Person:Sarah Cleary (1)

Wedding Record on LDS site says her father’s name was John O Cleary and her mother’s maiden name was Mosson.

1928 Butte Montana, 1928 City Directory page 274 http://distantcousin.com/Directories/MT/Butte/1928/Page.asp?Page=274 McTucker, Sarah (wid Frank) home 1915 Lowell Av.

1930 US Census, 1915 Lowell Ave., Butte Ward 7, Silver Bow County, Montana, Enumeration District 33, sheet 7A, household 174, 7 April 1930 Sara McTucker, head, owns real estate worth $2000, does not own a radio or live on a farm, female, white, 48, widow, married at age 18, can read and write, born in Michigan, parents born in Michigan (WRONG), speaks English Elinor, daughter, female, white, 18, single, attended school during the year, can read and write, born in Montana, parents born in Michigan (WRONG), speaks English, music teacher John Cleary, roomer (probably Sara’s uncle or cousin as her maiden name was Cleary)

Montana Standard, Butte, Montana 1 July 1934 page 16 JOHN O. CLEARY Many friends attended funeral services yesterday for John O. Cleary from the church of St. John the Evangelist. Mr. Cleary had lived in the city for 38 years. The cortege formed at the Daly-Shea mortuary and proceeded to the church. Internment was in Holy Cross cemetery. Mr. Cleary died Thursday at the home of a daughter, Mrs. Frank McTucker, 1915 Lowell Avenue....

Montana Standard, Butte, Montana 10 March 1959 page 5 Mrs. Cleary, 102, Passes on Coast Mrs. Patrick F. Cleary, 102 years old, a former resident of Butte, died Tuesday at the home of her son0in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. McGreevy in Medina, Wash. She was born on Feb. 14, 1857 in Londonderry, Ireland. she lived in Butte for more than 30 years, but left here about 1926 following the death of her husband. The family home here was at 501 S. Crystal. In addition to the McGreevys, Mrs. Cleary is survived by three daughters, Ruth and Beatrice Cleary of Medina, Mrs. J. R. Silver of Long Beach, Calif.; two sons, Emmett Cleary of Medina; and Sarsfield Cleary of Oakland, Calif.; several grandchildren and great-grandchildren, nieces and nephews, Mrs. Frank McTucker, Mrs. J. W. Duan and Mr. and Mrs. David Fisher, all of Butte; Mrs. J. F. Rush, Great Falls; Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Walsh, Oakland; Mr. and Mrs. Ed Cleary, Seattle; Mr. and Mrs. frank Cleary, Sierra Madre, Calif. and several other relatives. Funeral services wil take place Thursday in Bellevue, Wash.

