Click directly on the photo of the house at right, to read further history pertaining to the John Boylan house and farm.
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Ella was born in Hallock township, the second-born of John & Christina (Holahan) Boylan. She was likely born in 1869, though the date engraved on her headstone is 1871. Her parents had married on April 30, 1866, and their first child, Ella's older brother William, was born in the first half of 1867.
Ella's birth year in censuses varies. However, the earliest census in which she is present is definitive -- she was listed as a 1 year old in the census of 1870. Therefore, she was likely born sometime in the first half 1869, or possibly as early as August of 1868, making her 1 year old and 10 months in the summer of 1870. The 1900 census lists her as "Mary E.", born "Aug 1868". One may then conclude that Ella's headstone date of 1871 is at least two years off, and instead of 95, she was actually 97, or even 98, years old when she died.
Ella became the wife of John Staab, the son of a German immigrant. They married in about 1897 when Ella was 29 years old, and her new husband 24. Both her father John Boylan and stepmother Eva, along with their four young sons (Emmett, John, Louis, Archibald) who were Ella's younger half brothers, likely attended the wedding.
This must have been a joyful occasion in that Ella appears to have been the first of John Boylan's children to marry. Her marriage was followed by the August 1899 marriage of her youngest sibling Clara, also to the son of German immigrants. Certainly the girls' stepmother Eva Weber, the daughter of German immigrants herself, approved of the choice of young German men.
Ella and Clara gave birth to the first four grandchildren which John lived to see. Ella had a little boy named Paul Joseph in 1898, followed by a little girl named Lucile R. in 1901, and a little boy named Richard J. in January of 1903; Clara had a little boy named Leo J. in 1900. All were born just before their grandfather John died in 1903 at age 66, but only Paul at age 5 would have had a memory of him, and of the four only Paul would have any descendants.
Ella and John had four children. The 1920 census shows the entire family: Ella and John, children Paul J., Lucile R., Richard J. "Richie", and Bernard A. "Bernie". Ella was 38-39 years old when she gave birth to her last child, Bernie. Also living with the family is unmarried 43 year old Aunt Rose, Ella's younger sister. Ella had declared herself 47 in the census, when in fact she was 51 or 52.
In one census, Ella's name is recorded as "M. Ella". The initial "M", is believed to be the name "Mary", likely after her paternal grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan. According to Irish (and other cultural) tradition, often the first two to four children were named for their grandparents rather than for their parents. (Her mother Christina Holahan's mother may have been named Mary as well.) Since Ella was listed in another census as "Ellen", her full name is thought to have been Mary Ellen. Someone in the family gave her the nickname "Ella", and Ella's younger sisters were subsequently nicknamed Rosa (Rose) and Lena (Helen), with the baby being Clara. Grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan was alive and well for the first nine years of Ella's life. Ella also had an older cousin (by six years) named Mary, the daughter of her uncle Thomas Boylan.
The background story of the Holahan family of Ella's mother is unknown, but it is presumed that they were Irish immigrants, as most of the families of the Mooney Settlement Irish enclave were. Plat maps indicate that there was a Holahan family farm west of the Chillicothe boundary. Christina Holahan, according to an 1890 biography of the John Boylan family, had been born in New York City and finished growing up in Chillicothe. She died in 1875 at just 32 years old, perhaps giving birth to her fifth and last child Clara. Little Ella was only 6 or 7 years old at the time.
When Ella was 10, her father John Boylan married 28 year old Eva Weber, and they had four boys between 1880 and 1888. Eva was the firstborn daughter of a Catholic German couple (Andrew & Gertrude Wiltz Weber) who had both been brought to the U.S. as children. It is surmised that Eva ran a strict and organized household, but otherwise very little is known about her and her birth family, which included many siblings, and many Wiltz cousins in the nearby town of Metamora, Illinois. Eva's German immigrant maternal grandfather, Peter Wiltz, had owned a thriving brick factory there, from the 1840's on, turning out 800,000 bricks per year. Her paternal grandfather Weber had been killed in the infamous Mosel steamboat explosion of 1839, leaving her father Andrew Weber destitute at age 9. Both Eva's father Andrew Weber and mother Gertrude Wiltz Weber were bilingual, with German being their first language perhaps until they were young adolescents.
