'Mary Ellen Hannigan was my great-aunt. She graduated from Rockland High School in 1901 and purchased her Foresters policy three years later in 1904. I knew that my great-aunt had passed away from blood poisoning in Chicago, but I didn't have any of the details. In her file with the Foresters, there were details about the religious service that they held in Chicago, as well as an affidavit from the undertaker and a note saying that they shipped her home on the New York Central Railroad to be buried in the family plot at St. Patrick's in Rockland. This is the only known family picture of Mary Ellen, gifted to the graduate's little sister Annice in 1901. When Annice passed in 1975, this photo was found in her possessions and carried home from St. Petersburg, Florida, by my father, who was executor for his aunt. I want to add that Mary Ellen’s maternal grandparents, Michael Crowley and Mary Welch, were married in May 1915 by Father John McElroy, S.J., the founder of Boston College. Michael and his new bride, Mary, are two of the 318 original Irish Famine refugees in the town of Old Abington. I have been working on the 318 Irish immigrants in the town of Abington and the Forester records have been a gold mine. Not only have I found my great-aunt, but I've found a great-grandfather and another Abington citizen whose great-great-granddaughter I work with doing research.'
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