Introduction---Volume II
The O’Sullivans of Clark’s Corner, Orange CT, USA
Dad, Thomas J. O’Sullivan II, completed his work on Volume I on April 23, 1982. Dad gave his work the title: the O’Sullivans from Bantry Bay (1795-1982). Dad’s story ends in the area of Connecticut of Orange, Derby and New Haven as the place to which a branch of the O’Sullivans from Bantry Bay, Cork, Ireland had emigrated. The story told by Dad gives the origns in Derrycreeven, Bere Island (just opposite Castletownbere) and arriving in Connecticut.
He and our mother, Marjorie E. Hession O’Sullivan, were born, lived and died- all within less than five miles of where they had started. Our family house where we grew up was at 954 Orange Center Rd. This is probably 250 feet from the house where Dad grew up into which Dad had moved as a lad of eleven in 1925. The place where all this happened is known locally as Clark’s Corner. It is at the southwest corner of Orange Center Road and Derby Ave facing land owned by Racebrook Country Club.
Dad died on June 3, 1996, having lived eighty-two years. Mother died February 5, 1989 when she almost seventy-five years old. They both were born in 1914 and married June 21, 1939.
His brother, Jim passed away on April 10, 2012. He had retired to Stratford CT following his retirement from the faculty at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He lived on the west bank of the Housatonic River. As you come down the hill from what was his house along the golf course you can see his boyhood town of Orange on the other bank of the river. Dad’s sister, Aunt Sis (Pat) lives in Orange, as she has done for most of her life. So aside from his younger brother, Uncle Robert, whose career was mapping the rock formations of western Colorado, the O’Sullivans of that generation were homebodies. They were very much traveling homebodies to be sure, but anchored in Orange and the immediate environs of Orange.
Our task is to add the next generation’s story to the one he has given us. I am in awe of the work he did. He did serious detective work in the parish baptism books to track the start of the journey by great-great grandfather Patrick from Ireland in 1839. He assembled photos and the family tree without any computer programs or electronic storage. His work was fundamentally “cut and paste” since it was with pen and scissors and cellophane tape that he put things
together.
The O’Sullivans of Clark’s Corner, Orange CT, USA
Dad, Thomas J. O’Sullivan II, completed his work on Volume I on April 23, 1982. Dad gave his work the title: the O’Sullivans from Bantry Bay (1795-1982). Dad’s story ends in the area of Connecticut of Orange, Derby and New Haven as the place to which a branch of the O’Sullivans from Bantry Bay, Cork, Ireland had emigrated. The story told by Dad gives the origns in Derrycreeven, Bere Island (just opposite Castletownbere) and arriving in Connecticut.
He and our mother, Marjorie E. Hession O’Sullivan, were born, lived and died- all within less than five miles of where they had started. Our family house where we grew up was at 954 Orange Center Rd. This is probably 250 feet from the house where Dad grew up into which Dad had moved as a lad of eleven in 1925. The place where all this happened is known locally as Clark’s Corner. It is at the southwest corner of Orange Center Road and Derby Ave facing land owned by Racebrook Country Club.
Dad died on June 3, 1996, having lived eighty-two years. Mother died February 5, 1989 when she almost seventy-five years old. They both were born in 1914 and married June 21, 1939.
His brother, Jim passed away on April 10, 2012. He had retired to Stratford CT following his retirement from the faculty at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He lived on the west bank of the Housatonic River. As you come down the hill from what was his house along the golf course you can see his boyhood town of Orange on the other bank of the river. Dad’s sister, Aunt Sis (Pat) lives in Orange, as she has done for most of her life. So aside from his younger brother, Uncle Robert, whose career was mapping the rock formations of western Colorado, the O’Sullivans of that generation were homebodies. They were very much traveling homebodies to be sure, but anchored in Orange and the immediate environs of Orange.
Our task is to add the next generation’s story to the one he has given us. I am in awe of the work he did. He did serious detective work in the parish baptism books to track the start of the journey by great-great grandfather Patrick from Ireland in 1839. He assembled photos and the family tree without any computer programs or electronic storage. His work was fundamentally “cut and paste” since it was with pen and scissors and cellophane tape that he put things
together.
For us, the use of the computer and internet ease our tasks. We now have an
electronic version of his work. We can assemble and share texts, pictures and other
records that way. A family tree is a breeze- with the Reunion software program and
data base programs that store and keep track of our family growth and dispersal.
During the era we will be highlighting- 1982 to the present, we will be telling of the continued spread of the present generation of O’Sullivans in CT and beyond (and the various families of which we are members). Presently we have family members living in Connecticut, Colorado, Idaho, Florida, Washington State, North Carolina and back in Ireland not far from Dublin, Ireland.
During the era we will be highlighting- 1982 to the present, we will be telling of the continued spread of the present generation of O’Sullivans in CT and beyond (and the various families of which we are members). Presently we have family members living in Connecticut, Colorado, Idaho, Florida, Washington State, North Carolina and back in Ireland not far from Dublin, Ireland.
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