Kathleen Lumbard "The Swedish Nightingale" 1901-2007

 Heather's Great Grand Aunt (Sister to her great grandfather) Paternal Line

Anna Kathleen "Kitty" Lumbard

daughter of George Meade & Anna Laura (Keller) Lumbard

Born February 15 1901

Died July 9 2007

Married
1st William Hoffman
Son of John K. & Harriet Hoffman
Born Abt 1893
Died abt 1942

2nd William Dempsey

Son of
Born
Died 1973

Time Line:

1901 Kathleen was born

15 Feb

Pennsylvania

1908 Photo of the Lumbard Family

(Photo Belonged to Kathleen)

The children of George Meade Lumbard & Anna Keller were - 

Joseph Keller Lumbard 1896 – 

Kathleen Lumbard 1901 – 2007

George Washington Lumbard 1905 – 1983

Robert Kurtz Lumbard 1907 – 1911

George Meade Lumbard was my 2nd great grandfather.  My great grandfather was the son of him & his second wife, Beulah Simms.

1910 - Residence
Age: 9
Selinsgrove, Snyder, Pennsylvania, USA
Age: 9; Marital Status: Single; Relation to Head of House: Daughter

Name: Anna K Lumbard
Age in 1910: 9
Birth Year: abt 1901
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Home in 1910: Selinsgrove, Snyder, Pennsylvania
Race: White
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Marital Status: Single
Father's name: George M Lumbard
Father's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Mother's name: Beulah L Lumbard
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
George M Lumbard 35
Beulah L Lumbard 27
[21] 
Keller S Lumbard 13
Anna K Lumbard 9
George W Lumbard 5
Robert L Lumbard 3
William H Heppard 8

1910 - Occupation
After
Age: 9
“I went to work before and after school in the silk mill,” she said. “We had a humble home. There was nothing rich about it; it was poor.”

The Silk Mill in 1906

Silk Mill 1911

1919 - Marriage to Marshall S Hoffman
Age: 18
Pennsylvania
In about 1919, at the young age of 18, Dempsey married her first husband, Marshall Hoffman, and moved with him to New Jersey. The marriage lasted about 23 years, until Hoffman passed away from tuberculosis.

Name: Kathleen Lumbard
Gender: Female
Spouse: Marshall S Hoffman
Spouse Gender: Male
Marriage Place: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
Marriage Year: 1919
Marriage License Number: 406181

Digital GSU Number: 4141769

1920
Age: 19
Philadelphia Ward 36, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Age: 20; Marital Status: Married; Relation to Head of House: Wife

Name: Kathleen Hoffman
Age: 20
Birth Year: abt 1900
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Home in 1920: Philadelphia Ward 36, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Street: Wackerli Street
Race: White
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Wife
Marital Status: Married
Spouse's Name: Marshall Hoffman
Father's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Able to Speak English: Yes
Occupation: None
Attended School: No
Able to Read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Marshall Hoffman 27
Kathleen Hoffman 20



1920 - Occupation
After
Age: 19
New Jersey, USA
worked at a nightclub selling cigarettes and, more impressively, as an attractive coloratura soprano dubbed the “Swedish Nightingale.”

About Frankie Conway and the Tavern on Black Horse Pike - 

FRANKIE CONWAY was born Nicola Iacovelli in Italy on November 3, 1900. He began fighting professionally in Philadelphia in late 1914 or early 1915, and fought over 200 bouts before losing his eyesight to a ring injury. In the late 1920s and early 1930s he operated a soft-drink saloon in Camden. After a great deal of legal wrangling, in the late 1930s Frankie Conway obtained a liquor license in Westmont (Haddon Township), New Jersey and operated a bar there at 110 West Cuthbert Boulevard for over 20 years. Frankie Conway's bar in Westmont is still open, and has been known for many years as Fischer's. Frankie Conway is often confused with another fighter who fought out of New York under the same name at about the same time whose real name was Frank Ferris. onway passed away in 1960. - http://www.dvrbs.com/People/CamdenSports-FrankieConway.htm

1930 - Residence
Age: 29
Upper Darby, Delaware, Pennsylvania, USA
Age: 28; Marital Status: Married; Relation to Head of House: Wife

