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SECOND CONVERSATION
WITH JEAN MORETTI
GRANDDAUGHTER OF MICHAEL J. SWEENEY,
WHO WAS SUSIE SWEENEY’S BROTHER
FEB. 26, 2008 VIA TELEPHONE

Jean had so much more to tell me. She said she read another letter from Rodger Dixon of Glen Laura to her great aunt, Sarah Sweeney.  He explained in the letter that he was the son of Jane Devitt Dixon. We assume Jane is a sister of Sarah Devitt Sweeney, but will need to further investigate. We do not know if Jane remained in Ireland or if later, she joined her Devitt family in PA in the coal region. 

The man at the homestead in Ireland, that Jean met, is the blood relative, Patrick Dixon with his wife Kathleen and they have 3 children.  Besides receiving letters from Ireland in the 1880’s, Jean said that someone from the Devitt family immigrated to Australia and they received letters from there.

Sarah, the mom was always excited to hear from the Australian side of the family via letters. There is a Sarah Devitt Sweeney obituary from the newspaper. It lists all eight of Sarah’s children and her brother.  Jean is sending me a copy of this via snail mail. 

After Sarah died, ( 1906 ) Susie was the oldest of the daughters and took on the matriarchal role of the family.  While Sarah was still living, her youngest child, William, who they called Willie, was the apple of her eye.  After the mom expired, Susie and the sisters kept watch over him closely.  He was very talented and played the violin very well. He had other instruments that he played, too.   Willie became sick and within days expired. Susie was so distraught from the shock of his early death.  Her sisters tried to keep pulling her out of the depression.

One day, Susie went into the attic where the instruments were stored and took them and all the letters from Ireland and Australia and went in the back yard and burned them.  No one could stop her. I can only imagine what great family stories went up in flames that day. 

I mentioned to Jean that Jack Kehogh’s great-grandson, Joe Wayne who now runs the Hibernian House (Saloon) in Giradville, PA, told me that Michael Sweeney was the President of the AOH for the Big Mine Run- Ashland area. He was a Mollie Maguire. Jean said she had thought so as after she was settled in Alexandria, VA, while the family was in the dinning room, she pulled out a drawer in the side board that was from the house in BMR. A secret drawer appeared and when they opened it, they discovered a pair of brass knuckles. Her mother told her that once it became dark at night in Big Mine Run, you never answered the door for anyone, it was too dangerous.

Michael J. Sweeney’s father, Michael Sweeney, (Sarah Devitt Sweeney’s husband) was a tailor in Pottsville, PA when they first settled there before 1850.  Jean said that her mom was born in Ashland, grew up in Brooklyn and then in the 1930’s after Aunt Elizabeth died, the family moved to the Washington, D.C. area where she worked for the State Dept. 

Jean said she worked for the Dept. of State in Beirut, Lebanon when in 1952 she met her husband who was a Marine Guard, John Moretti. They have 3 children.  She has one brother who is deceased, Milton Monroe Davenport, Jr.

He was training to be a fighter pilot in the Air Force in WWII. Practicing dog fights, he took a nose-dive and his ear drum broke. He was grounded until they could re-assign him. They had him fly other planes. His heart was set on the smaller fighter planes. He “flew the hump” in China and Burma. A famous run during WWII. 

As Jean looks back now, she says she is sorry that her mom and she were not able to secure more of the things that were left in the BMR home. Some of the things she wished she could have taken were the sinks. The double kitchen sink and all the sinks in the upstairs bathrooms were copper lined. Chamber pots, bedroom furniture and other items had to be left behind. 

While talking on the phone, I described a lady standing in the doorway at the top of the steps in one of the photos that Cass let me copy, with a little dog by the lady’s long skirt, coming out of the dark big home with 5 steps.  She felt that the lady was Sarah Sweeney, her maiden great-aunt, a sister to her grandfather, Michael J. Sweeney,  the school teacher.  She said that Aunt Sarah always had a little dog at her feet.  Many of the antiques from the saloon/home made it to Virginia and she has some wonderful ones. 

There is no bible but she does have Michael J. Sweeney’s original tax collector records naming everyone in the district which she is going to copy & send to me. She said I will probably be able to identify many names in the book and she hopes it would be a help to our research.

Outcome – she sent the whole book! She also is sending snapshot photos (taken with a small Brownie camera) of Susie, Sarah & sisters that she has, along with pictures inside & outside of the Devitt-Dixon homestead in Glen Laura, Co. Mayo, Ireland and the Irish Dixon family. 

The last of the maiden aunts to pass away was Elizabeth.  Susie was the first to pass.  Then Sarah & Annie in between.  When Sarah Devitt Sweeney’s will was written, Michael her son was not mentioned as he was well off & living in Brooklyn, NY. Sarah wanted to make sure her four daughters were taken care of after she was gone. 

It will be wonderful to eventually learn of the people in the photos that I have copied from cousin Cass & ones that my grand-mom  had and to find out where the photos may have been taken, especially if any are taken at the home/saloon that stood on Sweeney’s Corner in Big Mine Run.There are still so many questions left unanswered. In finding answers to many questions, it just raised more questions about other things.

Hopefully, Jean & I will be able to fit all the pieces together and come up with an accurate account of the Devitt family. I am anxiously awaiting the items Jean is in the process of copying and mailing to me. I have copied all the records that she would appreciate and what would help her to see the connection between the Devitt siblings I have already uncovered and if there might be any reason that Sarah Devitt Sweeney would not fit into this family.

I also ordered a “Big Mine Run” book for Jean. The author is Harry Bobonich, who grew up in the Heights just above Big Mine Run. In his book he mentions the Gallagher family who lived at one end of BMR. Further along in his book, he talks of his good friend, Joseph Sweeney who is a relation to our Sweeney’s. Harry asked me for some statistics about Joseph for his book & in turn sent me a photo of Joseph in his WWII military uniform. So this book is on its way to Jean. Fri., March 14, I hope to be able to speak to Jean once again via phone as I wrote down some questions for her about the Devitt’s and Ireland.

I apologize for the different fonts in this report and if I jumped around subject-wise. I was trying to decipher very small hand-written notes that I wrote last week. It pays not to procrastinate. I did procrastinate and it was harder to remember all that Jean said.

Please let me know if you have any questions about what was recorded above. Hope you enjoyed it! To Be Continued!

Submitted by Pat Bennett, great-great granddaughter of William Devitt, Esq. brother to Sarah Devitt Sweeney, who is the grandmother of Jean Davenport Moretti. 3/13, 2008

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