Letter written by Aileen V. Phillips Moore to her cousin Lowry Lee Stweart

Mrs. James Alva Moore$1$ $$
9361 E. Pigeon Roost Road
Olive Branch, Mississippi, 38654

May 9, 1982        

        I am sorry I have waited so long to write to tell you how much we enjoyed the 'Family history" from Ireland$3$ $$. It must have been wonderful to walk where they walked & see the country as well. I am so glad you to to go. Guy & Pat$4$ $$ have been for a visit about 2 weeks ago. He, too enjoyed knowing more about the Shanahan's. His son is named "Dennis"$5$ $$.

        Hope you two have been well this winter. We are doing pretty good for our ages I think, I am still working in Beauty Shop about half time, with Monday and Thursday off. I want to quit but it is hard to stop when lots of my ladies have been my customers about 40 years. Lots of them came to me when we were in Memphis. I can't seem to tell them I'm going to quit. I have to take heart medicine 4 times a day - Sorbitrate & Quinidine. Seems like heart problems run in the family. Hope you, Carl$6$ $$ & Curtis$7$ $$ are doing well. If I don't work too much I feel pretty good. Am trying to have a "4 row" garden. We do like our own tomatoes. This year I planted a row of "yard-long-beans" a friend gave us the seed.

         Billie$8$ $$ wrote a card & told us that you & Hazel plan to see her in June! Wonderful! Last year the Dr. wouldn't let us fly to see Guy in Fairborn$9$ $$ as we had for several years, before that we drove through (25 years).

=2=

        Recently, I recalled a visit from Aunt Lena$11$ $$ to our house. Grandmother S.$12$ $$ was there, she brought the phonograph with the cylinder records$13$ $$. We sure did enjoy it. The first one we had ever seen and heard. How happy we all were!

        When Guy was here we decided that you were the one most interested in our ancestors and that you should have Grandfathers$14$ $$ desk$15$ $$ if you wanted it. I'm not quite ready to part with it yet. It is filled with old letters, pictures and records of our great grandmother & grandfather and letters to grandmother from her mother and her children. Aunt Lena$11$ $$, Uncle Denny$16$ $$, Aunt Sallie$17$ $$ etc. Do you remember it is a square box with the front hinged to let down, to write on and the different compartments are all still as good as ever$18$ $$. Every time I go into it I can hear my mother$19$ $$ say "Stay Out", you might misplace something! She treasured it & its contents so much. The letters from great grandfather Potter$20$ $$ wrote to our grandmother$21$ $$ while she was in college, are a treasure. Hope you can read this. Arthritis has crippled my fingers & writing doesn't come out as planned. We loved your Christmas letters, Hope the girls & their families are doing fine. I had cancer surgery 10 years ago this year. Let us hear sometime. Love, Aileen & Jim.

