MY FAVORITE GRANDMOTHER ISABEL CLARE TIERNEY #16 52 ANCESTORS IN 52 WEEKS

 

In January 2014, Amy Johnson Crow of the Ancestry blog No Story Too Small issued the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge.

 

 

 

The premise: write once a week about a specific ancestor. It could be a story, a biography, a photograph, a research problem — any that focuses on that one ancestor. The next week, write about a different ancestor. In 52 weeks, you’ll have taken a closer look at 52 people in your family tree… and maybe learned a little bit more about them in the process.

 

 

Isabel Clare Tierney, my maternal grandmother, was born January 1, 1892 in Brooklyn, New York.

Her parents were John Tierney and Margaret Delaney.  She was one of 6 children, May born 1884, Frances born 1888, John born 1893, Rosalie born 1894, Alice born 1898 and Margaret born 1900.

 

This Grandmother was a favorite of mine.  She stayed with us often.  My father would go to and manage conventions twice a year and my Grandmother would come and stay for the two or three weeks he was gone.  Other times she and Grandpa, John N. Moore, would come and stay for the weekend. 

 

 

 

 

Isabel was always in the latest style clothing and wore very high heels even into her late 80's.  She grew up in the era of proper etiquette, and followed it to a "T".   You wore gloves and a hat when leaving the house even if it were to go for a walk.  She had her hair done every week and had perfect manicures all the time.  My sister and I would go stay with our Grandparents in Brooklyn and would have to have our Sunday best clothes with us in case we went down the block to the stores.

 

It was always fun meeting Grandma coming off the train in Hicksville from Brooklyn.  She would have her round hat box style suitcase and would be calling out "you hoo".  Sometimes she would surprise us and take a taxi to our house.  Isabel would always have a cake from Ebinger’s Bakery with her too.

 

 

 

Ebinger Baking Company, with a chain of stores across the boro of Brooklyn, was founded in Flatbush in 1898 by George and Catherine Ebinger. Famous for their cakes and pies, and especially their Blackout Cake, they closed in bankruptcy on August 26, 1972, "going the way of the Navy Yard, the Dodgers, and Luna Park", said the New York Times.

 

Isabel lived most of her life in Brooklyn but in the early 1960's she and my Grandfather went to live in California.  Grandpa helped open the Paine Webber Brokerage branch office in California.  Then after my Grandfather died in 1980 Isabel went to Texas to live with her son, John and his family.  The following picture is of Isabel in her California apartment.  Isabel died December 7, 1982 in Dallas, Texas