Family story by Elnora Daily

While continuing to shelter in place during this coronavirus pandemic, I again found myself with time on my hands...so, I began to clean out files, sort paperwork, make piles of things to keep and toss.

One interesting handwritten crumpled piece of paper I came across today was a very brief family story written by Elnora Daily about her parents' beginnings in the United States. Elnora (Mom) wrote a longer memoir which we found in her files when she died in 1997. We transcribed it and distributed it among our family. This shorter story appears to be something that Mom was going to speak about, maybe to the senior center in Sacramento or the Pallet Club? On the back it says "7 to 10 minute talk....My sisters and I are 1st generation Californians."

Our Mom always told us about her parents and grandparents and all the details of their arrival here in the U.S. Sometimes we weren't as attentive as we could have been, but she was very good about sharing her life stories with us.

Her brief "talk" follows. It was written sometime before April 1997.

My Grandmother Susan Catherine Slaven came to the U.S. from Cloger, Tyrone County, Ireland in 1883. I've always considered her the pioneer of my family and have admired her courage to bring her family to the U.S. She was left a widow with eight children. Her husband was Felix Gorman and he died in Ireland.

They came in three different groups. She couldn't afford to bring them all at once. So she worked and saved her money and sent for the other children. 

My father [John Francis Gorman] was next to the youngest of the eight children. With the help of two brothers who came to California and farmed near Zamora before her, she was able to have a room and boarding house in Yolo, California. She took in boarders and did their washing, ironing, cooking, and fixed their lunches for them to eat in the fields. My Aunt Susie told me about helping her mother and so much work keeping all the family together and keeping the boarders happy, too. 

My father, J. F. Gorman was next to the youngest of this Irish Catholic family. When he came to California he was 8. There were six boys and two girls. He was born July 1, 1875 in Fentona, Clogher, Tyrone, Ireland. 

When the six boys grew up they all went to S.F. and worked on the trolley and street cars. My twin uncles Felix and Bernard stayed in S.F., married and built homes in the Mission District and stayed employed with the street cars until retirement. Uncle Barney was a street car inspector at 16th and Bryant in S.F. for 20 years. When they first started working there, the street cars were pulled by horses up and down the hills. 

Alice McManus in her beauty shop, 3217 Mission St., S.F.

My father met my mother, maiden name, Alice McManus, and married her in S.F. She also was from Ireland--Warrenpoint, Co. Down, Ireland. But she was born in Liverpool, England in 1882 [Note: Birth and Baptismal Certificate, Parish of Clonallon, Diocese of Dromore at St. Peter's Warrenpoint, indicates she was baptized 1 October 1881.]  I believe she came to California in 1907 [Ellis Island records indicate she arrived in the U.S. 22 Sep 1906.] My mother was a hair dresser in San Francisco. All women had long hair and did it up in fancy styles.

John F. Gorman, left

My sisters, Catherine Gorman, who is now a Holy Cross nun, Sister Maria Ave, and Bernice Gorman Gravelle, who is a retired nurse, were born in San Francisco in St. Mary's Hospital. St. Mary's is where Bernice took her nurse's training years later.

My father wanted to come up to farm in northern California and was given a foreman's job on the Al Bemerley ranch near Dunnigan, and that is where I was born July 15, 1918 and named Elnora Gorman . When I was born my mother asked Aunt Susie if she would mind if she named me Elnora after Aunt Susie's daughter, Elnora, who died in 1909. Aunt Susie said she would be delighted to have an Elnora in the family again. It was ironic that 6 months after I was born my mother died and Aunt Susie took me to raise.
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