$1$ $$ James 'Jim' aka 'Jimmie' Alva Moore (1895 - 1986), husband of Aileen V. Philips (daughter of William Emmett Phillips and Nora Mildred Shanahan). James Moore's parents unknown at this time.
$2$ $$ Lowry Lee Stewart (1906 - 1998) and his wife Hazel Clementine Rollins (1911 - 1997). Lowry was son of Seaborn Randall Stewart and Lena Estelle Shanahan. Aileen V. Phillips Moore (the letter writer) was Lowry's first cousin. Their shared progenitor was their grandfather Michael William Shanahan.
$3$ $$ Lowry L. Stewart and his wife Hazel had recently returned from a trip to Ireland. A genealogy report they commissioned there was shared with Aileen and it is to this that she refers. View this genealogy report. A 'caution' should be inserted about this report: it was a 'preliminary' report that suggested that Michael William Shanahan's father (thought to be Henry Shanahan at that point in time of the family's research) could possibly be Henry Shanahan the son of the architect Michael Shanahan from County Cork. Michael William Shanahan's father's name has never been proven and the family connection to the architect Michael Shanahan of Cork therefore has never been confirmed.
$4$ $$ J. Guy "Phil" Phillips (1918-1996) and his wife Pat [maiden unknown]. Guy was the son of Nora Mildred Shanahan and William Emmett Phillips and brother to Aileen V. Phillips Moore (and also first cousin to Lowry Stewart).
$5$ $$ Dennis 'Denny' Michael Phillips (c1951 - ), son of J. Guy "Phil" Phillips and Pat [maiden unknown]. Little is known of this Dennis Phillips other than he was most likely born in Ohio and that his wife's given name is Sharon.
$6$ $$ Arthur Carl Stewart (1909 - 1998), son of Seaborn Randall Stewart and Lena Estelle Shanahan, brother of Lowry L. Stewart and first cousin to the letter writer (Aileen).
$7$ $$ Elmer Curtis Stewart (1915 - 1987), son of Seaborn Randall Stewart and Lena Estelle Shanahan, brother of Lowry L. Stewart and first cousin to the letter writer (Aileen).
$8$ $$ Beulah "Billie" Pearl Shanahan Murrie (1906 - 1995), daughter of Dennis Potter Shanahan and [Mary] Ellen Wilkerson and wife of Hubbard Casey Murrie; first cousin of the letter writer (Aileen) and also first cousin of the letter recipient (Lowry Stewart).
$9$ $$ J. Guy "Phil" Phillips (Aileen's brother) lived in Fairborn, Ohio.
$10$ $$ Olive Branch, DeSoto County, Mississippi. Aileen's husband James 'Jim' Alva Moore served as mayor there from 1942-1946.
$11$ $$ Lena Estelle Shanahan (1871 - 1937), daughter of Michael William Shanahan and Sallie Margaret Potter. Wife of Seaborn Randall Stewart and mother of the letter recipient (Lowry Stewart).
$12$ $$ Sallie Margaret Potter Shanahan (1851 - 1921), daughter of Daniel D. Potter and Mary Rebecca Smith. Wife of Michael William Shanahan and grandmother to both the letter writer (Aileen) and the letter recipient (Lowry).
$13$ $$ Per Wikipedia: The earliest method of recording and reproducing sound was on phonograph cylinders. Commonly known simply as "records" in their era of greatest popularity (c. 1888–1915), these cylinder shaped objects had an audio recording engraved on the outside surface which could be reproduced when the cylinder was played on a mechanical phonograph. The competing disc-shaped gramophone record system triumphed in the market place to become the dominant commercial audio medium in the 1910s, and commercial mass production of phonograph cylinders ended in 1929. Aileen was born 1901 and died 1987; her grandmother Sallie Margaret Potter Shanahan was born 1851 and died 1921; therefore this memory that Aileen has recalled must have taken place sometime between her birth (1901) and the death of her Grandmother (1921) but assuming Aileen was of an age to have such a memory and the fact that she mentions it was the first recording she had ever heard and that the move to gramaphone records occurred in the 1910s, we can probably date this to around 1906-15. However, there is one slight problem with this recollection--Lena Shanahan Stewart is definitely known to have moved to Texas by 21 Sep 1895 (the date her 3rd child Randall Vannoy Stewart was born in Mt. Pleasant Texas) and we've always been told that Lena never returned to Mississippi. In addition, there is also a mention in a newspaper article of Lena's son Charley Dennie Stewart (03 Aug 1893 - 04 Apr 1965) that says he last visited Mississippi 53 years ago (from the date of the article) and although this article is not dated, the earliest possible date for Charley's return to Mississippi would be his birth (1893) plus 53 years or 1946. I don't think it likely that Lena returned to Mississippi for a visit without bringing her children with her, so either Aileen is mistaken about her Aunt Lena being present on this occasion or Lena returned at least once to Mississippi before her mother's death in 1921 and did not bring her children (or at least not Charley!) with her.
$14$ $$ Michael William Shanahan (1841 - 1887).
$15$ $$ This desk is currently in the possession of Michael Anthony Embrey, son of Jesse K. Embrey, son of Jewell Marguerite Freeze, daughter of Sallie Moina Shanahan, daughter of Michael William Shanahan.
$16$ $$ Dennis Potter Shanahan (1873 - 1942), son of Sallie Margaret Potter and Michael William Shanahan, husband of [Mary] Ellen Wilkerson, and Uncle to the letter writer (Aileen).
$17$ $$ Sallie Moina Shanahan Freeze (1883 - 1973), youngest daughter of Sallie Margaret Potter and Michael William Shanahan, wife of Daniel Franklin Freeze, Aunt to the letter writer (Aileen) and Great Grandmother to the transcriptionist (K. L. Rhodes).
$18$ $$ From description it sounds like this is possibly a civil war era field desk.
$19$ $$ Nora Mildred Shanahan Phillips (1880 - 1960), daughter of Sallie Margaret Potter and Michael William Shanahan, wife of William Emmett Phillips (1879 - 1956), and mother to the letter writer (Aileen).
$20$ $$ Daniel D. Potter ( - 1867), son of James Potter and Margaret Parker, husband of Mary Rebecca Smith Potter Tucker (1830 - 1927), father of Sallie Margaret Potter Shanahan, grandfather of Nora Mildred Shanahan Phillips and Great Grandfather to both the letter writer (Aileen) and the letter recipient (Lowry). Daniel Potter was a Baptist Minister, Pastor of the Old Carolina Church where his son-in-law Michael William Shanahan converted from Catholicism and was baptised on 17 May 1868. Read the letter Michael wrote about this baptism.
$21$ $$Sallie Margaret Potter Shanahan. Aileen's comment makes it apparent that there were several letters that passed between Daniel Potter and his daughter Sallie while she was in college. To date, I know of only two: (1) 26 Apr 1867 Letter and (2) 8 Feb 1867 Letter There is one other letter during this period, from a school friend of Sallie's dated 19 Jul 1867.