Tag Archives: Mulqueen

1938 Film Shows a Young Earl J. Mulqueen Jr.

Sometimes family history discoveries involve a careful eye, and sometimes a bit of dumb luck. Or, as in this case, a little of both. While searching for some city directory information on the web site of the Cudahy Family Library, I started watching a 36-minute film about life in that suburban Milwaukee County city. Titled “Life in Cudahy,” the film was made in 1938.

About six minutes into the presentation, I spotted a teenage face that looked really familiar. The young man was a mechanic working on a car at Koehler Service. In another shot, he stood in the background as a man and (presumably) his young daughter, look at their vehicle. This just had to be my mother’s older brother, Earl J. Mulqueen Jr. (1923-1980). The film was posted to the library’s YouTube channel. I formatted the excerpt below for wide screen and applied some color correction.

Fifteen-year-old Earl J. Mulqueen Jr. (far left) worked at Koehler’s Mobil station.
Koehler’s offered Mobilgas and Mobiloil to its Cudahy customers.

Station attendants wore pinstriped coveralls with Wadhams Oil Company black caps and ties or bowties. It was an era when service stations delivered actual service (with a smile) to every vehicle that came in for fuel: checking fluids and wiper blades and cleaning windows. Koehler’s also offered emergency service, as evidenced by the attendant who drove off on a motorcycle carrying a gasoline can in one hand. This was no doubt before the EPA and OSHA were around to clamp down on potential dangers.

Earl was the second-oldest of the 11 children of Earl J. Mulqueen and the former Margaret Madonna Dailey. The Mulqueen children were taught hard work, so it’s not surprising Earl had a job at age 14 or 15. Money was tight during the Great Depression, so any extra income was no doubt a valued help to the family. My mother, Mary Mulqueen, was 6 or 7 years old at the time the film was made. Earl was either a student at St. Frederick’s Catholic School in Cudahy or a freshman at Pio Nono High School in St. Francis.

Earl was brand new on the job the year the film was made. He worked as an automobile serviceman, according to his U.S. military file. He greased, lubricated and fueled automobiles, assisted with transmission and differential repairs and engine overhauls.

Earl J. Mulqueen Jr. stands in the background.

Just a few years after the film was made, Earl enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps at the outset of World War II. He went on to fight with the 2nd Marine Division in some of the bloodiest battles of the war, including at Guadalcanal and Tarawa. He lost his left leg in May 1944 when a massive chain-reaction explosion at Pearl Harbor’s West Loch blew up dozens of ships and injured hundreds of sailors and Marines who were preparing for the Allied invasion of Saipan. Dozens were killed.

Earl J. Mulqueen Jr.

After returning from the Pacific, Earl spent his last months in the Marine Corps making promotional appearances at War Bond drives around Wisconsin. His accounts of the battles in the Pacific kept audiences spellbound and helped put a number of war-bond drives over the goal line.

After the war, Earl got married and went on to a long career in automotive repair. Once he had recovered enough to begin working, his parents purchased Koehler Service station for him and the name was changed to Earl’s Automotive. This not-so-little detail was shared by my aunt and Earl’s sister, Joan (Mulqueen) Haske. Earl ran the business until about 1960, when he moved his family to Colorado. After his wife Evelyn died of cancer in early 1963, Earl returned to Cudahy to again take up work in automotive service.

It is amazing to think his first job was documented by a film crew in 1938, only to be rediscovered in 2020, 40 years after his death.

©2020 The Hanneman Archive

Newspaper Article Details Parents’ 1958 Wedding

Small-town newspaper wedding announcements often provide all sorts of details that might otherwise be lost to history. While scanning a box of photographs I discovered a 1958 clipping about my parents wedding from The Reminder-Enterprise, a weekly newspaper in Cudahy, Wisconsin. The late David D. Hanneman (1933-2007) and the former Mary K. Mulqueen (1932-2018) were married at St. Veronica Catholic Church in Milwaukee. At the time, Mary was a teacher at St. Veronica Catholic School.

The text of the article is below the line, followed by a gallery of photos from the wedding and reception. A memorial Mass will be said for Dave and Mary at 11 a.m.  Sunday, Aug. 9, 2020 at Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary Catholic Church in Sun Prairie. August 9 is the 62nd anniversary of their wedding.


Miss Mary K. Mulqueen became the bride of David D. Hanneman at St. Veronica’s church on Saturday, Aug. 9, at 11 a.m.

