FAVORITE DISCOVERY: THE SEARCH FOR CATHERINE RYAN GILBRIDE

Unmarked gravesite of Catherine Ryan Gilbride, Cathedral Cemetery, Scranton. (Photo: N. Casey)

I am occasionally participating in 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, a writing challenge encouraging genealogy researchers to write about their ancestors. The challenge is hosted by genealogist, blogger and podcaster Amy Johnson Crow.

This week's prompt: Favorite Discovery

By Nancy Gilbride Casey


My favorite discovery—in spite of it being among the most sad—was discovering that my 2x great grandmother, Catherine Ryan Gilbride, had been institutionalized at Danville Asylum in Montour County, Pennsylvania, in 1877.

For years Catherine had been a mystery to my aunt, who was then the family genealogist in the Gilbride family. She knew little of her great grandparents, Michael Gilbride and Catherine, and all her research inquiries about them in the age of letter-mailing, were routinely returned with the answer, “Sorry, we cannot help you…”

Curiously, Catherine, married to Michael in Scranton in Feb. 1875, was not where she should be in 1880 United States census—with her husband and son John Joseph. Instead, Michael was living with his parents, James and Bridget Gilbride, in Scranton. Even more mysteriously, Michael was listed as single.

As I took up the search in 2018, I was surprised to find a “Cath. Gilbride” in the 1880 Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Census in Montour County, Pennsylvania—she was at the Danville Insane Asylum. She was noted as married, age 22, with a diagnosis of mania.

In Danville patient records held by the Pennsylvania State Archives, her tragedy was revealed: a second stillborn child; a diagnosis of puerperal mania;¹ her committal by the Directors of the Poor of Providence; nearly three years in the asylum; and finally, death from pneumonia. She was 26.

The first page of Catherine's Danville patient record, showing her admission date of 14 April 1877.

A cascade of discoveries followed:

• After Catherine, Michael married Mary Gallagher in 1885, and with her had eight more children after John, my great grandfather: Rose, Michael, Mary Stella, Joseph, Anna, Loretta, James, and William.
• A Gilbride family plot exists in Scranton’s Cathedral Cemetery where many of Michael and his family are buried.
• Finally, a cemetery record was uncovered for a plot at Cathedral Cemetery, purchased by Michael, on 21 Jan 1881, a date occurring midway between Catherine’s death date of 17 Jan. 1881 and her burial at Cathedral Cemetery on 28 Jan. 1881.

In March 2019, with the help of a cemetery staffer, my cousin, his son and I stood at the foot of Catherine’s unmarked gravesite. We were three descendants for whom life would not be possible without Catherine's life, tragic though it was.

Until next time...


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Click here to read “Finding Catherine, Part I,” and here for “Part II,” about the genealogical methodology involved in discovering Catherine's whereabouts.
Click here to read “What Would you Tell me Catherine?” an imagined visit to the Danville asylum.
Click here to read "Into the Past: My Road Trip to Scranton."


NOTES
¹ Puerperal mania was a type of post-partum psychosis with the hallmarks of today's bi-polar disorder.The diagnosis was common in the 1800s, but largely disappeared by WWI.