Camerford Avenue in Hollywood, the street that was supposed to be named Comerford Avenue

Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945) was a publishing heir and a World War I battle hero … his grandfather gave his (misspelled) name to Camerford Avenue in Hollywood

Patrick Comerford

The wildfires in California have devastated large areas of Los Angeles and Hollywood in the past week or so and have dominated television news and newspaper reports in the US and around the world.

Many of the street names in Hollywood and Los Angeles in these reports have drawn my attention to the name of Camerford Avenue in Hollywood, and have reminded me that this street was originally supposed to be named Comerford Avenue, and how this is a misspelling.

The street is in a plush residential part in Los Angeles, just west of Paramount Pictures and close to Sunset Boulevard and the heart of old Hollywood. Many of the street names there, including Camerford Avenue, were created at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries by Senator Cornelius Cole in honour of the members of his extended family, including his grandson, Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945).

The story of Comerford McLoughlin, Camerford Avenue and the street names of West Hollywood is the story of a family network in which the Comerford name continues for four or five generations, and that includes a senator who was a friend of Abraham Lincoln and who once owned much of Hollywood; a publishing empire that pioneered children’s books and colour printing; an artist’s wife who had been a ‘society girl’ but whose tragic death by suicide became a nationwide sensation; her daughter who became a princess through her marriage to a Russian exile; and a publishing executive with Time and Fortune magazines.

Senator Cornelius Cole named Camerford Avenue in Hollywood after his grandson Comerford McLoughlin

Senator Cornelius Cole (1822-1945) was the founder of Colegrove, and named the area after himself. As he subdivided and developed the area at the beginning of the 20th century, Cole decided to name many of the streets after members of his own family.

In 1902, Cole decided to name one of these streets after his grandson, Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945). But it is not clear whether Granddad Cole did not know how to spell his own grandson’s name correctly or that the people who first put up the street signs got the spelling wrong. In either case, no-one every corrected the mistake, and Camerford Avenue, home to the stars, never became Comerford Avenue, as it was intended to be.

Senator Cornelius Cole was a New York lawyer. He was admitted to the bar in 1948 and moved to California in 1849 at the height of gold rush. He first practised law in San Francisco and then in Sacramento.

Cole was a friend of Abraham Lincoln and soon became involved in politics. He founded the California Republican Party, and served on the Republican National Committee (1856-1860). He was District Attorney (1859-1862), and moved to Santa Cruz in 1862.

In 1863, Cole became the commander of a Santa Cruz cavalry troop raised for the Union Army during the Civil War and he was commissioned as a captain. He was a member of the US Congress for one term (1863-1865) and of the US Senate for one term (1867-1873), and chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee (1871-1873).

As an attorney, Cole helped the brothers Henry and John Hancock secure their title to Rancho La Brea, and in payment received 483 acres of the ranch. He retired to his ranch in 1880, and in 1887, he began subdividing it as the town of Colegrove. The name was a reference to his own family name but also the family name of his wife Olive (1833-1918), which was also Colegrove.

Cornelius Cole intended to name Camerford Avenue in Hollywood after his grandson Comerford McLoughlin (Google Maps)

Cornelius Cole honoured many of his relatives with street names in Hollywood, including Gregory Avenue, named after his grandson, the artist Gregory Van Sicklin McLoughlin (1889-1954) and Camerford Avenue, which he intended to name after his 11-year-old grandson Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945).

The town of Colegrove was annexed by the City of Los Angeles in 1909, and was renamed Hollywood. Some of Cole’s original street names were lost in renaming in the years that followed.

Olive Avenue, named after his wife, is now Romaine Street; Schuyler Avenue, named after one of his sons Schuyler Colfax Cole (1865-1926), is now La Mirada Avenue; Emelita Avenue, recalling his daughter Emma Cole Brown (1854-1926), became Lexington Avenue; while Townsend Street, named after Cole’s mother, is now Cahuenga Boulevard, the ‘heart of old Hollywood’, connecting Sunset Boulevard in the heart of old Hollywood to the Hollywood Hills and North Hollywood in the San Fernando Valley.

On the other hand, many of Cole’s original street names have survived: Cole Street, Cole Avenue and Cole Place; Seward Street and Willoughby Avenue, for two more sons; Waring Avenue for Cole’s daughter Lucretia Cole Waring (1860-1953); Eleanor Avenue for his daughter-in-law and granddaughter; and the misspelled Camerford Avenue, as well as Barton Avenue and Gregory Avenue, named after his grandsons.

