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MY IRISH-GERMAN GRANDMOTHER
MY IRISH-GERMAN GRANDMOTHER Catherine Marie Nolan Horlacher My grandmother, Catherine Marie Nolan Horlacher, was born on June 2, 1894. Her father was William Nolan, and her mother was Mary Mertz Nolan, both born in Ireland. Grandma’s husband, George Washington Horlacher, always called her “Kate Nolan, the Irish Mick!” Grandma had two brothers and one sister, William Francis Nolan (possibly, Jr.), born in 1887, Stella (who later became Mrs. George Worth), born in 1890, and a younger brother, Edward Nolan, born in 1899. When I was growing up, Grandma used to tell me stories about her Father wrestling with her brothers. She also told me a story about William and Buffalo Bill Cody. She told me that they used to pal around together during the time of Cody’s Wild West shows! Dates, however, show that this isn’t true. William and Cody could not have been “pals.” William was born in 1887, and Cody’s shows were in Europe, mostly in England, most of the last half of the 1880s. Cody was in Philadelphia before William was born, and again, in 1916, when William was 29 years old and Cody was 76! Cody died the following year. It’s possible that William was a fan of Buffalo Bill, and Grandma, being seven years younger than William, somehow translated that into some kind of special friendship between the two. Grandma and Grandpa were married in Washington, Delaware, on May 23, 1912. They had two children, my father, George William Horlacher, in 1913, and my aunt […]
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MY FATHER’S PARENTS
CORRECTION! See the correction, in red, about my Grandfather’s Mother. Father’s Parents My grandparents, George and Catherine Horlacher, were born in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pa. in the late 1800s. My grandfather was born April 23, 1892 in a house at the corner of Orianna and Lehigh. My grandmother was born June 20, 1894. I don’t have the exact location of her birthplace. My grandfather worked for his father, Harry Horlacher, in the stables where he kept the horses he used in his dairy business. Later, my grandfather delivered milk by horse and wagon and the horse was so familiar with the route that my grandfather would walk the sidewalks while the horse pulled the wagon down the street. When they reached a customer’s home, my grandfather would get the milk from the wagon, put it on the porch, and whistle to let the horse know that he was off to his next customer! Faithfully, the horse was always there, too! My grandmother worked, at this same time, for my grandfather’s uncle who owned an Ice Cream and Butter Shop. She and my grandfather were married in 1912, and they had two children, my father, George William, in 1913, and my Aunt Catherine in 1915. In 1917, the whole family traveled by train to Los Angeles, California. My grandfather worked at many different jobs, oil field worker, survey crew member, street car repairman, and he also ran the kilns that fired ceramic tiles for the Matlock Tile Company. My grandmother […]