WELCOME

Welcome to our blog about our family ancestry. Jim and John and I have been researching our family tree since the mid 1990's in hopes of finding our "homeland" in Ireland. But, we have hit the proverbial "brick wall" but have not given up hope. We knew that we were descended from Patrick Reagan / Regan/ O'Regan and Bridget Gilvie. Family stories tell us that Patrick was from County Cork, Ireland and Bridget was a native of County Mayo, Ireland and that Patrick had brothers Thomas and Jeremiah and sister Catherine. In my research, I found that there also was a brother Daniel, possibly the youngest and another sister Mary. I also found that their parents were Thomas Reagan /Regan/O'Regan and Margaret Sheehan. This was a big find for us because we had never been told of them. These are our Irish Immigrant Ancesters. They were all born in Ireland and some married in Ireland and came to America in the 1840's - 1850's to find a better life due to the Potato Famine in Ireland.


Sunday, April 22, 2012



BURNETT REAGAN AND CORA F. FYLER
Burnett who in early documents is sometimes shown as Bernard was born on June 26, 1867 in Navarino, New York the son of Patrick Regan/Reagan and Bridget Gilvie. Cora, the daughter of Oren W. Fyler and Lavina Overton, was born February 14, 1873 in Split Rock, New York. They were married at St. Francis Xavier Church in Marcellus, NY on April 23,1895.

On October 12, 1894 Burnett purchased the Split Rock store:" A new firm, Reagan & Fay purchased the grocery business of Hakes & Co. at Split Rock. Mr. Reagan was formally employed as clerk at this store." On April 25, 1899 he was appointed Postmaster of Split Rock
At this time, Solvay Semet Co. employed several hundred workers at their quarry at "The Gulf" in Split Rock. Limestone was dug and crushed here and carried by overhead bucket line down Onondaga Rd. to the plant in Sovay, NY for their soda ash plant. These workers were the customers that Cora and Burnett depended on for business at their store. In 1911, Solvay Semet discontinued their work at that quarry and moved to a larger quarry in Jamesville. We assume that this is the reason that Burnett and Cora moved into the City of Syracuse in 1912 to 129 West Castle St. near the intersection or South Salina St. They moved to 813 Midland Ave near Cortland Ave in 1915 and about 1917 to 216 Furman St. which was later re-numbered to 316 Furman St. In the Syracuse City Directories for these years he is listed as a meat cutter at various establishments. We also know that he was quite an entrepreneur - making loans, holding mortgages and buying and selling investment properties. I have a journal book showing these transactions from as early as 1905 through 1914. Many of the names in this ledger are for family names well known in the towns of Marcellus and Onondaga - Card, Oley, Howlett, Amidon, Brinkerhoff, Crysler, Cornish, Case, and others.
In the Syracuse Daily Journal 1913: "Burnett and Cora Reagan have taken possesion of the Scotia Apartment at 115-119 East Castle St. which they purchased late last week from John J. Cowell through D.G.Amidon. The property was held by the late owner at $20.000." What a huge sum of money for 1913. The apartments are listed in the ledger and it appears to be at least 7 tenants .
Burnett was often called "a horse trader" and indeed he was. In the Spring of each year he would travel West to buy horses for resale at home in Syracuse. Fresh horses were needed by the farmers to replace one that had died over the winter. Dad told me that he went to Nebraska but all the newspaper ads that Burnett placed states that the horses are from Knox County, Illinois. The horses came on train car and were about 30 horses at a time. The last time he did this was 1916.

An August 25, 1926 notice is as follows: "Bills of Sale Mary E. and Alice M. Stack Onon Bunett Reagan, fixtures and chattels in store 1618 South Ave, $1.00" And so started the grocery business of B. Reagan and Sons which continued until 1941.

It was told that one day in 1943/44Burnett came home and told Cora that he had sold the Furman St. house and they needed to move. For a time they lived in the home of son Bernard and wife Rita. The story continues that another day in 1945 Burnett made a deal for the 1104 West Colvin St. house while standing on the front sidewalk; never viewing the inside of the house! When they bought this home, my Mom and Dad moved into the upstairs flat with my two brothers and Mom stayed there until she sold it in 1997.