Oher original names that have survived from Cole’s naming system include El Centro Avenue, for the centre of his ranch; Lodi Place, for his hometown of Lodi in New York; and Hollywood’s famous Vine Street, for his vineyard.

Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945) and his sister Cornelia in the 1920s … his grandfather gave his (misspelled) name to Camerford Avenue in Hollywood

Camerford Avenue in Hollywood, despite its incorrect spelling, was named in 1902 after one of Cole’s grandsons, Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945), the second son of Cole’s daughter Cornelia (‘Nellie’), and his son-in-law, James Gregory McLoughlin (1860-1918).

Comerford McLoughlin was a publishing heir who was born in New York on 20 February 1891. As a lieutenant in World War I, he helped command the all-black 369th Infantry – the ‘Harlem Hellfighters’ – and received the Distinguished Service Cross in 1923 for saving his men’s lives on the battlefield.

The citation said that while serving with 369th Infantry Regiment, 93d Division, American Expeditionary Forces, at Ripont, France, on 26 September 1918, Comerford McLoughlin was in command of a company during an assault on the enemy’s position. He ‘voluntarily exposed himself to a concentration of enemy machine-gun and artillery fire, made his way with great difficulty over rough and broken ground, and rescued his wounded battalion commander and his battalion adjutant and several wounded enlisted men, all of whom he carried to a dressing station, thus undoubtedly saving their lives.’ His ‘undaunted courage and devotion to duty’ inspired the men of his regiment ‘to great endeavours.’

Comerford McLoughlin lived in Rye, Westchester, New York. He drilled for oil around San Antonio, Texas, in the 1930s and returned to the US army during World War II, when he was posted to Germany. He died in the Bronx, New York, at the age of 54, on 20 August 1945, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, Hartsdale, Greenburgh, Westchester. So far, I can find no records for any children of Comerford McLoughlin and his wife Catherine.

Gregory Avenue in Hollywood was similarly named by their grandfather after Comerford McLoughlin’s brother, Gregory Van Sicklin McLoughlin (1889-1954). Their sister, Cornelia Beekman Rylee (1893-1938), was the first woman in California to obtain a pilot’s license. But she missed out on having a Hollywood street named after her by her grandfather, and ‘Cornelia Street’, a track on Taylor Swift’s album Lover (2019) refers to a street in Greenwich Village, New York.

Gregory Avenue in Hollywood was named after Comerford McLoughlin’s brother, Gregory Van Sicklin McLoughlin

In the case of this family and the frequent use of the name Comerford is successive generations, so far I can only trace the use of use of the Comerford name in the McLoughlin family back to John Comerford McLoughlin (1827-1905), and can only trace the McLoughlin family back to his parents.

John McLoughlin (1790-1870) was born in Ireland, and it appears his mother may have been a member of the Comerford family. He emigrated to New York, perhaps though Scotland. He was an unemployed coachmaker when he entered the New York publishing industry in March 1819. While working with the Sterling Iron Company, he met Robert Hoe, who manufactured printing presses. He became interested in printing and began working for the New York Times in 1827. He bought a used printing press and type in 1828 and set up his own business, writing and published McLoughlin’s Books for Children, a collection of semi-religious tracts.

McLoughlin formed a partnership with Robert H Elton, a wood engraver, in 1840 to publish toy books, comic almanacs, and valentines under the name Elton and Co.

John McLoughlin and his wife […] Swaine were the parents of:

1, John Comerford McLoughlin (1827-1905).
2, Edmund McLoughlin (1833-1889). He married Martha E Gouldy (1832-1897) and died in New York on 17 October 1889. They were the parents of one son, Edmund McLoughlin jr.

The elder son:

John Comerford McLoughlin (1827-1905) was born in New York on 29 November 1827. As John McLoughlin jr, he was an apprentice to the firm of Robert H Elton. When the senior partners for Elton and Company retired in 1850, the son took over the firm. He changed the company name to John McLoughlin, Successor to Elton & Co.

He obtained the printing blocks of Edward Dunigan, a successful New York toy book publisher, and reissued Dunigan’s titles as the ‘Uncle Frank’ series. The books contained stories of British origin, mostly from Walter Crane and Randolph Caldecott. McLoughlin eventually became the leading publisher of brightly hand-coloured paper toy books as well as games, alphabet cards, and valentines.

