My great grandmother, who was by all accounts Austro-Hungarian and not religious at all, somehow managed to meet and marry my great grandfather, an Irish Catholic through and through. This is a huge mystery to me as it is unlikely that his family in particular would have been pleased with the match. I do not know how Tom Lennon and Julia Pressl met although one famous family story involves them being asked to leave a dance floor when they were dating as they were too close. When they did decide to get married they went to the justice of the peace in Ft Lee, NJ which is shocking when you consider that the other Lennon marriages took place in churches in NYC.

For her part, Julia never attended church when her children were growing up. They attended with their father and then, after he died, on their own (which is pretty amazing because they were teenagers or younger at the time of his death). Tom was buried in St Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx, an old and now closed Catholic cemetery. Julia was laid to rest in FL where my grandparents and great uncles, all of whom moved south, are also buried.

Churches are wonderful when you are researching family history - especially the Catholics who always required baptisms. Often you will not even know a child was born if he or she died as an infant, but the church will have baptismal records for an entire family, and that's how you find long lost children.

The relationship between Julia and the church got complicated after her husband died. When Tom was dying the church insisted that they have a religious ceremony (they had all 8 children at this point) and the Monsignor then destroyed their civil marriage certificate. After Tom subsequently died, Julia had no civil proof of their marriage - and no way to obtain widows benefits. Reverend Cullen (interesting that it is "Rev" and not "Father") of Sacred Heart Church in the Bronx (where Tom and all of his family and the children belonged) sent a letter to the department of welfare requesting proof of her marriage so Julia could receive benefits. He included information on the church ceremony and acknowledged that the church destroyed their legal marriage certificate. My grandmother remembered the Monsignor coming to their apartment and I have a copy of the letter he wrote on Julia's behalf.

After all that, I wish they had a happy ending - but more on that to come.

[Post pic, Julia circa 1910 (she is wearing a wedding ring) and Tom, pictured center wearing cap, circa 1905-1910 - according to my grandmother, before they were married. The full picture is of a horse drawn beer wagon, which was a place where he worked.]