not her name? Granted, Margaret was still young, only 8 years old at the time. She also remembered her siblings, but not entirely accurately. She couldn't remember her only sister Bridget, but instead remembered her husband's name and claimed he was a sibling. She noted that Richard Jr. was dead (he didn't come over with the family for some unknown reason, and I found a death registry listing for him a few years after the family left). She didn't list any of her other siblings as dead, though by that time, only she, James and Thomas were left. But clearly Margaret hadn't been in touch with any of them, so she may not have known.
The file was actually very sad, because she clearly had mental issues and was in decline, and she did get worse over the years she lived in the hospital and died there. And as no one claimed her body (James was still alive, but I don't even know if he knew she was dead, or cared, and I have no idea if the cousins in town knew or cared, either), it was donated to a medical school for dissection. A short time after that, I found a directory of bodies from state hospitals that had been donated, and I found where her body went in Philadelphia, and that it had been used in medical education for two years, after which point the remains were buried in an unmarked grave in a Philadelphia cemetery that had a section for medical cadavers.
Sort of a sad ending, but that's family history research ... sometimes you find good things, sometimes you find sad things. I even found a photo of her online, from her passport application in 1921. As far as I know, it's the only photo of her that anyone has.
Of course, why she had a passport was another mystery that my research solved, because it was entirely the story of her wayward brother, James.
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