I took this photo from Jeff Hennesy’s website. The house is identified as being the old home of James and Nancy Caroline Hennesy.
However, Ethel Hennesy identified this photo as being of their house that was destroyed by a tornado, she said, in 1909-1910, and Curtis Hennesy said instead it was in 1912.
The first house looks close to a sidewalk or a very smooth earthen street that has little definition left, and shows no tall trees behind. The second house has tall trees in the background, seems far removed from a road or sidewalk, and seems to show no indication of the chimney that would have been on the right. The first house couldn’t be post reconstruction (if it was reconstructed) because it would have taken some time for the foliage in the yard to grow up around the house as it has. And why would it be identified as James and Nancy’s house if this was one rebuilt after he had died?
Questions, questions.
Curtis Hennesy noted that a letter from a C. C. S. (abbreviation by C. Hennesy) reported that the Hennesys lived in Bailey’s Mill, 1st Ward, which is near old Nebo Church in what is now Tangipahoa Parish. He mentioned elsewhere that they lived between James Hennesy’s store and Lular Hennesy’s House.
I’ve never been able to locate Nancy in the 1920 census.
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