I've been investigating Duceys/Ducys/Ducies the last couple weeks, inspired by my trip to eastern Ohio. After just five days back from my Christmas hols I felt like I needed to get away. So I flew to Cleveland over the three-day weekend to do some research onsite into this branch of my family. My Dad and us kids are the only Mormons in this part of the family, so it's fun to be the only people looking into their history and doing their temple work. My main goal was to find out what happened to John's mother, Mary Ducey. Her husband died in 1876 (just 14 years after they came to Ohio from Ireland via England) and her four surviving children all went far west to make their fortunes: in the case of John Ducie about $40-50 million. I couldn't understand why they just abandoned her. Well, it turns out she was more than capable of looking after herself. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.
First of all, I can't believe they let me have a rental car, with my British driving license and pathetic little credit card. But drive away with a nice little four-door I did. Inspite of how much I dislike cars and am horrified at the thought of being dependant on one, I had this overwhelming feeling of freedom. I could drive anywhere and explore any place I liked! The drive south to Wayne County was very pretty despite it being winter. It was rolling hills with huge white farmhouses and red barns dotted everywhere. I spent Saturday afternoon in the country public library, looking through all their vital records, cemetery and land information. I found birth and burial records for some of John Ducie's nieces and nephews. I knew Patrick Ducey (John's father) had owned a small parcel of land in an area called Peacock or Rogue's Hollow so I looked up the land sale. The description gave the well at Peacock's Hollow as the starting reference point. The librarian and I were trying to find this on old maps of the area. She brought over a map from a book on the history of Rogues Hollow:
I spotted the well in the center (where the roads converge) and then noticed just above it Mrs Ducey's Saloon. This is not a common name! It had to be my great-great-great grandmother. And just then some of the pages of the book fell back to another page where my eyes immediately alighted on the name "Ducey". I quickly scanned through the book and found that Mary Ducey is mentioned several times. I think she was a bit of a local celebrity. Here's a brief extract from what is a rather gossipy history of the Hollow:
The story is told by an old timer about how Sarah [Chidester, a local saintly young woman] nursed a Mrs. Ducey from certain death to health. Mrs. Mary Ducey ran one of the six saloons in the Hollow.
One day she became seriously ill. A doctor was sent for at Doylestown. He said after several calls that there was nothing he could do to help Mrs. Ducey to get well and left her to die in bed. Sarah had been helping Mrs. Ducey several days. She had learned about Mrs. Ducey being ill. She had walked down the muddy road with her familiar basket to help out. She knew that Mrs. Ducey did not go to church. She knew that Mrs. Ducey kept her saloon open on Sundays. It was closed now. She never approved the use of liquor and never approved of anyone serving the fiery stuff which kept so many wage earners poor. But Mrs. Ducey was ill and needed nursing. Because Mrs. Ducey was not the church-going type of woman or ran a saloon made no difference to Sarah. She had the evangelistic spirit in trying to win souls to heaven. Here was a sick woman who was alone and forlorn, and hope for her recovery was lost. After finding that Mrs. Ducey could not keep water on her stomach, Sarah tried an old remedy. She went back home to get some whey and fed it to the patient. For three nights Sarah nursed her,
prayed with her, cooled her brow with cold cloths and massaged her aching back and neck.
On the third night, the fever broke. Mrs. Ducey went into a deep sleep. When she awoke Sarah again spooned hot whey into her mouth. Hourly her strength returned. Quickly her eyes brightened and she began to talk hopefully. Soon she was raising herself on her elbow and then she began to sit up, and before long she was walking haltingly. Sarah went back to her family with a heart singing thankfulness to God. Mary Ducey went back to setting up drinks for her miners and lived until 1901. Many miners were lonely and tired from working bent over digging coal in the mines. They came to Mrs. Ducey’s saloon for relaxation. Deborah Chidester says she remembers when she was about eight or ten years old, Mrs. Ducey gave her a beautiful cup and saucer. This was one way of showing gratitude to the Chidester family. The year was about 1890.
I also read that she owned several parcels of land and that some had been probated in 1901. So I knew I needed to head back to the library the next day to look up those land sales and the probate packet for Mary. Sunday morning I drove down to the village of Doylestown and Chippewa Township where the Duceys had settled in 1862. First stop was the Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery to visit the grave of my great-great-great grandfather Patrick Ducey:
Patrick and Mary fled the Irish famine in the 1840s, settling first in England where he mined coal and eventually they came to Ohio, where he continued to work in the coal mines. As you can see from the map above, the steep hills around Rogues Hollow contained dozens of mines. Also buried in this cemetery is Patrick's brother Anthony, his wife Mariah and their son Edward, along with James Schoenberger, son of Patrick's eldest daughter Mary.
Then I drove down the hills into the Hollow to find the land which Patrick and Mary had owned. It was pretty easy to spot, across the road from the well and to the left of the road. Somebody with a red truck lives there now:
There are just a handful of houses in the area. It's a very peaceful spot, but in Patrick and Mary's time it was a rambunctious community of miners and, according to the History, all sorts of criminals and ne'er-do-wells. I had a little wander around and then headed back to the library in Wooster to look for Mary Ducey's will. And here it is: 
I knew she had been re-married to a William Collier, who owned much of the land on the other side of the highway. But the will gave me the identity of one of Mary's daughters, Bridget, who I had not been able to trace past the age of 17. It appears she is in fact the infamous Lizzie Chadwick of San Francisco. Her mother named her Bridget, but she had other ideas it seems. So all in all, it was a very successful trip in terms of information found. But most importantly, I don't just now have the bare bones information about Mary, I feel like I have some sense of her character and personality. She was most definitely a gutsy lady. Although she herself was never able to read and write, she and her children went on to become successful business people. As Dad put it, "She may not have been able to read, but she could certainly count!"
Inspired by the success of my trip, I've been doing some further work on the descendents of Patrick and Mary Ducey. They had four of eight children who survived to adulthood: Mary, Bridget/Elizabeth, John and Margaret. Mary and Elizabeth each had six children, my John had two, and Margaret just one. Most of them married but I was surprised to discover that only one each of Mary and Bridget's children had children themselves. John, as I said, has just a handful of descendents and although Margaret had one son, I don't think he think he had any children either. We Ducies are a rare breed. It's a shame... there were some good genes in the family. Thank goodness for Jonathan!
Oh, and I spent the Monday of my trip in Kirtland...
It was a dismal day so I was the only person there and I got a personal tour of the place.
I wasn't prepared for a little baby to come into my life. It meant complete upheaval at home, and truly, the flat - actually my whole life - has never been the same since. He looked like me. People used to stop the three of us in the street and tell my sister she had such a gorgeous little nephew. It’s the dark hair. We match. We spent four years together before I moved to New York. We had wonderful adventures, especially Barceloooona.
