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Ms. Emma Louise (Boylan) Foley

• Born on July 8th, 1924

• Father: Michael F. Foley

• Mother: Ina M. Davis Foley

• Husband: Raymond Author Foley; born in 1921 and died in 2015 at 93

• Married in 1941 for 73 years

• Children: Carol, Judy, Ronald, Roxanne

A few minutes with Emma

Emma's Story

(First ten pages – rough draft)

 

​​

Chapter 11

Centenarian

Emma Louise (Boylan) Foley, 100 

"Every day my feet hit the floor is a good day."

 

Hello. My name is Emma Louise Boylan Foley. Yes. But, as a teenager, I was Emmy Lou or Emmalou. I don't ever hear that anymore. That was just during that age.

I am an eighth-generation decedent of Aaron Boylan of Ireland. Two brothers came here, Aaron and James. Another brother stayed back. 

We don’t know what boat they took or where they landed, but we know that Aaron and James settled in Pluckemin, New Jersey.[1] This was three hundred years ago, and the records differ from today's. 

That was where they built the Boylan House, which became famous in its day. I don't know if it's still there or not,[2] but one of the Boylan's was a doctor.

George Washington stayed at the infamous Boylan House during the Revolutionary War,[3] camping on the Boylan property. He wasn't the president yet; he was a colonel then.

#

Mother's Side - The Bumans

My mother was born Mabel Grace Buman in Chicago in 1894. She died of cancer back in Thomson, Illinois,[4] at age fifty. 

Oh, and it's B-U-M-A-N. That's just the way I've always spelled it. There are probably more spellings.[5] I've seen it with two n's on the end, but we didn't spell it that way. 

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves; we'll get to all this as we get along.

#

The ancestors of the mother's father (George William Buman, born in 1864) and the mother’s mother (Hattie E. Moulter Buman, born in 1869 in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania) came from Germany and lived on Central Park Avenue in Chicago. I don't know how they got there. I know Grandfather Buman also lived in Kentucky at one time. 

At Grandma and Grandpa's family home in Chicago, it seemed like some family was there no matter when you went to visit. There were always people in this house. It was just one of those places. Grandma and Grandpa had one son and six daughters in sixteen years.

All the Buman girls lived at home as long as possible so they could get married and save enough money to do whatever they wanted. Then they moved on. So, when one married, another moved out to make room, and they continued. 

So, are you saying that when you got married, you got to live in the family home until the next sibling married and needed a place to live to save money?

Yes. And the one living there got booted out because they didn't have room for everyone. It was just a system. Somebody was always coming and going.

Grandma Hattie stayed home and cared for all the people coming and going. She died in 1935 at age sixty-six.

My brother, William Ross, and oldest sister, Shirley, were born in that bungalow.

My mother’s family remained very close, and we were together often. Grandma Hattie was a good cook, and we had many meals there. 

Some of my best childhood memories happened at that house. They had a large backyard; my grandfather built a gazebo, and we girls played in it. We picked flowers from the Hollyhocks and made dolls out of them. The seats in the gazebo were the stages, and the flowers were the stars of the programs. The ice man came once a week with a horse and a cart filled with ice. We would all run to the alley to get the ice chips that fell when he chopped out a block of ice for the ice box in our kitchen. We had to use the ice sparingly; we just had enough to keep the food cold for a week. 

Something I think about is how well everyone got along. I don't remember quarreling or thinking someone didn't belong there. 

I would also like to know if my grandparents ever had time to do whatever they wanted. 

Grandpa had a large chair in a room off the kitchen, and he would often sit in that chair. He would put us on his lap and read to us or sing one little song to me, which went like this: “Oh Emma, you put me in such a dilemma.” 

 

On my mother’s side, my Aunt Florence, her husband Karl, was the family's barber. He would get out his big stool, and the boys and girls would line up for a haircut. We sat on the front porch with Grandpa and tried to name the kind of cars that drove by; there were only a few at that time. 

Grandma Hattie was a professional seamstress who taught the girls how to sew. At the age of seven, I was making doll clothes. We sat around this huge round table; she provided all the material. 

When my grandparents got this land, they built a small building on the back of the property and lived there. And then, they built a brick home on the front of the property. This little building in the back became his workshop. He was really good with wood. He had a business; he made spindles.