The Rev. Johnson performed the double ring rites as the bride’s father gave her in marriage. Her parents are Mr. and Mrs. E.J. Mulqueen Sr., 3854 E. Cudahy Ave. The groom’s parents are Mr. and Mrs. Carl Hanneman, of Mauston, Wis.

A gown of Cupioni silk, in princess style, was worn by the bride. Panels of Chantilly lace were fashioned in the front and in the back. The back of the skirt extended into a short train. A Sabrina neckline and long sleeves were also featured.

The bride carried white orchids attached to a mother of pearl prayer book. The prayer book was given to her by the sisters of St. Veronica’s parish. 

Article from The Reminder-Enterprise of Cudahy, Wis.

Joan E. Mulqueen was maid of honor for her sister. Bridesmaids were Lavonne Hanneman of Mauston and another of the bride’s sisters, Ruth. They wore aquamarine sheath dresses fashioned of delustred satin with tulip overskirts. They wore aquamarine feather headpieces.

The maid of honor carried yellow spider mums with a rust and yellow mixture of leaves. The bridesmaids carried bouquets of yellow spider mums shaped in a spray. Slippers in the color to match their gowns were worn.

Donn Hanneman of 8518 Stickney Ave. was best man for his brother. Attendants were Thomas Mulqueen of 3723 E. Edgerton Ave. and Jack Richards of Madison. The groom and attendants wore Oxford suits, (black suit coats with gray vests and striped trousers).

Earl J. Mulqueen Jr., Patrick Mulqueen, Thomas McShane and Donald Dailey were ushers.

The wedding party, left to right: Jack Richards, Tinker Mulqueen, Donn Hanneman, David Hanneman, Mary Hanneman, Joan Mulqueen, Lavonne Hanneman, Ruth Mulqueen.

About 300 guests attended the wedding dinner and reception at the St. Frederick’s hall following the church ceremony. Mrs. August Lachal and the ladies of St. Frederick’s prepared and served all the food.

The young people will live at 3263 E. Layton Ave. when they return from a two week honeymoon in northern Wisconsin and Canada.

The bride attended Cardinal Stritch College and Marquette University. The groom attended La Crosse State College and the University of Wisconsin.

The wedding date proved to be an anniversary date for several members of the families. Ruth Mulqueen, sister of the bride, and Lavonne Hanneman, sister of the groom, both celebrated their 21st birthday on the wedding day. A cousin of the bride celebrated their 20th anniversary on that day. The wedding was also a reunion of Donn Hanneman and Thomas Mulqueen who served together in the U.S. Navy and have not met for 14 years.


Remembering Mary

Video can convey meaning in a story unlike just about anything. Which is why I created a memorial video dedicated to my late mother for use at the visitation back on Jan. 5, 2019. I’ve done three of these previously and found them to be very cathartic.

One of the opening images of this video, showing Mom as a toddler in a snowsuit, was a gift from Mom. We found the photograph in her nightstand about an hour after she died. It is the first image I’ve seen of her younger than 16.

“Memories are time that you borrow, to spend when
you get to tomorrow.”

The Life of Mary K. (Mulqueen) Hanneman, 1932-2018

To watch the video in a larger player, see here.

©2019 The Hanneman Archive

NewsBits Section Highlights Hidden Family Gems

Most family history never makes the newspaper, so unless it is documented or passed down in oral stories, it can be lost. Even items that made the papers over the decades and centuries can be hard to spot. With that in mind, The Hanneman Archive has added a NewsBits page with a growing collection of “all the little news that was fit for print.”

Historic newspapers carried regular columns on what might be called “neighborhood news.” These items varied from who had dinner at whose house last night, to births in the family, to strange happenings like the poisoning of a farmer’s horses. We are fortunate, especially with our Hanneman and Treutel family lines, to have relatives who enjoyed reporting their comings and goings to the local paper. One of our favorites was when Donn Hanneman brought a tomato in to the offices of the Mauston Star in September 1942, showing the salad fruit seemingly had a V for victory grown into its skin. During World War II, patriotism was the order of the day.

Read more NewsBits and enjoy! We try to update the page weekly.

Preservation Fund Launched for the Hanneman Archive

After more than 10 years publishing the Hanneman Archive history web site, your humble correspondent can no longer cover the operating costs involved in this enterprise. So rather than risk having to take the site down, we turn to our readers and relatives to ask for support.

