Uncovering U.S. life of Knock visionary

John Curry lived for a time at the Municipal Lodging House on East 25th Street, Manhattan. Cardinal Dolan decided recently that Curry’s remains would be reinterred in Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and so on Saturday, a requiem Mass will be offered there and the reburial will take place.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

By Patricia Phelan

“The child says he saw the images—beautiful images—the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph.” So reported the 1879 Commission of Enquiry about what 5-year-old John Curry had seen on an August evening at the parish church in Knock, Co. Mayo. The boy had been questioned about the so-called apparition at Knock, where he was the youngest of 15 eyewitnesses, or visionaries.

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As an adult, John Curry emigrated to the United States, where he lived for over 30 years. In “John Curry (1874-1943): The Youngest Visionary of the Apparition at Knock” (2009), the author described the visionary’s early life in Ireland, as well as his last years living at the Sacred Heart Home for the indigent elderly, run by the Little Sisters of the Poor on Manhattan’s East 70th Street. It was also mentioned that Curry had worked for a time at the City Hospital on Welfare--now called Roosevelt--Island. But the author—the visionary’s grand-nephew, also named John Curry -- had not been able to “establish much about John’s life in America, most probably in New York” between 1910 and 1932. As a genealogist, I found it surprising that over 20 years of Curry’s life could not be accounted for, so I decided to do a bit of sleuthing.

In 1937, when Curry was in his 60s, he told a second Commission of Enquiry that he had “a great memory.” Yet in the same interview he said, “I do not remember when I came the first time [to the U.S], but I came the second time in April 1910.”

It turned out Curry’s memory was a bit foggy. He didn’t arrive in New York in 1910 at all, but instead sailed here on the Cunard Line’s ocean liner RMS “Mauretania” a year later, arriving in New York Harbor on March 31, 1911. According to the ship’s passenger manifest, Curry was single, worked as a “railway man,” was born in Knock, and had lived most recently in Rochdale, England. He was heading first for Chicago, but would eventually be traveling with his cousin Bryan Byrne to a friend in Union Grove, Wisconsin.

During World War I, in September 1918, all men in the U.S. aged 18 to 45 were required to register for the draft, so I searched for John Curry in the draft records. I found he had registered in Wisconsin, giving his full name as John Joseph Curry. He said he was 44, lived on Reed Street in Milwaukee, and was working as a track laborer – someone who laid, repaired, and maintained tracks – for the Chicago and North Western Rail Road. He was missing the small finger of his right hand. His next of kin, his brother Thomas Curry, still lived in Knock.

The Chicago and North Western Rail Road operated thousands of miles of track. I contacted the C&NW Historical Society in the hope they might hold personnel records for John Curry. But according to the archivist they wouldn’t have any data about him; as a track laborer, Curry wasn’t actually an employee but was probably paid by the day.

Next I looked at the 1920 federal census. I found Curry still in Wisconsin, in Granville Township in Milwaukee County, where he was employed by a railroad and living in a railway camp. This census indicated John had applied for American citizenship but had not yet been naturalized. No naturalization record has been located for him, and his death record notes he was a citizen of Ireland.

When Curry died in 1943, the death certificate said he had lived in New York City for 21 years – since about 1922. Nevertheless, a search for him in the 1925 New York State census did not yield any findings. And the 1930 federal census did not show Curry living in New York--or in any other state. But Curry was definitely in Manhattan by 1931. When the city directory was published that year, it included a listing for John Curry, a “hospital helper,” at 265 First Ave.

The register of the Sacred Heart Home indicates Curry was accepted there in November 1932. Before that, he had apparently fallen on hard times and had gone to live in the Municipal Lodging House on East 25th Street. The first facility for the homeless built in Manhattan, the Lodging House provided food and shelter to over 900 men, women, and children.

In the 1940 federal census of Manhattan, Curry was listed as an “inmate” in the home run by the Little Sisters. This census also noted he had a sixth-grade education.

Despite his importance to the events at Knock, now a national shrine and place of pilgrimage in Ireland, Curry was pretty much forgotten. For decades he has lain in Resurrection Cemetery in Farmingdale, N.Y., in a grave that is today denoted by only a small metal marker. Not long ago, Cardinal Dolan decided to have Curry’s remains reinterred in Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and so on May 13, a requiem Mass will be offered and the reburial will take place. Pilgrims from Knock, led by Rev. Richard Gibbons, will be in attendance.

Speaking to the Mayo News, Gibbons said, “The significance of the visit is two-fold in that it will recognise John Curry’s place as a witness and native of Knock and also pay tribute to others like him, the ‘forgotten Irish’ who faced the desolation of leaving home never to return.”

Copyright c 2017 by Glanvil Enterprises, Ltd. Patricia Phelan, a professional genealogist, can be contacted at glanvil3@aol.com.

 

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