Obituary of John Gilmore Doherty
John Gilmore Doherty, 76, former widely known banker and retired Ogallala merchant, died at 10:30 p.m. Saturday at the Ogallala Community hospital from complications resulting from a heart ailment. He had been critically ill and hospitalized for two weeks.
In failing health for the past three years, Mr. Doherty was hospitalized with a heart ailment in January this year.
Funeral services will be held at 9 a.m. Wednesday in Bracken Memorial chapel with the Rev. Russell Croker, pastor of the First Congregational Church, conducting the rites. Music will be provided by Mrs. Troy Stilley, accompanied by James Turner.
Graveside services will be held later in the day at Berthoud, Colo. Active pallbearers will include four grandsons, Bradley Brown, James Welsh, Mike Welsh and Wendell Cross. Serving as honorary pallbearers will be C. E. Nichols, C. C. Worden, T.I. Dutch, Walter Scott, L. A. DeVoe, Rector Searle, Frank P. Button, S. A. Spooneman, Albert Beish and Bernard Lee.
A native of Ireland, Mr. Doherty was born April 7, 1881, at Drumnahagles in Antrim county and came to Alda, Neb., with his parents, Thomas and Anna Doherty, at the age of 12.
He received his high school and college education in Fairhaven, O., and migrated westward where he was employed in a bank by his brother, T. L. Doherty, at Holdrege. He was engaged in banking at Kearney, Lodgepole, Berthoud, Colo., Wheatland, Wyo., and Paxton before becoming associated with the former Citizens’ Bank here in 1931.
After his retirement from banking, Mr. Doherty operated a service station here for a number of years and in 1946 entered the sporting goods business with his son, Jack, at 111 East Second street. In 1954 they sold the sporting goods store and purchased the Haught Sales Company, a wholesale firm with headquarters in North Platte.
Mr. Doherty married Miss Josephine O’Kane Oct. 31, 1903, at Alda, Neb., and six children were born of their marriage. Mrs. Doherty died Nov. 9, 1923, and on Feb. 6, 1926, he married Miss Helen Beckett, a schoolday friend, at Brighton, Colo.
He was a member of the Masonic Lodge and the Presbyterian Church at Berthoud and after coming to Ogallala transferred his membership to the First Congregational Church here.
Survivors other than his wife are four daughters, Mrs. Dave Welsh and Mrs. Helen Brown of Ogallala, Mrs. Dorothy Hellbusch of Denver and Mrs Kathleen Everett of West Palm Beach, Fla.; two sons, Dan of Ogallala and Jack of North Platte; 14 grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
The following additional comments were provided by Susan Doherty Hunt, great-granddaughter of Thomas Doherty:
I know that the Obit. about John Gilmore Doherty said he emigrated with the father and the mom. Only the mother and John G., and maybe one or two of the younger kids came over in 1893 together.
Even Obits. don't necessarily get the facts straight. I know for sure that the father died just weeks after Thomas Laurence and he arrived in Chicago, IL in either 1887 or 1888. They were the first of the family to come over here and found work as hod carriers building the skyscrapers in Chicago. It was summertime and the heat in Chicage was too much for the father who died of heat stroke. TL was a young teenager in a new country with no relatives here to help him and a mother and a bunch of siblings to worry about "across the sea." He rode on the horse-drawn wagon to the cemetery alone to bury the father.
TL and my parents told that story over and over when they were alive. I need to send Aunt Margaret Doherty's letters to you. She tells that story also. She says the father was "sunstruck" and died.
A Short Biography(1) of Daniel O'Kane
(From the "History of Hall County," Beuchler, Barr & Stough, © 1920)
DANIEL O'KANE, one of Wood River's well known, respected, patriotic citizens, for many years was in the employ of the Union Pacific Railroad as telegrapher and agent. He was born in Ogle County, Illinois, October 24, 1855, and is one of a family of eight children born to Joseph and Mary (Davey) O'Kane.
