52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 4 Who would you invite for dinner?

There were several of my ancestors who I would love to sit down and talk about their lives.  Today I am going to invite Elizabeth McCrudden to the table.  She is the sister of my Great Grandmother Mary McCrudden Mathers.

Elizabeth McCrudden was born in Ireland somewhere after her sister Mary was born in 1844 and before her youngest sister, Ann in 1852.  I have not gotten the birth records yet!   Elizabeth’s sister Mary came to New York in 1868 (her second child was born in New York in July of 1868) and Elizabeth followed her along with 2 other sisters.

In 1876 Elizabeth McCrudden married George Mulraney in New York City.  I then find them in San Francisco, California where their first child, Catherine Mulraney, is born in February 1879.  George was a shoemaker so probably that was an occupation he could do anywhere.  Why all the way to California is the question I would love to ask of them. It must have been a wonderful and scary trip. I was picturing a horse and wagon kind of trip, but I found an article about the Transcontinental Express train. Apparently, in 1876 it took “a mere” 83 hours from New York City to San Francisco on the train. First-class passengers traveled the railroad line for business or pleasure, but the third-class occupants were often emigrants hoping to make a new start in the West. The third-class (I am pretty sure the Mulraney’s were in this class) cars were fitted with rows of narrow wooden benches, they were congested, noisy and uncomfortable.  The railroad often attached the coach cars to freight cars that were constantly shunted aside to make way for the express lines. Consequently, the third-class traveler’s journey west might take 10 or more days. Even under these trying conditions, few travelers complained. Even 10 days spent sitting on a hard bench seat was preferable to six months walking alongside a Conestoga wagon on the Oregon Trail.

This family was also in San Francisco during the famous 1906 earthquake.  What a harrowing experience that must have been.  The family’s home must have stayed in pretty good condition because they were there in the 1900 census and then still there in the 1910 census.

The other question I would ask Elizabeth and George Mulraney, how did they convince the other two sisters to join them.  Catherine McCrudden married James Callen and Theresa McCrudden married Daniel Boyle.  Both couples were married in New York City and made the long trip to California too.

There is an eyewitness account by Robert Louis Stevenson titled “Traveling on an Emigrant Train, 1879” on the web site eyewitnesstohistory.com. that I found really an eye opener for the way they had to travel in 1879.  I probably would have stayed in New York City.  On second thought I most likely would have stayed in Ireland!