THE GLYNN FAMILY

The Glynn/Glenn/McGlynn family originating in Culkeen, Co. Roscommon 1825 - 2009

Biography B1 Michael Joseph McGlynn.

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Michael Joseph, the eldest of Mary and Patrick McGlynn’s children, was born on 18th May 1875, five months after they had purchased their 40-acre property in the Argentine area of Kansas. Michael was brought up on the farm but by the time the 1900 Census was taken, when he would have been almost 25 years old, he had left home. According to Marilyn Platt, wife of his son Patrick James Eugene, Michael Joseph as a young man was sent to the market one day with a horse and cartload of fruit and vegetables to sell. Having sold the produce, he then sold the horse and the cart and disappeared for many years. He had fallen out with his father because he refused to transfer the land to his name. It’s not known where he went but according to his father’s will, made on July 20 1908, Michael was "supposed to be at present residing in Canada". By the time the 1910 Census was taken he had returned to the Argentine district and was living at the home farm. He is shown there aged 34 years, living with his parents, sister and two brothers. His occupation is described as foreman for railroad contracts and his obituary tells us that he had been employed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in Montana.
It would appear that Michael married, sometime prior to 1916, a woman called Margaret Yeager. They had one child, James, who was born on 6th January 1916. It’s not known what happened to the marriage (if indeed, there ever had been one) but apparently Margaret later married a man called Robert Reed. Young James would appear to have spent much of his formative years in an orphanage (more than likely that mentioned in his Uncle Thomas’ will – St Vincent’s Orphanage in Topeka, KS, west of Kansas City).
At the time of his father’s death in September 1919 Michael was living in Seattle, Washington State and at the time of his mother’s death in October 1920 he was supposedly living in Havre, Montana. Four letters from him written between the years of 1922 and 1930 place Michael in boarding houses/hotels in Glasgow, Montana – in the north of the state, near the border with Saskatchewan, Canada. The 1928 letter mentions Michael’s business as growing some corn himself and hauling for the railways. In August 1930 his letter speaks of making arrangements for his son James, then aged 14, to be sent up to him in Montana.
According to his obituary Michael returned to Kansas in 1932 having been retired by the railroad. He would have been aged 57 at that time. Rather than return to living on the home farm he acquired a job as a cook and lived at the Avalon Hotel, 906 East Ninth Street, Kansas City, MO. It was there that he died unexpectedly in his room on Saturday January 15th 1944, aged 69 years. He was buried on Tuesday 18th January with his parents and brothers in the family plot at St Joseph’s Cemetery, Shawnee, KS.