I recently paid a visit to the gravesite at Holy Cross Cemetery in Malden, Massachusetts where my gandfather John Blaney and my great-grandmother Alice Blaney are buried. I used to take my mother to this cemetery from time to time.

According to family lore and cemetery records, Alice (O’Neill) Blaney purchased this plot on May 16, 1902, when her son James Blaney died at age 38. She would bury two more of her sons before her own death in 1917. The only names on the monument are those of her sons, James Blaney, Neil Blaney, Thomas Blaney (all of whom pre-deceased thier mother, Alice) and John Blaney, who died in 1950.

However, cemetery records indicate that Alice herself was buried there in 1917, as well as Henry J. Blaney in 1902 (son of Neil), Daniel in 1914 (son of Alice), Ellen (Butler) Blaney in 1918 (wife of Daniel), Mary McKeown Blaney in 1921 (wife of Neil) and Joseph Blaney in 1951 (son of Alice).

Alice listed her address as 173 Centre Street when she bought the plot in 1902. She lived for many years at 9 King Terrace, although her death certificate says that she died at the home of her daughter, Mary Bagwell, 97 St. Alphonsus Street, Roxbury (Boston) Massachusetts on September 15, 1917.

Alice saw to it that the names of her sons who predeceased her, James, Neil and Thomas, were inscribed on the headstone. In a sad turn, it would appear that after Alice herself died, no one bothered to have her name inscribed on the stone that she purchased.

My grandfather, John Blaney, is buried here instead of with his wife (my grandmother) Rosetta Blaney, who is buried at New Calvary Cemetery in Boston with her daughters Margaret and Rosaline. The Blaney plot at New Calvary did exist before John’s death, as it was bought to bury his daughter Margaret, who died in 1949, one year before her father.

But according to my mother, her father was adamant that he wanted to be buried with his mother. In the end, there was apparently no great love between Rose and John Blaney. So when he died, Rose’s attitude was, “To hell with him. If he wants to be with his mother, let him be with his mother.”

A brief Blaney Genealogy
Blaney Blog