Burnett died October 16, 1951 at the age of 84 and Cora on their wedding anniversary, April 23, 1957 also at the age of 84.





These are photos of Burnett and Cora Reagan and their descendants.

Burnett Reagan

Cora Frances Fyler Reagan

Burnett Reagan
50th Anniversary
April 23, 1945


Cora Frances Fyler Reagan
50th Anniversary
April 23, 1945




Split Rock About 1909
George, Burnett, Oren and Irene Reagan
(man on left unknown)


B. Reagan & Sons
1618 South Ave, Syracuse, NY
Burnett and George Reagan


B. Reagan & Sons
1618 South Ave, Syracuse, NY
Burnett and George Reagan

B. Reagan & Sons
1618 South Ave, Syracuse, NY
Burnett and George Reagan behind counter
Bill Boyington and Oren A. Reagan
Bernard F. Reagan


EMAIL FROM JOHN J.  REAGAN APRIL 12,2012 Regarding his father Bernard F. Reagan
 My father graduated from CBA in 1933, and if memory serves your father graduated from St. Lawrence in 1931.  So with the store acquired in '28, Oren would not have seen much of it except maybe     during summers.
My father's routine while in high school (he bounced around to at least several schools; he went to Central and he spent one day at Cathedral---never did learn whether it was his decision or the school's that he not return for a second day---and at some point his father his father enrolled him at Christian Brothers Academy and told him to make sure that was the final school) was to be up very early to go to the produce market.  Maybe 5 a.m; maybe even earlier.  Then after school he delivered all the orders that customers had telephoned into the store during the day and which had been boxed to wait for him to start his rounds.  He made the deliveries in a Model A Ford truck, which he started driving when he was 14.
He would give me advice that was rooted in his experience with the store.  For example, when I kept having trouble with a dog on my paper route he told me how to bring an end to that once and for all ("approach the dog with a glove on one hand and a milk bottle hidden in the other; antagonize him enough to make him decide to bite and when he does drive the gloved hand into his mouth and bring the bottle down hard on his head; you might kill him but probably not; either way he won't bother you again; I always kept a milk bottle and a heavy glove in the truck when I delivered groceries and they served me well against any dogs that wanted to bite me").   
He complained sometimes about Barney making him only use the chains when he was on a street with plenty of snow, and that he had to take them off to save them from wear every time he was on macadam.  
So a picture emerged of a kid who worked---school and his responsibilities with the store---very long hours every weekday.  No time for friends, for much of any social life.  Although I don't remember ever discussing it with him, I'd bet he spent all day Saturday working in and for the store as well.  I'm sure the store was closed on Sundays---and that would be the family's only day of rest, and his only chance to hunt or fish with pals like John Conway, Tom Laubach and Merle Ganzert.
I also think it may have hurt his school performance.  I saw all his high school report cards once and what was remarkable was the divergence between his math and science grades and his English and history grades.  With the former he was stellar---all of his Regents exams above 95---often 97 or 98.  For history and English, he got grades of 65 and 70.  I speculate that with his long days and not getting home for dinner until nearly 8 o'clock many night, that he was dog tired and blew off the reading.  He never cared much for literature anyway.  It would have bored him.  But history would not necessarily have been so uninteresting.
He was certainly very interested in it as a grown man.  The great math and science grades would have come to him easily, with no real exertion being necessary. 
My father also never liked Christmas.  Was usually a bit morose at that time of year and seemed mostly to look for it to just be over with.  I've always believed that the coming of the Christmas holidays during his high school years in the store was the time when he made the greatest social sacrifices---that was when there where the most parties that friends attended but he could not.  A time or two he would recall having to make a delivery at a nice house in the Strathmore section, and there would be a party going on, and the family would ask him to stay a while---"Here, have an egg nog, Bernie"---and he'd have to always say no because it was after seven and he had customers waiting for their orders (meaning but not saying impatiently waiting for the boy with the groceries).  Lots of people who have bad memories of Christmas when they are young don't enjoy Christmas as adults.  I count my father among them.
After he graduated from high school, and went down to Newark to briefly attend the Casey Jones School of Aeronautics---and became ill and ran out of money and had to return home---he again worked in the store, but now on a full-time basis.  He was young and unhappy about it, but the pull was strong to continue since it was the bottom of the Depression and the family needed him.  The work really bored the hell out of him by then.  He had dreamed of being an aeronautical engineer and now he felt trapped doing the work he'd done as a boy.  He often retold the story of his mother finishing the books for 1938 (she was the family accountant) and announcing, "Well, we didn't do so bad.  We only lost $300 for the year."  His father and mother were happy to have been able to keep the store open another year, to feed the remaining family and to help long-standing customers who were also having a lot of trouble paying their grocery bills.  But for my father it was a bitter pill.  He thought, "I worked my ass off in this goddamn store six long days a week for a whole year for this?  To lose money?  What are we?  A charity?"  He was resentful and he wanted out.  But he was also torn by his loyalty to his parents and to his brother George.  (Although he never said anything about it, it certainly seems possible that he was also jealous of your father Oren, who was out of it, who had indeed escaped the store altogether). 
By 1940 he had made the decision to get out.  He told me that he said to Barney that he would stick if Barney would commit to getting out of the business as they had always been in it, and to get into the new
self-service supermarket business.  Barney had no interest in that.  No surprise there.  By then he was a 73 year old man.
I don't know the details of the end game.  Maybe Judi can add information here because George was as involved in all this as much or more than my father.  But there was, I think, a rupture.  I even recall my
father saying that Barney got sick at some point, and my father said he came into his sick room and said, "Well, I sold the store today."  But that makes little sense.  It was not his to sell for one thing.  And George
would have to have been involved.  And lastly, my father loved his father too much for that kind of swift and brutal end even if he had the power to manage it.
More likely he simply announced that he had gotten a job and was leaving.  I have a couple of letters written by my father to my mother in 1940 when he briefly worked for Curtiss-Wright Aircraft in Buffalo.
And in those letters he counsels my mother to be sure to stay away from his.  I conclude he quit and his parents, at least his mother, was angry with him about it.
To finish, my father never returned to the store, and just when it was closed I don't know.  It was probably in early 1941.  The City Directory information forwarded by Judi shows Barney as a meat cutter living on Furman Street before 1928, and the proprietor of the store on South Avenue from 1928 through 1941, and then again as a meat cutter living on Furman Street in 1942 through 1944. At sometime early in 1941 my father took a job at Aircooled Motors, formerly the Franklin Automobile Company, where he worked throughout WWII as a combination mechanic, test pilot and project manager.  Aircooled Motors built engines for helicopters and small surveillance aircraft, used by the U.S. military during the war.
He was greatly disappointed not to asked to stay on when the company was reorganized after the war.  Out of Aircooled, his prospects were not bright.  One thing I am sure of is that he never thought about working in a grocery store or meat market again.  He tried a business of selling fluorescent lights for a little while.  When that didn't work out, he opted to start a painting business.  Low cost of entry.  With it he was by turns successful and frustrated.  He struggled with it in the late 40s and early 50s, but by the mid-fifties he had hit his stride.  Although he considered briefly going into the RV business (he went to Elkhart, Indiana and brought back a small one which he parked down by our garage and advertised as for sale in the papers to gauge market interest), and another time built a house to see about expanding into home construction, in the end he found he had been able to develop a technical finishing business with no rivals nearer than Brooklyn and Cleveland, and he did alright.  Forced to sell the business in the early 70s because of his health,
he made enough off it to live modestly but securely the rest of his life off the market yields on the invested proceeds of the sale of Brown & Reagan Technical Finishing.

