Honora Fitzpatrick after 1860's

[Susan Higginbotham]

(11-08-2013 10:24 AM)L Verge Wrote:  I'm having our research librarian at Surratt House check what files we may have on Honora here. It has been quite a few years since I really thought about her, but I believe that her father sent her to board with Mrs. Surratt because her mother was deceased. He was in the banking business, if I remember correctly, and rather elderly. He was concerned about Honora falling in with the wrong people (I'm quite sure he never imagined what she would be peripherally involved in!).

For some reason, the name "McNamee" rings a bell with me also, but right now it will take a loud gong to scare it out of my brain. I also believe that Honora may have shared a room at the Old Capitol with the irascible Catherine Baxley - a whole story in herself.

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There are some handwritten notes in the Hall file that indicate her father was James Fitzpatrick, a bank “runner” whose wife died June 19, 1847. A map of Mt. Olivet Cemetery has a written note that Honora was interred in the same plot as her parents. A photograph of their headstone reveals that her mother’s name was Margaret. Honora Fitzpatrick married Alexander Whelan on June 13, 1870 according to old D.C. marriage records. The notes also state that she developed “chronic melancholia” in 1891 and spent the rest of her life at the Government Hospital for the Insane. A copy of her death certificate lists the date as January 7, 1896. Her birthplace was given as Ireland and her occupation as housekeeper and the immediate cause of death was tuberculosis. There is also a handwritten copy of her obituary.

Thanks so much! I was reading Baxley's memoir online yesterday. How reliable is it considered?