Person:Anna Culligan (1)

She was a good friend of Pat Starr' grandaunt, Theresa Vivian Courtney. They traveled together very often.

I, Anne Verda Culligan was the oldest member of our family, and was born in Iowa City, Iowa on March 9, 1891, my father, John Culligan was attending the College of Law at the University of Iowa and my mother, Molly Courtney Culligan was a homemaker in a small furnished apartment.

As has already been stated, we moved to Yankton, South Dakota in 1892 and to Sioux City, Iowa in 1898. I entered the parochial school in Yankton, but do not know the year. There were no kindergartens in those days. I probably entered when old enough to be admitted to the first grade.

When we moved to Sioux City I attended a public school for a time and then entered St. Mary's parochial school. I drove to school with my father each morning and always carried my lunch with me. After school I would take a street car to the end of the line and then walk about a mile to our home in Crescent Park.

After my father died in 1902, Mother sold our home and rented a smaller one until she found the home she bought at 1816 Jackson Street.

During my high school years I frequently had parts in the high school plays. I can remember one occasion when I was the villain. At the time of our graduation, I was selected to give the valedictory for the class of 15 young ladies from the Cathedral Parish. The graduation exercises in those days were very important and many relatives and friends attended them. In the Sioux City Journal there was a detailed report of these events. The editor stated, "Miss Margaret Golden welcomed the Class of 1909 to the ranks of the association and Miss Anne Culligan, the talented president of the class, responded briefly but effectively in verse".

In the fall of 1909 we moved to St. Paul on a temporary basis. We rented our Sioux City home furnished and found one in St. Paul, also furnished. Leo joined his brothers Emmett and John at St. Thomas Academy and they became day students, living at home with their mother and sister. I enrolled at the University of Minnesota, and-I can remember how frightened I 'was. I had never attended a coeducational school and the size of the University was overwhelming, my mother was with me when I registered and this reassured me.

At the end of the school year we returned to Sioux City, but we all had grown to like St. Paul and Mother decided to sell our home and to move to St. Paul permanently. We, therefore, rented an unfurnished home in St. Paul, not too far from St. Thomas Academy and lived there for several years. By that time our home in Sioux City was sold and Mother had bought a lot in the same neighborhood and had plans drawn up for a new home which was completed in 1913. It was located at 2069 Iglehart Avenue.

I completed three semesters at the University, and in the Fall of 1912 transferred my credits to Trinity College, Washington, D.C. I had heard of the college through Dr. W. J. Kerby, who was a professor at the Catholic University, Washington, and taught Sociology at Trinity. His family lived in Sioux City, and my mother knew his father and sisters. One of them, Ora Kerby, was my first piano teacher. It was possible for me to make up enough credits to complete the requirements at Trinity for graduation. I graduated in June 1914 and was given my degree by Bishop Philip J. Garrigan, who was the Bishop of Sioux City. He had been Vice-Rector of the Catholic University before becoming a Bishop. He also had given me my high school diploma. My oldest brother, Emmett, had come to Washington for the graduation, I was on the program as the class pianist.

The years that followed were filled with professional activities, travel, and day by day living in a world that was rapidly changing.

Some of the professional activities were a period as Case Supervisor at the Bureau of Catholic Charities, St. Paul, a year in Syracuse, New York with the Millbank Foundation as a visiting teacher, a six-year experience as a visiting teacher with the public schools in Newark, New Jersey, a fourteen-.month experience as a supervisor with the Department of Public Welfare, New York City, a two-year experience as a visiting teacher with the Board of Education in Minneapolis, and finally fifteen years with the Hennepin County Welfare Board, Minneapolis. Thirteen of these years I functioned as a Case Supervisor. This terminated my professional life, I retired on January 1, 1958 and became eligible for a pension with the Public Employee Retirement Association.

During these years I had a few articles published. They were: "How far Should Catholics Care for Their Own Poor'!", Annual Report of Conference of Catholic Charities, September 1922; "Implications of Mental Health", Catholic Educational Review, January 1933; "Foster Home Care and the Maladjusted Child", Catholic Charities Review, November 1934.

During the periods I was not working I increased my educational qualifications. From September 1925 to June 1926 I attended the New York School of Social Work. In 1927 I returned to the University of Minnesota as an instructor and worked on my thesis so that I was able to receive a Master of Arts Degree in Sociology in 1928, The title of my thesis was, "A Study of Some Social Factors in the Home in Relation to the Behavior of the Preschool Child", In 1937 I completed two courses at the University of Chicago.

My travel experience consisted of a summer trip to Europe with Miss Jane M. Hoey (now deceased). We planned our own trip and visited six countries in six weeks, I also enjoyed automobile trips in my car and can remember with pleasure the trip with Dr. Clara Pierce, Mrs. Nellie Cull (now both deceased) and Nellie's daughter, Ellen Cull Bouslough. We visited Glacier National Park, Yellowstone, and the Black Hills of South Dakota. The next year Mary and Marie McDonald drove with me to Washington and environs. In 1958, Dr. Pierce, Marie McDonald and Marguerite Duffy were my companions on a trip to New Orleans, St. Petersburg, Florida, and through the Smokie Mountains and the Blue Grass section of Kentucky. Another memorable trip was in 1964 when Marie McDonald and I returned to Trinity for the 50th reunion of my class. From there we visited the World's Fair in New York City and then Marguerite Duffy joined us for a trip to the Gaspe' in Canada and along the shore of the St. Laurence to Quebec and Montreal, Another delightful trip was in 1969 when I traveled by plane to Boston, met Mrs. Harry Curvin and traveled by bus to Hartford, Connecticut, where Marguerite Duffy and Margaret Gallagher were awaiting us. Prom there we drove in Marguerite's car to Stowe, Vermont and visited the Trapp Family Lodge. It is located on a high hillside with mountains in the distance and a beautiful rolling terrain in the foreground. There were other trips, but these seem to be the outstanding ones.

The only one of my grandnieces who chose to go to Trinity was Mary Therese Aamodt. She spent her junior year in Paris and is graduating at Trinity College, Washington, D.C. May 16, 1971. In so far as I know, she is the only one in our family group who has been elected to join the Phi Beta Kappa Honorary Society, She also has been accepted to enter the Institute of Fine Arts in New York City in the fall of 1971.

At the time of my 80th birthday, Leo and Leone arranged a surprise party at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Michael Galvin, When I arrived at their home with Leo and Leone I was brought to their new family room, and when the door was opened I saw all of my nieces and nephews from the Twin Cities and Mary and David Klein from Fort Wayne, Indiana in a semi-circle in the room. They all shouted "Happy Birthday" and I was speechless. They joined in presenting me with a color T.V. set. It has given me much pleasure and I am eternally grateful for their generosity.

I often have said that my parents would be happy to see their descendants. With my father being an only child and the father of four and my mother the oldest of six, they would look with amazement on their 21 grandchildren and 112 great grandchildren. It is a large group for them to have started over 80 years ago, May they always be remembered and cherished by the younger generation.

On June 1, 1979 at 8:15 a.m., Anne V. Culligan passed on to her heavenly reward. Because Anne Culligan authored "The Culligan Family Tree" her branch of this tree is written in the first person. With the exception of the present paragraph, this autobiographical summary is presented as written by her. The photo of Aunt Anne was taken in 1935.