Brian McCaffery

“Brian McCaffery”
(1953-1954)

It is important to remember and honor those family members who have come before us. It is especially important to remember those who have come before us but whose lives may have ended far too soon.


Brian McCaffery was the youngest grandchild of Colum and Anna Marie McCaffery. At the very tender age of eighteen months old, he came down with a mysterious infection and died in the arms of his grandmother Anna Marie on Christmas Eve of 1954.

My mother remembers being woken up by her mother (Anna Marie Gallagher) who cried hysterically as she told the story of little Brian’s death in the arms of his grandmother the evening before.

There was a lot of speculation regarding the reason behind the cause of the infection which took the life of the little boy. Some thought he became sick because of contaminated water in one of the many fish tanks his father kept in the house. Others thought he caught an infection from one of the many dogs his father kept in the house. But whatever the reason, it was after his death that the family rid the house of all fish tanks.

My mother recalls the funeral of Brian McCaffery. He was buried in a white casket driven by a white hearse. When the hearse reached the church ground cemetery at St. John the Baptist, her father (William Gallagher II) jumped out of the car to help carry the tiny casket to the church and then the cemetery.

“Angel in Their Arms”

If you read “A Journey into the Past”, you would have read the story of John and Sally Keller’s desire to have a child which did not come to pass. So when a young nephew died the child was buried with them at St John’s so that they would have in eternity what they never had in life, a child. This child had a name and his name was Brian McCaffery.