The company moved after the original factory burned, John McLoughlin’s brother, Edmund, became a partner in 1855, and the company expanded. The McLoughlin brothers had opened the largest colour printing factory in the US by 1870, and they introduced American children to Kate Greenaway, Randolph Caldecott and Walter Crane.

Edmund McLoughlin retired from the company in 1885 and died on 17 October 1889. John McLoughlin carried on the business with his sons, James Gregory and Charles. When John McLoughlin died in 1905, the firm the loss of his artistic and commercial leadership. His sons Charles and James Gregory took over the company. The company was sold to Milton Bradley, their chief competitor, in 1920. Today, McLoughlin books, games, Valentines, and other products are highly valued by collectors.

John Comerford McLoughlin married Ann Elizabeth Gregory (1835-1903). She was born on 24 January 1835 in Danbury, Connecticut, and died aged 68 on 15 May 1903 in New York; he died in New York aged 77 on 27 April 1905. They are buried in Wooster Cemetery, Danbury, Connecticut. They were the parents of at least three sons and four daughters, of whom three children survived into adulthood:

1, Susan McLoughlin (born 1849).
2, Thomas McLoughlin (born 1851).
3, Mary McLoughlin (born 1854).
4, James Gregory McLoughlin (1860-1918), of Philadelphia, of whom next.
5, Mary McLoughlin (1861-1887), of New York; she was born on 5 March 1861, and died aged 26 on 11 December 1887.
6, Charles Swaine McLoughlin (1863-1913), of New York; he was born on 6 July 1863, died aged 50 on 8 November 1913, and is buried in Wooster Cemetery, Danbury, Connecticut.
7, Katie McLoughlin (1870-1870), died in infancy.

The eldest surviving son was:

James Gregory McLoughlin (1860-1918), of Philadelphia. He was born on 28 March 1860 in Morrisania, a residential area in the Bronx, New York, and died aged 47 on 4 February 1918 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was described as a publishing heir when he married Cornelia Cole (1863-1932) in Los Angeles on 3 October 1888. She was a daughter of Senator Cornelius Cole (1822-1924) and Olive A (Colegrove) Cole (1833-1888), of Hollywood, California. She was born on 1 June 1863, in Santa Cruz, California, and died in Los Angeles aged 69 on 19 October 1932.

James and Cornelia McLoughlin are buried in Wooster Cemetery, Danbury, Connecticut. They were the parents of four children, two sons and two daughter, who grew up wealthy New Yorkers who could have peopled the novels of F Scott Fitzgerald:

1, Olive Cole McLoughlin (born 1885), named after her maternal grandmother.
2, Gregory Van Sicklin McLoughlin (1889-1954), of whom next.
3, Comerford McLoughlin (1891-1945), was born New York on 20 February 1891. He married Catherine […] before 1945. He gave his name to Camerford Avenue in Hollywood, but lived in Rye, Westchester, New York, and Manhattan. He died in the Bronx aged 54 on 20 August 1945, and was buried in Ferncliff Cemetery, Greenburgh, Westchester.
4, Cornelia Cole Beekman Rylee (1894-1938), was born in Manhattan, New York, on 22 February 1894.

Gregory McLoughlin and Edwina Whitehouse at their wedding in Rye, New York, on 11 June 1913

The elder son of James and Cornelia McLoughlin was:

Gregory Van Sicklin McLoughlin (1889-1954), a landscape and still-life artist. He was born in Santa Monica on 27 September 1889, and educated at Harvard. He married Edwina Worthington Whitehouse (1894-1923) in Rye, New York, on 11 June 1913. Edwina was born on 5 January 1894, a daughter of Edward Whitehouse (1866-1899) and Constance Josephine Cozzens Sewell (1872-1957). She was 19 when she married and she was described at the time as a ‘society girl’.

Ten years after her marriage, on 2 November 1923, Edwina shot herself dead in Mount Kisco, Westchester. She was still not 30 and was the mother of three young children aged 9, 7 and 5. She left notes suggesting that, as a devotee of the Theosophical Society, she hoped to advance toward Nirvana, and that she believed her husband and his art career would be better off without her.