Name: Kathlene Hoffman
Birth Year: abt 1902
Gender: Female
Race: White
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Wife
Homemaker?: Yes
Home in 1930: Upper Darby, Delaware, Pennsylvania
Map of Home: View Map
Street address: Aberdeen Rd
House Number in Cities or Towns: 6952
Dwelling Number: 321
Family Number: 334
Age at First Marriage: 18
Attended School: No
Able to Read and Write: Yes
Father's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Able to Speak English: Yes
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Marshall Hoffman 38
Kathlene Hoffman 28

1940- Residence
1 Apr
Age: 39
268 Sayrs ave, Camden, New Jersey, Camden, New Jersey, United States
Age: 39; Marital Status: Married; Relation to Head of House: Wife

Name: Kathleen Hoffman
Respondent: Yes
Age: 39
Estimated birth year: abt 1901
Gender: Female
Race: White
Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Wife
Home in 1940: Haddon, Camden, New Jersey
Map of Home in 1940: View Map
Street: Howell Avenue
House Number: 10
Inferred Residence in 1935: Haddon, Camden, New Jersey
Residence in 1935: Same House
Sheet Number: 6B
Attended School or College: No
Highest Grade Completed: Elementary school, 7th grade
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Marshall Hoffman 47
Kathleen Hoffman 39

Wallace Snow 63 (listed as a lodger)

1943 - Residence
Age: 42
268 Sayrs ave, Camden, New Jersey, Camden, New Jersey, United States

Name: Kathleen Hoffman
Gender: Female
Residence Year: 1940
Street address: 268 Sayrs av
Residence Place: Camden, New Jersey, USA
Spouse: Marshall Hoffman

Publication Title: Camden, New Jersey, City Directory, 1940

1943 (after) Marriage to William Dempsey
Age: 42
After her first husband died, Kitty soon remarried William Dempsey and moved from New Jersey to Florida

1986 - residence
Age: 85
Fort Lauderdale, FL
Name: Kathleen Dempsey
Birth Date: 15 Feb 1901
Address: 4856 SW 22nd Te, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 33312 (1986)

2007 Interviewed for her 106th Birthday:

Kathleen “Kitty” Dempsey, a self-described “old rascal,” has no advice about how to live a long life, though it’s information nearly everyone tries to extract from her. “They always ask me that … [and] I don’t know,” she said in a recent interview. Whatever she’s done seems to work, however, because Dempsey turns 106 years old Thrusday, Feb. 15.

After spending her life in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida, the centenarian currently lives at the Susan Bailis Assisted Living Center on Massachusetts Avenue near the border of the South End. In more than a century on this earth she’s had careers as a silk mill worker, a housekeeper and a popular coloratura soprano nightclub singer. Now, the 106-year-old finds herself enjoying her late years in Boston, what she considers the easiest years of her life.

“My earliest memories are not very nice,” Dempsey admitted. She was born on Feb. 15, 1901 in Selinsgrove, Pa. to George and Laura Lumbard, one of nine children (though four of her siblings came from her father’s second marriage). At the early age of six or seven, young Kathleen, who everyone called and continues to call Kitty, was struck with tragedy when her mother died. In the wake of her mother’s death, Kitty’s father “kept his kids together the best he could,” said Dempsey, but for the young girl, life turned hard. One of the oldest among her siblings, Kitty cared for her younger brothers and sisters and was sent to work at an early age. “I went to work before and after school in the silk mill,” she said. “We had a humble home. There was nothing rich about it; it was poor.”

Dempsey never made it to college, though Selinsgrove is home to Susquehanna University. “God, no,” she said, when asked if she attended college. “I didn’t even start high school.” Dempsey stayed in school until about the eighth grade and said, “I’m an old lady and I don’t have too much brain.” In truth, the sharp-tongued 106-year-old may lack formal education, but she isn’t short on brains.

In about 1919, at the young age of 18, Dempsey married her first husband, Marshall Hoffman, and moved with him to New Jersey. The marriage lasted about 23 years, until Hoffman passed away from tuberculosis.
Some of Dempsey’s most vivid memories come from her time in New Jersey, where she worked at a nightclub selling cigarettes and, more impressively, as an attractive coloratura soprano dubbed the “Swedish Nightingale.”