If they were married in 1897, as records seem to indicate, Ella and her husband John Staab were married almost 70 years. Ella lived to be 98 years old. She died in 1966 within a few miles of her birthplace, the year before her husband, and the same year as her two surviving siblings out of nine, the unmarried sisters Rose and Lena.
Ella's unmarried sister Rose had remained her entire life in Chillicothe, and owned land adjacent to her sister Ella's farm, both parcels of land handed down from their father John Boylan. Undoubtedly Ella and Rose were very proud of having kept the farmhouse and land in family hands for over 100 years at the time of their passing in 1966. Their sister Lena, who apparently sold her share of the land (perhaps to her sisters), had moved to Los Angeles alone in the early 1940's, and remained there unmarried the rest of her life. Both Rose and Lena were hardy and long-lived like their sister Ella, living into their early 90's. Their brother William, who was a doctor, died in his mid to late 50's in the 1920's in Reno, Nevada, of unknown causes. Their youngest sister Clara, after losing both her young husband and a young adult son in the late 1920's, died in her 60's in 1938. Two of their four younger half brothers (Emmett and Archie) died young in the mid 1930's of illnesses. The second oldest of the brothers, John Jr. "Jack" Boylan, lived until the age of 73 in the Chillicothe/Peoria area, dying there in 1959. Louis moved to Seattle, and the year of his passing is unknown.
Sometime in the 1930's, Ella and her husband John Staab, who still had their own farm adjacent to the lost farm of Ella's deceased father, repurchased the original John Boylan farm where Ella had been born and raised, after Ella's four younger half brothers had tragically lost the land to their own misjudgment and unscrupulous bankers during the late Roaring 1920's and Great Depression years of the early 1930's. These four half brothers had been left the farm after the death of both their father John Boylan in 1903, and their mother (and Ella's stepmother) Eva Weber Boylan in about 1915.
Ella's son Paul started the Staab Battery Company, which still operates today.
One of Ella's granddaughters born after 1936, Mary Staab Horan, the daughter of Bernard "Bernie" Staab, inherited the original farm (presumably including the adjacent land of Rose, and perhaps the adjacent original farm of Ella and John Staab). Thus the original Boylan land is still in family hands in 2010, exactly 170 years after Irish immigrants Mary Branigan Boylan and Patrick Boylan arrived in Chillicothe with their three small sons Thomas, Charles, and John.
Children :
Paul Joseph Staab Sr.
...March 24, 1898 - April 1986
...in his 1918 World War I draft registration, he is a 20 year old mechanic, with hazel eyes and black hair
...unmarried at age 21 in the 1920 census living with his parents and younger siblings and Aunt Rose
...Paul Jr. born in 1925
...Evelyn born in 1930, Joan born in 1937
...grandchildren ?
Lucile R. Staab (Beetler)
...1900 - July 7, 1993
...married, lived in Peoria, no children
Richard J. "Richie" Staab
...Jan. 18, 1903 - Nov. 25, 1991
...owner of a barbershop in Chillicothe
...one son Richard Jr. born 1939
...no grandchildren
Bernard A. "Bernie" Staab
...Oct. 24, 1907 -- Aug. 4, 1989
...Spouse: Irene "Nan" K. Staab (1910 - 1998)
...Bernie inherited the John Boylan farmhouse from his mother Ella after her death in 1966, and was living there in the 1970's
...one daughter Mary Staab Horan, born after 1940
...four grandchildren, one or more great grandchildren
...Aunt Rose in Chillicothe and Aunt Lena in Los Angeles also died in 1966 - Rose owned Boylan farmland, and it is unknown what became of this property, some which sat adjacent to Ella's land, and some of which according to plat maps was located a few miles away
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+
Ella was born in Hallock township, the second-born of John & Christina (Holahan) Boylan. She was likely born in 1869, though the date engraved on her headstone is 1871. Her parents had married on April 30, 1866, and their first child, Ella's older brother William, was born in the first half of 1867.
