Look Twice! 52 Ancestors: #7 David Joseph Lucey

It’s a good practice to re-examine old notes and documents every once in a while, you might make a new connection or glean new information. It’s good to have others look too, a fresh set of eyes might see things you’ve overlooked. [Sounds like a great reason to have a blog, doesn’t it?]

Case in point, the picture of the Carding room crew featured in the Woolen Mill Workers post.

I’ve looked at that picture a thousand times but never noticed that the person sitting right next to my 2nd great-grandfather James is likely his son David!  A sharp-eyed cousin emailed me and pointed out that he looks an awful lot like the guy in another picture we have that we know to be David Joseph Lucey. Thank you cousin Laurie!

I knew David worked for the Gonic Manufacturing Company as a “second-hand” from his death record, but had no idea if he might have worked with his father in the carding room. I checked the Rochester, NH Directories on Ancestry.com and sure enough in the 1909 directory he’s listed as a carder.

David Joseph was born 26 Aug 1877 in South Groveland, MA and was likely named after his uncle David Joseph Lucey (1857-1904). He married Mary Hartigan on 18 Apr 1906 in Rochester, NH and they had three children, Bernadette, Mary Frances, and David.

In 1911 he was elected Tax Collector¹, foreshadowing his the public service of his son, also David Joseph, who was the Massachusetts Registrar of Motor Vehicles in the 1970’s.

He continued to work at the mill as a second-hand until his untimely death of a heart attack at age 45 in December of 1922².

This post is 7th in the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge series.

^{[1] History of Strafford County, New Hampshire and Representative CitizensBy John Scales. Published by Richmond-Arnold Publishing Co. Chicago, Ill. 1914. Available online via Google Books. (http://goo.gl/2nxwaF: accessed 12 Feb 2014).}

^{[2] Ancestry.com. New Hampshire, Death and Disinterment Records, 1754-1947 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Lucey, David J. Image: 2453. Original data: “New Hampshire, Death and Disinterment Records, 1754–1947.” Online index and digital images. New England Historical Genealogical Society. Citing New Hampshire Bureau of Vital Records, Concord, New Hampshire.}