My grandmother Elena was the first child of William H. Fogarty and Alice Lyons and was born in Whitman, Massachusetts on April 6, 1888. Because Dad was young when she died of breast cancer on March 1, 1927, I know very little about her other than what I have pieced together in my genealogy research, which is summarized at https://conlon.org/familytree/public/ps01/ps01_016.html. In an interview conducted on June 1, 2002, Dad recalled that one of his earliest memories is of his mother being waked in his grandparent’s parlor at 20 Elm Place.

She worked as a clerk at one of the shoe factories in Whitman and was a communicant of the Holy Ghost Church. During World War I, she corresponded with my grandfather Martin J. Conlon, whom she married in 1921, and gave birth to my father William M. Conlon and uncle Joseph F. Conlon.

Written by Bill Conlon, 24 October 2026