04 September 2019

But What if it Is?: The Unexpected Fall of a Brick Wall, part 2

Have you ever had that feeling that you're missing something?  In part 1 I talked about a fascinating story of a murdered man and his misidentification. But what if this McCall family is my McCall family? I can double check thanks to the addresses published in the newspaper article and city directories.
      The article lists "Mrs. Philip McCall, 2716 Twenty-sixth street south"1
I have previously looked up this family in the cities directories and notated their address for each year (they seemed to move a lot!). In 1902 the family is listed as
      McCall
           "       Philip, lab. 2632 27th Ave S.
           "       Rosa E. clk. 2632 27th Ave S.2
The address don't match - so not my family.

But wait! The murder happened in October 1902 and the city directory probably came out in the beginning of the year. And did I mention that this family liked to move around a lot? Now to check the 1903 city directory: 
      McCall
           "      Philip E. brakeman. r 2716 e 26th av s.
           "      Rose E. clk Powers Mer Co. b 2716 s 26th.3

It's a match(ish)! The newspaper gives "2716 Twenty-sixth street south" while the city directory lists "2716 e 26th av. s"  Avenue and street are easy enough to misprint. Re-looking at the city directories reminded me that while McCall is a fairly common name, there is only one Philip McCall listed as living in Minneapolis during this time period. The fact that the only other McCalls listed at the same residence are also his daughters reinforced that this is the Philip McCall I am looking for. Add in that Philip's occupation is "breakman" and his wife stated in the newspaper article that " He has been employed in the railroad work in Wisconsin for some time." Bingo, we have a match!

Thanks to Thomas McCall not being dead (yet) we now know that he is the brother of Philip McCall and that they have a sister married to Matthew Flannigan. This additional information should help track down their parents!
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Sources
1.  "Thos. M'Call the Dead Man," The Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota), 16 October 1902, p. 6; digital images, Newspapers.com (http://startribune.newspapers.com : downloaded 12 August 2019).
2. Claudia Schuman, [e-mail for private use], to Jennifer Shaw, e-mail, 21 June 2006, "Minneapolis Directory Lookups,"; privately held by Shaw, [e-mail & address for private use].
3. Davison's Minneapolis City Directory, 1903 (Minneapolis, MN: Minneapolis Directory Co., 1903), p. 1035; digital images, "U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta)," Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 April 2012).
4. 

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