The First Collum McCaffery

Collum, a most unusual name given to sons in the McCaffery family. When we think of Collum, we think of Uncle Coll who married grandpop's sister Anna (Aunt Nana) and who was grandmom's second cousin. Uncle Coll was born here in Philadelphia in 1899 and was father to two children, Collum (Buddy) and Mary. But before Uncle Coll, there was another Collum who was born in Ireland in 1860 and came to Philadelphia at the age of 15 yrs old in 1875.

Collum Owen McCaffery was sometimes known as simply Owen and though I do not know the name of his wife, I wonder if it were either Anna or Katherine. Collum lived at 4300 Cresson Street in 1890 and appeared to have had a shoe business on Main Street in Manayunk.

In 1910, he was a widower with four young children, Annie, Katie, John and Collum Jr. The reason I wonder if his wife was either an Anna or Katherine is because he had two daughters with these names and it was common practice among the Irish to name their children after their parents or themselves. Collum had two sons. His eldest son was named John after his own father and his second son (Uncle Coll) was named after himself. Collum also had a brother named John who came to Philadelphia in 1876. This John was the father of grandmom's Dad also called John McCaffery.

In 1920, Collum was living on 148 Hermitage Street with his oldest daughter Annie and her husband, Robert Pester. There were also two children living in the house, Margaret age 3 and Robert age 2.

By the 1930 census records, Collum was no longer listed which leads me to believe that he died between the years 1920 and 1930.

I recently discovered over the last few weeks that another Collum McCaffery currently lives in Florida. He is the son of Buddy, Uncle Coll's son. He would be the fourth generation of Collum McCaffery.

It should also be of interest that grandmom and grandpop named their third son Collum Eugene Gallagher . But, we know him today as Uncle Gene.