I have scanned so many photos that sometimes I glance over one that in fact reveals so much or at least is interesting as I try and discover my ancestors. Such is the case of this photo which is only the second unique picture I have showing my great great grandfather Michael Lowry and his father, also Michael Lowry. Based on their age in a newer photo I have of them from 1928, I would date this photo to the early 1920s. Many images in this collection are of the same time period.

The elder Michael was born in County Westmeath, Ireland in 1830. He emigrated to the United States around 1850 and worked most of his life as miner, first in central Pennsylvania and later in Leetonia, Ohio. I continue to search for leads to help me better understand his life. He left Ireland in 1850, at the height of the Irish potato famine. Crammed onto ‘coffin ships’, he probably crossed the Atlantic with a few hundred other souls, some infected with typhus and cholera. He died in 1928. His son Michael was born in 1868 in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania. He was also a miner. He died in 1949 in Leetonia after a nearly 12 year illness, probably caused by a stroke.

Source:

Michael Lowry, Sr. (1830 – 1928) and Michael Lowry, Jr., (1868-1949), photograph, taken in Columbiana County, Ohio; digital image, photocopy of original, scanned in 2013 by Joseph Lowry; privately held by Mary McCaffrey, [address for private use], Canton, Ohio; Two men wearing hats and sitting on chairs; Provenance is Charles Lowry to Mary McCaffrey, with prior to Charles unknown.