John J. Gannon's
Great-Great Grandparents
Map of Unmarked Graves of
John & Mary Gannon
Http://www.TUTTGlobal.com/treasury/grave.htm
Email:
CEO@TUTTglobal.com
To: Descendants of John & Mary Gannon
By: Rich Gannon (#7 of John & Helen’s 14)
Re: Map of Unmarked Graves of John & Mary Gannon
This is the first draft only; corrections, additions and updates will be made. This letter is written as
only coming from me, because it is hard to write on this subject in a clear manner and yet try to
include everyone who can be included, for example, I am just one of 14 children of John and Helen
Gannon, we were raised on the farm in rural Colfax, Iowa where John and Mary Gannon settled
with their son William Gannon, his wife Catherine Rooney and their family. So I apologize for
having to write from a personal stand point only, but it is the clearest way to write this. It took me a
number of hours to write and compile the information. Feel free to use this information to write
what you wish and you will see it takes time to write clearly on this subject. For years, I have been
writing business things all day long; for the last 4 years, I have written TUTT Group business emails
very fast all day long with manufacturers around the world and I still found this subject difficult to
write on clearly.
This letter is for my relation for your records so that one day, we may decide to place a stone on
these unmarked graves. This is to record the exact location of the unmarked graves of John
Gannon and his wife Mary Kelley Gannon. You won't believe how easy it is to find where the
graves are located, you can't miss it. They are buried in Des Moines, Iowa, in the north end of
Woodland Cemetery, in the St. Ambrose Catholic Section, Block 4, West ½ of Lot 21. See maps
below.
To get there from I-235, get off on Martin Luther King and go south a long block, crossing
Cottage Grove, down a block to Crocker Street. Go right on Crocker Street and you are at the
gate into the north end of Woodland Cemetery. If the gate is closed, park there, there is enough
parking space for a herd of Angus. Even if the gate is open, park there. There is a sign on the gate
saying to enter Woodland Cemetery at another entrance 2 blocks on south on ML King, Jr.
Parkway, but don't pay any attention to it. Just park your car there, off to the side of the gate.
There is a gap on the north side or right side of the gate that you can slip through, the graves are a
minute walk from the gate. Walk into the cemetery and take the first right, the little road goes off to
the north-west. Walk a half minute and you will easily see the Linnane Family tombstone on the left,
on the west side of the road. Don’t worry, you can’t miss the Linnane Family tombstone. Once you
find that, it’s easy as falling off a log to find the unmarked graves.
The unmarked graves are just north of and right next to the tombstone of John (1864-1872) and
William (1874-1874) Linnane. Julia Linnane, their Mother, lies to the south of John and William
Linnane. There are other Linnanes to the south of Julia's stone. There are 4 Linnanes in the Des
Moines phone book, I spoke to one family descendant, they are Irish.
John and William Linnane are two young brothers buried in one grave, their stone lays at the feet of
their grave. The grave of John Gannon is next to theirs, just to the north. The grave of Mary Kelley
Gannon is next to and north of the grave of John Gannon. The Gannon tombstone would be placed
just north of, right next to and in line with the tombstone of John and William Linnane. If one stone
is placed in this logical place, it would lay between the two graves, at the feet of the graves of John
and Mary Gannon. The graves run east and west, the head of the graves are on the west, the feet
on the east.
The only information I have for the tombstone engraving is taken from the booklet: "Gannon
Reunion, Colfax, Iowa, July 8, 1984". The only information I have is this:
John Gannon 1784-1868 (died at 84 years old, at the same age as my Pa)
Mary Kelley Gannon (died at 90, some years after 1868)
They were married in 1831 in Ireland. I suggest the correct spelling is Kelley and not Kelly because
it is Kelley in the booklet article copyrighted in 1894. They had 10 children, only 6 lived to
maturity: Michael, Katherine, Peggy, Mary, Richard, and William. William was my great-great
grandfather. John & Mary emigrated to America in 1849, William was already in America. The
150th Anniversary of John & Mary being in America was 1999, the year my Pa joined them in
Heaven. John joined up with William and bought 80 acres in Cook County, Illinois and farmed
together from 1849 to 1856. In 1856, they moved all their possessions to Iowa by covered wagon,
with their teams of horses and "driving their cattle before them", arriving in Des Moines on July 5,
1856. On the trek, they probably had dairy and beef cows and pigs. They probably milked the
dairy cows each morning and night and drank the milk. Driving pigs is hard, maybe they carried
only a few in a wagon. They probably started buying land in 1857 where Gannon
Farm sets today, they were still living on the land where Carpenter Farm sets
today, by Carpenter Supply. They moved to Gannon Farm in 1863 during the Civil War, John Gannon died
five years later. John Gannon was born a year after the Revolution ended and died three years after
the Civil War ended. More stories below.
We can all contribute our ideas on other things to engrave. We can mark the graves with one stone,
not two. Once we have the money, it is easy to do. After we have some ideas on what to engrave
on the stone and the size of stone, we can call a monument company to discuss ideas with them.
One idea to engrave is the number of generations at the time of the setting of the stone. As of this
writing, the 8th generation in my family has just started, with the recent births of the first children of
my nephews, a girl by Shane Gannon and a girl by Todd Gannon. However, it is quite likely there
are more than 8 generations, as other branches of descendants may have found, "...facility, ability and opportunity..." faster,
as my Pa John J. Gannon was wont to repeat too damn often. And "It's
something that gets you starved so bad and fondered so quick." Having 14 kids, he also said, "They
changed the Pope on me 3 times, but never changed the Rules."