John

Response to John from Judi April 12, 2012

Thanks John for this message and story of your Dad. In many parts, you could substitute my husband John's name in regards to the family business, age, health, changing of ways.  You are right that the story told would be much different from my father's perspective.   From your fathers point of view, he worked day in and day out.  From my father's point of view, Bernard was always out hanging with his friends when he should have been delivering groceries!   The store was closed because  of accounts overdue and uncollectable and because of the unreliable help that was hired.  John (my husband) spent hours on the front porch with Dad talking about business and he has stories that come up once in awhile that I have never heard. He said that one of the employees/delivery men was Bill Terrell who later started Terrell's Potato Chips.  According to the story told to John, Bill would go out to deliver groceries and then Dad would have to go look for him because of customer calls about where their groceries were and would find him somewhere watching a baseball game or such. Attached is a letter from Rev. Berger of Elmwood Church.  Mom saved this and said that it was kind of ironic that he would send such a letter as they were always fighting over payment of the accounts due.   John of course loved you Dad too because of their joint interest in the guns. They had some good conversations.  I just read this to John and he asked why you didn;t mention that your father tried the scrap metal business in the 30's and had old dump trucks lined up on South Ave to take to the scrap yard. Dad tried the house painting business and don't know why it didn't continue. Your father actually started his painting business with Dad's spraying equipment. Dad also worked at Remington Rand assembling pistols during the war.  Remington Rand was in the building that we knew as Easy Bargain Center downtown by the creek.  