Ella's birth year in censuses varies. However, the earliest census in which she is present is definitive -- she was listed as a 1 year old in the census of 1870. Therefore, she was likely born sometime in the first half 1869, or possibly as early as August of 1868, making her 1 year old and 10 months in the summer of 1870. The 1900 census lists her as "Mary E.", born "Aug 1868". One may then conclude that Ella's headstone date of 1871 is at least two years off, and instead of 95, she was actually 97, or even 98, years old when she died.
Ella became the wife of John Staab, the son of a German immigrant. They married in about 1897 when Ella was 29 years old, and her new husband 24. Both her father John Boylan and stepmother Eva, along with their four young sons (Emmett, John, Louis, Archibald) who were Ella's younger half brothers, likely attended the wedding.
This must have been a joyful occasion in that Ella appears to have been the first of John Boylan's children to marry. Her marriage was followed by the August 1899 marriage of her youngest sibling Clara, also to the son of German immigrants. Certainly the girls' stepmother Eva Weber, the daughter of German immigrants herself, approved of the choice of young German men.
Ella and Clara gave birth to the first four grandchildren which John lived to see. Ella had a little boy named Paul Joseph in 1898, followed by a little girl named Lucile R. in 1901, and a little boy named Richard J. in January of 1903; Clara had a little boy named Leo J. in 1900. All were born just before their grandfather John died in 1903 at age 66, but only Paul at age 5 would have had a memory of him, and of the four only Paul would have any descendants.
Ella and John had four children. The 1920 census shows the entire family: Ella and John, children Paul J., Lucile R., Richard J. "Richie", and Bernard A. "Bernie". Ella was 38-39 years old when she gave birth to her last child, Bernie. Also living with the family is unmarried 43 year old Aunt Rose, Ella's younger sister. Ella had declared herself 47 in the census, when in fact she was 51 or 52.
In one census, Ella's name is recorded as "M. Ella". The initial "M", is believed to be the name "Mary", likely after her paternal grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan. According to Irish (and other cultural) tradition, often the first two to four children were named for their grandparents rather than for their parents. (Her mother Christina Holahan's mother may have been named Mary as well.) Since Ella was listed in another census as "Ellen", her full name is thought to have been Mary Ellen. Someone in the family gave her the nickname "Ella", and Ella's younger sisters were subsequently nicknamed Rosa (Rose) and Lena (Helen), with the baby being Clara. Grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan was alive and well for the first nine years of Ella's life. Ella also had an older cousin (by six years) named Mary, the daughter of her uncle Thomas Boylan.
The background story of the Holahan family of Ella's mother is unknown, but it is presumed that they were Irish immigrants, as most of the families of the Mooney Settlement Irish enclave were. Plat maps indicate that there was a Holahan family farm west of the Chillicothe boundary. Christina Holahan, according to an 1890 biography of the John Boylan family, had been born in New York City and finished growing up in Chillicothe. She died in 1875 at just 32 years old, perhaps giving birth to her fifth and last child Clara. Little Ella was only 6 or 7 years old at the time.
When Ella was 10, her father John Boylan married 28 year old Eva Weber, and they had four boys between 1880 and 1888. Eva was the firstborn daughter of a Catholic German couple (Andrew & Gertrude Wiltz Weber) who had both been brought to the U.S. as children. It is surmised that Eva ran a strict and organized household, but otherwise very little is known about her and her birth family, which included many siblings, and many Wiltz cousins in the nearby town of Metamora, Illinois. Eva's German immigrant maternal grandfather, Peter Wiltz, had owned a thriving brick factory there, from the 1840's on, turning out 800,000 bricks per year. Her paternal grandfather Weber had been killed in the infamous Mosel steamboat explosion of 1839, leaving her father Andrew Weber destitute at age 9. Both Eva's father Andrew Weber and mother Gertrude Wiltz Weber were bilingual, with German being their first language perhaps until they were young adolescents.
