Mary Pester

Name:	Mary Pester
Birth Date:	1914
Birth Place:	Phila
Death Date:	8 Feb 1914
Death Place:	Phiadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age at Death:	1 day
Burial Date:	9 Feb 1914
Gender:	Female
Race:	White
Father:	Robert Pester
Father's Birth Place:	New York
Mother:	Annie McCafferty
Mother's Birth Place:	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
FHL Film Number:	1429017

Catherine McCaffery Death Certificate

Catherine McCaffery was the daughter of Collum McCaffery who died at age 20 years old of Tuberculosis. Dr. Joseph Lehman signed the death certificate on September 16, 1914 and Catherine was interred in St. Patrick's Cemetery in Norristown. Catherine was the sister of my Uncle Coll who married Anna Marie Gallagher. Catherine was listed as a mill worker and witness who signed death certificate was Mrs. Pester. Address at time of death was 118 Dawson Street. (19127) Dr. Joseph Lehman's address was listed as 4257 main Street and the undertaker was John Dever at 100 Rector Street. 

Name:	Mary Pester
Birth Date:	1914
Birth Place:	Phila
Death Date:	8 Feb 1914
Death Place:	Phiadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Age at Death:	1 day
Burial Date:	9 Feb 1914
Gender:	Female
Race:	White
Father:	Robert Pester
Father's Birth Place:	New York
Mother:	Annie McCafferty
Mother's Birth Place:	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
FHL Film Number:	1429017

Westminster Cemetery

Fun Facts For Pester

Life Expectency 80 years old.

Immigrated from England through the Ports of Liverpool & Queenstown to the states of TX, NE, IA, IL, IN, OH, MI, PA & NY.

Most were farmers.

3 Pesters fought for the Confederates and 7 fought for the Union during the Civil War.

Origin Of The Surname Pester

English (Devon), Dutch, and German: occupational name for a baker, from Anglo-Norman French pestour, pistour, Middle Dutch pester, pister ‘baker’ (Old French pestor, pesteur, German Pistor, from Latin pistor).
Jewish (Ashkenazic): unexplained. Possibly a habitational name from someone from Pest, the eastern half of the city of Budapest, Hungary

James Pester

Pester & McCaffery

Robert Pester and his second wife Elsie interred in Westminster Cemetery.
Robert Pester Jr. is interred in the same section as is his father Robert Pester (above). Also interred in the grave is his wife, Eleanor House Pester. However, his son James Pester who died December 31, 2007 is interred right next to this grave. As of today's date, there is no grave marker for James Pester.
John Edward McCaffery was the son of Columbia (Collum) & Catherine McCaffery. He was the brother of Catherine, Anna McCaffery Pester (first wife of Robert Pester Sr. above) and Coll McCaffery. He was the nephew of my great grandfather, John McCaffery. Interred in this grave with him are his father Columbia (Collum) McCaffery, his sister, Anna McCaffery Pester, his wife Gertrude and a child, John Edward McCaffery Jr.


It should be noted that all four of the McCaffery children; Catherine, Anna, John and Coll died relatively young of cancer. Catherine died at age 20y. Anna died in her 30's. John died at age 49y and Coll died at age 70y. It should also be noted that their mother, Catherine died relatively young.

The trend continued when Robert Pester Jr. died at age 59y and then his son James Pester died at age 61y.

How We Spent Our Day

We sat on opposite sides of the sofa snuggled under a quilt with a candle lit and researched family history (more precisely old family neighborhood maps) on our own individual lap top computers.

This is how we celebrated one whole year of marital bliss. We were planning to spend the weekend up the mountains but an emergency surgery on Friday ended that plan. So instead we spent the day doing what we both love to do together and that is family genealogy.

Before any one panics, Bill was the one who had the surgery and he is doing fine though a little sore (maybe a lot sore) but he is on pain meds and that helps a lot.

Anyway, I found a few interesting tid bits of information on those old 1892 maps of Philadelphia and I will be researching and posting them soon. I found a hotel known as Tissots located on Ridge Avenue near the Fall's bridge in East Falls. I also found property in the Manayunk and Roxborough areas that belonged to a Ambrose Ritter and a William Beatty. The Beatty property was located directly next to the Bethany German Lutheran Cemetery were many of our Voigt and Keller relatives are interred. One of John and Elisabeth Keller's daughter (Elisabeth) married a Beatty from Manayunk. I am certain his name was Christopher so it will be interesting to see if this William I found was a relation (perhaps father) to Christopher. I also found another large tract of land located around Ridge and Parker Avenues that a Robert Pester own. Pester is another family member who married into the McCaffery side of the family. Robert Pester married the daughter (Anna) of Colum McCaffery Sr. and sister of Colum McCaffery Jr. who was married to Anna Marie Gallagher.

McCaffery Breakthrough

Over the last two months, I discovered two more distant cousins as in "distance", one lives in China and the other lives in Indiana. Bill Siejna (China) is a descendant of Bernard & Mary (Boland) Cafferty and Eileen Dougherty Russo (Indiana) is a descendant of Collum & Catherine McCaffery. Both came across my website during a "goggle" search and contacted me "via" email.

