The Boylan Family Story

The Boylans of Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Michigan originally came from Ireland long ago before we know much about who they were or what they did. Whatever their lives were like, something motivated them to depart Ireland in early days of trans-Atlantic immigration. Their legacy ended up being one of tragedy and struggle. The following is their tale.

From Ireland to Nova Scotia

Our story begins with the birth of a boy named William J. Boylan in 1791 as his parents, John and Susan Boylan, planned a big move from Dublin, Ireland to Nova Scotia, Canada. Reports differ on whether little William arrived just before departure, or whether he arrived during the trans-Atlantic voyage, but we do know that he made it safely. Very little else is known of his life, except that by about 1819, he had married a much younger girl named Annabella who was a native of Nova Scotia. The two started a family in Nova Scotia straight away, and continued to add to their brood as they moved, first to New Brunswick, and the eventually to Ontario.

The couple had at least seven children:

1. George Boylan (b.1820)

2. William L. Boylan (b.1830)

3. John Randall Boylan (b.1834)

4. Abraham D. Boylan (b. 1837)

5. Annabella Jane Boylan (b.1839)

6. Sarah Ann Boylan (b.1842)

7. Susan M. Boylan (b.1845)

We do not currently know what may have happened between the births of George and William (forgotten children? Military service took husband William away?), but by 1845, 43-year old Annabella finally had a break from procreation.

A Tragic Era: 1854-1868

The young Boylan clan did not fare well in the mid-nineteenth century. Between 1854 and 1868, four of the seven siblings died, each of them between the ages of 16 and 26. The first to depart was 24 year-old William Boylan in November, 1854. Then younger brother, Abraham Boylan, passed two years later at the age of 19, on May 24, 1856.

On August 24, 1862, the family lost its mother, Annabella Boylan, at the age of 60. Four years later, youngest child, Susan Boylan, passed away at the age of 21. Then in 1868, 26 year-old Sarah Ann Boylan, who had just recently married Benjamin Millikin, passed away. Their infant son, William Percy Millikin died the same year on July 14, 1868.

By 1869, only three siblings and their father remained. Should you ever want to visit and pay respects to the departed family, they were laid to rest at Blackburn Union Burial Grounds in Dresden, Ontario.

Farmer George Raises a Family

Thankfully for my own existence, one of the three survivors was my great x4 grandfather, George Boylan. The lad made the move from Nova Scotia to Ontario at some point in his young life. By 1846 he married Eliza Christner, and the two immediately began a very large family.

Their family of nine children included:

1. William J. Boylan (b.3 Apr, 1847)

2. Thomas Boylan (b.6 Jul, 1850)

2. James Boylan (b.1852)

3. George W. Boylan, Jr. (b.1854)

4. Elizabeth Boylan (b.1855)

5. Sarah Ann Boylan (b.1856)

6. Abraham Donald Boylan (b.15 Jul, 1858)

7. Solomon Boylan, (b.1860)

8. Robert "Wesley" Boylan (b.4 Mar, 1863)

The nine siblings, on the whole, fared better than the generation preceding them. However, second boy, Thomas, perished of unknown causes at the age of 6, and then about five years later, his baby brother, Solomon, passed away during his first year of life.

Very little is known about the lives of George W. or Elizabeth (who may have also died young).

George supported his brood by working his farm in Sombra, Ontario for much of his life, until the family unexpectedly splintered apart. By 1891, the elderly patriarch was living with his grown sons Wesley and Abe in Red Deer, Saskatchewan. Matriarch Eliza and the rest of the surviving offspring stayed in Ontario in the meantime.

Abraham's Era of Tragedy

Abe Boylan didn't settle in Saskatchewan for long, relocating to Twin Falls, Idaho where he started a family with a young woman named Ida English. The couple had eight children, but, sadly, at least three of them perished at very young ages, and all between 1910 and 1918, and under extraordinarily dramatic and tragic circumstances.

The family's first loss was on November 4, 1910, when a baby daughter passed away from whooping cough. Then in July, 1914, Abe's 18 month-old son drowned in an irrigation ditch filled with 2.5 feet of water that had just been constructed near the family home.