Since just 2014, the Archive has drawn nearly 33,000 visitors from around the world who accessed close to 84,000 page views. Our article count has topped 185, and the site includes thousands of photographs and videos.

We set up a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for:

  • The online blog platform and cloud storage
  • Software to edit photos and video
  • Numerous fee-based research databases
  • Local server storage for terabytes of photos and documents
  • Archival supplies such as Mylar photo sleeves and acid-free albums and boxes

Let’s band together and support preservation of our shared history. Visit the GoFundMe page today!

©2017 The Hanneman Archive

More 8mm Video Shows Life in the 1950s and 1960s

Many years ago when I first attempted to transfer old 8mm films to digital format, I made a series of “Glimpses of the Past” DVDs with footage from the 1950s and 1960s. Over the years, with several moves and changes in computers, the source material for those was lost. But now I located one of those DVDs and ripped it to digital using Handbrake software. The result can be seen below in the Vimeo player.

The compilation includes:

  • Footage of my parents in the first year of their marriage.
  • Grandpa Carl and Grandma Ruby Hanneman at Mauston.
  • Mom, Dad, Grandma Ruby, Grandpa Carl and Aunt Lavonne on a trip to Arizona in 1959.
  • Christmas scenes with my Minneapolis cousins.
  • Scenes with my Grandma Margaret Mulqueen.
  • A priceless scene where my Aunt Lavonne has Grandpa Carl stuff oranges down his shirt and then show off to Grandma Ruby. She wasn’t amused.
  • My brother David’s first birthday. His birthday cake had one large tapered dinner candle on it. Also other birthdays and a Christmas at our former Michigan home.
  • My sister Marghi’s first birthday, with the obligatory dinner candle in the cake.

Those pictured in the video include David D. Hanneman, Mary K. (Mulqueen) Hanneman, David C. Hanneman, Joe Hanneman, Marghi Hanneman, Carl F. Hanneman, Ruby V. (Treutel) Hanneman, Jane (Hanneman) Olson, Mary (Hanneman) Cochrane, Tom Hanneman, Margaret Madonna (Dailey) Mulqueen, Tom McShane Sr., Ruth (Mulqueen) McShane, Lavonne (Hanneman) Wellman, Laura (Mulqueen) Curzon, Edward Mulqueen, Sally Schaefbauer and family, and a number of people I can’t identify. Venues include Mauston, Cudahy and Sun Prairie in Wisconsin; and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Video Glimpses of Evelyn, a Mother Gone Too Soon

Before I embarked on this ongoing genealogy voyage in 2006, I’d never seen so much as a photograph of my Aunt Evelyn (Deutsch) Mulqueen. All I knew of her is that she died very young, leaving my Uncle Earl Mulqueen to try to raise six children. It was this tragedy that led to a blessing in my life, when Earl and Evelyn’s daughter Laura came to live with the Hanneman family in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

As I made my way through thousands of images in the photo collections from my father, my Grandpa Carl Hanneman and my maternal grandparents Earl and Margaret Mulqueen, I was happy to discover more about this forever young mother, gone too soon. 

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Evelyn Mulqueen holding son Mark, circa summer 1962.

Most recently, my project to digitize the 8mm film collection of Earl J. Mulqueen Sr. has brought forth the first moving pictures of Evelyn Mulqueen. The newest batch can be viewed below. These are very short glimpses of a beautiful young woman tending to her family in South Milwaukee. Carrying her infant son, Mark, or engaging with Laura, Tom, John, Brian and Earl Jr. (Bud). These are moments frozen in time. More than 50 years later, we get to witness the gathering in front of the Mulqueen home, the Christmas present opening, and the family barbecue. Normal family events, but now given such weight with the knowledge of how many of those pictured have died. 2008_01_16-31

Evelyn A. Deutsch was born in Cudahy, Wisconsin, on April 24, 1929, the only daughter of Michael Deutsch (1882-1963) and the former Theresa Ulrich (1891-1967). Her parents, who emigrated from Austria, married in April 1917.

Evelyn married Earl James Mulqueen Jr. on December 14, 1949 in Cook County, Illinois. Her husband was a U.S. Marine war hero who lost a leg in May 1944 while preparing for the U.S. invasion of Saipan. The couple had a large family, with Bud (1950), Thomas (1953), John (1956), Brian (1959), Laura (1960) and Mark (1962) rounding out the bunch. An aggressive brain cancer took Evelyn from her family on February 2, 1963. She was just 33.

