Bridget Weston Frisby : Short Biography

Bridget Weston was born on 1 Feb 1846 in Mullinavat, County Kilkenny, Ireland, the fourth child and third daughter of Thomas Weston and Margaret “Peggy” Murphy. Three more children, all boys, were born to Thomas and Peggy after Bridget.

In September, 1865, as a single woman age 19, Bridget set sail for America aboard the National Line’s SS Virginia. Sailing without other family members, her destination was Chicago where her older sister Ellen had emigrated to the year prior. She arrived at New York in November 1865, then traveled by smaller boat through the Great Lakes to Waukegan, Illinois, just north of Chicago.

She lived with her sister Ellen (James) Walsh in Chicago for the next two years, performing household duties for various families. When a cholera outbreak happened in Chicago, Bridget moved with her sister’s family out of Chicago into rural McHenry County, Illinois, some 40 miles northwest of the city. McHenry County was quickly becoming known as the “Irish Prairie” since many Irish families from Kilkenny and Waterford counties had claimed homestead land and established small farms there.

At McHenry, Bridget met and married (3 Dec 1868) John Bryan “JB” Frisby, whose parents were also from Kilkenny but who was born in Waterford and had emigrated with his parents in 1848. JB’s father had been one of the earliest settlers of McHenry, with several neighbors having started the first Catholic Church in the area. JB served the 88th Illinois Infantry in the U.S. Civil War from 1862-1865. JB and Bridget homesteaded a farm along the Fox River and raised eight children – six girls and two boys. Tragically, their son Thomas died at age 16 from diabetes. Their other seven children married and produced 31 children and hundreds of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

In 1883, Bridget received a letter from her long lost younger brother Michael, whom family lore had said was a merchant seaman. He had arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and said he was working with his brother-in-law and would make his way to Chicago as soon as he could afford. His letter brought sad news of the decimation of their village and neighbor families from Mullinavat: “it would take a street of fools cap to rite [sic] all the names on that is departed from Mulllinaren since you left home.” His letter brought news that their father had died in 1878 and he pleaded with Bridget and her sister Ellen to write a letter to their mother: “I was bound by a Mothers last request on this world to find you and Sister Ellon if you wer alive and to let her know how you wer geting on for nothing will give her a more easy mind parting from this world that to here that you ar alive for her prayers morning and night ar for you both Dear Sister as you might now your self she is geting old and feeble.”

After her husband JB died in 1914, Bridget moved with her two youngest daughters into town and opened a boarding house that she operated with her daughter Ann until her death in 1933. The boarding house served visitors and traveling salesmen. Her daughter Ann chronicled the many boarders who stayed at the Frisby boarding house, and finding her writing talent, she later became a social reporter for the local newspaper. Bridget’s youngest daughter Alice Irene was my grandmother.

Children of Bridget Weston and JB Frisby were Mary Laura – “Mollie”; Margaret Ellen - “Maggie”; Johanna May – “Jo”; Bernard Joseph; Mary Ellen Genevieve – “Nellie”; Thomas Leo; Anna Camelia; and Alice Irene.