On January 15, 1918, came another shocking tragedy that made newspapers. Abe's 15 year-old son, Percy (Percival Boylan, born 1903) arrived at his Willowdale schoolroom in the morning ahead of anyone else. The wintry cold prompted him to start a fire for warmth, and something went horribly amiss, resulting in some sort of gasoline explosion. The teenager went running out of the schoolhouse aflame, crossed the road and ran through a field toward home, where onlookers spotted the horrid scene. He survived for most of the day before passing away that evening.

It was less than one year later before Abe lost his mother, Eliza Boylan, in Ontario. She lived to the age of 92.

William and Betsy Make Babies

Abe's eldest sibling, my great x3 grandfather, William J. Boylan, spent his life in Ontario and grew to be a farmer just like his father. He wed Elizabeth "Betsy" Galerno in about 1866, when the young bride was only 17 or 18 years old. Betsy and William were apparently quite affectionate, if we are generous in our optimism, based on the creation of ten children from mid-1867 to early 1887 (including one set of twins). Their children included:

1.Mary Boylan (b. 29 Jun, 1867)

2. Eliza Anna Boylan (b. 23 Jul, 1871)

3. George Elridge Boylan (b.12 Sep, 1873)

4. William R. Boylan, Jr. (b.12 Sep, 1873)

5. James Isaac Boylan (b. 6 May, 1877)

6. Helen Minnie Boylan (b. 23 Sep, 1878)

7. Allen M. Boylan (b.1879)

8. Edith Boylan (b. 10 Feb, 1882)

9. Alfred Blutcher Boylan (b. 31 Aug, 1883)

10. Sarah Jane Boylan (b. 7 Feb, 1887)

Five boys, five girls.

Farmer William and his wife lived their entire lives together in Dawn or Sambra, Ontario and watched their children grow into lives that were wildly varied--some were very happy, but many of the Boylans led very sad lives. The following is a chronicle of some of the heartbreak endured by William and Betsy's children.

Children of Ill Fortune

Among the lucky, daughters Mary Boylan (m. William Hunter), and Edith Boylan (m. Albert Newman), and son George Boylan (m. Rose Cox), all married and lived relatively full lives.

And then there were the other children...

Eliza "Lizzie" Boylan

Little Lizzie, who was born in July of 1871, was last recorded as part of her family's census record in 1881, when she was 9 years old. Ten years later, she was not listed in her family's census, and to date we have found no evidence of any marriage or death or other record of her life. Though the alternate names and spellings give us hope that she had a full life, most likely, the girl perished between 1882-1890 and no record was made.

William R. Boylan

William married Luella Mary Myles in October, 1904 in Ontario. The couple started a family right away with the birth of a daughter named Flossie Belle Boylan (b. 7 Dec 1905). Just a little over two years later, they added a son named Carmen George Boylan (b. 30 Jan, 1908). Sadly, Carmen contracted pneumonia at the age of six weeks, and passed away on March 14, 1908. Two more sons followed in quick succession: William Leonard Boylan (b. 15 May, 1911) and Elmer Robert Boylan (b. 31 Mar, 1914).

Within a week of Elmer's birth, father William became quite ill and died of pleurisy and exhaustion on April 9, 1914 at age 40. He left his wife a young widow with three children under the age of 9. He was buried next to his son Carmen. Perhaps the silver lining for Luella is that she went on to marry again, have more children, and lived a long life. Her three surviving Boylan children also lived very long lives.

Hellen Minnie Boylan

Minnie--the girl who was born at home with no medical assistance--immigrated to Michigan at some point in her young life, settling in Grand Rapids. There she married Newton J. Shaw on 28 July, 1906. Sadly, no records can be found of her life afterward. It appears that her husband, Newton, remarried in early 1914. Since no divorce records can be found, it is likely that Minnie passed away long before she reached age 30. If it's any consolation, records point to the likelihood that Newton died of alcoholism just a few years after his second marriage.

Allen M. Boylan

Almost nothing is known of Allen. There is no record of his life, aside from a single census record in 1881. If Allen ever truly existed, he probably passed away in his childhood with no record left of him.

Sarah "Jane" Boylan

The formidable Jane first married William Heasley in February, 1906. Together they had two daughters, Gertrude Heasley (b.1908) and Ina Heasley (b.1911). By 1919, however, things had gone very wrong for the Heasley family, and William filed for divorce in May, citing "extreme cruelty". Jane contested the divorce, but it was granted nonetheless. A little more than three years later, Jane remarried to an older many named John T. Gardiner. After he passed in 1946, this left Jane a widow who married for a third time just over a year later. Her third husband was Paul E. Luedke. For all of her marital woes, she did live to an advanced age, passing on February 12, 1965.