The tragic circumstances of her suicide made sensational news nationwide. The headline in the New York Times on 4 November 1923 declared: ‘Artist’s Wife Dies In Religious Mania; Mrs McLoughlin, Student of Theosophy, Thought She Was a Burden to Her Husband.’

Edwina and Gregory McLoughlin were the parents of three children:

1, (Princess) Kathleen Comerford McLoughlin (1914-1999). She was born in Briarcliff, New York, on 18 September 1914. She married Prince Alexis Pavlovich Scherbatow (1910-2003), a history professor, in 1941 and became Princess Kathleen Comerford McLoughlin or Принцесса Щербатов Кэтлин (Комерфорд Маклейфлин). She died aged 85 on 5 December 1999 and is buried at Holy Trinity Orthodox Monastery, Jordanville, New York. She is the subject of a separate profile on the Comerford Family History site (26 June 2009).
2, Comerford Whitehouse McLoughlin (1916-1987), of whom next.
3, Cornelia Edwina Whitehouse McLoughlin (1918-2006). She was born on 10 October 1918 in Colorado Springs. She married Edgar Beach Van Winkle II (1916-2002) at Christ Episcopal Church in Rye, New York, on 12 January 1939. They were the parents of two children, including a daughter Edwina Whitehouse Van Winkle who married William Hall Lewis III in Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, on 13 March 1971. Edgar Beach Van Winkle died on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, on 31 July 2002; Cornelia died aged 87 on 15 August 2006 in Oxford, Connecticut.

Edwina (Whitehouse) McLoughlin (1894-1923) with her children Kathleen Comerford McLoughlin (1914-1999), Comerford Whitehouse McLoughlin (1916-1987) and Cornelia Edwina McLoughlin (1918-1987) in a 1920s photograph

Gregory McLoughlin married his second wife Hope Patterson (1907-1983) in Manhattan on 5 May 1931. He died aged 64 in New York on 13 February 1954, and she died in Santa Monica on 29 April 1983. Although the censuses in 1940 and 1950 show Gregory and Hope living separately, her obituary named her as his widow. They were the parents of one daughter:

4, Hope McLoughlin, who died in 1997.

Gregory and his first wife Edwina are buried in Wooster Cemetery in Danbury, Connecticut. The Comerford name continued with their only son:

Comerford Whitehouse McLoughlin (1916-1987), of Southbury, Connecticut. He was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on 27 January 1916. He joined the staff of Time magazine in 1939. During World War II, he was a captain in the US army (1941-1945). He took part in the campaigns in Northern France, Rhineland, and Central Europe, and was decorated with the Bronze Star.

He was market merchandising manager with Fortune magazine. He retired from Time after 35 years with the organisation, and lived in retirement in Southbury, Connecticut.

He married Elizabeth Merrill (1918-1983), daughter of (Judge) Maurice P Merrill of Skowhegan, Maine, in 1942, and they were the parents of three children, including a daughter Cornelia Whitehouse McLoughlin, who married Stephen Edward Post in the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany, Southbury, in 1977.

Comerford McLoughlin died at the Westerley Hospital, Rhode Island, on 26 June 1987.

Prince Alexis Pavlovich Scherbatow (1910-2003), a Russian exile and history professor, married Princess Kathleen Comerford McLoughlin (1914-1999) in 1941

Gerry Commerford, aerospace engineer who worked with NASA on the Space Shuttle

Gerard (Gerry) Lawrence Commerford (1934-2012) was an aerospace engineer who worked on the Space Shuttle

Gerard (Gerry) Lawrence Commerford (1934-2012), who lived in retirement in Irvine, California, was descended from a branch of the family who had emigrated from Kilkenny to New York in the mid-19th century, and both his paternal grandparents, Timothy Commerford and Anna (Comerford) Commerford, were members of this family.

He is often referred to today as the father of Tim Commerford, best known as the bassist and backing vocalist with the rock band Rage Against the Machine. But Gerry Commerford is also remembered as an aerospace engineer who worked on the Space Shuttle.

This branch of the family can be traced back to:

John Commerford of New York, who married Margaret Carboy. Margaret died on 15 January 1899, and John Commerford died on 14 December 1914. They were the parents of:

Timothy Carboy Commerford (1879-1946) of New York. He was born in New York in September 1879, and died in King’s County, Brooklyn, on 2 November 1946. He married Anna (Comerford) Commerford (1875-1962), daughter of Peter Comerford (1825-1902) and Margaret Anna J (Sullivan) Comerford (1833-1911). Her father Peter Comerford was born in Kilkenny on 10 May 1825 and he died in New York on 4 October 1902.