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Evelyn Mulqueen (center) at a family wedding in the late 1950s. Earl J. Mulqueen Jr. is see at left in profile view.

The family experienced more than its share of suffering with and after the death of Evelyn. Earl died in August 1980 at age 57. The family also saw the premature deaths of Tom (age 51), Brian (age 40) and Mark (age 46). Those tragedies are in part what makes these video images so compelling and precious. Viewers get to share a time when these heartaches were far away, and only smiles graced the frames of the 8mm film.

Restoring and Documenting Two Mulqueen Grave Monuments

On a recent trip to St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery in Askeaton, Wisconsin, we created a crayon rubbing of the headstone of family patriarch Daniel Mulqueen, and did a thorough cleaning of the lichen-infested monument. Both are important efforts to document and preserve family history.

Daniel Mulqueen (listed as McQueen on the stone) died on March 30, 1893. In the nearly 125 years since, his cemetery marker has become badly weathered by countless storms, wind, rain, snow, temperature extremes and environmental pollutants. And of course lichens, black mold and other biological growths that eat away at the surface.

Back in May, I traveled to Brown County, Wisconsin, with my mother’s sister, my Aunt Ruth (Mulqueen) McShane. One of our goals for the trip was to document the monument. So before we slopped everything up with water and anti-biologic chemicals, we decided to make a rubbing of the stone face. This process involves placing special paper over a section of the monument, then rubbing a hockey-puck-shape crayon over the surface, The result is a negative image of the writing on the monument. It read:

Daniel McQueen
Died
March 30, 1893
AGED
74 Years
Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him

IMG_6108
The rubbing brought out details that were hard to see with the naked eye, including the Eternal Rest prayer at the bottom.

Once the rubbing paper was safely rolled up and placed in its protective tube, we set to cleaning the stone. It had a heavy covering of growths. Many people don’t realize that lichens and other growths are very destructive. Their roots penetrate into porous surfaces, causing cracks, pitting and other damage. Great care must be taken in cleaning, however, so as not to inflict more damage.

We used a special chemical agent called D/2, available from cemetery supply companies. It is a safe chemical; in fact the only one approved for use at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. We spent more than an hour spraying, gently scrubbing with a brush and scraping with a plastic blade.

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Chemical treatment causes a temporary coloration of the stone.

The chemical reaction with the growths caused the stone to turn orange. It is best to use a garden hose to rinse stones being treated, but we had no access to water. We had to settle for large spray bottles filled across the road at the church. The chemicals continue to work on the growths for weeks and months after treatment. We will have to wait for a return visit to fully gauge our efforts. A second treatment might be needed to make Daniel’s monument white and growth-free.

We repeated our two-stage effort on the nearby marker of Patrick McQueen (Mulqueen), which had moderate lichen growth that made the face very had to read. I suspect Patrick (1815-1874) is the older brother of Daniel Mulqueen, but so far I have no documentary evidence of it. Both men were among the settlers who founded St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Askeaton.

IMG_6192
Ruth (Mulqueen) McShane makes a rubbing of the lettering and art work on the monument of Patrick and Margaret Mulqueen at St. Patrick’s Catholic Cemetery in Askeaton.

Aunt Ruth made a rubbing of the Patrick McQueen stone, which had beautiful shamrock carvings at the upper corners. Treating the stone face with D/2 removed all the growths and made the lettering much easier to read. We discovered a cracked headstone laying flat on the ground, just behind the Patrick McQueen marker. We cleaned the mud and debris from the surface. It appeared this was a marker for one of Patrick and Margaret (Hart) Mulqueen’s children. More research is needed to determine to whom the stone belongs and if he/she is buried behind the family marker.

Digitized 8mm Film is Like Priceless Time in a Bottle

The images are grainy and slightly out of focus, but four digitized reels of old 8mm film from the late 1950 and early 1960s are like priceless time in a bottle. The films were shot on the 8mm film camera owned by Earl J. Mulqueen Sr., my maternal grandfather. They were loaned by my Aunt Joanie so we could get them scanned and made into digital video for all to enjoy.

Seeing these silent moving images reminded me of the 1970 hit song Time in a Bottle by Jim Croce, although the video predates the song by at least seven years. It also made me think of the wonderful Kodak commercial song The Times of Your Life by Paul Anka:

“Look back at the joys and the sorrow.
Put them away in your mind.
Memories are time that we borrow.
To spend when we get to tomorrow.”