Jane (Boylan) Heasley-Gardiner-Luedke

And Their Parents...

Father William Boylan had passed away probably in about 1910 (at age 63), roughly the same time that we believe Minnie may have perished, but just before son William R. Poor mother Betsy Boylan. She had suffered plenty already. After the death of her husband, she packed up her life and moved to the United States, living first with daughter Jane Heasley, and then with daughter Edith Newman. She would have been in Michigan when word reached her of her son, William R. Boylan's, death. Three years later, Betsy passed away from pneumonia at the age of 67. She was buried near her children in Ontario at the S. Woodslee United Church Cemetery.

The Sad and Bizarre Tale of Albert Western

William and Betsy's youngest son had a unique tale of sadness. Alfred Blutcher Boylan, led a fairly mysterious life. At the age of 9, he crossed the border from Canada into Detroit to live for the better part of two years, 1892-1893, presumably staying with family, though we do not know with whom. In 1908, when he was 25, he crossed the border again to live in Detroit, this time with his aunt Malissa (Galerno) Western--his mom's younger sister.

None of this is entirely unusual and would not be noteworthy by itself. But then, Alfred's life takes an odd turn. We know that between 1908 through the mid-1920s, Alfred moved around the Detroit and Pontiac areas of Michigan. By the beginning of 1929, he was settled at a boarding house at 2215 Linden Street in Detroit. Most curiously, he was going by the name "Albert Western". That was, at the very least, the name he had given to his landlady. Obviously this was a nod to his aunt Malissa Western's family, whom he had presumably stayed with for at least a brief period of time in his life. But why not go by Boylan? And even if there was a logical and very innocent motive for changing his surname, why go by Albert instead of Alfred?

If we want to court scandalous ideas, one wonders, could he have been hiding out from gambling debts? Did he get caught up in crime? Was he so horribly estranged from his family that he forswore his birth names? This is at least slightly possible, considering his older brother, George Eldridge Boylan visited Michigan on June 14, 1928 and on his border crossing card he elected not to name any friends or relations in the area.

Whatever the case, on March 11, 1929, "Albert Western" committed suicide by drinking arsenic. Possibly, his life of hiding and deceit held no more pleasure for him? Or, we might wildly speculate that if he was in fact hiding from people out to get him, that perhaps it wasn't suicide, but rather murder by poisoning?

Or, perhaps he was just very mentally ill. Yes, that is much more likely.

The Detroit Free Press reported the event in their March 12 edition with the following blurb:

You may be wondering right now how we connected this tragic tale described in the newspaper with Alfred Blutcher Boylan. That comes from his death certificate, where he was initially listed as "Albert Western", which was crossed out, and "alias Alfred Boylan", the latter name which was circled once his sister Edith came to act as witness for the deceased. This certificate clues us in that he was generically labeled as a "laborer" and that he had never married.

James Isaac Boylan Makes a Bad Marriage

To this point, the only tale of woe which we have not explored is that of William and Betsy's fifth child, James Isaac Boylan--my great-great grandfather. Poor, poor James.

James opted to settle down at age 26 and wed a much younger Ada Allison (age 17) on 23 September, 1903 in Essex, Ontario (read the Allison family story). The couple moved to Michigan shortly after that, where Ada gave birth to my great grandfather, George Alfred Boylan on 14 May, 1905 in Epoufette, Michigan. Any happiness that may have been brought into their marriage with the birth of baby George was fleeting, unfortunately.

Baby George A. Boylan, 1905

By 1907 Ada ran off to be with another man named Roy Vetor, leaving behind not only her husband, but also her little baby George. James did not serve his absent bigamist wife with divorce papers until 9 August, 1912 for "cruelty and desertion".

Poor James Isaac, who mostly worked as a farm laborer at the time, probably had no clue about how to raise a baby, nor the time to do it. It is therefore not surprising that he sent little George to live with his sister Edith (Boylan) Newman, who, by then, was married to Albert Newman. As a result of the little boy's time spent with his aunt's family, James's son went by the name "George Newman" for much of his childhood. No record exists that we know of to show that Ada ever sought out her son George again.

