The Wedding of My Maternal Grandparents - J. Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley

I have many fond memories of my maternal grandparents, John Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. I was their first grandchild and grew up living just two doors away from their home. My grandmother, Nana as I referred to her, spoiled me, not that I'm complaining.  My maternal grandmother died when I was seven years old and my grandfather when I was 24 years old. I therefore only knew them in their twilight years. It is hard for me to picture them as children, teenagers or even young adults for to me as a child, they were old.

I'm certain that photos exist somewhere, held by someone, of my grandparents' wedding but I have never seen one. So it was especially helpful when I was finally able to discover a small article contained in the Toronto Star newspaper (June 25, 1926 edition, page 24) that described the marriage of my grandparents, J. Graham O'Neill and Gertrude Ellen Foley. 

I have searched for newspaper articles about family members for many years, typically relying on a surname as the search term in the local newspaper database. This approach can lead to long and tedious hours of examining multiple search term hits that are not related to my family members. I was successful this time however for two reasons: one, I used the surname Foley for my search rather than the O'Neill surname I had previously been using. As it turned out the article about my grandparents wedding consistently misspells the O'Neill surname as "O'Niel" so my prior searches for the surname skipped over this article. Two,   knowing their date of marriage, I was able to narrow the timeframe for my search, allowing me to search all sections of the newspaper without worrying about receiving an overwhelming number of results.

So here is my transcription of the small article that details my grandparents' wedding:

O'NIEL - FOLEY 

St. Brigid's Roman Catholic Church was the scene of a smart June wedding on Wednesday when Miss Gertrude Ellen Foley, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Foley, became the bride of Mr. John Graham O'Niel, son of the late N. J. O'Niel. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Father Armstrong, while during the signing of the register Mrs. Summerfell sang 'O Salutaris' and an Ave Maria. The bride wore an attractive frock of peach georget with hat to match, while her bridesmaid, Miss Mary McCormack, was in powder blue georget with hat to match. The bride carried a shower of Ophelin roses, while her attendant carried Columbia roses. The groom was supported by Mr. John Hammall. Following the ceremony a reception was held at the home of the bride's parents on Queensdale boulevard, where Mrs. Foley and Mrs. O'Niel received with the bridal party. The former wore a becoming gown of cocoa brown crepe, while Mrs. O'Niel was in black crepe. The groom's gift to his bride was a white gold wrist watch, to the bridesmaid a silver mesh bag, to the best man monogrammed green gold cuff links. Following the reception Mr. and Mrs. O'Niel left on a honeymoon trip to Rochester, Cleveland and Detroit. Upon their return they will establish their home at 189 Pickering street, the house being the gift of the bride's father.

Some final observations: I'm uncertain as to who authored the article. I doubt that it was submitted by a family member due to the O'Neill surname misspelling. Also, my grandfather's father was not N. J. O'Niel (or O'Neill) but rather William Emmett O'Neill, who had died two years before this wedding. The term 'georget' was also misspelled  as it should have been 'georgette.' And finally, the last line of the article confirmed a family story that the house at 189 Pickering Street in Toronto was a wedding gift to my grandparents from my great grandfather John Foley. It was also the house that I lived in with my parents for the first nine and one half years of my life.