"A Celtic Crossing"

By David W. Keelan and Terrance P. Keelan

In 1846, her husband Patrick dead, and alone with six boys, Nancy Keelan, made an appointment to see the manager of the estate on which she was a tenant.  By the end of their meeting Nancy had sold all of her and Patrick’s possessions in exchange for passage to America for herself and four of her sons.  They would be joining Patrick’s family in Johnstown, Pennsylvania.  Under the watchful eye of the estate manager, she placed all of their possessions into their cottage and touched a torch to the thatched roof, assuring the estate manager that Nancy and her sons had nothing to return home to. 

Nancy’s son (my ggg grandfather) Peter was in love with a girl from across the county line in Cavan.  Although we don’t know her name, she must have been quite a prize because Peter left his family for her and knew he would never see them again.  Like many other Irish families who saw loved ones off to the “new land[t1] ” from where no one ever returned, Peter probably held a wake for his departing mother and brothers, and mourned their departure as if they, like his father, were dead. 

Peter took the young girl as his wife and along with his younger brother, [name?], moved from County Monaghan to County Cavan where they joined his young bride's family. 

Soon Peter was three times a father and, as the Irish often do, he gave his children family names, Peter, Catherine and Bernard (my gg grandfather).  For five years the young family struggled through the famine raging through the island and for five years Peter watched his wife waste away and finally succumb to sickness and hunger.  Peter buried his wife, said goodbye to his now grown brother, took his young, frail and feeble children in his arms and left to join his mother in Johnstown. 

Peter and his three children were often ill – the lingering effects of the famine or just as likely  from contracting tuberculosis on the ship that took them to Philadelphia.  Nevertheless, they were reunited with his mother, brothers, cousins and almost one hundred other Keelans in Johnstown.  In a sense, they had risen from the dead to begin a new life in America.  

Life in America!  What kind of life could four chronically ill and illiterate Irish immigrants’ have?  What hope was there for them?  They couldn’t afford an education.  They could only afford to keep themselves occupied with trying to stay alive.  Being surrounded  by family made it easier and, after enduring five years of famine, they truly were in the Promised Land.  To stay alive they needed work and work they did, as miners and maids, boatman and steelworkers. 

Eventually Peter's daughter, Catherine, married Thomas Gallagher.  Thomas was born in the United States and his father in Ireland.  Thomas’ father was a local merchant and comfortable by the standards of the time.  Thomas took Catherine’s father and brothers into his home and, by all accounts, treated them as his own.  Peter's third child, Bernard, was only a few years younger than his new brother-in-law, Thomas, and they became fast friends.  Later Bernard took a job as a boatman serving the Cambria Iron Works and married the widow Ellen White Kenny.  As a demonstration of their devotion as friends Bernard and Thomas each named their sons after one another.

 Bernard and Ellen had ten children, their eldest (my g grandfather) Francis Lawrence was born August 17, 1864.  He met Amelia Neile, the daughter of German immigrants - Protestants.  Frank married Amelia on May 23, 1888.  Although Amelia converted to Roman Catholicism, the fact that the son of an Ulsterman married a Protestant was too much for Bernard, and he disowned Frank.  Frank took his wife to Pittsburgh where he and a partner eventually founded the Keelan-Lyons Company.  Frank and his father were briefly reunited during recovery efforts following the Johnstown flood of 1889, in which relatives of both the Keelan and Neile family were lost.  However, the bitterness over being disowned lingered and Frank never revealed much about his family.  Frank’s youngest child, my grand father, John Gerard Keelan, lived to be 30 years old, dying shortly after the great depression began.  He left behind a widow, Agnes Magill, two sons, and a daughter.  That union has in itself generated 22 grand children, and 34 great grand children.

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