Anna (Comerford) Commerford and Timothy Commerford were the parents of:

Eugene J Commerford ( -1968). He married Charlotte (Meisenheimer), daughter of Charles David Meisenheimer (born 1877) and Charlotte (Dyckman) Meisenheimer (1883-1973), the descendants of families with German ancestry. Charlotte Commerford died in 1973, and Eugene Commerford died in 1968. They were the parents of at least two sons:

1, Eugene Commerford.
2, Gerard (Gerry) Lawrence Commerford (1934-2012).

The second named son:

Gerard (Gerry) Lawrence Commerford (1934-2012) was born on 22 May 1934 in Greenport, Long Island, New York. He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York, with a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering. While he was at Rensselaer, he was a member of the Theta Xi fraternity. Later, he received a master’s degree from the University of Southern California (USC) and an MBA from Pepperdine University in Los Angeles.

As an aerospace engineer and manager, Gerry began his career working on the X-15 rocket-propelled experimental plane that reached space. He spent much of his career working on the Space Shuttle programme. His leadership and technical capability played a key role in the successful Return-to-Flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery on 29 September 1988.

Among his many professional awards, he received the 1976 Gas Turbine Award for the Most Outstanding Technical Paper.

Gerry was greatly admired for his integrity and character by his colleagues at Rockwell and by the NASA officials and engineers he worked with. For the many people he supervised, he was not just a boss but ‘a true friend and mentor’, a ‘stand-up guy’, who took immense pride in making himself available to everybody, leaving his office to walk among the workers to visit and to know each person.

Gerry was athletic and enjoyed sports. He and his wife Nancy bowled for years, and Gerry hiked, biked, and played golf. One of his proudest achievements was to hike down the Grand Canyon and back up, eight months after back surgery, at the age of 66.

Gerry and Nancy also took several holidays with a great group of friends. In later years, they discovered the Elderhostel programme and their trips included a 10-day programme to all the national parks in Utah. In Gerry’s last year, he and Nancy also took up duplicate bridge and, with his competitive spirit, consistently racked up master points.

He married Bobbie Ruth (Smith), a teacher and mathematician, from Arkansas on 23 November 1957 in Los Angeles. She was the daughter of Joseph Elgin Smith (1906-1971) and Willie Mae (Murdaugh) Smith. They were divorced on 1 October 1984, and she died in 1988. They were the parents of six children:

1, Sharon, married Tom Ragghianti.
2, Patricia, married Kris Kirk.
3, Joan, married Steve …
4, Dorothy, married Paul Ervin.
5, Larry Commerford married Carrie …
6, Timothy Commerford, born on 26 February 1968, in Irvine, California. He is best known as the bassist and backing vocalist with the rock band Rage Against the Machine. He married Aleece Dimas and they are the parents of two sons, Xavier Commerford and Quentin Commerford.

After his divorce, Gerry married Nancy K Commerford, and was the stepfather of:

1, Laura Crawford
2, Bill Sheline, who married Deborah.

Gerry Commerford died at home on 3 July 2012 at the age of 78, surrounded by his wife Nancy and his children after a courageous battle with lung cancer. He was also survived by 10 grandchildren and one great-grandchild, and his brother-in-law Bob (Olympia). He was predeceased by his first wife, Robbie Ruth (Smith) Commerford (1932-1988), the mother of his children, and by his brother Eugene Commerford.

His funeral services took place in Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Irvine on 27 July 2012.

Gerry Commerford played a key role in the successful Return-to-Flight of the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1988

Free journalism is essential for a free society and free world

Patrick Comerford

These eight days mark the Jewish holiday of Passover, which is celebrated in the early spring, from the 15th until the 22nd day of the Hebrew month of Nissan. Passover began this year on Wednesday evening, 5 April 2023 and continues until 13 April 2023.

Passover or Pesach is the most celebrated of all the Jewish holidays. regardless of religious observance. It commemorates the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. Pesach is marked by avoiding leaven, and the highlight of the holiday is the Seder meals that include four cups of wine, eating matzah and bitter herbs, and retelling the story of the Exodus.