George A. Boylan, 1908

James Isaac and Life With the Flummerfelts

James Isaac Boylan, for all of his marital misery early on, ended up probably outliving every one of his nine siblings. And though wife Ada had played him cruelly, he did not give up on companionship (or maybe even love?) altogether. After sending his son to live with sister Edith in 1910, the still-married James worked as a live-in hired man to the Flummerfelt family in Michigan.

He served 57 year-old widow Lida Flummerfelt, her 90 year-old father, and her 27 year-old spinster daughter, Mary Leone Flummerfelt. Sometime during those first six years of working for the family, James formed a connection with Mary Leone.

By August, 1912, he had finally secured a divorce from his first wife, after about seven years of separation. Then on October 2, 1916, James married Mary Leone, and the two spent a very long and full life together. James became a Freemason, and Leone was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star.

James Boylan passed away in 1964, and Leone Boylan passed in September of 1977. They are both buried together at Mount Avon Cemetery in Rochester, Michigan.

Leone (Flummerfelt) Boylan with granddaughter, Bobbi Lu McClure on her lap, and husband James Boylan with a grandson, 1958

A Boylan Boy Named Newman

Little deserted George Alfred Boylan lived with his aunt and uncle, probably until his adolescence at which point he struck out on his own. Currently, we are unaware of where 15 year-old George was living, and this probably indicates he was living as a servant with another family in 1920. World War I may have also diverted him, though he was slightly too young to serve in the military.

By November 17, 1927, George met and married a young woman named Edna "Maudy" Pfahler (read the Pfahler family story). It seems that the marriage was probably one of necessity, if not true love. Their first child, Earl Russell Boylan was born less than 5 months after their marriage on April 1, 1928 in Walkerville, Ontario. This may explain why the couple wed and welcomed their son in Canada, as opposed to Michigan. Likely, they both eloped to Canada, had the baby, and then re-entered Michigan with their heads held high.

Or perhaps it was simply George's job as an electrical worker that temporarily (and conveniently) took them out of the country for about a year.

Maudy Boylan (R) with baby son Earl & her "Aunt Edd"
(Hedwig Pfahler), 1928

Return to Michigan

George and Maudy brought their little boy, Earl back to Michigan by 1929. By then, Maudy was pregnant with their second child, a girl named Edith Georgianne Boylan, whom she delivered at a house in Detroit on July 21, 1929. This was just four days before Maudy's 22nd birthday, and about three months before the big stock market crash of 1929. George loved his daughter very much, but never cared for his little girl's name, preferring just to call her "girl" or "my girl", instead of Edith.

By May, 1930, the young family was boarding with a couple in Warren Township, Michigan. Since that is about when the Township went defunct, we surprisingly get two census entries for the family that year. That May, the couple was able to purchase their own home in Clinton Township, Michigan. The timing was probably not happenstance--Maudy was newly pregnant again with their third child.

George and Maudy's third and final child, James Frank Boylan, was born on January 21, 1931, probably at the family's new home.

Edith Georgianne Boylan, c.1945

The Next Generation of Boylans

Daughter Edith attended Rochester High School in Royal Oak, but curiously dropped out just about six months from graduation to marry her sweetheart, Jack J. McClure (read the McClure family story) on October 14, 1947. Family myth suggests that perhaps there was an unsuccessful pregnancy that prompted the union. But since there is no evidence of this, I shall not sully the reputation of my grandmother and grandfather with such gossip.

Both of the Boylan boys were young enough not to serve in World War II, but by the time the Korean War came around in the 1950s, both James and Earl joined up, as did Edith's husband, Jack.

Both Boylan brothers married shortly after Edith did. James Boylan wed Barbara Ferguson in the 1950s, sometime shortly after eldest sibling Earl Boylan married Lois Mae Baltzer.

James Boylan (standing) with bride Barbara Ferguson and brother Earl Boylan and his wife, Lois Mae, c. 1950s

All three siblings had children of their own. We know that Earl had at least three boys: Brad Boylan, Kent Boylan, and Greg Boylan, extending this branch of the Boylan family tree. Little is currently known of Earl and James's lives, except that the two brothers, much like their sister Edith, lived to advanced years. Earl passed on July 30, 2002 in Michigan, and James died on March 9, 2007. Edith outlived them both, departing this world on January 31, 2015 in Inverness, Florida.