And we need to call the Glendale Cemetery office Tel: 515-271-8722. They are responsible for
Woodland Cemetery. They will locate the graves in their records; I used their records to locate the
graves and I identified where the graves are by the surrounding existing tombstones. It was a little
difficult to do this, so if Glendale Cemetery can’t find the graves in their records, we can tell them
and then they should be able to confirm. The Glendale Cemetery office will ask the monument
company how big to make the foundation, as it is the Glendale office who will lay the foundation.
John and Mary Gannon’s son was William Gannon, their grandson John Gannon (married Mary
Maher), their great-grandson William P. Gannon, their great-great-grandson John J. Gannon (my
father), and me, their great-great-great grandson, I am the 6th Gannon generation.
You can see 5 Gannon generations before me were John, William, John, William and
John. Divine Grace would have us find the graves over 100 years later because of
one tombstone guarding the unmarked graves, the tombstone of two young brothers:
John and William.
Sincerely:
Mr. Rich Gannon
President & CEO
TUTT Global Industries
3710 E. Ovid Ave.
Des Moines, Iowa 50317
U.S.A.
Tel: 1-515-265-9500
Fax: 1-515-265-9502
Email:
CEO@TUTTglobal.com
Http://www.TUTTglobal.com
Map of Unmarked Graves of John & Mary Gannon
N Map to Woodland Cemetery, Des Moines, Iowa
W + E
S
Not to scale. To Minneapolis
|
|
______ I-80_____|______I-80____To Chicago->
| |
| |
| I-235
| |
| |
<-Omaha__I-80 __|_______________________|
| |
| Gate|__|_____Crocker St.
| |
| Woodland |
| Cemetery |
I-35 | <--Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway
|
To Kansas City
N Map to Linnane Family Tombstone
W + E
S 3 blocks N. to St. John's Basilica.
Not to scale † Daily Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.
/ \ Relics of Saints. Huge stain glass windows.
/ \ Named to Nat'l Historic Registry.
| | Daily Tours of Bisilica & Monastery.
|†††| Call 515-244-3101. A most beautiful church.
|
|
_______________________|__________ I-235 _______
|
______ |
\ | 2 blocks S. to Crocker Street
X \ |
\________Gate __|_____Crocker St.
|
X marks Linnane |
Family Tombstone |
|
One minute walk from |
Gate to Graves |
| <--ML King Jr. Parkway
Woodland Cemetery |
Map of Unmarked Gannon Graves
West Not to scale
South <----> North
East
____________ __________ ___________ ___________
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | John | | | | |
| Mother | | 1864-72 | | John | | Mary |
| Julia | | | | Gannon | | Kelley |
| Linnane | | William | | 1784- | | Gannon |
| 1837-1915 | | 1874-74 | | 1868 | | |
|___________| |_________| |_________| |_________|
________ _______ __________________
| Stone | | Stone | | Suggested Place |
|_______| |_______| | for one Stone |
The Linnane tombstones Unmarked Gannon Graves
lay at foot of graves.
_________________
| |
| Big |
| Linnane |
| Family |
| Tombstone |
|_______________|
You can't miss the big Linnane Family tombstone.
Email: CEO@TUTTglobal.com
Family Stories, Notes, Comments, Suggestions, etc.
Angus: Go to Gannon Angus
Email: John Gannon was born a year after the Revolution
John Gannon was born a year after the Revolution ended and died three years after the Civil War
ended. Five years before he died, my great-great-great grandfather John Gannon settled Gannon
Farm with his son William, my great-great grandfather, near Des Moines, Iowa
starting in 1857, before the Civil War. I grew up on Gannon Farm, there are 7 sisters and 7 brothers in my family. John
Gannon was born in Ireland in 1784, a year after the American Revolutionary War ended in 1783.
He died in 1868, at the age of 84, three years after the American Civil War ended in 1865. As a
little boy of 5 years old, Johnny Gannon was playing in County Kilkenny in Southeast Ireland when
the French Revolution started in 1789, with the Reign of Terror (1793-94) taking over 40,000 lives
by the time he was 10 years old. John was 19 years old in Ireland when Iowa was still part of
France, for in 1803, the U.S. purchased Iowa in the Louisiana Purchase. John was a man of 31
years old, milking cows and farming in Ireland at the time of the Battle of Waterloo in Waterloo,
Belgium on June 18, 1815. It is one of the bloodiest one day battles in recorded history. There
were 62,000 casualties, about the same number of Americans killed in Vietnam. Honor June 18th, for on
that one day, in an area of 3 square miles or 1,920 acres (Gannon Farm has 1,089 acres), about
45,000 lay dead or wounded. That's over 23 bodies per acre. An acre is about the size of a
football field. Imagine a football game, there are 11 players on each team, for a total of 22 players.
Imagine the 22 players spread out across the field, throw in a ref, and you have a glimpse of the
casualties at the Battle of Waterloo. Now multiply it 1,920 times. That June 18th saw more war
casualties than any June 18th maybe; let us pray it is the June 18th that saw the most war
casualties forever. Written by The Bonny Rich Gannon, this Pentecost Sunday, May 23, 1999.
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