Jerry Lyons is not buried here. His name was placed on his wife's grave marker by his children as a memorial. He is buried at the Topeka Cemetery in Topeka, Kansas. See Findagrave #15835311 for his actual grave which is marked as him having died in 1938 rather than 1937 as it is here. This resulted in endless confusion looking for him in Ohio where he was not.

He was born in Listowel, County Kerry, Ireland, probably in 1847, with reporting varying between 1845 and 1847. Unlike his siblings, a baptism records was not found. He immigrated in the 1860s with his parents, perhaps as early as 1860 with reports varying. They originally lived in Jersey City, NJ with most of the men working for the railroad. He married Margaret Jane Halpin, probably in Jersey City, about 1866. They had eleven children.

By the 1870 Census he and his family were in Braceville, Ohio where they remained until 1898. His eldest son Patrick/later Peter was born in Braceville in 1867. Jerry purchased land in 1874. According to newspaper accounts, the extended Lyons and Moriarity (his mother's people) families engaged in a running feud from the 1880s with the Fulweiler family that resulted in his house and barn being mysteriously burned in 1893. By 1898, he had sold his property in Ohio and they returned to Jersey City, NJ where Jerry was a foreman at a railroad yard. By 1910 they were back in Ohio, living in Cleveland. After being widowed, he moved to Topeka in 1914 to join daughter Kitty Tassell. He lived in Kansas until his death in 1937. Like his father before him, he claimed to be much older than he was in his later years.

Two of his sons, Frank and Leonard, were criminals and gangsters at least in their youth working with their brother-in-law John Tassell. There are newspaper mentions of the "Lyons Tassell Gang." The Tassells later ran "joints"--essentially speakeasies with illegal liquor in Topeka and daughter Katie Tassell was called the "queen of the jointists" in the local newspapers.

The other sons were all respectable citizens with at least three working for railroads.