Series 6 - Bernard Mallon autobiographical letter

105pp

Dr. Arnold Schrier collected the letter and provided copies to his collaborator, Kerby A. Miller, from which Miller created his transcripts. Per Schrier: 'The original of this letter was in the possession of Miss Maureen Falls, Aldergrove, Crumlin, Co. Antrim, who lent it to me on 23 February 1955.' The National Library of Ireland provided Miller with photocopies of the letters on 26 September 1973; at the time, the manuscripts were listed under call number MS 8347.

Materials pertaining to an 1898 letter written by Bernard Mallon of Brooklyn, New York to his aunt Catherine in Cookstown, County Tyrone. Mallon emigrated with his father and siblings in 1872. His father was an alcoholic and disappeared. The children were split up and put into various orphan asylums. It is known that Mallon served in the Spanish-American War in 1898. Per a 1942 Veterans Administration report: ‘Parents: Father, Bernard Mallon, and Mother, Sarah Fox, born in Ireland and Scotland respectively. Father died of an unknown cause and Mother died in childbirth. Patient was born in Ireland in February 1868. He came to this country at the age of one or two years, never married and has no living relatives as far as we know. He worked at various jobs, chiefly as a laborer. He is an honorably discharged Spanish-American war veteran, having enlisted on May 2, 1898 and being discharged on November 1, 1898, as a private. He states he received a sixth grade common school education and is a citizen of this country. He states that his sisters are dead, though he has a brother and sister living in New York City whom he has not heard from in many years and does not know whether or not they are living.’
The series includes: Kerby A. Miller’s transcript of Bernard Mallon’s letter; Bruce D. Boling’s biographical and census notes on the Mallon family; notes on the family and letter donor from Dr. Arnold Schrier; a photocopy of the original Mallon letter; notes and records regarding Mallon’s 1898 military service; and detailed 1940s Veterans Administration social worker and medical reports on the elderly, senile Mallon who had been committed to Bellevue Hospital in 1940 and later lived in supervised boarding houses.

Catherine Mallon was also the recipient of letters from her brothers Matthew and Michael Corr which are located in P155/60/22.