Even with the technical flaws, the video is amazing. I had never seen moving pictures of my Grandpa Earl, and I had just a few seconds of video showing my Grandma Mulqueen. This batch of 8mm film fixed all of that, giving us a peek back more than 50 years at a Christmas morning, a visit to the folks house in Cudahy and times at my parents house in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

It also provides the first video I’ve seen of my Aunt Evelyn (Deutsch) Mulqueen, who died of brain cancer at age 33. That was more than a year before I was born. There are shots of Earl J. Mulqueen Jr., Evelyn and their six children. As you can read elsewhere on this blog, Earl was a war hero U.S. Marine who fought at Guadalcanal and Tarawa. He lost his leg in the West Loch Disaster in May 1944 at Pearl Harbor.

I found myself choking back tears to see video of my late father holding my older brother, David C. Hanneman, in the summer or fall of 1963. For the loved ones of all the dear souls who appear in the video, the images are like spun gold. You can enjoy the full 11 minutes 47 seconds below. [We’ve also added a second volume in the viewer at the bottom of the page.]

Details from Charles Chase – Elizabeth Mulqueen Marriage License

We’re able to add some details to our Mulqueen family story from the 1894 marriage license of Charles Henry Chase and Bridget Elizabeth Mulqueen. A copy of the document was obtained from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

The couple were married September 4, 1894 at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Askeaton, a hamlet in southern Brown County, Wisconsin. The wedding Mass was said by the newly ordained Rev. Gervase J. O’Connell, pastor of St. Patrick’s. Witnesses to the marriage were  James Clancy and Mary Mulqueen, sister of the bride.

Gervase_OConnell
Father Gervase J. O’Connell, rector of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Askeaton, Wisconsin (1894).

Charles Henry Chase is described as the son of Horace Chase and Catherine Whalen. He was a resident of Marinette, Wisconsin, at the time of the wedding. His occupation is listed as “farmer, then butcher.” He was born in Bangor, Maine. His residence in Marinette lines up with the long-held belief that his son, Earl J. Mulqueen Sr., was born in the seat of Marinette County. However, the Marinette County Register of Deeds can find no record of Earl’s birth (January 7, 1895) under any surname. The Wisconsin Historical Society’s pre-1907 vital records database does not have any birth record for Earl in any Wisconsin county.

Charles’ birthplace on the marriage record contradicts what is listed on U.S. Census and other documents. Those records said Earl’s father was born in Vermont. A search of U.S. Census and other genealogy databases turned up no documents of a family headed by Horace Chase with wife Catherine and son Charles. Milwaukee once had a mayor named Horace Chase, and there was a man by that name living in Bangor in La Crosse County, Wisconsin. But neither fit the bill of the Horace we’re seeking. So it would seem that each answer we find generates several more in return.

The Mulqueen surname is listed as Micqueen or M’cqueen on the 1894 marriage record. Daniel and Mary (Corcoran) Mulqueen are listed as Elizabeth’s parents. The McQueen and Mulqueen surnames were used interchangeably in newspaper articles, U.S. Census records and church documents. We believe Mulqueen to be the correct Irish usage of the surname. If you go back far enough in Irish history, you will find the Gaelic Ó Maolchaoin, which according to the 1923 book Irish Names and Surnames by Rev. Patrick Woulfe, means “descendant of Maolcaoin (gentle chief).” This version of the name appears to date to before the year 1096. Another very similar Gaelic variant, Ó Maolchaoine, means “servant of St. Caoine.” I’ve not found any Catholic saints by that name, but perhaps there is an English translation that will provide a clue. The Mulqueen clan appears to have originated from an area that includes counties Clare and Limerick in Ireland. I have no memories of my grandpa Earl, but from what my mother has told me, “gentle chief” is a moniker that would fit him well.

Our quest to track down Charles Henry Chase continues. We were always told that both of Earl’s parents died when he was very young. Elizabeth died in March 1897, when Earl was 2. Earl and his sister, Elizabeth, chose to take their mother’s maiden name. Charles had at least one other child, Mary Chase, outside of his marriage to Elizabeth Mulqueen. Our most recent documentary evidence of Mary was in Earl’s September 1965 obituary, which lists his half-sister as living in Pleasant Hill, California.

– To see the complete 1894 marriage license, click here.