“I had quite a voice,” Dempsey admitted, adding that she had a solid group of fans. “I used to sing to the tables. People wanted me to sing to them, and they tipped me well.

“I had a job, and it was good money,” she said of her stint as a singer, though due to everything getting more expensive over time, “today they’d sneeze on” the $75 a week she made at the nightclub.

After her first husband died, Kitty soon remarried William Dempsey and moved from New Jersey to Florida, where she lived until last year. When her second husband died, after 29 years of marriage, Kitty lived alone in a mobile home, quietly working in the homemaking business and sometimes making headlines.

Elaine and Robin Sheets, who first met Dempsey about 30 years ago in Florida and have remained friends ever since — Robin’s mother lived in a nearby mobile home — note that Dempsey’s feisty attitude sometimes surfaced. About 30 years ago, when Dempsey was in the prime of youth in her mid 70s, she found a stray dog and took the dog into her home, which was against the rules of the mobile home community. After arguments about the dog, management tried to kick Dempsey out of the community, but she didn’t budge. Not surprisingly, the matter became a great story for the local newspapers, and in the end Dempsey prevailed and got to keep her dog. Elaine Sheets noted that Depmsey has always loved animals.

Into old age, Dempsey remained involved in her civic association and her church choir. Only recently — about six or seven years ago — did she stop participating in her local crime watch group.

Living to be so old has its disadvantages, and over time Dempsey’s friends and supporters passed away or moved away. Unable to live in a Florida mobile home alone at the age of 105, Dempsey moved to the Susan Bailis Center last year, where she’s close to Elaine and Robin Sheets (Elaine is a native South Ender).

“She’s very strong willed, very independent,” said Elaine about Dempsey, adding that the centenarian sometimes describes herself as “ornery” and says things like, “I’m so tough a pick axe wouldn’t even kill me.”

“I didn’t have a good life; I had a life that was loving,” Dempsey said recently. Perhaps her tough life — seeing her mother and two husbands die, working hard every day — tempered her, like metal, into something durable that was destined to stick around. Dempsey explains her longevity in more philosophical terms, saying, “God didn’t want me; the Devil didn’t want me, so I just wandered around.”

Asked if the world has changed for the better or the worse, Dempsey responded only about her own life here in Boston, saying, “I think that I’m living better than I ever have. I have an easier life. What I attribute it to, I don’t know.

“Age doesn’t bother me a whole lot,” she said. Asked to provide advice to younger generations she said, “I always say work hard, because I had to work hard all my life.”

Dempsey’s feisty personality has made her a minor celebrity at the Susan Bailis Center where, during her recent interview with South End News, more than one resident asked her to lunch.

Emily Sato, assistant social programs director at the Susan Bailis Center, said all the residents know Dempsey. “She’s a smart aleck,” Sato said. At 106, Dempsey gets around remarkably well with the help of a walker, but, noted Sato, “She’s very feisty. [Sometimes] she’ll throw down her walker and start walking by herself.”

For Dempsey’s 106th birthday party, held Feb. 15, the Susan Bailis Center planned an event for residents and friends that includes food, drinks and a performer. It was supposed to be a surprise party, but it’s difficult to surprise someone who’s been around, both in terms of years and experience, as long as Dempsey. “I don’t think I’m supposed to know it, but I do know it,” she said.

2007 Kitty Died, age 106.

9 Jul

Age: 106

Name: Kathleen Dempsey
Last Residence:
02155 Medford, Middlesex, Massachusetts
BORN: 15 Feb 1901
Died: 9 Jul 2007

State (Year) SSN issued: New Jersey (Before 1951)

Burial

2007

New Jersey, USA

Beside her husband William

Research:

"Recently I came into possession of Kathleen Lumbards family pictures and some correspondence about her family, she is right now 105 years old, 99% blind, and in a retirement facility located in sunrise florida. She is known as Kathleen Dempsey, or "Miss Kitty" to her friends. There is no doubt, after viewing pictures of her father, that he is closely related to Joseph Asher Lumbard, possibly his son. Kathleen was born on Feb 15 1901, and says her younger brother whom I assume would be Robert Lumbard 1907 - 1911 d: 09 Sep 1911 on your family tree, died at 4 years old of consumption." 

Susan Bailis Assisted Living Center, Boston MA