Mary Ann “Mamie” (Donnelly) Canavan, 1886–1978

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on 30 July 1886, Mamie was the daughter of Jerome Aloysius “Jerry” Donnelly and Mary A. (Devine) Donnelly. Mamie was the third daughter of eight children and of Irish descent.

Mamie married Frank Lane Canavan on 6 August 1914 in St. Louis. Frank Canavan was born 29 August 1887 in East St. Louis, Illinois, son of Thomas J Canavan, president of the Board of Local Improvements of East St. Louis. Frank was an employee of the East Side Levee and Sanitary District.

This union produced three children: Thomas Jefferson “Tommy” Canavan, who was a World War II veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a minor baseball player for the Ogden Reds, playing first base between 1937 and 1941; Eugene Francis “Gene” Canavan; and George Washington Canavan.

Frank Lane Canavan died at the age of seventy-seven at his home in Pomona, Los Angeles County, California on 18 September 1964, after a brief illness and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. He was the son of Thomas James Canavan and Margaret “Maggie” (Carmel) Canavan.

Mary “Mamie” (Donnelly) Canavan died fourteen years later, at the age of ninety-two, on 31 July 1978 in Belleville, St. Clair County, Illinois at the Four Fountains Nursing Home. She is buried at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.

(Source: published article, St. Louis Genealogical Society Quarterly, Summer 2024, Volume 57, No 2., written by the author)

Written by Shirley Wadell
September 2024

© 2024, St. Louis Genealogical Society