Email response from James L. Reagan 4/12/2012 
This is a very interesting exchange.  I will grant you that my father’s stories usually featured him as the hero, the smarter guy that got the better end of the deal.  Why else tell them?  With that said, we can agree that the family business relied on each member of the family to play their role, and when that unraveled, the business didn’t survive.  My father told stories of the families who couldn’t pay their bills, and the attitude that Barney felt that he could carry them.  I don’t think that they were building capital in this business, they were just getting though the depression.  I do remember hearing about the parish priest from Saint Anthony’s Church that felt the “Lord would provide” when he visited B. Reagan and Son.  There were also the hangers on who played cards in the cellar, threw steaks on the coal fire, and drank beer, without payment, I suspect. I would guess that my father was like any other teenager, who would cut corners, when he could, but I would also guess that much was expected of him. Because of his age, he was an employee, and I would guess a unpaid or poorly paid one.   Times were changing, the move to supermarkets had begun.  His purchased of new equipment was met with the order to sell it to someone else, for a profit, hastened my father’s departure from the business.  It is  good for us to review the history, with different perspectives.  We are building some good reasons to get together and I am enjoying it.

Email response from John J. Reagan 4/13/2012
How interesting that your father conveyed to you that in his view my father spent too much time hanging out with friends and not enough time attending to his job of delivering the groceries. It's a totally subjective matter.  Both George and Bernard could have been right---from their respective points of view.  I also feel remiss in not having perhaps made it more clear that my father never complained about his lot 
in working for the store before he graduated from high school.  It is my reading between the lines, and purely my speculation that led me to conclude that he missed out on a good bit of the social life he might 
otherwise have had in high school but for his delivery job.  But reading that George saw him as something of a slacker gave me a laugh.  I thought, "But of course he would have seen it that way."
As for the scrap metal business in the 1930s that I didn't mention?  Here's why.  I never heard a word about it.  I'd be interested in anything your John remembers being told.
As to why your father tried painting and dropped it, I can certainly understand why.  I did enough of it to know.  It's not tremendously lucrative for one thing.  For another its fantastically boring.  I can
tell you that painting a white house in the sunshine can make you get so lost in hypnotically dreaming that you can forget where you are and walk right off a ladder, falling into bushes.  I know.  I did it.  And 
it is a pain to go around looking for the work---lining up more jobs.  Your father worked many years in the meat department of grocery stores.  I can tell you, also from experience, that a grocery store is close 
to heaven compared to painting.  No work to find---it awaits you every day.  And a grocery store is at least visually stimulating.  People are moving around you all the time, coming and going.  It may not be the world's deepest and most rewarding conversations to be had there, but it is at least a social environment.
And it never rains on you.  And you don't get sunburned outdoors and headaches from paint fumes when you are painting indoors.  You get the picture.  My father only painted buildings, for the most part,   until he got the business to the point where he was doing baked on finishes for GE, for Honeywell, even for NASA once.  Even when he bid jobs for Will & Baumer Candle ("Candlemakers to the Vatican!")
and the Century Boat company, he was using his not inconsiderable engineering skills to come up with ways to dramatically lower labor costs so as to make good profits even while underbidding his competition.   
He developed an expertise with the chemistry of finishes that was quite rare.  He was proud when he could come home and announce, "Well, Rita, I spent a couple hours again today with those young Dupont fellows that came up from Delaware to talk to me.  Nice young men.  Smart too.  But they don't have the experience that I do with certain Dupont paints, and how they behave when they are worked with as I do 
with them.  Yes, nice young men.  Very appreciative too.  That tea about ready?"
As for Remington Rand, I knew your father worked there during the war and not on typewriters.  Didn't they give him a silver-plated pistol at the end of the war in appreciation of his service?