Called him a woodturner.

I have order sheets with his name on them that he would give out. He also worked at Garfield Park Conservatory[6] in Chicago.

When we were young, Grandpa Buman would take us over there and show us all the flowers. So, we called it the Flower House.

#

Father's Side - The Boylans

We were never close to my father’s family. I suppose it could have concerned the absence of my grandfather, who I never knew since he died a year after I was born. 

My father was Ross Boylan. He did not have a middle name. He was born in 1896 in Osage, Iowa,[7] and lived to be around seventy-three.

My father’s mother – my Grandmother Emma (Louise) – was always busy with her job and church. I never heard stories from my father about his life with his parents. It always sounded like he raised himself, and I suppose the others did, too. We didn't see my father's family after leaving Chicago for Thomson until Grandma Emma lost sight. 

Here’s what happened. Grandma went to California to visit her son – my Uncle Frank – the one nobody liked. And on the plane going out, she lost her eyesight. Her optic nerves, something happened to them. And when she got off the plane, she was blind.

That is the craziest thing I've heard. So, was it the air pressure that caused the problem?

I don't know. Yeah. It was terrible. So, Uncle Frank kept her for a while and then put her in a nursing home in California. 

My father and his sister – my Aunt Hazel – drove to California to rescue Grandma Emma. Ross and Hazel were her son and daughter.

They took her to Oregon, Illinois,[8] to some eye doctor that was recommended. He said her optic nerves were shot and that they couldn't do anything to repair damaged optic nerves. 

Then she lived with my father and his second wife Margaret back in Thomson; they were very good to her. 

Grandma Emma and Margaret got along just great. Margaret knew the Bible from cover to cover, so they had plenty to discuss. 

Grandma would come to my house for a day’s visit, and I would shampoo her hair and curl it. She always looked perfect, and she wanted to stay that way. She loved having my son, Ron, read to her; he was about six then. I believe he had the stories memorized, but she enjoyed just being with him. 

When I went to the Lower York Cemetery in Thomson to see Grandma Emma’s headstone, I was shocked to see my name. If they didn't know any differently, one would think I was buried there, too. There’s my name. Grandma Emma Boylan is buried beside my mother (Mabel) and my father (Ross).

__________________________

Footnotes

[1] Pluckemin is an unincorporated village in Somerset County, New Jersey, about forty miles west of New York City. This rural settlement has a deep and proud history; it was the site of the Pluckemin Continental Artillery Cantonment, also called the Pluckemin Artillery Park. Here, General Henry Knox trained his troops during the American Revolution. Established in 1778, the camp was crucial in educating and equipping colonial soldiers with new artillery tactics and strategies.

[2] It is, Emma, although now it houses a law practice and various commercial entities.

[3] The Revolutionary War, or American War of Independence, lasted from 1775 to 1783. It pitted the Thirteen Colonies of America against the might of the British Empire. The colonies sought to break Britain's rule and stand as sovereign nations. Issues such as lack of self-governance, taxation without representation, and a desire for greater autonomy were at the heart of the conflict.

[4] Thomson is a small town along the Mississippi River in Carroll County, Illinois. It plays a significant role in Emma’s story. It's a hundred-and-fifty miles due east of Chicago. This town of around six hundred citizens is well-known for its striking view and peaceful ambiance. Thomson's roots go back to the mid-1800s when it was founded as a shipping point for nearby farms. The river also made this town an important transport hub. An interesting landmark is the Thomson Correctional Center, formerly Thomson Prison. It became part of the federal government in 2012 and now serves as a maximum-security prison for federal inmates.

[5] Indeed, there is Emma. There's also Baumann, Bauman, Bumann, Buhman, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[6] In 1908, the Garfield Park Conservatory opened on the western side of Chicago, occupying an area of around twelve acres. It has since housed an impressive array of exotic species of plants and flowers from around the world.

[7] At the 2020 census, Osage had a population of 3,627. It is the county seat of Mitchell County, Iowa, and has earned the nickname "The City of Maples" due to the numerous maple trees that line its streets.

[8] Oregon, the county seat of Ogle County and home to around three thousand seven hundred citizens, is one hundred miles due west of Chicago.

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