Julia Moriarty Casey, ca. 1900 (Sheehy family collection)
Born in County Kerry, Ireland, Julia was only 14 when she boarded a ship in 1866 called The City of Dublin bound for New York City accompanied by her Aunt Mary Moriarty, who had taken her in after she lost her mother at age 10. Also along on the journey were Mary’s three daughters, all under 18.
The women comprised part of the second wave of Irish emigration, the first wave having peaked during the 1850s in the wake of the Great Famine that devasted Ireland following the potato crop failure in 1845. Unlike the first wave, the second wave was predominately made up of single females, the majority of them under the age of 25.
From New York City, the Moriarty women sailed via the Isthmus of Panama for San Francisco, where Julia was briefly reunited with her father, who had left Ireland for America soon after his wife’s death.
Like more than three quarters of Irish female immigrants, Julia found ready employment for five years as a domestic for a liquor merchant and his family in San Francisco. It was grueling employment that most working-class American girls avoided, as domestic service bore a social stigma, preferring jobs as shop girls, mill hands, and seamstresses.
While attending a St. Patrick’s Day dance, 19-year old Julia met a 30-year old Irish bachelor from Petaluma’s Lakeville area named John Casey. Casey had emigrated to America from County Kerry in 1863 with an older brother, Jeremiah, and two sisters, Mary and Catherine. Jeremiah and John established a 120-acre wheat farm on the northern end of Tolay Lake. Mary married a neighboring farmer named George Eades, and Catherine another neighboring farmer named John Gregory.
After their marriage, John and Julia leased a 160-acre ranch in Lakeville from J.B. Lewis for raising dairy cows. Julia gave birth to seven children, who all attended St. Vincent’s Academy on Howard Street. Soon after the birth of her sixth child in 1887, John Casey died unexpectedly from a bad case of the measles.
With the help of her sons, Julia operated the dairy ranch until 1898, when she moved into Petaluma, purchasing a house at 322 Bassett Street and adjacent empty lot. On the lot she built a two story house at 326 Bassett Street, renting it out to boarders for income before eventually selling it to fellow Irish immigrants Charles and Hannah Sheehy. Sheehy established a painting business on Main Street in 1973. Julia’s youngest daughter Mary married the Sheehy’s oldest son Charles, Jr.
Julia was very involved with her parish at St. Vincent’s Catholic Church, and a founding member and longtime officer of Catholic Ladies Aid Society, established in 1891. In 1922, she replaced her house at 322 Bassett Street with a new modern home built by local contractor Stewart Scott. By that time, three other houses she had purchased on the block were occupied by members of her extended family.
Of Julia’s seven children, none of her fiv e sons married, only her two daughters. Catherine (1874-1925) married John Bennett, a prominent Molino nurseryman during Sebastopol’s apple boom; Jeremiah Casey (1875-1893) died at 19 from lung disease; John (Jack) Casey (1877-1951) was a teamster for the Golden Eagle Mill; William (1878-1968) was general manager of A. Kahn Grocery and grain distribution; James (1886-1928) operated meat markets, including King’s Corner Grocery on Bodega Avenue; George (1881-1972) was ranch manager for Joe Redding in Rancho Nicasio and Shellville; Mary (1887-1969) married Charles Sheehy, Jr., who operated Sheehy Brothers Painting at 128 Kentucky Street until his unexpected death in 1929. Mary supported her two children working for Newburg department store, Tomasini’s Hardware, and for ten years in the office of the Petaluma Creamery.
Julia died at her home surrounded by family members in 1934 at the age of 82. Through hard work, persistence, community engagement, and family devotion, she overcame poverty and adversity to reign as the matriarch of a thriving Irish clan in Petaluma.
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Julia Moriarty Casey was the great-grandmother of the author.