 

B. Reagan & Sons
1618 South Ave, Syracuse, NY
  George B. Reagan

Cora F. Fyler Reagan

Cora F. Fyler Reagan

Calling Card of Cora B. Fyler

Birth dates of Burnett Reagan and his siblings on the back of the above card

Reagan Auction Service
Cedarvale Road
J.T. Reagan auctioner on left
Burnett Reagan in center with cane

Obituaries and Funeral Cards for Cora and Burnett Reagan

Bernard F. Reagan, Rita Leonard Reagan
with son Bernard M. Reagan
Easter 1946

Bernard M. Reagan and Paul M. Reagan
Easter 1946 at 1525 Lancaster Avenue

George B. Reagan with sons
John P. "Pat" Reagan on left
and Edward J. Reagan on right
Easter 1946

Mary Whelan Walsh
Francis B. Whelan
Easter 1946

M. Irene Reagan Whelan and Francis W. Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan
born August 3, 1898

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Marion Irene Reagan Whelan

Francis B. Whelan
Francis B. Whelan

Mary Whelan Walsh

Mary Whelan Walsh

F. David Walsh and Mary Whelan Walsh
September 7, 1957

George Bernard Reagan
Born April 7, 1904

George B. Reagan
2nd row from right, 3rd row back
Brighton School at corner of South Salina and W. Colvin
About 1912/13

George B. Reagan

George B. Reagan

George B. Reagan

George B. Reagan

Graduation
CBA - Christian Brothers Academy
June 22, 1922
George B. Reagan
5th from right middle row

George B. Reagan

Ethel Newstead Reagan
1st wife of George B. Reagan
and their daughter Eleanor Irene Reagan
1929

Eleanor I. Reagan

Eleanor I. Reagan 1931

Eleanor I. Reagan 1943

Eleanor I. Reagan

Eleanor I. Reagan 1947

Eleanor I. Reagan 1946

Eleanor I. Reagan
Sister Anne Patrick

George B. Reagan at Remington Rand 1943
next to window back 8

George B. Reagan and Clara Marie Nichols Reagan
with son John P. Reagan 1943

Edward J and John P. Reagan about 1948
Christmas 1948 at George and Clara Reagan's
George and Cora by window
Ed and Pat on flooor

Christmas 1948 at George and Clara Reagan's

Burnett Reagan holding
Judith Anne Reagan Durling 1949

Burnett Reagan holding
Judith Anne Reagan Durling
Edward J Reagan on left
John Patrick Reagan on right
1949

"Watching the radio"
John P. Reagan on floor
Edward J and Judith Anne in chairs

Edward J. Reagan and John P. Reagan
Judith Anne Reagan Durling 1950

George B. Reagan 1947
George B. Reagan at Loblaws about 1950


George B. Reagan

Anna Cecelia Reagan Sturtz
Eleanor I. Reagan (Sister Anne Patrick)

Children of George B. Reagan
John P. Reagan front
Edward J. Reagan left
Eleanor I. Reagan holding
Anna Cecelia Reagan
Judith Anne Reagan right

George B. Reagan with Anna Cecelia and Judith Anne Reagan
at 1529 Lancaster Ave about 1957

Anna Cecelia and Judith Anne Reagan
at 1529 Lancaster Ave about 1957


Eleanor I. Reagan (Sister Anne Patrick)

Judith Anne Reagan Durling
Edward James Reagan
John Patrick Reagan
About 1952


Eleanor I. Reagan and
John P. Reagan
September 1965

Edward J. Reagan
at Biloxi, Miss.
December 1965

Edward J. Reagan
at Biloxi, Miss.
December 1965

Judith Anne Reagan Durling
1970

Anna Cecelia Reagan Sturtz
1973

25th Wedding Anniversary
George B. Reagan and Clara M. Nichols Reagan
April 13, 1967

John P. Reagan and Clara M. Nichols Reagan
Yellowstone Park 1994
John P. Reagan, Clara M. Reagan and Edward J. Reagan
Colorado 1994
George B. REagan and Clara M. Reagan
at Christening of Patrick Joseph Sturtz
May 1982