I was able to share a lot of Boland/Cafferty information with Bill. His mother currently lives up in NorthEast Philadelphia and Eileen gave me a ton of information on the McCaffery family. It is because of her that I now know grandmom's father, John McCaffery was Collum McCaffery Sr. younger brother who immigrated from Letterkenny, Donegal, Ireland on May 29th, 1907 on the ship "Columbia" through Ellis Island in New York. I reviewed his ship records myself just yesterday and realized why this family was difficult to trace. The McCaffery family are actually the McCafferty family dropping the letter "T" from their name when they came to America. All this time I have been researching McCaffery and McCaffrey never realizing the proper spelling was indeed McCafferty. Our great grandfather John McCaffery was one of thirteen children with only four immigrating from Donegal to Philadelphia. The four that immigrated were Collum (Uncle Coll's father), John (grandmom's father) and two sisters Ellen and Mary. Collum must have been one of the older of the thirteen children because he came over from Donegal between 1875 and 1878. Ellen came over around 1904. I am not sure when Mary came over but she was Ellen's contact in 1904. And of course our direct descendant John came in 1907 and his contact was Collum who at the time resided at 104 Dawson street in Manayunk. By 1909, John McCaffery was living at 115 Hermit Lane in Manayunk. Of course John McCaffery and Agnes (Bridget) Boland married in 1911 and grandmom (Anna Marie McCaffery Gallagher) was born in 1912. By that time they lived on Cresson Street.

According to John's ship records he was 5 "9" with light brownish hair (most likely reddish) and gray eyes. Our grandmother, his daughter had red hair, green eyes and a ton of freckles. It appears grandmom favored her father more in physical looks than her mother who was blue eyed and black haired.

Another interesting piece of information Eileen had was a copy of grandmom's mother's death certificate and it stated that Bridget died of an intestinal obstruction in the diverticulum which closely resembles the cause of death grandmom told us "appendicitis". It also gave the maiden name of Bridget's mother's as "McCarrick". This is another valuable piece of information because I just recently discovered that Ella (Ellen) was first married to a "Doherty" and even had at least one child named "Michael" before she married John Boland and had four other children. As far as I know, Michael Doherty remained in County Mayo and did not immigrate to Philadelphia.

Some more details just recently discovered; Collum McCaffery Sr. died on March 7th, 1926, twenty-two years after his wife (Catherine) died in 1904. He is interred at Westminster Cemetery along with his daughter Anna Pester and son John Edward McCaffery & wife Gertrude. Collum's wife Catherine is interred at St. Patrick's Cemetery in Norristown. Even though I found an Obit that also listed the daughter Catherine as being interred at St. Patrick's in 1905 at the age of 20 yrs old, this information is "questionable" because the cemetery supposedly does not have that record.

Another valuable piece of information is the name of the parents of Collum, John, Ellen and Mary. It appears their names were James & Catherine. It also appears that we have a ton of cousins still living in Donegal.

Eileen told me she visited grandmom in 1989, a year before grandmom's death and talked to her about her McCaffery side of the family. Eileen will be coming here to Philadelphia on June 10th to spend a few weeks with her parents who currently reside in the area. It is at this time, I along with my mother will meet the McCaffery clan.

And for my first cousins out there on the West Coast, there are McCaffery relatives out there in California....

Stay tune...

Robert Pester "The Son-In-Law"

I did a little research on Collum McCaffery's son-in-law, Robert Pester. Though he is only related by marriage to us through his union with Collum McCaffery's daughter Anna, I researched his background to find more McCaffery clues. So here is a little information for you on this man.

Robert Pester was born in Port Leydan New York on April 4th, 1891. His father was named Mattheiu. His mother was named Cora. Robert had many brothers and sisters but by the time he was a teenager, he resided with his maternal grandparents (LeFlar). According to World War I records, Robert was married, lived on Hermitage Street and had one child. He was listed as being 6ft with blue eyes and light colored hair, a fair complexion and stout.

At age 50 years, Robert registered for the World War II draft. During this time in 1941-1942, his wife Anna was no longer listed. Next of kin listed on his draft records was his son also named Robert Pester. Address at time of registration was 145 Kalos Street in the Wissahickon section of Philadelphia. He was also listed as being an employee of Midvale Steel 4300 Wissahickon Avenue. His son Robert Pester took over the Hermitage Street house.

Of interest; another Midvale Steel employee. It appears that nearly every male Gallagher, Keller and McCaffery relative worked at Midvale Steel from the late 1920's until they closed in the early 1970's. Here is just a small list of fellow Midvale Steel employees, William Gallagher I (grandpop's father), John Keller II (Uncle John), William Gallagher II (grandpop), William Gallagher III (Uncle Billy), John Gallagher (Uncle Jack), Collum Gallagher (Uncle Gene), Collum McCaffery (Uncle Coll), Robert Pester.

According to the Social Security Index records, Robert Pester's son, Robert Pester was born October 22nd, 1917 and died in December 1976. He was listed as living in Manayunk at the time of his death.