FINNAMORE
Genealogy Research

For the FINNAMOREs descended from Isaac and Susan of New Brunswick circa 1831-1901

The life of John Henry FINNAMORE, 1874-1947

John Henry lived a hard, sad life in many ways. He suffered at least six immediate family deaths by the time he was 45 years old: two siblings, both parents, a son, and his first wife. He was the youngest of 6 children, but James, 5 years his senior, reportedly "died young," evidently before John Henry was born, so he grew up with four siblings.

When he was 11 years old, his sister Martha died at the age of 26. Three years later, when he was 14 years old, his only other sister, Emma, died at age 17. His mother passed away at the age of 55; he was only 18 years old.

At the age of 24, he married Fannie McCREA. About 2 1/2 years later, his father Isaac died at the age of 70, on 04 February 1901, one day before Fannie delivered their first child, Beatrice May. John Henry was 26 at that time. It's a small wonder that he moved the family far away, from Woodstock, New Brunswick to Anoka, Minnesota, shortly after.

In Minnesota, over the next 17 years, John Henry and Fannie had 5 more children, all boys. The family moved the relativlely short distance from Anoka to Minneapolis circa 1904, give or take one year. When John Henry was 31, the second of his sons, Richard, born in August 1905, died at only 5 weeks old. When their youngest child, Kenneth, was only two years old, and John Henry was 45, Fannie died on 10 December, 1919. He was left to raise children aged 2, 4, and 5. Bea and Percy were 18 and 16 years old, respectively, so they were able to help some.

A newspaper clipping from the Carleton [County, New Brunswick] Sentinel, 27 June 1930, reads:

Mr. John Finnamore, of Minneapolis, is spending the summer in Woodstock with his brothers Charles and Robert. Mr. Finnamore has been employed for the last 29 years as foreman with the Gidney Pickle factory.

I assume "Robert" means Roderick, probably the reporter's mistake.

In 1935, when the youngest, Ken, was 18 years old, John Henry remarried to Cora Gleason, who survived him. John Henry passed away in January of 1947.


David J. Finnamore
Orlando, FL, USA
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