If they were married in 1897, as records seem to indicate, Ella and her husband John Staab were married almost 70 years. Ella lived to be 98 years old. She died in 1966 within a few miles of her birthplace, the year before her husband, and the same year as her two surviving siblings out of nine, the unmarried sisters Rose and Lena.
Ella's unmarried sister Rose had remained her entire life in Chillicothe, and owned land adjacent to her sister Ella's farm, both parcels of land handed down from their father John Boylan. Undoubtedly Ella and Rose were very proud of having kept the farmhouse and land in family hands for over 100 years at the time of their passing in 1966. Their sister Lena, who apparently sold her share of the land (perhaps to her sisters), had moved to Los Angeles alone in the early 1940's, and remained there unmarried the rest of her life. Both Rose and Lena were hardy and long-lived like their sister Ella, living into their early 90's. Their brother William, who was a doctor, died in his mid to late 50's in the 1920's in Reno, Nevada, of unknown causes. Their youngest sister Clara, after losing both her young husband and a young adult son in the late 1920's, died in her 60's in 1938. Two of their four younger half brothers (Emmett and Archie) died young in the mid 1930's of illnesses. The second oldest of the brothers, John Jr. "Jack" Boylan, lived until the age of 73 in the Chillicothe/Peoria area, dying there in 1959. Louis moved to Seattle, and the year of his passing is unknown.
Sometime in the 1930's, Ella and her husband John Staab, who still had their own farm adjacent to the lost farm of Ella's deceased father, repurchased the original John Boylan farm where Ella had been born and raised, after Ella's four younger half brothers had tragically lost the land to their own misjudgment and unscrupulous bankers during the late Roaring 1920's and Great Depression years of the early 1930's. These four half brothers had been left the farm after the death of both their father John Boylan in 1903, and their mother (and Ella's stepmother) Eva Weber Boylan in about 1915.
Ella's son Paul started the Staab Battery Company, which still operates today.
One of Ella's granddaughters born after 1936, Mary Staab Horan, the daughter of Bernard "Bernie" Staab, inherited the original farm (presumably including the adjacent land of Rose, and perhaps the adjacent original farm of Ella and John Staab). Thus the original Boylan land is still in family hands in 2010, exactly 170 years after Irish immigrants Mary Branigan Boylan and Patrick Boylan arrived in Chillicothe with their three small sons Thomas, Charles, and John.
Children :
Paul Joseph Staab Sr.
...March 24, 1898 - April 1986
...in his 1918 World War I draft registration, he is a 20 year old mechanic, with hazel eyes and black hair
...unmarried at age 21 in the 1920 census living with his parents and younger siblings and Aunt Rose
...Paul Jr. born in 1925
...Evelyn born in 1930, Joan born in 1937
...grandchildren ?
Lucile R. Staab (Beetler)
...1900 - July 7, 1993
...married, lived in Peoria, no children
Richard J. "Richie" Staab
...Jan. 18, 1903 - Nov. 25, 1991
...owner of a barbershop in Chillicothe
...one son Richard Jr. born 1939
...no grandchildren
Bernard A. "Bernie" Staab
...Oct. 24, 1907 -- Aug. 4, 1989
...Spouse: Irene "Nan" K. Staab (1910 - 1998)
...Bernie inherited the John Boylan farmhouse from his mother Ella after her death in 1966, and was living there in the 1970's
...one daughter Mary Staab Horan, born after 1940
...four grandchildren, one or more great grandchildren
...Aunt Rose in Chillicothe and Aunt Lena in Los Angeles also died in 1966 - Rose owned Boylan farmland, and it is unknown what became of this property, some which sat adjacent to Ella's land, and some of which according to plat maps was located a few miles away
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Click directly on the photo of the house at right, to read further history pertaining to the John Boylan house and farm.
