When Coleman and Jane Naughton left Ireland in 1884 for America they left behind a daughter not quite two years of age . . . Mary Jane Naughton. Mary Jane did not immigrate to America until 1902 at the age of nineteen or twenty. It is so hard to imagine the circumstances that Coleman and Jane must have been in to leave their toddler daughter behind . . . to miss so much of her life.
Here is Mary Jane's obituary from 1961:
Mrs. Mary Jensen
Mrs. Mary Jane Jensen, 78, 601 S. Fowler Street, who had resided in Sioux City 60 years, died Tuesday at a hospital after an illness of three weeks.
Mrs. Jensen was born August 15, 1882, in County Galway, Ireland. She was a member of Immaculate Conception Catholic church.
Survivors include the widower, Jens; two daughters, Mrs. John Lemek and Mrs. John Levich, both of Sioux City; three sons, John Jensen of Lywood, Cal., James Jensen of Aurora, Ill., and Lawrence Jensen of Chicago; a brother, Bartley Naughton of Ingelwood, Cal., a sister, Mrs. Florence McGinty of South Sioux City; 16 grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
The Larkin funeral home has charge of arrangements.
[Note: In Mary Jane's husband's obituary the sons' surnames are listed as Cornwall. Mary Jane was previously married to James Cornwall.]
The epitaph for my great-great grandfather reads: