MARY "MAE" KATE FOLEY FITZPATRICK BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH (Created with Perplexity AI)

 

Mary “Mae” Kate Foley Fitzpatrick

September 9, 1897 – 1957

McGrade Family History project · November 2026

A Daughter of Irish Immigrants

Mary Kate Foley, whom her family would always call Mae, was born on September 9, 1897, at 520 West 50th Street on Manhattan’s West Side, a few blocks from the Hudson River [1]. Her parents, Thomas Foley and Mary McManus, had both been born in Ireland. Thomas was thirty and Mary twenty-seven when Mae arrived [1][2]. She was their third child, and her two older siblings were living when she was born. A neighborhood doctor, F. W. Hamlin of West 48th Street, attended the birth and filed her certificate eight days later [1].

Mae’s birth certificate: Mary Kate Foley, born September 9, 1897, at 520 West 50th Street, daughter of Thomas Foley and Mary (McManus) Foley, both of Ireland.

Growing Up on the West Side

Mae grew up in New York City, where the census found the family in 1900 [2]. The household kept growing. Her sister Catherine was born about 1908, when Mae was eleven, and her brother William about 1910 [2]. On June 1, 1915, when the New York State census taker came by, seventeen-year-old Mae was still living at home in Manhattan as a daughter of the house [2].

A New Year’s Day Bride

By the end of 1919 Mae was living at 521 West 52nd Street. A young man named Joseph Aloysius Fitzpatrick lived around the corner at 424 West 53rd Street. He was a New Yorker like Mae and a metal caster by trade, and he also served his country as a seaman in the U.S. Navy [3][4][5]. On New Year’s Day 1920, Mae, twenty-two, and Joseph, twenty-one, were married at St. Ambrose Church, 539 West 54th Street, by the Reverend Francis J. Smith. Catherine Fitzpatrick and Patrick Joseph Moran stood up with them as witnesses [3].

A Family in Queens

Mae and Joseph had three children [2]. Their son, Joseph Jr., was born on September 16, 1922 [6]. When the New York State census was taken on June 1, 1925, Mae was keeping her own home in New York City, listed as the wife of the household [2]. A daughter, Catherine, was born about 1925 [2][7]. A second daughter, Marion Theresa, followed on April 29, 1928, born in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood across the East River from Manhattan [7]. By 1930 the Fitzpatricks had made their home in Queens [2].

Joseph worked as a house painter, but the work dried up in the Great Depression, and he last held a job in June 1933. He also suffered from rheumatic heart disease [4]. By 1938 the family was living at 25-19 44th Street, in the Long Island City section of Queens beside Astoria. There, on January 15, 1938, after eighteen years of marriage, Joseph died at the age of thirty-nine. Mae gave the details for his death certificate [4]. He was buried at Long Island National Cemetery on January 18 [4][5]. Mae was a forty-year-old widow with three children. Joseph Jr. was fifteen, Catherine about twelve, and Marion nine [2][4][6][7].

Raising Her Children Alone

Mae kept her family together in New York City, where the census taker found her, forty-two years old, and her children on April 1, 1940 [2]. That September, just after his eighteenth birthday, her son enlisted in the New York National Guard, giving his home as Astoria. His unit, the 258th Field Artillery, was soon called into federal service [6]. By 1942 Private First Class Joseph F. Fitzpatrick was serving with the 107th Coast Artillery. On June 7, 1942, the Army transport Sicilien, carrying him and other soldiers, was torpedoed by a German submarine south of the Dominican Republic. Forty-six of the seventy-seven people aboard were lost, and Mae’s son, only nineteen, was among them [8][9][10].

The Army listed him as missing. On July 6, 1943, it officially declared him dead [6]. He was awarded the Purple Heart, and his name is carved on the East Coast Memorial in Battery Park, Manhattan, facing the Statue of Liberty [9]. In five years she had lost her husband and her only son.

With Marion and Skippy in Astoria

Mae’s daughters grew up and married. On June 26, 1949, Marion married Stephen Joseph “Skippy” McGrade, an Astoria boy [11]. When the census taker came on April 4, 1950, Mae, fifty-two and widowed, was living with the newlyweds on the first floor of 22-68 42nd Street in Astoria. She was listed as keeping house, as was Marion, while Skippy worked as an iron fabricator [12]. Her elder daughter, Catherine, married and later settled in East Meadow, Long Island, where she raised her sons, Billy and Richard Badnow [7].

The 1950 census: Stephan J. McGrade, 25; his wife, Marian, 21; and his mother-in-law, Mary Fitzpatrick, 52, at 22-68 42nd Street, Astoria.

Her Last Years

Mae Fitzpatrick died in New York City in 1957, at the age of sixty [2]. She had spent her whole life in the city: born on the West Side of Manhattan, married there, and widowed in Queens, where she raised her children.

Legacy

Mae’s life spanned the immigrant West Side of the 1900s, the hard years of the Depression, and the losses of the Second World War. She buried a husband at thirty-nine and gave a son to her country, and she still kept her family together. Her daughters carried her forward. Through Marion, who lived to ninety-four, Mae has a granddaughter, Kathy Tiberia; a grandson, the late Stephen McGrade Jr.; and great-grandchildren, Dr. Patrick McGrade and Sarah Katherine McGrade [7][13]. Through Catherine, she has grandsons Billy and Richard Badnow [7].

References

1. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate and Record of Birth No. 38646, Mary Kate Foley, September 9, 1897, Manhattan (B-M-1897-0038646). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/854072
2. McGrade family tree, compiled by Frances Freeman (vital and census entries for Mary “Mae” Kate Foley, including 1900 U.S. and 1915 and 1925 New York State census residences, siblings Catherine and William, and her 1957 death), November 2026.
3. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate and Record of Marriage No. 388, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick and Mary Foley, January 1, 1920, Manhattan (M-M-1920-0000388). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/9037854
4. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate of Death No. 447, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick, January 15, 1938, Queens (D-Q-1938-0000447). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/search
5. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Nationwide Gravesite Locator. Fitzpatrick, Joseph Aloysious [sic], d. January 15, 1938, SEA2CL, U.S. Navy; Long Island National Cemetery, Section F, Site 2638. https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/ngl/
6. New York State Military Museum. “27th Infantry Division, World War Two: Men Who Were Federalized in 1940, Last Names Beginning with F” (Joseph F. Fitzpatrick, born Sept. 16, 1922, ASN 20248835, Astoria). https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/conflict/world-war-2-1939-1945/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940/27th-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940-last-names-beginning-f
7. “Marion McGrade.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2023. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/marion-mcgrade
8. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. World War II unaccounted-for, New York (Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 20248835, USAT Sicilien; 107 Coast Artillery Regiment, June 7, 1942). https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/WWIIAccounting/new_york.html
9. American Battle Monuments Commission, East Coast Memorial, Battery Park, New York (memorial listing via Interment.net: Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 107th Coast Artillery Regiment, died June 7, 1942, Purple Heart). https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/about-east-coast-memorial/ ; https://www.interment.net/data/us/ny/new-york/east-coast-memorial/records-e-g.htm
10. “USAT Sicilien.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Sicilien
11. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Sr.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2021. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/stephen-joseph-mcgrade
12. U.S. Census Bureau. 1950 Census of Population, New York, Queens, enumeration district 41-654, sheet 6, lines 18–20, household of Stephan J. McGrade (Mary Fitzpatrick, mother-in-law, 52, widowed). National Archives. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Queens&name=McGrade&page=1&size=10&state=NY
13. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Jr.” Obituary. Dallas Morning News, August 13, 2003. https://obits.dallasnews.com/us/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/name/stephen-mcgrade-obituary?id=28105967

JOSEPH ALOYSIUS FITZPATRICK. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH (Created with Perplexity AI)

Joseph Aloysius Fitzpatrick Sr.

September 18, 1898 – January 15, 1938

McGrade Family History project · November 2026

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A Son of New York

        Joseph Aloysius Fitzpatrick was born in New York City on September 18, 1898, the son of Joseph Fitzpatrick and Rose Lyle [1][2]. He grew up a New Yorker through and through. His death certificate would later record that he had lived in the city all his life [2]. As a young man he made his home on West 53rd Street, on Manhattan’s West Side, near the Hudson River, and worked as a caster, pouring molten metal into molds [1].

        Joseph also served in the United States Navy as a seaman second class [3]. That service would later earn him a place of honor in a national cemetery.

A New Year’s Day Wedding

        A block away, at 521 West 52nd Street, lived Mary Foley, the daughter of Thomas Foley and Mary McManus. She was a New Yorker too, and everyone called her Mae [1][4]. On New Year’s Day 1920, Joseph, twenty-one, and Mae, twenty-two, were married at St. Ambrose Church, 539 West 54th Street, by the Reverend Francis J. Smith. Catherine Fitzpatrick and Patrick Joseph Moran stood up with them as witnesses [1].

Home in Queens

        Joseph and Mae soon started a family. Their son, Joseph Jr., was born on September 16, 1922 [5]. Their daughter Marion Theresa followed on April 29, 1928, born in Astoria, the Queens neighborhood just across the East River from Manhattan [6]. Another daughter, Catherine, completed the household [6]. By 1930 the family was living in Queens [4].  

  

        Joseph made his living as a house painter, a trade he followed for about ten years [2]. He last worked in June 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression [2]. He suffered from rheumatic heart disease, an illness that damages the valves of the heart [2].

His Last Years

        By 1938 the family was living at 25-19 44th Street, in the Long Island City section of Queens, beside Astoria [2]. There, on January 15, 1938, Joseph died at the age of thirty-nine. The cause was rheumatic pericarditis, with mitral and aortic stenosis [2]. Mae was left a widow with their three children. Joseph Jr. was fifteen, and Marion was nine [2][5][6].

        On January 18, 1938, Joseph was buried at Long Island National Cemetery, near Farmingdale, in Section F, Site 2638 [2][3]. The cemetery had opened only the year before to serve the veterans of New York City and Long Island [7].

The Son Who Bore His Name

        Joseph’s namesake followed him into service. In September 1940, just after his eighteenth birthday, Joseph Jr. joined the New York National Guard, giving his home as Astoria. He served in Battery E of the 258th Field Artillery, which was called into federal service that fall [5]. By 1942 Private First Class Joseph F. Fitzpatrick was with the 107th Coast Artillery and aboard the Army transport Sicilien [8][9]. On June 7, 1942, a German submarine torpedoed the ship south of Cape Beata, in the Dominican Republic. Forty-six of the seventy-seven people aboard were lost, and young Joseph, nineteen, was among them [8][10]. He was declared dead on July 6, 1943, and was awarded the Purple Heart. His name is carved on the East Coast Memorial in Battery Park, Manhattan, facing the Statue of Liberty [5][9].

The Family He Left Behind

        Mae raised the children on her own, and in 1940 the family was still living in New York City [4]. In 1950 she shared a first-floor home at 22-68 42nd Street in Astoria with Marion and Marion’s husband, Stephen Joseph “Skippy” McGrade, and the census taker recorded her as a widow [11]. She died in New York City in 1957, at sixty [4].

        Marion and Skippy were married for seventy-two years. They raised a daughter, Kathy, and a son, Stephen Jr., in Port Washington, Long Island, and in 1995 moved to Frisco, Texas, to be near their grandchildren [6][12][13]. Marion died in Frisco on April 1, 2023 [6]. Joseph’s daughter Catherine married and made her home in East Meadow, New York, where she raised her sons, Billy and Richard Badnow [6].

Legacy

        Joseph Fitzpatrick lived only thirty-nine years, but his family carried his story forward. He was a sailor, a tradesman, and a husband and father of the West Side and Queens. Both he and his son served their country, and both are honored by the nation on Long Island and in Manhattan. Through his daughters, he has grandchildren and great-grandchildren in New York, North Carolina, and Texas: Kathy Tiberia; the late Stephen McGrade Jr. and his children, Dr. Patrick McGrade and Sarah Katherine McGrade; and Billy and Richard Badnow [6][13].

References

1. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate and Record of Marriage No. 388, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick and Mary Foley, January 1, 1920, Manhattan (M-M-1920-0000388). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/9037854 
2. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate of Death No. 447, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick, January 15, 1938, Queens (D-Q-1938-0000447). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/search
3. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Nationwide Gravesite Locator. Fitzpatrick, Joseph Aloysious [sic], d. January 15, 1938, SEA2CL, U.S. Navy; Long Island National Cemetery, Section F, Site 2638. https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/ngl/
4. McGrade family tree, compiled by Frances Freeman (census and vital entries for Mary “Mae” Foley Fitzpatrick and family), November 2026.
5. New York State Military Museum. “27th Infantry Division, World War Two: Men Who Were Federalized in 1940, Last Names Beginning with F” (Joseph F. Fitzpatrick, born Sept. 16, 1922, ASN 20248835, Astoria). https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/conflict/world-war-2-1939-1945/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940/27th-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940-last-names-beginning-f
6. “Marion McGrade.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2023. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/marion-mcgrade
7. National Cemetery Administration. Long Island National Cemetery, National Register of Historic Places registration form. https://www.cem.va.gov/docs/wcag/history/NRHP/Long-Island-National-Cemetery-NY-NRHP.pdf
8. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. World War II unaccounted-for, New York (Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 20248835, USAT Sicilien; 107 Coast Artillery Regiment, June 7, 1942). https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/WWIIAccounting/new_york.html
9. American Battle Monuments Commission, East Coast Memorial, Battery Park, New York (memorial listing via Interment.net: Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 107th Coast Artillery Regiment, died June 7, 1942, Purple Heart). https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/about-east-coast-memorial/ ; https://www.interment.net/data/us/ny/new-york/east-coast-memorial/records-e-g.htm
10. “USAT Sicilien.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Sicilien
11. U.S. Census Bureau. 1950 Census of Population, New York, Queens, enumeration district 41-654, sheet 6, lines 18–20, household of Stephan J. McGrade (Mary Fitzpatrick, mother-in-law, 52, widowed). National Archives. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Queens&name=McGrade&page=1&size=10&state=NY
12. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Sr.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2021. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/stephen-joseph-mcgrade
13. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Jr.” Obituary. Dallas Morning News, August 13, 2003. https://obits.dallasnews.com/us/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/name/stephen-mcgrade-obituary?id=28105967

JOHN JOSEPH MCGRADE BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH (Created with Perplexity AI)

John Joseph McGrade

Born about 1880, New York City – Died December 8, 1929

McGrade Family History project · November 2026

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A Grocer’s Son on Tenth Avenue

        John Joseph McGrade was born in New York City around 1880, a first-generation American and the son of Irish immigrants [1][2][10]. His father, Michael McGrade, came from County Fermanagh, in the north of Ireland. His mother, Bridget O’Brien, came from neighboring County Tyrone [4]. By the early 1880s Michael was running a grocery on Manhattan’s West Side, and the family lived on Tenth Avenue, first at number 792 and then at number 776 [3][4][5].

        The household filled up quickly. John had an older sister, Mary A., called Mamie, born around 1878 [10]. His younger siblings included a brother, Francis Thomas, known as Frank; a brother, Michael Agustav, born on June 30, 1883; a baby sister born on May 26, 1885; and a sister, Margaret, called Maggie, born in May 1887 [3][4][5][10]. The births were handled the way most births were in tenement New York. A neighborhood doctor came for one baby, and midwife Mary Butler of West 46th Street delivered the next two at home [3][4][5]. Not every child survived. When Michael was born in 1883, he was Bridget’s fifth child and only four were living [4].

        The 1880 census found the family in New York City [10]. John grew up among the Irish families and crowded tenements of Manhattan’s West Side.

        His boyhood ended early. On October 15, 1897, his father, Michael, died in New York at 48, leaving Bridget a widow with a houseful of children, and John was still a teenager [10]. The family stayed together in the city. The 1900 census found John in New York City, and in 1905 he was still living at home in Manhattan, listed in the household as a son [10].

The 1883 birth return of John’s brother Michael, born at 776 Tenth Avenue. It names their parents, Michael McGrade, a grocer from County Fermanagh, and Bridget (O’Brien) McGrade, from County Tyrone.

Annie Grant, Across the Street

        By 1906 John was a young man of about 25 working as a driver and living at 419 West 53rd Street. Directly across the street, at number 422, lived Annie Grant, 22, whose parents were Thomas and Anna Grant [1]. On Sunday, June 10, 1906, John and Annie were married at St. Ambrose Church on West 54th Street. Patrick Kelleher and Sarah Rafferty stood up for them, and John signed the register “John J. McGrade” in a firm, clear hand [1].

        The priest who married them was well known in the city. Father John P. Chidwick had been the Catholic chaplain of the battleship USS Maine. When she exploded in Havana Harbor in February 1898, he gave absolution to dying sailors and cared for the wounded, and he was one of the last men off the ship [6][7]. Eight years later, at the St. Ambrose altar, he married John and Annie.

        That June was a season of weddings for the McGrades. Twelve days after John and Annie’s wedding, on June 22, 1906, his sister Maggie married Frederick Heindel in Manhattan [14]. His brothers had already married: Frank wed Ella McCormack in November 1903, and Michael married Lizzie Halpin in April 1905 [14]. Sorrow followed the next year. John’s older sister, Mamie, died in Manhattan on October 5, 1907, still in her twenties [10].

The 1906 marriage certificate of John J. McGrade and Anna Grant, St. Ambrose Church, Manhattan.

Nine Children in Eighteen Years

        John and Annie had nine children in eighteen years [10]. Their daughter, May, was born around 1907, and their first son, Thomas, followed on January 5, 1908 [10]. In July 1909 the young family was living in Brooklyn, and John William was born that September 26. By the 1910 census they were back on Manhattan’s West Side, in the city’s 22nd Ward [10]. Francis, always called Frank, arrived on New Year’s Day 1911, and Morris was born that same year. Joseph came next, on June 26, 1912; as a young man in Astoria he would serve four years in the New York National Guard’s 212th Coast Artillery [10][15]. William Aloysius followed on July 19, 1920 [10][11]. Their son Stephen Joseph, known all his life as “Skippy,” was born in Astoria on August 5, 1924, and the youngest, Raymond, arrived fourteen months later, on October 17, 1925 [9][10]. May was the only girl among the boys [9][10].

        Over these years the family left Manhattan for Queens, across the East River. When the state census taker came by on June 1, 1915, John was the head of his own household in Queens, and the 1920 federal census found the family still in the borough, in Queens’s First Assembly District [10]. John’s mother, Bridget, stayed in Manhattan, where she died on September 21, 1923, at 66, having lived to know a houseful of McGrade grandchildren [10]. On June 1, 1925, the state census found John, 46, at the head of his household in Long Island City, and by 1929 they had settled in Astoria, first at 290 Flushing Avenue and then at 25-44 36th Street [2][8][10]. John worked with his hands. He was a driver as a young man, and in later years his death certificate listed him as a laborer [1][2]. His younger brother Michael also made his home in Astoria and worked as a laborer there [12].

1929

        The sorrows began in the fall of 1928. On September 22 John’s sister Maggie died in Jersey City, New Jersey, at 41 [10]. The year that followed brought John three more heavy losses. In late 1928 the McGrades’ oldest son, Thomas, a 21-year-old laborer, fell ill with cancer. In March 1929 he was admitted to the House of Calvary, the Catholic hospice in the Bronx, where he died on April 1, 1929. He was buried in Calvary Cemetery four days later [8].

        Five weeks later John lost his brother. Francis Thomas, called Frank, had grown up to become a baker. He was married and living at 32-38 48th Street in Long Island City, not far from John’s family. On May 9, 1929, Frank died at St. John’s Hospital in Long Island City of severe injuries, including a ruptured liver, broken ribs, and a compound fracture of the leg. He was 47. Like his nephew Thomas, he was buried in Calvary Cemetery, on May 13 [13].

        That fall John was ill himself. On November 28, 1929, a month after the stock market crash, he was admitted to Bellevue Hospital with a ruptured gastric ulcer. Pneumonia set in, and he died at Bellevue early on the morning of December 8, 1929 [2]. Thomas M. Quinn & Sons, the undertakers who had buried Thomas eight months earlier, handled John’s funeral too, and on December 11 he was buried in Calvary Cemetery, the vast Catholic burial ground in Queens where Thomas had been laid to rest that spring [2][8].

Legacy

        John left Annie a widow at the start of the Great Depression, with a houseful of children. The youngest, Skippy and Raymond, were only five and four. Annie kept the family together in Astoria, and she died there in 1954, at 71, after nearly twenty-five years as a widow [10]. The family suffered another loss around 1932, when their son Morris died as a young man [10].

        The boys who grew up without their father went on to lead full lives. William served as a private first class in the U.S. Army during World War II [11]. His sons John William, Frank, William, and Raymond each lived into middle age [10][11]. Skippy became a steam fitter in commercial construction. He married Marion Fitzpatrick in Astoria in 1949, raised his daughter, Kathy, and son, Stephen Jr., in Port Washington, Long Island, and spent his last 26 years in Frisco, Texas, near his grandchildren, Patrick and Sarah. He died there in 2021, at 97 [9].

        John McGrade’s own life was short and full of hard work. He was a grocer’s son from Tenth Avenue, a driver and laborer, and a husband and father of nine. His family’s story runs from Fermanagh and Tyrone through Manhattan’s West Side and Astoria, and today his descendants live as far away as North Carolina and Texas.

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References

1. New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Certificate and Record of Marriage No. 14060, John J. McGrade and Anna Grant, June 10, 1906. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, M-M-1906-0014060. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/8288503
2. New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Standard Certificate of Death No. 28879, John McGrade, December 8, 1929. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-M-1929-0028879 (search by certificate number). https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/search
3. New York City, Health Department. Return of a Birth No. 319947, Francis Thomas McGrade, September 3, 1881. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, B-M-1881-0319947. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/117282
4. State of New York, City of New York. Birth Return No. 371828, Michael McGrade, June 30, 1883. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, B-M-1883-0371828. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/117283
5. State of New York, City of New York. Birth Return No. 428246, female McGrade, May 26, 1885. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, B-M-1885-0428246. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/264481
6. “Msgr. John P. Chidwick (1863–1935).” Catholic New York. https://www.cny.org/stories/msgr-john-p-chidwick-1863-1935,22807
7. Donald R. McClarey. “Hero of the Maine: Chaplain John P. Chidwick.” The Chaplain Kit. https://thechaplainkit.com/history/stories/chaplain-john-p-chidwick/
8. New York City, Borough of the Bronx. Standard Certificate of Death No. 3283, Thomas McGrade, April 1, 1929. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-B-1929-0003283. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/5962957
9. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Sr.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2021. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/stephen-joseph-mcgrade
10. McGrade family tree, compiled by Frances Freeman (birth, marriage, children, residence, and death entries, including the 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920 U.S. censuses, the 1905, 1915, and 1925 New York State censuses, and a 1909 Brooklyn residence), November 2026.
11. “William A. McGrade (1920–1974).” Find a Grave memorial 82682499, Long Island National Cemetery (inscription “US ARMY PFC WW II”). https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/82682499/william-a-mcgrade
12. New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Certificate of Death No. 27209, Michael McGrade, December 22, 1944. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-M-1944-0027209. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/7266210
13. New York City, Borough of Queens. Certificate of Death No. 3307, Frank McGrade, May 9, 1929. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-Q-1929-0003307. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/5997993
14. NYC Municipal Archives. Index to Digitized Marriage Certificates, Manhattan: Margaret McGrade and Frederick Heindel, June 22, 1906 (No. 15545); Frank McGrade and Ella McCormack, November 29, 1903 (No. 24070); Michael McGrade and Lizzie Halpin, April 30, 1905 (No. 9036). NYC Open Data. https://data.cityofnewyork.us/resource/j62e-7maa.json
15. New York State Military Museum. “27th Infantry Division, World War Two: Men Who Were Federalized, 1940 — Last Names Beginning M” (Joseph V. McGrade, born June 26, 1912, Astoria; Battery E, 212th Coast Artillery, New York National Guard, April 14, 1936 – February 18, 1940). https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/conflict/world-war-2-1939-1945/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940-last-names-beginning-m

MARION THERESA FITZPATRICK MCGRADE (Created with Perplexity AI)

 

Marion Theresa Fitzpatrick McGrade

April 29, 1928 – April 1, 2023

McGrade Family History project · November 2026

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An Astoria Girl

Marion Theresa Fitzpatrick was born on April 29, 1928, in Astoria, Queens, a neighborhood of New York City [1]. She was the daughter of Joseph Aloysius Fitzpatrick and Mary Kate Foley, whom the family called Mae [1][2]. Her mother was a New Yorker by birth and about thirty when Marion was born [2][3]. The 1930 census found the young family in Queens [2]. Marion grew up with an older brother, Joseph, born on September 16, 1922 [4], and a sister, Catherine [1].

Her Father, Joseph

Marion’s father, Joseph Aloysius Fitzpatrick Sr., was a lifelong New Yorker. He was born in New York City on September 18, 1898, the son of Joseph Fitzpatrick and Rose Lyle, and as a young man lived on Manhattan’s West Side [5][6]. He served in the U.S. Navy as a seaman second class [7]. On New Year’s Day 1920 he married Mary Foley, the daughter of Thomas Foley and Mary McManus, at St. Ambrose Church on West 54th Street [5]. In 1920 he worked as a caster in metal, and later he was a house painter [5][6].

By the late 1930s the family was living at 25-19 44th Street, in the Long Island City section of Queens, beside Astoria. Joseph suffered from rheumatic heart disease, and he died at home on January 15, 1938, at thirty-nine. Marion was nine [6]. He was buried at Long Island National Cemetery [6][7]. Mae raised the children on her own; when the census taker came on April 1, 1940, the family was living in New York City [2]. Years later Mae would make her home with Marion [3].

Her Brother Joseph

In September 1940, a few days after his eighteenth birthday, Joseph enlisted in the New York National Guard, giving his home as Astoria. He served in Battery E of the 258th Field Artillery, and that fall his unit was called into federal service [4]. By the spring of 1942 Private First Class Joseph F. Fitzpatrick was serving with the 107th Coast Artillery and was among the soldiers aboard the Army transport Sicilien [8][9]. On June 7, 1942, the ship was sailing alone from Kingston, Jamaica, to San Juan, Puerto Rico, when the German submarine U-172 torpedoed it about ten miles south of Cape Beata, in the Dominican Republic. Forty-six of the seventy-seven people aboard were lost, nineteen of them Army men, and Joseph was one of them [8][10]. He was nineteen; Marion had just turned fourteen.

Joseph’s body was never recovered. The Army listed him as missing and, on July 6, 1943, officially declared him dead [4]. He was awarded the Purple Heart, and his name is carved on the World War II East Coast Memorial in Battery Park, Manhattan. Its granite walls face the Statue of Liberty and honor the men and women lost in the western Atlantic [9].

The Love of Her Life

In 1947 Marion, now a young woman of nineteen, was still living in New York City [2]. Astoria was also home to a young man named Stephen Joseph McGrade, known to everyone as Skippy. He was the son of John Joseph McGrade and Anna Grant, born in Astoria in 1924 [11]. Marion and Skippy were married in Astoria on June 26, 1949 [1][11]. Each of their obituaries would later describe the other the same way: the love of their life [1][11].

When the census taker came to their door on April 4, 1950, the newlyweds were living on the first floor of 22-68 42nd Street in Astoria. Marion, then 21, was keeping house. Skippy, 25, had worked 47 hours the week before as an iron fabricator for a boiler-installing company, the start of his long career as a steam fitter. Marion’s widowed mother, Mary Fitzpatrick, 52, lived with them [3][11]. Mae died in New York City in 1957, at sixty [2].

The 1950 census: Stephan J. McGrade, 25; his wife, Marian, 21; and her mother, Mary Fitzpatrick, 52, at 22-68 42nd Street, Astoria.

Port Washington

Before their children were born, Marion and Skippy left Astoria for Port Washington, on the North Shore of Long Island. It was their home for more than forty years [11]. There they raised two children: their daughter, Kathy, and their son, Stephen Jr., born on September 20, 1960 [1][2][12]. Steve grew up in Port Washington and came to know a neighbor girl there, Denise Freeman. The two married in 1984, and Denise became Marion’s daughter-in-law [12]. Kathy married Joseph Tiberia [1][12].

A New Home in Texas

By the early 1990s Steve and Denise had settled in Frisco, Texas, where their children, Patrick and Sarah, were born in 1992 and 1994 [12]. In 1995 Marion and Skippy made a big decision: after more than forty years on Long Island, they moved to Frisco to be near their grandchildren [11]. That September they bought a new home in Plantation Resort, a golf-course community, and the deed was made out in Marion’s name [13].

Frisco became home for the rest of their lives. They joined St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church and took part in the programs at the Frisco Senior Center [11]. Being close by also meant they were there for the family’s hardest loss. In 2003 Steve was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he died in Frisco on August 11, 2003, at only 42 [12]. Marion and Skippy stayed close to Denise and to the grandchildren Steve had left behind, and they watched Patrick and Sarah grow into adults.

On September 7, 2021, Skippy died peacefully at home, at 97, surrounded by his loving family and close friends. He and Marion had been married for 72 years [11].

Her Final Years

Marion lived on in the Frisco home for another year and a half. She died on April 1, 2023, at 94 [1]. Family and friends gathered for a visitation at the Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow chapel in Frisco on April 5, and the next morning she was laid to rest at Ridgeview West Memorial Park, in the Bethel Cemetery, near Skippy and Steve [1].

She was survived by her daughter, Kathleen Tiberia, and Kathy’s husband, Joseph, of Leland, North Carolina; her grandchildren, Dr. Patrick McGrade and his wife, Samantha, of Temple, Texas, and Sarah Katherine McGrade of Frisco; her daughter-in-law, Denise McGrade of Frisco; her sister, Catherine Badnow of East Meadow, New York; and her nephews, Billy and Richard Badnow [1]. Her husband, her son, her brother Joseph, and her parents had gone before her [1].

Legacy

Marion’s life ran from the Astoria of the 1920s to the Texas suburbs of the twenty-first century. She grew up in a close Queens family and carried with her the memory of her brother Joseph, lost at sea in the Second World War when she was fourteen. She left the neighborhood where she grew up to raise a family on Long Island, and then, in her late sixties, left Long Island to be near her grandchildren. The Frisco house she bought in 1995 passed after her death to her granddaughter Sarah [13].

References

1. “Marion McGrade.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2023. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/marion-mcgrade
2. McGrade family tree, compiled by Frances Freeman (vital and census entries), November 2026.
3. U.S. Census Bureau. 1950 Census of Population, New York, Queens, enumeration district 41-654, sheet 6, lines 18–20, household of Stephan J. McGrade. National Archives. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Queens&name=McGrade&page=1&size=10&state=NY
4. New York State Military Museum. “27th Infantry Division, World War Two: Men Who Were Federalized in 1940, Last Names Beginning with F” (Joseph F. Fitzpatrick, born Sept. 16, 1922, ASN 20248835, Astoria). https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/conflict/world-war-2-1939-1945/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two/27th-infantry-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940/27th-division-world-war-two-men-who-were-federalized-1940-last-names-beginning-f
5. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate and Record of Marriage No. 388, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick and Mary Foley, January 1, 1920, Manhattan (M-M-1920-0000388). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/9037854
6. City of New York, Department of Health. Certificate of Death No. 447, Joseph A. Fitzpatrick, January 15, 1938, Queens (D-Q-1938-0000447). NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/search
7. U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Nationwide Gravesite Locator. Fitzpatrick, Joseph Aloysious [sic], d. January 15, 1938, SEA2CL, U.S. Navy; Long Island National Cemetery, Section F, Site 2638. https://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/ngl/
8. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. World War II unaccounted-for, New York (Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 20248835, USAT Sicilien; 107 Coast Artillery Regiment, June 7, 1942). https://www.dpaa.mil/portals/85/Documents/WWIIAccounting/new_york.html
9. American Battle Monuments Commission, East Coast Memorial, Battery Park, New York (memorial listing via Interment.net: Fitzpatrick, Joseph F., Pfc, 107th Coast Artillery Regiment, died June 7, 1942, Purple Heart). https://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/about-east-coast-memorial/ ; https://www.interment.net/data/us/ny/new-york/east-coast-memorial/records-e-g.htm
10. “USAT Sicilien.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USAT_Sicilien
11. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Sr.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2021. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/stephen-joseph-mcgrade
12. “Stephen Joseph McGrade Jr.” Obituary. Dallas Morning News, August 13, 2003. https://obits.dallasnews.com/us/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/name/stephen-mcgrade-obituary?id=28105967
13. Collin County Clerk, online deed index (Centex Real Estate to Marion T. McGrade, Lot 21, Block OO, Plantation Resort 2C, September 15, 1995; Marion Theresa McGrade Revocable Trust to Sarah McGrade, July 2023). https://collin.tx.publicsearch.us/

STEPHEN JOSEPH "SKIPPY" MCGRADE, SR. -- Created with Perplexity AI

Stephen Joseph “Skippy” McGrade Sr.

August 5, 1924 – September 7, 2021

McGrade Family History project · November 2026

A Family from the West Side

        Skippy McGrade’s story begins with two young neighbors on Manhattan’s West Side. In June 1906, John J. McGrade, a 26-year-old driver, lived at 419 West 53rd Street. Across the street, at number 422, lived 22-year-old Annie Grant. On Sunday, June 10, 1906, they were married at St. Ambrose Church, a few blocks away, with Patrick Kelleher and Sarah Rafferty standing as witnesses. Their marriage record names John’s parents as Michael and Bridget McGrade and Annie’s as Thomas and Anna Grant [1]. The family later recorded that Michael and Bridget had both been born in Ireland [3].

        The priest who married them was Father John P. Chidwick of the St. Ambrose rectory. Eight years earlier he had been the Catholic chaplain of the battleship USS Maine. When the ship exploded in Havana Harbor in February 1898, he gave absolution to the crew, cared for the wounded, and was one of the last men to leave the ship, which made him one of the first heroes of the Spanish-American War [4][5].

        John and Anna raised their family in Astoria, Queens, the neighborhood the McGrades would call home for the next half-century. Their household grew into a big one: a houseful of boys and one daughter. Thomas was born in 1908 and John William in 1909. Francis, always called Frank, was born on New Year’s Day 1911, and Morris that same year. Joseph followed on June 26, 1912, and William Aloysius on July 19, 1920 [3][6][10][14]. Stephen Joseph, the boy everyone would call “Skippy,” was born in Astoria on August 5, 1924, when his father was in his forties and his mother was about 41. His brother Raymond followed just fourteen months later, on October 17, 1925 [2][10]. In June 1925 the family was living in the Long Island City section of Queens [10].

        The 1906 marriage certificate of John J. McGrade and Anna Grant, Skippy’s parents, St. Ambrose Church, Manhattan.

The 1906 marriage certificate of John J. McGrade and Anna Grant, Skippy’s parents, 

St. Ambrose Church, Manhattan.

A Hard Year in Astoria

        Skippy was too young to remember much of 1929, but it shaped the rest of his childhood. His brother Thomas, a 21-year-old laborer, fell ill with cancer in late 1928. That March he went into the House of Calvary, the Catholic hospice in the Bronx, and he died there on April 1, 1929. The family was then living at 290 Flushing Avenue in Astoria, and Thomas was buried in Calvary Cemetery four days later [6][7].

        Eight months after that, John McGrade, by then a laborer, was taken to Bellevue Hospital with a ruptured gastric ulcer. He died of pneumonia on December 8, 1929, and, like Thomas, was buried in Calvary Cemetery, on December 11. The family was living at 25-44 36th Street in Astoria at the time [3]. Skippy was four years old when he lost his brother and five when he lost his father.

        Anna McGrade was left a widow, at the start of the Great Depression, with a house full of children. Three years later the family grieved again when Morris died, around 1932, still a young man [10]. Skippy grew up in Queens through the 1930s, and the 1940 census still found him living in Queens [10]. During World War II his brother William served as a private first class in the U.S. Army [14].

Marion

        Skippy married Marion Theresa Fitzpatrick in Astoria on June 26, 1949. Marion was an Astoria girl too, born there on April 29, 1928, the daughter of Joseph Fitzpatrick Sr. and Mary (Foley) Fitzpatrick [2][8]. Both of their obituaries remembered the marriage the same way: each had married “the love of” their life [2][8]. They were married for 72 years.

        When the census taker came to their door on April 4, 1950, the newlyweds were living on the first floor of 22-68 42nd Street in Astoria. Marion’s widowed mother, Mary Fitzpatrick, lived with them. Skippy, then 25, had worked 47 hours the week before as an iron fabricator for a boiler-installing company [9]. It was the start of the trade he would follow for the rest of his working life. His mother, Anna, lived to see him married. She died in Astoria in 1954, at 71, having been a widow for nearly twenty-five years [10].

The McGrade household in the 1950 census: Stephan J. McGrade, 25; his wife Marian, 21; and his mother-in-law, Mary Fitzpatrick, 52. Skippy is listed as an iron fabricator for a boiler-installing company.

Steam Fitter and Port Washington Father

        Skippy built his career as a steam fitter in commercial construction [2]. Steam fitters install and maintain the high-pressure piping that heats and powers large buildings, and in postwar New York, where office towers, hospitals, and apartment houses were going up everywhere, the work was skilled, demanding, and steady. His early years fabricating iron for a boiler-installing firm led naturally into it [9].

        Before their children were born, Skippy and Marion left Astoria for Port Washington, on the North Shore of Long Island. They lived there for more than forty years and raised two children: their daughter, Kathy, and their son, Stephen Jr., born September 20, 1960 [2][11]. Port Washington was where Steve grew up, went to Paul D. Schreiber High School, and got to know a neighbor girl named Denise Freeman. Steve and Denise married in 1984 [11].

Frisco

        In 1995, Skippy and Marion made a big move. Steve and Denise were living in Frisco, Texas, with their young children, Patrick and Sarah, and Skippy and Marion wanted to be near their grandchildren [2]. That September they bought a new home in Plantation Resort, the same golf-course community where Steve and Denise had bought their first Frisco home [12].

        They lived in Frisco for 26 years. They joined St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church and took part in the programs at the Frisco Senior Center [2]. Being close by meant they could be part of Patrick’s and Sarah’s everyday lives.

        That nearness also meant they were there for the family’s hardest loss. In 2003, Steve was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and he died in Frisco on August 11, 2003, at only 42 [11]. Skippy and Marion lived on in Frisco for many more years, close to Denise and to the grandchildren Steve had left behind.

Legacy

        Stephen Joseph “Skippy” McGrade Sr. died peacefully at home in Frisco on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, at 97, surrounded by his family and close friends. His only sister and all of his brothers had died before him. John William died in New York in March 1971. William, the Army veteran, died in Astoria on April 18, 1974, at 53, and was buried at Long Island National Cemetery, where his wife, Viola, was later laid beside him. Frank died on December 13, 1975. Raymond, the little brother born just fourteen months after Skippy, died in Jersey City, New Jersey, in January 1982 [10][14]. His Mass of Christian burial was held on September 10 at Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow in Frisco, and he was buried at Ridgeview West Memorial Park [2][13]. The family asked that memorial gifts go to esophageal cancer research, in Steve’s memory, and his obituary said his loved ones took comfort “in the knowledge that Skippy and his son, Stephen, Jr. are reunited and with their Lord” [2].

        He was survived by Marion; his daughter, Kathleen Tiberia, and her husband, Joseph, of Leland, North Carolina; his grandchildren, Patrick McGrade and his wife, Samantha, of Temple, Texas, and Sarah McGrade of Frisco; and his daughter-in-law, Denise McGrade [2]. Marion died in Frisco on April 1, 2023, at 94, and was buried beside him at Ridgeview West [8].

        Skippy’s life spanned nearly a century. It began on the Irish-American streets of Astoria, where his family knew real loss early, and carried him through decades of skilled trade work in New York, forty years of raising a family on Long Island, and a long, loving final chapter in Texas, where he could be close to his grandchildren.

References

New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Certificate and Record of Marriage No. 14060, John J. McGrade and Anna Grant, June 10, 1906. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, M-M-1906-0014060. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/8288503

“Stephen Joseph McGrade Sr.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2021. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/stephen-joseph-mcgrade

New York City, Borough of Manhattan. Standard Certificate of Death No. 28879, John McGrade, December 8, 1929. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-M-1929-0028879 (search by certificate number). https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/search

“Msgr. John P. Chidwick (1863–1935).” Catholic New York. https://www.cny.org/stories/msgr-john-p-chidwick-1863-1935,22807

Donald R. McClarey. “Hero of the Maine: Chaplain John P. Chidwick.” The Chaplain Kit. https://thechaplainkit.com/history/stories/chaplain-john-p-chidwick/

New York City, Borough of the Bronx. Standard Certificate of Death No. 3283, Thomas McGrade, April 1, 1929. NYC Municipal Archives, Historical Vital Records, D-B-1929-0003283. https://a860-historicalvitalrecords.nyc.gov/view/5962957

“Thomas McGrade (1908–1929).” Find a Grave memorial 257588470, Calvary Cemetery, Woodside, Queens. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/257588470/thomas-mcgrade

“Marion McGrade.” Obituary. Turrentine-Jackson-Morrow Funeral Home, Frisco, TX, 2023. https://www.turrentinejacksonmorrow.com/obituaries/marion-mcgrade

U.S. Census Bureau. 1950 Census of Population, New York, Queens, enumeration district 41-654, sheet 6, lines 18–20, household of Stephan J. McGrade. National Archives. https://1950census.archives.gov/search/?county=Queens&name=McGrade&page=1&size=10&state=NY

McGrade family tree, compiled by Frances Freeman (birth, death, sibling, and residence entries, including the 1925 New York State census and the 1940 U.S. census), November 2026.

“Stephen Joseph McGrade Jr.” Obituary. Dallas Morning News, August 13, 2003. https://obits.dallasnews.com/us/obituaries/dallasmorningnews/name/stephen-mcgrade-obituary?id=28105967

Collin County Clerk, online deed index (Centex Real Estate to Marion T. McGrade, Lot 21, Block OO, Plantation Resort 2C, September 15, 1995). https://collin.tx.publicsearch.us/

“Stephen Joseph ‘Skippy’ McGrade Sr. (1924–2021).” Find a Grave memorial 251901198, Ridgeview West Memorial Park, Frisco, TX. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/251901198/stephen-joseph-mcgrade

“William A. McGrade (1920–1974).” Find a Grave memorial 82682499, Long Island National Cemetery, East Farmingdale, NY (inscription “US ARMY PFC WW II”; spouse Viola McGrade, 1925–1982, memorial 82682498). https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/82682499/william-a-mcgrade