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+
Ella was born in Hallock township, the second-born of John & Christina (Holahan) Boylan. She was likely born in 1869, though the date engraved on her headstone is 1871. Her parents had married on April 30, 1866, and their first child, Ella's older brother William, was born in the first half of 1867.
Ella's birth year in censuses varies. However, the earliest census in which she is present is definitive -- she was listed as a 1 year old in the census of 1870. Therefore, she was likely born sometime in the first half 1869, or possibly as early as August of 1868, making her 1 year old and 10 months in the summer of 1870. The 1900 census lists her as "Mary E.", born "Aug 1868". One may then conclude that Ella's headstone date of 1871 is at least two years off, and instead of 95, she was actually 97, or even 98, years old when she died.
Ella became the wife of John Staab, the son of a German immigrant. They married in about 1897 when Ella was 29 years old, and her new husband 24. Both her father John Boylan and stepmother Eva, along with their four young sons (Emmett, John, Louis, Archibald) who were Ella's younger half brothers, likely attended the wedding.
This must have been a joyful occasion in that Ella appears to have been the first of John Boylan's children to marry. Her marriage was followed by the August 1899 marriage of her youngest sibling Clara, also to the son of German immigrants. Certainly the girls' stepmother Eva Weber, the daughter of German immigrants herself, approved of the choice of young German men.
Ella and Clara gave birth to the first four grandchildren which John lived to see. Ella had a little boy named Paul Joseph in 1898, followed by a little girl named Lucile R. in 1901, and a little boy named Richard J. in January of 1903; Clara had a little boy named Leo J. in 1900. All were born just before their grandfather John died in 1903 at age 66, but only Paul at age 5 would have had a memory of him, and of the four only Paul would have any descendants.
Ella and John had four children. The 1920 census shows the entire family: Ella and John, children Paul J., Lucile R., Richard J. "Richie", and Bernard A. "Bernie". Ella was 38-39 years old when she gave birth to her last child, Bernie. Also living with the family is unmarried 43 year old Aunt Rose, Ella's younger sister. Ella had declared herself 47 in the census, when in fact she was 51 or 52.
In one census, Ella's name is recorded as "M. Ella". The initial "M", is believed to be the name "Mary", likely after her paternal grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan. According to Irish (and other cultural) tradition, often the first two to four children were named for their grandparents rather than for their parents. (Her mother Christina Holahan's mother may have been named Mary as well.) Since Ella was listed in another census as "Ellen", her full name is thought to have been Mary Ellen. Someone in the family gave her the nickname "Ella", and Ella's younger sisters were subsequently nicknamed Rosa (Rose) and Lena (Helen), with the baby being Clara. Grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan was alive and well for the first nine years of Ella's life. Ella also had an older cousin (by six years) named Mary, the daughter of her uncle Thomas Boylan.
The background story of the Holahan family of Ella's mother is unknown, but it is presumed that they were Irish immigrants, as most of the families of the Mooney Settlement Irish enclave were. Plat maps indicate that there was a Holahan family farm west of the Chillicothe boundary. Christina Holahan, according to an 1890 biography of the John Boylan family, had been born in New York City and finished growing up in Chillicothe. She died in 1875 at just 32 years old, perhaps giving birth to her fifth and last child Clara. Little Ella was only 6 or 7 years old at the time.
When Ella was 10, her father John Boylan married 28 year old Eva Weber, and they had four boys between 1880 and 1888. Eva was the firstborn daughter of a Catholic German couple (Andrew & Gertrude Wiltz Weber) who had both been brought to the U.S. as children. It is surmised that Eva ran a strict and organized household, but otherwise very little is known about her and her birth family, which included many siblings, and many Wiltz cousins in the nearby town of Metamora, Illinois. Eva's German immigrant maternal grandfather, Peter Wiltz, had owned a thriving brick factory there, from the 1840's on, turning out 800,000 bricks per year. Her paternal grandfather Weber had been killed in the infamous Mosel steamboat explosion of 1839, leaving her father Andrew Weber destitute at age 9. Both Eva's father Andrew Weber and mother Gertrude Wiltz Weber were bilingual, with German being their first language perhaps until they were young adolescents.
