Hattie Josephine (Durand) Casey (1862 - 1955)

Born 10 Feb 1862 in Spring Valley, Fillmore, Minnesota, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 1955 at about age 92 in Green Bay, Brown, Wisconsin, United States

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Biography

Hattie (Durand) Casey was born in Spring Valley, Minnesota on February 10, 1862 to William Emery Durand and Mary Elizabeth (Griffin) Durand. Her father joined the Army during the Civil War, first engaged in fighting the Indians, then his regiment marched south where he fought in the battle of Nashville. After his discharge he rejoined his family in Spring Valley where he lived for some time and had four children. The family then moved to Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin.

While living in Fond du Lac Hattie met and fell in love with William J. Casey, a young Irish Catholic immigrant age 20, much to the disapproval of her parents of Huguenot and Puritan heritage. She was forbidden to see this young man; however, love prevailed. When she was only sixteen, her true love brought a ladder over to the Durand home and put it up to the bedroom window for Hattie to climb down, and from there they ran off to get married. Her parents were so angry that they refused to talk to Hattie for ten years, but eventually they reconciled. Her parents later move to Kansas and became known by family members as Grandma and Grandpa Kansas. The marriage of William and Hattie produced five children: Charles W., Mary Patricia, William H., Agnes, and George P.

William found work at several places in the Upper Midwest. At one point Hattie and William moved to Amherst Junction,Wisconsin, where William was employed as a station agent and telegrapher for the Green Bay and Western Railroad Company. Later the family moved to Escanaba, Michigan, where their daughter Mary Patricia, met and married George J. Stenger.

Finally they settled in Green Bay, Wisconsin, where William started the Green Bay Bicycle Club. About 1888 William purchased a Columbia lady's wheel in Chicago for Hattie. This machine had the drop frame for a woman, the first seen in Green Bay. This made Hattie the first lady rider in the city of Green Bay which provoked plenty of remarks about a woman doing such a shameful thing.

After the death of William, Hattie moved into the Stenger Mansion to live with her daughter, Mary Patricia Stenger. Rheumatism in her knees made getting around difficult for her, so she didn't get out much, but she did get to take her first plane ride in a DC-3 at age 90 to visit relatives in Texas. She spent her declining years doing crochet work while listening to soap operas on the radio. She expired in 1955.

Sources

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MMV1-5G8 : accessed 3 June 2021), Hattie J Casey in household of William J Casey, Precinct 1 Green Bay city Ward 8, Brown, Wisconsin, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 21, sheet 7B, family 157, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,241,778.

Information obtained from family records