Anne Frances Nygard
frances/reiley
Anne Frances Nygard Rodgers was born in 1898 in Tarrytown, NY, the youngest of four children of Anna and John Francis. The other children were twins Adeline and John (b. 1891) and Patrick (b.1894). Sometime between 1900 and 1910 John Francis Sr. and Patrick disappeared from the census and Annie Francis remarried to a Fitzpatrick. John and Adeline twins are 18 so they keep the name Francis, but Anna took the Fitzpatrick name.
John Francis was one of the founding members of Local 4 of the Operating Engineers Union out of Newark, NJ. The Union had a “ gold card” which allowed one family to enter the union automatically and it is thought that John was instrumental in getting Carl V. Nygard and Carl Nygard into the Union.
Marie Nygard lived with John Frances on and off. Another relative, Carol Vogel was a model, actress and writer. Her first modeling job was as a baby on the wrapper of Cameo soap. She went on to do some acting and landed in Hollywood with credits on Bonanza, Barnaby Jones, Hawaii 5O. She later became the head writer for Steve Allen. She had a massive stroke in the 2010's requiring brain surgery and Steve Allen paid for everything.
Circa 1944. From l to r: Ruthie Reiley, Hannah Reiley (nee Sargent from New Market NJ ) John Nygard, Jackie Nygard, Doris Nygard, Adeline (nee Francis) Reiley, William Reiley.
in the words of Jackie Nygard, her grandson
Anne Frances married Carl V. Nygard when she was 16 around 1915. They lived together at least until 1920. In 1920 they lived in at 141 Wilson Avenue, Apartment #74, in Newark, New Jersey. Anna Fitzpatrick's mother, Anna, lived with them at the time. They had three children together: Marie Nygard, Carl Nygard and Jack Nygard.
By 1930 she claimed she was a widow, which was not true. She lived with her children at 269 Lincoln Street Phillipsburg, Warren County, NJ. At one point she placed her boys in an orphanage and she reclaimed the boys only one day before they were to be placed with another family. She tried to give her children to either Joseph or Vincent Nygard, but they said they would only take Marie Nygard.
Anne said her mother was from a wealthy Minnesota family with a Swedish background but was disowned when she met and married an Irishman. We know that she had a brother named Jack Francis who lived in New Jersey. There was another family that visited her from New Jersey are their names were Everett and Ida Tarn. They had a lot of kids.
She later lived with a man by the name of Thoburn Rodgers. The Rodgers moved off the farm they lived on and into a combined store and house - at least there were rooms behind the store. It was on on 3rd Street in Chester, PA above a VFW post and across the street from a Catholic School in Chester, PA. It was a changing time in America.
They had a son together, Jimmy Rodgers, but are unsure if Ann married Thoburn. The Nygard kids remember wanting to get out of their presence as soon as possible because they spent most of their time drinking.
The Rodgers took in boarders and had one, Ed Milky, who befriended the family and moved in with Jimmy Rodgers.
The Rodgers were as prejudiced as they come even though they were raised in the north. The irony was that the North had the jobs and many blacks were moving north where they could earn 4 or 5 times what they could in the south. Not a lot different from the influx of illegal aliens today. There was a big sign on the Wilson Line boat to Riverview Beach Park in New Jersey. It said "WHAT CHESTER MAKES MAKES CHESTER. Actually, Chester became one of the places where Block Busting became a reality. And the Rodgers were soon engulfed with the influx and seemingly couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it. Of course, the economy went into a recession in 1951 - and everything changed.
Their son Jimmy Rodgers was a Boy Scout and he gave all his old Boy Scout memorabilia to his nephew Jackie. Jimmy was drafted in the summer of 1950 and one Sunday the Rodgers took Jackie and Jimmy's girlfriend to see him at an army training center in Maryland.
Rodgers, having grown up on a farm, went to bed early right after coming home, eating dinner and then bed by 6:30 PM. Jackie Nygard remembers one night about 7:30 after Thoburn was asleep, he overheard Anna, Ed Milky and my grandfather's brother-in-law from Ohio talking about how this old man was in the process of dying. This was about 1952. Funny thing he outlived them all by about 10 years or more. The apartment on Third Street had an entrance from the hallway into the dining room that was hardly ever used, then a small kitchen with an ice box (the ice man still delivered a big block of ice every week) and then a large front room that doubled as a living room and a had a large bed in it.
Cathy Nygard Hasson, as a young girl, actually got in trouble one time for making up a song about Anne drinking too much beer. One Christmas, the Carl Nygard's family went to visit and they were both in bed. The Nygard's then put up their tree and their decorations. The Nygard children were not allowed to go outside, because the neighborhood was dangerous.
Her grandson Carl Nygard was one of the altar boys for her funeral. She was buried in a Catholic Ceremony and that was surely her son Carl's doing since he was influential in the Knights of Columbus then.
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