Oral history in our family has always been that my great grandfather
John T. Cavanagh was an altar server at the ceremony when the cornerstone of
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Boonville, NY, was placed.
John T. Cavanagh circa 1912, at daughter
Dorothy Christine Cavanagh Moonan’s
First Holy Communion
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church, Boonville, NY.
He is second man from left back row, white hair, dark mustache.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church Charles St., Boonville, NY.
Photo taken in 2015
John T. Cavanagh was a devout Catholic. His marriage to Christina (Tina) Pirnie Cavanagh in February 1886 was unusual in that she was of the Protestant Faith, in those days, it was considered a, mixed marriage, she worshiped independently at the Presbyterian Church on the corner of Church St & James St, Boonville.
John T. Worshiped and raised his children in the Catholic faith at St. Joseph’s.
In continuation of the oral history of the Cavanagh family in Boonville.
Boonville has a Catholic cemetery where the ground is consecrated for Catholic burials. There is a separate cemetery for Protestant burials. John T. Cavanagh was diplomatic in his solution to the conundrum of his final burial wishes to rest with his beloved wife, (Tina) Pirnie Cavanagh.
He purchased burial plots on both sides of the dividing line between the Catholic and Protestant Cemeteries. Allowing the family members to be buried in their respective consecrated ground, according to their faith practice of choice, together in one plot.
This row of trees demarks the Catholic and the Protestant sides of the Boonville, NY, Cemetery.
Nestled there together on each side of the line are the graves of our beloved Cavanagh, Pirnie & Moonan family members.
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