Clara M. Nichols Reagan and George B. Reagan

Clara M. Nichols Reagan and George B. Reagan
5oth Wedding Annivesary
April 13, 1992

Clara M. Nichols Reagan and George B. Reagan
5oth Wedding Annivesary
April 13, 1992
Clara M. Nichols Reagan and George B. Reagan
5oth Wedding Annivesary
April 13, 1992
Rita Leonard Reagan on right

l-r
John Patrick Reagan
Judith Anne Reagan Durling
Anna Cecelia Reagan Sturtz
Edward James Reagan
2009

Patrick Edward Sturtz and Mom
Anna Cecelia Reagan Sturtz
Eagle Award Ceremony
December 27, 2008

Patrick Edward Sturtz
Eagle Award Ceremony
December 27, 2008
The Michael and Anna Sturtz Family
Joseph M. Sturtz, Patrick E. Sturtz, Anna C. Reagan Sturtz, Suzanne K. Sturtz and in front Elizabeth Anne Sturtz
Decembe 27, 2008

Jeme D. Broome Reagan and John Patrick Reagan
Henderson, NV
May 19, 2009

Sarah E. Durling, Derric S. Gray, Kristin M. Durling Gray, Judith A. Reagan Durling
Erin K. Durling and John R. Durling
May 19, 2007

Judith A. Reagan Durling and John R. Durling
May 19, 2007

Erin K. Durling Mallory
Robert P. Mallory II
October 31, 2009
Erin K. Durling Mallory
Robert P. Mallory II
October 31, 2009



Sarah E. Durling, John R. Durling, Judith A. Reagan Durling,
Erin K. Durling Mallory, Robert P. Mallory II
Kristin M. Durling Gray, Derric S. Gray
October 31, 2009


Oren Archibald Reagan
Born August 14, 1907

Oren Archibald Reagan

Thomas Reagan

Joseph O. Reagan Family
Ann Reagan, Julia Reagan, Joseph O. Reagan,Debbie Malmud Reagan, Gregg Reagan
2010
Bernard Francis Reagan
born May 25, 1916

Bernard Francis Reagan

Burnett Reagan and Bernard M. Reagan

Bernard M. Reagan, John J. Reagan and James L. Reagan
about 1950

John J. Reagan, Bernard M. Reagan James L. Reagan
About 1950

Liese Boissevain Reagan, Brian T. Reagan, Margaret Carney Reagan, James L. Reagan
2003

The James L. Reagan Family
September 16, 2007

Back Row Kathryn M. Reagan, David Dibble(friend), Anne M."Meg" Reagan,Molly the dog, Helen Reagan
Front Row Edith Jones(Peg's mother), Margaret "Peg" Carney Reagan, James L. Reagan, Bernard M. Reagan, Matthew Reagan, Margaret "Peg" Beatty Reagan, David Reagan
in front Brian T. Reagan
December 1987

James L. Reagan and Anne M. Reagan
2005

Anne Margaret Reagan, James L. Reagan, Margaret "Peg" Carney Reagan,
Brian Trevor Reagan, Kathryn Meredith Reagan
August 1999

Bernard M. Reagan, John J. Reagan, James L. Reagan
August 1999
Margaret "Peggy" Carney Reagan and Lucy
James L. Reagan
Family Photo:

First Row:  Trevor Reagan in lap of  Derrick Talbot,  Colby Reagan, Lorraine Wargo, Andrew James Talbot, Jim Reagan

Second Row:  Michael duPont Jr., Jason Talbot Jr., Jason Talbot Sr., Kate Reagan Talbot, Margaret Reagan Talbot, Liese Reagan

Brian is married to Liese and has two sons: Trevor and Colby

Kate is married to Jason Sr, and has three sons – Jason Jr., Derrick, and Andrew James.

Anne Margaret Reagan duPont (Meg)changed her name to Margaret Reagan duPont she she married Michael.

Lorraine Wargo is engaged to Jim Reagan.
Kathryn Meredith Reagan Talbot and
Dad James L. Reagan

Adelaide Reed Reagan and John Thomas "JT" Reagan Anniversary Party
1963

Adelaide Reed Reagan and John Thomas "JT" Reagan Anniversary Party
1963