Minihan + Timlin

At the age of sixteen Anthony “Tony” Timlin left his family’s farm to be a bus driver in Sligo. He was transferred to Limerick by the bus company and arrived there on April Fools’ Day, 1935. When he arrived he needed a place to stay, and found lodging at the home of John Minihan and Annie Tuite. He soon fell for their daughter, Harriet, and they were married in September of the same year.

Tony and Harriet had three children. Their first son Cyril, was born in 1936 at his maternal grandparents’ home at 31 Roxboro Road (also spelled Roxborough). Anne, according to her older brother was delivered at Barrington’s Hospital on December 20, 1937, and weighed in at a whopping 14 pounds. She shared this birthday with her mother. Anne, however, claimed that she was born at her grandparents’ home like Cyril. It is believed that Tony and Harriet’s third child, Desmond, born February 24, 1945, was adopted. His birth certificate lists Tony and Harriet as his parents, but Cyril believes that he was the son of an unwed mother. The local Catholic priest, Father Rice, was a great friend of Harriet’s, and may have arranged the paperwork.

The family lived at 41 Pearse Avenue in a neighborhood of Limerick called Janesboro. The house was built as part of a government housing scheme in the 1940s. Harriet’s brother, Charlie, and sister, Zeta Flanagan lived nearby with their families. The houses in Janesboro were made of poured concrete and lacked insulation. On damp and rainy days, water would penetrate the roof and form a waterfall down the inside walls. It was a close-knit community in which everyone knew their neighbors, and often invited one another into their homes to chat. In those days most of the family and their friends smoked; the kitchen where everyone gathered was, as Cyril describes, like a “London fog.” As kids, they were surrounded by habitual smokers.

Harriet was very entrepreneurial. In Limerick, she ran a grocery store from the house, and later began baking and selling sought-after confectioneries. On one occasion the circus came to town and she rented the whole house to them. When Tony came home, he had no place to sleep.

Cyril started school at the Presentation Convent, and moved on to the Christian Brothers School at which all subjects were taught in Gaelic. He later transferred to the Jesuits College, where the spoken word was English. His last day of school was in July of 1949, just prior to his fourteenth birthday. Anne also started out in the Presentation Convent. After her first day at school she declared that she was never going back because “the nuns had no legs.” Later, she attended Miss Linihan’s School of Etiquette.

After World War II, the Limerick economy was largely neglected and the city and county became characterized by extremely high emigration and unemployment. With the exception of Shannon Airport and a few related businesses and a few clothing factories, Limerick had no industry. The economy was based on farming and services, fueled significantly by remittances from the extensive diaspora. A few of the many who left became successful abroad, including the actor Richard Harris, the BBC presenter Terry Wogan, and the school teacher turned memoirist, Frank McCourt.

Tony and Cyril emigrated to the United States on July 6, 1953 on the HMS Mauritania. The trip took about seven days. Cyril had a reaction to the smallpox vaccination, and spent most of the trip in the ship’s hospital. When they arrived, the temperature in New York was 106 degrees; the hottest temperature they had been subjected to in Ireland was a balmy 78 degrees. They quickly had to lose their heavy woolen clothes and neckties. Tony’s brother, John Timlin, who had emigrated in 1930 to Scranton, Pennsylvania met them at the dock. At that time, John was a partner in three bars in Manhattan.

Harriet and the other two children arrived at the Port of New York on July 10, 1954 on the M.V. Britannic. According to the ship lists, after arriving in New York, the family lived at 2805 Creston Avenue in the Bronx. This may have been Helen Timlin’s apartment. After landing in New York, Harriet decided that she wanted to bring the rest of Limerick to America, and even though the apartment on Creston Ave only had one bedroom, they always had someone from Limerick living with them. Cyril’s bed was the living room couch. By 1958 they moved to a three-bedroom apartment at 2856 Grand Concourse. Harriet was a great party hostess, and every Saturday night the songs of old Ireland came alive in their primarily Jewish neighborhood.

Tony worked in several jobs upon arriving to New York, including a fast food hamburger restaurant and an auto parts store. Eventually, he secured a job driving buses with the New York City Transit Authority. On June 15, 1953, the New York State Legislature created the New York City Transit Authority (now MTA New York City Transit) as a separate public corporation to manage and operate all city-owned bus, trolley, and subway routes. Before that time, private companies operated the bus and trolley routes.

In 1959 Tony was offered a job as a part-time superintendent of an apartment building at 1000 Anderson Avenue in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium. He continued to drive the city bus, and Cyril helped him with his superintendent responsibilities. After a short period of time he became less enamored with the position and decided to look for other accommodations. He decided to take an apartment around the Fordham Road area from the son of a bus driver whom he had worked with in Ireland. After a few months of living in the two-family house, Harriet went back to the Concourse to look for an apartment, and they ended up moving back to 2856 Grand Concourse. A roundtrip all within the course of 1 year!

In the mid 1960s Cyril moved to Samsondale in West Haverstraw, New York, and Harriet and Tony followed shortly after. Samsondale was named after the ship Samson, upon which Elisha Peck brought machinery from England in 1830 to establish a rolling mill. The firm produced sheet iron, wire, screws as well as sulphuric acid and other chemicals. Later cannonballs and armament were manufactured for the Union army. Tony and Harriet lived around the corner from Cyril, Rose, and their toddler son Michael. Sean Flanagan lived in the same subdivision with his wife, Eileen, and their four children. In early 1966, Anne moved from New York City to Samsondale to live with her parents. Tony continued driving buses in New York City, and Harriet worked at the Helen Hayes Hospital, possibly as a cook.

Harriet and Tony liked to go on vacation in the Catskill Mountains to a place called East Durham, which was a primarily Irish resort area. East Durham has countryside resembling the green hills of Ireland, and was nicknamed “The Emerald Isle of the Catskills.” The Irish American Heritage Museum is located there. At the time that Tony and Harriet vacationed there, it had motels, large rooming houses, and many pubs.

Harriet suffered from many ailments, including breast cancer. She died on May 3, 1972 at Good Samaritan Hospital Hospital. When Anne was diagnosed with lymphoma in 1999, she was extremely afraid of suffering like her mother.

In the mid 1970s, Tony married Margaret Haggarty [not sure about the surname], and they moved to Tucson in 1981. Anne and her family had been living there for about three years by that time. They lived in an apartment complex near their house, and Anne’s kids would often ride their bikes over to visit. Margaret died about two weeks before Tony moved to the house next door to Anne’s at 7350 Kenyon Drive in 1983. Anne enjoyed having her father so close, and the kids enjoyed having a sanctuary to run to when they misbehaved at home. Cyril and his family visited Tucson regularly, and for a few years his two sons, Robert and John, lived in Tucson to manage some property that Cyril purchased.

Tony died on March 20, 1988 at Tucson Medical Center in the presence of Anne and her daughter, Catherine. In his later years, he had suffered from colon cancer and side effects of diabetes. He is buried at St. Peter’s Cemetery in Haverstraw, New York with his wife Harriet, and grandson, Michael.