Their descendants describe the family as being very musical. Aunt Stelle was a pianist and organist. Other girls played the piano. One may have played the harp. The brothers were Irish tenors for the most part, and loved to party and sing. The boys all played instruments, including the coronet and violin. They practically had their own orchestra with which to amuse themselves. Bill Heffernan remembers going to their big white house on a high hill overlooking the city of Yonkers when he was small, and the good times with all the eating, drinking, and singing and laughing. They were a good-looking bunch, he writes, right from Gramma Heffernan down.
The Census listed Cornelius’ occupation as a fireman’s stat (sp) and Margaret’s as homemaker. In those days, firemen generally were those who stoked the boilers. In addition, his granddaughters recall that he was in charge of the water station at the top of the hill in Yonkers. That every morning he would walk down Lake Street and then climb the stairs to the top of the hill to the water tower. They were unclear exactly what he did.
Eileen said that Cornelius died of a heart attack in 1910. He is buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Yonkers under a headstone that simply says "Heffernan"- see below. His wife Margaret and at least 4 of their children are buried in the same plot. (Eileen thought that 8 people were buried there). It is the headstone on the side of a hill at the cemetery. (His son Edward also had a separate Heffernan headstone down the hill and on the other side of the cemetery road, but within eyeshot).
Margaret Maroney Heffernan
The mother of the clan
The 1880 Federal Census reports that she was born in April 1855 in NY (probably Dutchess County) and her parents in Ireland. Eileen told me that Margaret died about 1931 in Yonkers, NY. (Clare suggested maybe 1933 or 1934). The June 1900 Census reported they had been married 28 years - doing the math suggests a marriage date of 1872, when she was about 17.
I copied a wonderful picture Eileen had of Cornelius, Margaret and 11 of their children. I can make copies available over the Internet
Eileen reports that Gramma Heffernan loved to have her family around, particularly on Sunday nights when everyone was off of work; she thought nothing of having all her children and their families over to her house on 24 Portland Street for dinner. Clifford Heffernan would play Gramma’s baby grand piano and Gramma would go to bed around 9 p.m., leaving everyone downstairs playing and singing. Gramma was content knowing her family was around and safe.
I don’t know Margaret’s parent’s names other than guessing that her father’s last name was Maroney, and the suggestion by Eileen and Care that her mother’s last name was Butler. Margaret had two sisters that Clare and Eileen remembered: Anne Butler Maroney, who never married, and Bridget Maroney who married a Quinlan, and later had two children: James and Maisie (Mary?) Quinlan. Eileen told me that James married a woman named Katherine (Kate) and they had 4 or 5 boys and a daughter also named Katherine, who used was a nurse at the Vassar Hospital in the 1920’s. One of their sons became a policeman in Poughkeepsie, NY. Glare and Eileen said that they had visited their farm in Dutchess County one summer. Clare and Eileen also remembered some Butler cousins that they used to visit in Dutchess County who raised horses.