During many decades of slavery in Egypt, the pharaohs subjected the Israelites to back-breaking labour and unbearable horrors. God saw their distress and sent Moses to Pharaoh with the message: ‘Let my people go, so that they may worship me’ (Exodus 8: 1; 9: 1).

Despite numerous warnings, Pharaoh refused to heed God’s command. But his resistance was broken by ten plagues, culminating in the death of the first-born. Pharaoh virtually chased his former slaves out of the land. The Israelites left in such a hurry that the bread they baked as provisions for the exodus did not have time to rise.

On that night, 600,000 adult males, and many more women and children, left Egypt and began the trek to Mount Sinai, to religious freedom and to freedom as a people.

Nine days ago, on 29 March, the Jewish American journalist Evan Gershkovich of the Wall Street Journal was arrested by Russia’s security services on false charges and he faces a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.

Evan (31), is the American-son of Soviet-born Jewish exiles who settled in New Jersey,and the grandson of a Ukrainian Jewish Holocaust survivor. He is spending this Passover locked up in Moscow’s notorious Lefortovo prison, denied all contact with the outside world.

When Evan’s mother Ella was 22, she fled the Soviet Union using Israeli documents. She was whisked across the Iron Curtain by her own mother, a Ukrainian nurse and Holocaust survivor who would weep when she talked about the survivors of extermination camps she treated at a Polish military hospital at the end of World War II. Before fleeing Russia, they heard rumours that Soviet Jews were about to be deported to Siberia.

Evan’s father, Mikhail, also left the Soviet Union as part of the same wave of Jewish migration. The couple met in Detroit then moved to New Jersey where Evan and his elder sister Dusya grew up.

The Wall Street Journal asked Jews around the world to raise awareness of Evan’s plight this week by setting a place for Evan at their Seder table and sharing a picture along with the hashtags #FreeEvan and #IStandWithEvan.

Rabbi Angela Buchdahl, the senior rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York, announced on her Facebook page this week that she was leaving an empty chair at her Seder for Evan, and she urged others to do the same.

She wrote: ‘At our festival of freedom, may we remember those for whom the promise of freedom remains unfulfilled. Let us raise up God’s demand for justice as our own: “Let my people go”.’

To learn more about Evan, read this article from the Wall Street Journal: ‘Evan Gershkovich Loved Russia, the Country That Turned on Him.’

חַג פֵּסַח שַׂמֵחַ Chag Pesach Sameach

Shabbat Shalom

Barbara Heck and Philip Embury: Founders of American Methodism

The Embury Heck Memorial Church in Ballingrane, Co Limerick (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

The Methodist church at Ballingrane, near Rathkeale, Co Limerick, is known as the Embury Heck Memorial Church, recalling Philip Embury (1729-75) and Barbara Heck (1734-1804), two key figures in the foundation of Methodism in America. In 1709, 110 refugee families arrived in Ireland, fleeing French persecution in the Palatinate in Southern Germany. Many of these families settled on the Southwell estate lands around Rathkeale, at Courtmatrix, Killeheen and Ballingrane.

The Palatine people in the Rathkeale area played a formative role in the development of Methodism. Early in 1749, Robert Swindells was the first Methodist preacher to visit Limerick. Later that year, another Methodist preacher, Thomas Williams, came to Limerick. Philip Guier, the Burgomeister and schoolmaster of Ballingrane, and Thomas Walsh, from Ballylin, near Rathkeale, both became Methodist local preachers.

Walsh worked with John Wesley in Ireland and England until his tragic death at the early age of twenty-eight years. Guier remained a local preacher among the Palatines in west Limerick and became known as the man ‘who drove the devil out of Ballingrane.’ Methodist societies were formed in Ballingrane, Courtmatrix, Killeheen, Pallaskenry, Kilfinnane and Adare. John Wesley first visited the Palatines during his sixth Irish visit in 1756. He visited Ballingrane Ballingrane thirteen times between 1756 and 1779 and also visited Adare. He noted that in the Palatine communities there was ‘no cursing or swearing, no Sabbath-breaking, no drunkenness, no alehouse,’ and that ‘their diligence turns all their land into a garden.’ Originally, there were three Methodist church in the area, and the congregations were almost exclusively Palatine in origin. In the generations that followed, many of their descendants were forced to emigrate. The Palatine families who left the Southwell estate for New York in 1760 included Barbara (née Ruttle) Heck and her cousin Philip Embury, who had been a local preacher in Ballingrane.

