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As I was growing up, I gathered bits and pieces from my mother about the histories that preceded me.  And I could remember a few things myself as well.

But somethings, to a kid, just seem normal because they’ve always been that way.

One of those things was that my mother had a half brother we called ‘Butch’ and his real name was Herbert Hofacker.  Why was he a half brother and why did he have a different last name?  I had no idea nor did I wonder.  

I also knew, vaguely, that my mother had grown up in an orphanage rather than in a family.  But, again, that was a fact that I never questioned much.  

I also knew that she had a younger sister who had died in the orphanage.

And I knew that her father, Thomas McGee, had died in Philadelphia as a derelict sometime around 1960.

I had vague impressions that he’d owned a brewery, as a younger man, and that he was something of a ‘man about town’.  A gay blade or an intellectual of some sort.  

I also had a story floating around in my brain (apparently quite unjustified) that my grandfather, Thomas, had taken up with German immigrant women who’d born him children.  And when he didn’t step up to support them, the woman had come and dumped the kids on his doorstep.  And that was how they ended up in an orphanage.

I think I must have dreamt that last story up all on my own with my kid’s brain trying to stitch various pieces together.

But, when I dug into Ancestry.com and uncovered the actual facts, they were quite different. And I ended up with a lot more compassion for my grandfather, his life and his actions.

The relevant story begins when Gertrude Amelia Schweibinz, born 24 February 1897, got together with Jeremiah Victor Hofacker, born 8 July 1989. They were noted as being together as early as 1915 and  records from 1917-1918 indicated that they were not married then.  And I suspect they never did marry. 

Gertrude Amelia Schweibinz was born in the U.S. but was of German extraction.

Gertrude & Jeremiah had a daughter, Rita Amelia Hofacker, who was born and died in 1918.

Then they had a son, Thomas Edward Hofacker, born on 30 July 1920.

Then they had a second son, Herbert Albert Hofacker, born on 7 Jun 1923.

And then their 1st son, Thomas, died on 24 February 1924, on his mother’s 27th birthday.

Jeremiah, according to what I can find on ancestry.com, seems to disappear.  

One wonders if the death of their son Thomas on Gertrude’s birthday wasn’t a precipitant of some sort?  But, the truth is that Jeremiah could have left Gertrude anytime after conceiving his second son, Herbert.  We may never know.

We do know that Gertrude kept her son, Herbert, with her after Jeremiah left.

In any case, Gertrude is next listed as having a daughter, Anna Gertrude McGee, born 31 July 1925 (my mother).  The father (my maternal grandfather) was Thomas Joseph McGee, born on 12 July 1989.

There is no record of Thomas and Gertrude marrying.

<In the picture, above, is my grandfather, Thomas McGee, and Gertrude Schweibinz. With them are Herbert and my mother, Anna who looks to be, perhaps, less than a year old. This would be about 1926, then.>

And two years later, Gertrude and Thomas had a second daughter named, Rosemary McGee, born on 12 August 1927.

At this point in time, Thomas and Gertrude have three children with them.. Herbert (5), Anna (2) and the newborn Rosemary.

Then, two years later, tragedy struck.  

Gertrude became pregnant again in 1929 and, apparently, it was an unwanted pregnancy.  

We read that on 25 June 1929 she died of an illegal abortion – which made the newspapers.

Now Thomas has lost his wife and he has three children on his hands.  One of which, Herbert, was not his own.  And the Great Depression is just beginning.  And Thomas is unemployed (his profession was listed as a Silk Weaver).

A week after Gertrude’s death, on July 1st, 1929, Thomas put the two older children into the Children’s Home of Easton, PA.  The home was setup in 1885 and is still operating today. 

Rather than trying to explain why Herbert had a different last name, it was decided that he would be registered as Herbert Albert McGee.

Rosemary was not put into the home at this time.  Perhaps she was too young to be accepted.  She was admitted on November 28, 1930; 15 months after the other two.  At this time, she was 3.

I corresponded with the Children’s Home.  Amazingly, they still had the physical records of the three children and they agreed to share them with me.

There were quite a few documents recorded.  For school attendance, physicals, permission to remove tonsils and etc.

Rosemary, was diagnosed with Rheumatic Fever in May of 1936 at the age of 9.  She died on June 7, 1937.

There seems to not be much more to add to this above.  I have a few photos from when Thomas visited the children and Herbert was included in the photos.

I’m not sure when children at the home were allowed to leave but I would suspect, barring specific mental or legal reasons why not, that they could choose to depart between 18 and 21 years of age.

Herbert left (probably between 1941 and 1944), he and his friend, Warren, rode motorcycles from Pennsylvania out to California.  He later met and married his wife, Coral, there.

Anna left (probably 1943 to 1946) and met my father, Joseph Francis Gallagher, and married him in 1946 at the age of 21.

My grandfather, Thomas McGee is recorded as having died in 1961.  I think I recall that my mother said she thought he was homeless at the time.  He would have been 72 then.

As I said, I have a lot more compassion for my grandfather now that I know more of the story of what happened back then.  I suspect that putting the kids into The Children’s Home of Easton was probably one of the best moves he could have made.

Admission Records The Children’s Home of Easton for:
Herbert Albert McGee (Hofacker)
Anna Gertrude McGee
Rosemary McGee