The Montana Standard, Butte, Montana page 22, 16 December 1973 Quick Chill toward Butte warm glow after 75 years By Kathleen Cook, Standard Feature Writer Fat Jack in his black silk hat, the cab driver was “thin as a beanpole.” Shoestring Annie’s salty language was offensive rather than novel to passers-by of the day. Sarah McTucker recalled the two Butte characters on her 93rd birthday, Nov. 20. Mrs. McTucker arrived at the Butte train station from Michigan the last day of 1898 as Sarah Cleary. “I looked around and didn’t like the place,” she admitted. “I said to myself, ‘I’m not going to stay here. I’m going to get a job and save money to go back to Michigan.’ There wasn’t a blade of grass here at that time.” Her father had traveled to Butte ahead of the family. When he greeted them at the When he greeted them at the station, his sickly pallor was a quick enlightenment of what was Butte. Sarah remembers going out with a scarf wrapped around her face to protect her from the smelter smog. On Jan. 2, 1899, Cleary, a carpenter and manager of the Tramway Mine sawmill, took time off to escort his pretty daughter uptown to job hunt. She walked in Sablosky’s (dry goods store) before 10 a.m. and had a job as a clerk there beginning at noon. What did she do in her leisure time as a young, single Butte woman? “Leisure time?” Sarah repeated. “There was no leisure time. I was the oldest of 10 children and I worked till 10 at night for quite a while, till store closing changed to 8. Then I walked home about 10 blocks. I had to walk by places in what was called the red light district, and in all those years never did anyone bother me.” Sarah enjoys telling about how she met her husband. One of her friends at Sablosky’s had a boy friend who knew Frank McTucker. One evening Sarah returned from her lunch break and found four young men waiting for her. “They were asking to look at buttons. They didn’t want buttons, they just wanted to meet me,” she said. After the men left, her clerk friend told her about the setup. Sarah told her friend she thought Frank was the best of the bunch. “That’s why she didn’t go back to Michigan,” added her daughter, Eleanor McTucker, a well known area music teacher. Sarah continued to be a career girl for several years before she and Frank married. When Sablosky went out of business, Sarah immediately started working for Symons (dry goods). She quit soon for a better job at the M. J. Connell Co. Butte’s social set at the time, which Sarah said was called “The 400,” did quite a bit of shopping at the Connell store. “In those days there weren’t many ways to amuse themselves, so they gave big parties trying to outdo each other,” she claimed. There was such a demand for table linen that the Connell store sent a buyer to Ireland twice a year, Sarah recalled. One woman told Sarah some party plans as she bought a wide silk ribbon. “She said she was fastening the ribbons from her chandelier to the four corners of the table.” The Copper Kings traded in the Connell store, too, and Sarah has kind recollections of the tycoons. “They had it made and didn’t have to prove anything to anyone, so they just acted like ordinary people - nice, not snobs,” she said. When Sarah became Mrs. Frank McTucker in 1904, rapid changes were taking place in the Mining Camp. The smelter was gone, and blades of grass nosed their heads above ground. “People used to drive by a home on Wyoming Street just to look at the grass in the yard,” Sarah said. The McTuckers were among the first home builders on the Flat. They chose a spot in the vicinity of Emerson School. There were no stores on the Flat then, and Sarah walked uptown to do her shopping. Vegetable shopping was easier. Chinese vegetable vendors came door-to-door with baskets slung over their shoulders. She recalled the completion of the Oregon Avenue street car in 1909. The news came by postcard from a friend while the McTuckers were in Seattle attending the Alaska-Yukon Exposition. Sarah and Frank were dancers and belonged to “all the dancing clubs,” according to Eleanor. They danced at Columbia Gardens, Renshaw Hall, a place on Dakota Street and a hall Sarah remembers only as “something like The Parapasoo.” They attended all the concerts. Sarah particularly remembers a harpist, the second wife of W. A. Clark Sr. “She was known for her gorgeous jewelry. Everyone went to see her, but when she gave the concert, she didn’t have a piece of jewelry on. “You couldn’t buy suits and ready-made clothes like now,” Sarah went on. “There were so many dressmaking shops.” How does the current Butte merchandise seem to the old-time clerk? “Sad. Butte had so much to offer. Now merchandise seems cheap. You just don’t get the quality,” she said with a shake of her frosty white curls. She accepts the close of Columbia Gardens with the wisdom of her years. “But I hope it can be restored in some way, somewhere,” she added. About the relocation of the central business district, she is sage: “We know it’s going to happen. Everything else has given way to the metal. In time that will happen too. Sarah keeps her lovely home and yard as tidy as ever. She still does all the cooking for herself and Eleanor and puts up her own jams and jellies. Her husband died in 1925. Sarah said she appreciates modern conveniences. She had one of the first four electric irons in Butte because her husband learned through friends what day the new-fangled gizmos would arrive at the Montana Power Co. “I was just as happy then as I am now,” she said. “I have the mental attitude for good health. There are so many people, 30-years-old who are older than some 60 because of their imaginary illnesses,” she claimed. Sarah’s only ailment in 93 years was a brief bout with cancer at 75. She went to the Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minn. The day after surgery, she was up and walking the whole city block square of the hospital. “If I had the money, I would travel ‘round the world,” she continued. She visited Ireland as a girl and remembers hearing of the days when her mother’s family fled to Scotland from Lononderry over the same religious strife currently taking place. “They’ll never get away from the bigotry,” Sarah commented. Sarah is a night owl. “I don’t go to bed with the chickens,” she said with a laugh. She stays up until late night talk shows sign off and then checks to make sure she’s not missing something more. “She keeps up with what’s going on,” Eleanor said.

Her brother, Edwin P. Cleary, became a state legislator from King County, Washington, and for may years was Seattle’s under-sheriff.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 1910 United States Federal Census
   1325 East 2nd St, Butte Ward 7, Silver Bow County, Montana, Enumeration District 112, sheet 22A, no date given.
2. ↑ ^2.0 2.1 1920 census online at Ancestry.com
   1915 Lowell Ave., Butte Ward 7, Silver Bow County, Montana, Enumeration District 235, sheet 5A, 8-9 January 1920.
3. ↑ John O. Cleary Dead.
4. ↑ ^4.0 4.1 Social Security Death Index
   516-60-2884.
5. ↑ Montana State Genealogical Society. Montana State Death Registry Index 1907-1953
   index number 5065.
6. ↑ Montana Death Index 1954-2002.