If they were married in 1897, as records seem to indicate, Ella and her husband John Staab were married almost 70 years. Ella lived to be 98 years old. She died in 1966 within a few miles of her birthplace, the year before her husband, and the same year as her two surviving siblings out of nine, the unmarried sisters Rose and Lena.
Ella's unmarried sister Rose had remained her entire life in Chillicothe, and owned land adjacent to her sister Ella's farm, both parcels of land handed down from their father John Boylan. Undoubtedly Ella and Rose were very proud of having kept the farmhouse and land in family hands for over 100 years at the time of their passing in 1966. Their sister Lena, who apparently sold her share of the land (perhaps to her sisters), had moved to Los Angeles alone in the early 1940's, and remained there unmarried the rest of her life. Both Rose and Lena were hardy and long-lived like their sister Ella, living into their early 90's. Their brother William, who was a doctor, died in his mid to late 50's in the 1920's in Reno, Nevada, of unknown causes. Their youngest sister Clara, after losing both her young husband and a young adult son in the late 1920's, died in her 60's in 1938. Two of their four younger half brothers (Emmett and Archie) died young in the mid 1930's of illnesses. The second oldest of the brothers, John Jr. "Jack" Boylan, lived until the age of 73 in the Chillicothe/Peoria area, dying there in 1959. Louis moved to Seattle, and the year of his passing is unknown.
Sometime in the 1930's, Ella and her husband John Staab, who still had their own farm adjacent to the lost farm of Ella's deceased father, repurchased the original John Boylan farm where Ella had been born and raised, after Ella's four younger half brothers had tragically lost the land to their own misjudgment and unscrupulous bankers during the late Roaring 1920's and Great Depression years of the early 1930's. These four half brothers had been left the farm after the death of both their father John Boylan in 1903, and their mother (and Ella's stepmother) Eva Weber Boylan in about 1915.
Ella's son Paul started the Staab Battery Company, which still operates today.
One of Ella's granddaughters born after 1936, Mary Staab Horan, the daughter of Bernard "Bernie" Staab, inherited the original farm (presumably including the adjacent land of Rose, and perhaps the adjacent original farm of Ella and John Staab). Thus the original Boylan land is still in family hands in 2010, exactly 170 years after Irish immigrants Mary Branigan Boylan and Patrick Boylan arrived in Chillicothe with their three small sons Thomas, Charles, and John.
Children :
Paul Joseph Staab Sr.
...March 24, 1898 - April 1986
...in his 1918 World War I draft registration, he is a 20 year old mechanic, with hazel eyes and black hair
...unmarried at age 21 in the 1920 census living with his parents and younger siblings and Aunt Rose
...Paul Jr. born in 1925
...Evelyn born in 1930, Joan born in 1937
...grandchildren ?
Lucile R. Staab (Beetler)
...1900 - July 7, 1993
...married, lived in Peoria, no children
Richard J. "Richie" Staab
...Jan. 18, 1903 - Nov. 25, 1991
...owner of a barbershop in Chillicothe
...one son Richard Jr. born 1939
...no grandchildren
Bernard A. "Bernie" Staab
...Oct. 24, 1907 -- Aug. 4, 1989
...Spouse: Irene "Nan" K. Staab (1910 - 1998)
...Bernie inherited the John Boylan farmhouse from his mother Ella after her death in 1966, and was living there in the 1970's
...one daughter Mary Staab Horan, born after 1940
...four grandchildren, one or more great grandchildren
...Aunt Rose in Chillicothe and Aunt Lena in Los Angeles also died in 1966 - Rose owned Boylan farmland, and it is unknown what became of this property, some which sat adjacent to Ella's land, and some of which according to plat maps was located a few miles away
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+
+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+~~~~~~~~~+
Ella was born in Hallock township, the second-born of John & Christina (Holahan) Boylan. She was likely born in 1869, though the date engraved on her headstone is 1871. Her parents had married on April 30, 1866, and their first child, Ella's older brother William, was born in the first half of 1867.
