De Wane Family Reunion

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Two hundred descendants of Denis De Wane and Mary Maher De Wane gathered in Maribel at the De Wane Family Reunion this weekend.  The organizers had planned wonderful programs that included plenty of food, fun and family.  It was especially fun for Dan and me to have Aunt Elaine Tracy join us!


Elaine Gilling Tracy and Shirley Tracy VerBruggen

Cousin Dianne DeWane Vadney shared her family history research including this excellent display of pictures and documents of the families of the children of our ancestors Denis and Mary:  Mary Ann, Bridget, John, James, Dennis and Timothy.

My family is descended from the son Timothy who married Bridget Cook.


Seated is Bridget Cook De Wane and Timothy De Wane
Mary Ellen De Wane is in the second row, right side.

Representives of our line of the Timothy and Bridget family at the reunion included Gordon De Wane and some of his children.

Elaine Gilling Tracy and Gordon De Wane

After lunch, there was a family history presentation explaining the journey of the De Wanes from Roscrea, (Ross-KRAY), County Tipperary, Ireland to America.  After Denis and Mary arrived in America, Denis died in New York state.  Mary died in Illinois on the travel west.  The children came north and settled in Cooperstown, Wisconsin about 1851.  

A special event of the reunion was a mass at the home parish, St. James Catholic Church, at Cooperstown, celebrated by family priests, Msgr. John De Wane assisted by Fr. Dan De Wane and Sr. Pat Touhey (Pat Touhey was an Academy classmate of Elaine Tracy).



Sr. Pat Touhey and Elaine Gilling Tracy

St. James Church is where the families of Martin and Elizabeth O'Brien Tracy and Timothy and Bridget Cook De Wane were married, baptized and buried.  (Their children were my great-grandparents Terrence Tracy and Mary Ellen De Wane Tracy.)  Although I had visited the graveyard before on my genealogy hunts, I had never been in this lovely church.



St. James Church, Cooperstown, Wisconsin



A highlight of the visit to the church was a wonderful discovery in the cemetery.  Leroy Verkuilen, a family member, local historian and caretaker, had marked family graves.  Among the plots is the final resting place of Timothy and Bridget.

  

FATHER

TIMOTHY

April 15, 1834 - October 10, 1919

MOTHER

BRIDGET

May 3, 1845 - August 9, 1924

My thanks to the organizers for inviting us to participate in this special family event.