Mary Josephine Kelleher

Originally I was going to blog about my nana this week but seeing as yesterday was national Women’s Day I decided to post about one other badass woman ahead of her time this week. My 2x great aunt Mary “Mayme” Josephine Kelleher.

Mary was the first child born to Peter and Margaret Kelleher in 1882 in Chicago. Peter and Margaret were both born in Ireland but had immigrated to the United States where they met. When Mary was a few years old the family, which now included two sons, moved to Scranton, Pennsylvania where Margaret’s family lived. There they would grow their family to a total of 11 children. Tragically Peter fell ill in 1906 with bronchitis that he could not recover from and passed away. 

Mary (sitting) with her sisters Anna, Gertrude, Catherine, Loretta, and Mable

While most of Mary’s siblings went on to marry and have children, Mary took a different approach to life. She joined in the fight for labor unions in the workplace. Before she was 30 she was the secretary of the Garment Workers union of Scranton and a delegate to the Central Labor Union. In 1912 she became an assistant organizer to Sarah Conboy, who was the national organizer of the United Textile Workers. Together they helped lead strikes and form unions for textile workers mainly in the northeast.

Rising to prominence in the labor movement, Sara Conboy helped organize the United Textile Workers of America, eventually becoming their secretary-treasurer in 1915

In 1919 the silk workers at Eagle Silk Mill in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania decided to go on strike. The women at the mill wanted a 10 cent raise and for their hours to be cut from 13 hour work days down to 9 hours. After some of the strikers got physical with their co-workers who were choosing to continue working, the police became involved. Several women were beaten with police clubs, one woman even admitted to the hospital with broken ribs and internal injuries, and other women were arrested. The Textile Workers Union was called in to help negotiate but apparently things turned ugly. The Mill claimed that Mary and the union were “agitating” the workers and keeping them from agreeing to an end to the strike despite the Mill offering to meet the wage increase the workers wanted.

  

    "The silk workers were ready to tear down the $2,000,000 Eagle Silk Mills at Shamokin and throw bricks at it.” This is what the Mill claims Mary Kelleher was declaring. They even tried to get the courts to put a restraining order on her to keep her from the workers, claiming she was instigating the workers to become violent. Officer Charles Levan admitted in court however that he only ever head Mary tell the strikers not to touch or hurt the women who chose to remain at work. In the end, Mary and the Union helped bring the strike to an end and the workers got a 40 cent pay increase and their hours to cut to only 48 a week instead of the 65 they had previously worked.

    Mary continued her work work with the the Union organizers and eventually became a general organizer for the American Federation of Labor. My favorite photo of Mary is this one from a newspaper article about the Scranton Labor convention. In it Mary is the lone woman amongst “the greatest battery of labor leaders.”

    While her work was incredibly important to her so was her family. Her mother and she lived together for the rest of Margaret's life. Several of her other siblings lived either with them or also stayed in Scranton. When her sister Loretta died, leaving behind 4 small children, Mayme helped in taking care of the newborn Joseph and his eldest sister Ann Marie. She also was close to her sister Anna who lived down the street and her nephew Leo who loved to give her a hard time.
Mayme would sit in the little room off the kitchen where the telephone and radio were and she could see out the front window. When her nieces would come into town and visit she would see Leo headed up the hill to play with them. She would greet him at the door and tell him his mother called and he had to go home. He knew this wasn't true as his mother had already given permission, so he would climb on the fence and jump onto the roof climbing into Margaret's window. When the kids would hear Mayme coming up the steps Leo would crawl out the window and hide on the roof til she got back downstairs. Mayme could never figure out why that windowsill was always so dirty. 

Left to right - Mayme, John Fallon, Anna Kelleher Fallon, Leo Fallon, Nan McHale Fallon, Catherine Kelleher Gallay, Arthur Gallay, Joan McGonigle Pryor, Hugh Pryor

In August of 1958 Mayme was diagnosed with bowel cancer, on February 13, 1959 she lost the fight and passed away. Left behind were 5 siblings and many nieces and nephews, as well as a legacy of fighting for the rights of so many.

You may also like:
Leo Fallon - Part 1 (her nephew)
Leo Fallon - Part 2 
Jane and Joan McGonigle - The Early Years (her nieces)
Joan McGonigle - Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Jane McGonigle - Part 2