Daniel came to Nebraska with his parents in the spring of 1874 and located in Willow Island, Dawson County, securing a section of land three miles northeast of Gothenburg. Subsequently the father served one term as county commissioner in Dawson County. Daniel had attended school in Illinois, and was about twenty years old when he began to work for the government at North Platte, Nebraska, putting up hay for the cavalry regiments at Forts McPherson and Russell. In 1876 he worked on railroad construction and at the same time studied telegraphy, making such rapid progress that in 1877 he secured a position as operator and extra agent. On July 12, 1878 he was transferred to Fort McPherson in the capacity of night operator, and transferred from there, December 23, 1879, to Alda, Nebraska, as agent and operator for the Union Pacific. He remained at Alda the following ten years, when he was sent to Overton, where he remained until 1903 and in the next year retired from railroad service. For about three yeas (sic) he conducted a store in Kearney and then came to Wood River. Having so long been in "the tide of events" as it were, Mr. O'Kane feels that he is not ready entirely to retire, and in order to keep somewhat in touch with active affairs and passing events, he keeps himself busily engaged as a clerk in the Wood river post office.
On January 17, 1882, Mr. O'Kane married Miss Anna Mitchell, at Alda, Nebraska, who was born at Milford, Indiana, August 9, 1862. Her parents were Thomas and Frances H. (Self) Mitchell, the latter of whom died December 15, 1869, leaving two sons and three daughters, Mrs. O'Kane being the only surviving daughter. She was eight years old when she accompanied her father to Nebraska, where in 1871 he homesteaded near the present site of Alda, starting a little store at this location which was also the post office. Two years later he endeavored to cultivate his land but for two seasons the grasshoppers devoured all the result of his hard work, and he gave up the attempt. Accompanied then by his daughter and son, Frank, Mr. Mitchell went to Iowa with the intention of working there for sufficient capital to continue effort on his Nebraska land in the future. He had suffered a great shock in the year previously in the accidental death of his son Elmer. When the great exodus came to the Black Hills, Mr. Mitchell was one of the first to go to the gold fields from this section and he remained there several years doing very well.
In this connection, Mrs. O'Kane relates an interesting narrative concerning a trip she made to Deadwood, South Dakota, in 1880, to visit her father. She was about sixteen years old at the time and was accompanied by a young woman a few years older, also going to visit her father. These brave maidens faced many perils on the journey, but safely reached their destination after traveling two days and three nights in a stage coach drawn by six horses. Youth and good spirits carried them through, with the seven other passengers, three of whom were young English prospectors. The stage driver gave the party credit for being the jolliest and best natured load he had ever brought up the dangerous Black Hills trail. Mrs. O'Kane remained with her father for a year and then returned to Alda, where she was married to Mr. O'Kane in 1882.
Mr. and Mrs. O'Kane have had three daughters and one son: Mary Mabel, who lived but seven months; Josephine F., who was united in marriage, October 31, 1903, with John G. Doherty, of Loomis, Nebraska, cashier of the Exchange Bank of Ogalalla (sic), they have five children, Irma, Helen, Dorothy, Daniel and Kathleen; Thomas Frank, who volunteered in the service of his country (see soldier section in this work) was graduated from a business college at Amarillo, Texas, then entered the service of the Santa Fe Railroad as rate clerk in the office of the general passenger agent and was filling the position as assistant chief clerk in the passenger department when he volunteered and is still in service; and Thelma B., a graduate in the class of 1919 from the Wood river high school, and is a graduate also of the Conservatory of Music at Grand Island.
In his political views Mr. O'Kane is a Democrat and is as loyal to the party as he has always been to friends and employers. He is a member of the order of Modern Woodmen of America, while Mrs. O'Kane belongs to the Royal Neighbors and to the M. B. W. She has been one of the hardest workers in the Red Cross movement of the Wood River chapter and has received a beautiful badge and certificate of merit from the head office of the American Red Cross. This was in acknowledgement of having put in eight hundred hours for the cause, although the actual time was much more than that, but it was not only an example of patriotism but a labor of love as well.