Ella's birth year in censuses varies. However, the earliest census in which she is present is definitive -- she was listed as a 1 year old in the census of 1870. Therefore, she was likely born sometime in the first half 1869, or possibly as early as August of 1868, making her 1 year old and 10 months in the summer of 1870. The 1900 census lists her as "Mary E.", born "Aug 1868". One may then conclude that Ella's headstone date of 1871 is at least two years off, and instead of 95, she was actually 97, or even 98, years old when she died.
Ella became the wife of John Staab, the son of a German immigrant. They married in about 1897 when Ella was 29 years old, and her new husband 24. Both her father John Boylan and stepmother Eva, along with their four young sons (Emmett, John, Louis, Archibald) who were Ella's younger half brothers, likely attended the wedding.
This must have been a joyful occasion in that Ella appears to have been the first of John Boylan's children to marry. Her marriage was followed by the August 1899 marriage of her youngest sibling Clara, also to the son of German immigrants. Certainly the girls' stepmother Eva Weber, the daughter of German immigrants herself, approved of the choice of young German men.
Ella and Clara gave birth to the first four grandchildren which John lived to see. Ella had a little boy named Paul Joseph in 1898, followed by a little girl named Lucile R. in 1901, and a little boy named Richard J. in January of 1903; Clara had a little boy named Leo J. in 1900. All were born just before their grandfather John died in 1903 at age 66, but only Paul at age 5 would have had a memory of him, and of the four only Paul would have any descendants.
Ella and John had four children. The 1920 census shows the entire family: Ella and John, children Paul J., Lucile R., Richard J. "Richie", and Bernard A. "Bernie". Ella was 38-39 years old when she gave birth to her last child, Bernie. Also living with the family is unmarried 43 year old Aunt Rose, Ella's younger sister. Ella had declared herself 47 in the census, when in fact she was 51 or 52.
In one census, Ella's name is recorded as "M. Ella". The initial "M", is believed to be the name "Mary", likely after her paternal grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan. According to Irish (and other cultural) tradition, often the first two to four children were named for their grandparents rather than for their parents. (Her mother Christina Holahan's mother may have been named Mary as well.) Since Ella was listed in another census as "Ellen", her full name is thought to have been Mary Ellen. Someone in the family gave her the nickname "Ella", and Ella's younger sisters were subsequently nicknamed Rosa (Rose) and Lena (Helen), with the baby being Clara. Grandmother Mary Branigan Boylan was alive and well for the first nine years of Ella's life. Ella also had an older cousin (by six years) named Mary, the daughter of her uncle Thomas Boylan.
The background story of the Holahan family of Ella's mother is unknown, but it is presumed that they were Irish immigrants, as most of the families of the Mooney Settlement Irish enclave were. Plat maps indicate that there was a Holahan family farm west of the Chillicothe boundary. Christina Holahan, according to an 1890 biography of the John Boylan family, had been born in New York City and finished growing up in Chillicothe. She died in 1875 at just 32 years old, perhaps giving birth to her fifth and last child Clara. Little Ella was only 6 or 7 years old at the time.
When Ella was 10, her father John Boylan married 28 year old Eva Weber, and they had four boys between 1880 and 1888. Eva was the firstborn daughter of a Catholic German couple (Andrew & Gertrude Wiltz Weber) who had both been brought to the U.S. as children. It is surmised that Eva ran a strict and organized household, but otherwise very little is known about her and her birth family, which included many siblings, and many Wiltz cousins in the nearby town of Metamora, Illinois. Eva's German immigrant maternal grandfather, Peter Wiltz, had owned a thriving brick factory there, from the 1840's on, turning out 800,000 bricks per year. Her paternal grandfather Weber had been killed in the infamous Mosel steamboat explosion of 1839, leaving her father Andrew Weber destitute at age 9. Both Eva's father Andrew Weber and mother Gertrude Wiltz Weber were bilingual, with German being their first language perhaps until they were young adolescents.
