James Rooney

I have no reliable information on George Nichols, except that his year of birth was 1856. Where he was born, who his parents were, are unknown to me. There is the story that he was born on a wagon train and left with the Indians, and one relative thinks she heard he was from Pennsylvania.

Cecelia Nichols was the daughter of James Rooney. The documentation I have shows he was born in Ireland in 1817 or 1818, but there is no indication of when he arrived in America. However, he must have arrived before the famine set in, because he served on the USS Delaware for the entire duration of the Civil War. He died in South Dakota. Cecelia's mother's name was Mary, and the only other information I have about her is that she was born in Illinois in 1841, which means she was 33 years younger than James. Since Cecelia was born in 1862, he must have had some quality shore leave with his 20 year old wife. Cecelia must have had a sister named Helen who married a Peter Hagan in 1881. The marriage license states that she was 23 at that date, which would mean Helen was born when her mother was only 17. They also must have had a brother whose son George attended the same school as Cecelia's children.

And that pretty well sums up all I can extract from the material I have at hand concerning my Grandmother's parents and grandparents.

The USS Delaware was a gunboat with the duty of keeping the embargo against the South in the area of the Chesapeake Bay. It was a very early implementation of steam technology in ships.

George and Cecelia Nichols

One of the reasons it's so hard to disentangle all the Nichols family relationships is that George and Cecelia had so many children. Large families were the rule in those days. These children were the generation of my grandmother and her brothers and sisters. I remember some of them but not others. I think all of them were born in South Dakota. Perhaps the photo of this sod house was taken there, maybe about the same time as when some of their children received this Christmas card from their teacher. My grandmother's name is on it and she would have been seven years old in 1902. If she is one of the two younger girls standing to Cecelia's right then both the card and the photo are from about the same time.

The next group photo was taken ten years later and they are all in Canada. I think all of the Nichols clan appears here, including May and her mother. They must have all come up together. Now that I know something about the Williams, if someone could tell me who the Moores and the Hyatts might be I would be very grateful.