If they were married in 1897, as records seem to indicate, Ella and her husband John Staab were married almost 70 years. Ella lived to be 98 years old. She died in 1966 within a few miles of her birthplace, the year before her husband, and the same year as her two surviving siblings out of nine, the unmarried sisters Rose and Lena.
Ella's unmarried sister Rose had remained her entire life in Chillicothe, and owned land adjacent to her sister Ella's farm, both parcels of land handed down from their father John Boylan. Undoubtedly Ella and Rose were very proud of having kept the farmhouse and land in family hands for over 100 years at the time of their passing in 1966. Their sister Lena, who apparently sold her share of the land (perhaps to her sisters), had moved to Los Angeles alone in the early 1940's, and remained there unmarried the rest of her life. Both Rose and Lena were hardy and long-lived like their sister Ella, living into their early 90's. Their brother William, who was a doctor, died in his mid to late 50's in the 1920's in Reno, Nevada, of unknown causes. Their youngest sister Clara, after losing both her young husband and a young adult son in the late 1920's, died in her 60's in 1938. Two of their four younger half brothers (Emmett and Archie) died young in the mid 1930's of illnesses. The second oldest of the brothers, John Jr. "Jack" Boylan, lived until the age of 73 in the Chillicothe/Peoria area, dying there in 1959. Louis moved to Seattle, and the year of his passing is unknown.
Sometime in the 1930's, Ella and her husband John Staab, who still had their own farm adjacent to the lost farm of Ella's deceased father, repurchased the original John Boylan farm where Ella had been born and raised, after Ella's four younger half brothers had tragically lost the land to their own misjudgment and unscrupulous bankers during the late Roaring 1920's and Great Depression years of the early 1930's. These four half brothers had been left the farm after the death of both their father John Boylan in 1903, and their mother (and Ella's stepmother) Eva Weber Boylan in about 1915.
Ella's son Paul started the Staab Battery Company, which still operates today.
One of Ella's granddaughters born after 1936, Mary Staab Horan, the daughter of Bernard "Bernie" Staab, inherited the original farm (presumably including the adjacent land of Rose, and perhaps the adjacent original farm of Ella and John Staab). Thus the original Boylan land is still in family hands in 2010, exactly 170 years after Irish immigrants Mary Branigan Boylan and Patrick Boylan arrived in Chillicothe with their three small sons Thomas, Charles, and John.
Children :
Paul Joseph Staab Sr.
...March 24, 1898 - April 1986
...in his 1918 World War I draft registration, he is a 20 year old mechanic, with hazel eyes and black hair
...unmarried at age 21 in the 1920 census living with his parents and younger siblings and Aunt Rose
...Paul Jr. born in 1925
...Evelyn born in 1930, Joan born in 1937
...grandchildren ?
Lucile R. Staab (Beetler)
...1900 - July 7, 1993
...married, lived in Peoria, no children
Richard J. "Richie" Staab
...Jan. 18, 1903 - Nov. 25, 1991
...owner of a barbershop in Chillicothe
...one son Richard Jr. born 1939
...no grandchildren
Bernard A. "Bernie" Staab
...Oct. 24, 1907 -- Aug. 4, 1989
...Spouse: Irene "Nan" K. Staab (1910 - 1998)
...Bernie inherited the John Boylan farmhouse from his mother Ella after her death in 1966, and was living there in the 1970's
...one daughter Mary Staab Horan, born after 1940
...four grandchildren, one or more great grandchildren
...Aunt Rose in Chillicothe and Aunt Lena in Los Angeles also died in 1966 - Rose owned Boylan farmland, and it is unknown what became of this property, some which sat adjacent to Ella's land, and some of which according to plat maps was located a few miles away
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