Philip Embury was born in Ballingrane in 1729 and converted to Methodism following a religious experience in 1752. A carpenter by trade, he became a Methodist lay preacher and married Margaret Switzer from Rathkeale. They set sail from the Customs House Dock in Limerick in 1760. His cousin Barbara (née Ruttle), who was on the same emigrant ship, was born in 1734 and was now married to Paul Heck. In New York, Barbara Heck was dismayed by the spiritual carelessness she found among the people and pleaded with her cousin Philip Embury to preach to them. Philip maintained he could not preach as he had neither church nor congregation. But Barbara responded: ‘Preach in your own home and I will gather a congregation.’ Only five people attended that first gathering. But the congregation grew, and the first Methodist chapel was established in 1768 on the site of the present John Street Church, in the heart of the business district in New York.

As the Methodist presence grew in New York, John Wesley was asked to send preachers from England. In 1770, some of the New York Palatines, led by Philip Embury, moved to the Camden Valley on the boundary of New York and Vermont, almost 300 km north of New York City. There he continued to work in the linen trade during the week and to preach every Sunday. He organised the first Methodist society among Irish emigrants at Ashgrove, near Camden Valley, but he died suddenly in 1775 after a mowing accident. Barbara Heck survived and settled at what is now Prescott. She had played a pioneering role in Methodism in three different areas. The Methodist Churches in the US have since grown to their present size of over 10 million. Barbara Heck, her husband and their five children left New York for a farm in Camden but were forced off their land and moved to Montreal where she established a home for Methodism and founded the first Methodist congregation in Canada. She died in 1804 with her Bible in her lap. Today, Philip Embury and Barbara Heck are counted among the founders of Methodism in North America. A pair of candlesticks that belonged to Barbara Heck are still lit every week in the John Street Church.

The Embury Heck Memorial Church in Ballingrane was built in 1766 and is the last remaining Methodist church in the Rathkeale area. The church retains much of its original form, despite additions, and is enhanced by features such as the coloured glass, lancet, sash windows and the fading limestone plaque, which reads: ‘Embury and Heck Memorial Church 1766, Renovated 1885.’ The baptismal font is made from an original rafter from the kitchen of Barbara Heck’s old home. The Revd Dr William Crook (1824-97), who is buried in the churchyard in Ballingrane, brought greetings from the Irish Methodist Conference to the American Methodist Church when it celebrated its centenary in 1866. The headstones in the churchyard display many Palatine family names, including Baker, Bovenizer, Delemage, Doupe, Miller, Raynard, Ruttle, Shier, Sparling, Switzer and Teskey.

Biographical Note (p. 261):

Patrick Comerford, former adjunct assistant professor in Trinity College Dublin, is former priest-in-charge of the Rathkeale group of parishes (Church of Ireland),and former Precentor of Saint Mary’s Cathedral, Limerick.

• ‘Barbara Heck and Philip Embury: Founders of American Methodism’, is published in David Bracken, ed, Of Limerick Saints and Sinners (Dublin: Veritas, 2022, ISBN: 9781800970311, 266 pp), pp 109-111. The book was launched by Dr Liam Chambers in the Limerick Diocesan Centre last night (Tuesday 22 November 2022).

A long tradition in Judaism of women rabbis reaches a landmark

‘Holy Sparks’ … an in New York and Cincinnati celebrating 50 years of women a rabbis in the US

Patrick Comerford

Tradition has been less a barrier to ordaining women as rabbis than as priests or bishops. An innovative art exhibition in New York and Cincinnati earlier this year celebrated 50 years of women in the rabbinate in US. ‘Holy Sparks’ was organised by Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and ‘The Braid.’

Rabbi Sally Priesand was ordained 50 years ago, on 3 June 1972, becoming the first woman rabbi in the US. She opened the way for generations and she set in motion the first steps toward inclusion, diversity, equity, and empowerment of new cohorts of leaders for the Jewish people over the half century that followed.

‘Holy Sparks’ told the story of almost 1,500 women rabbis who have transformed Jewish tradition, worship, spirituality, scholarship, education and pastoral care, from the pulpit to the college campus, from philanthropic foundations to communal organisations and agencies, from military to healthcare chaplaincy.

Regina Jonas (1902-1944), a portrait by Jared Wright of the first woman rabbi … she was murdered in Auschwitz on 12 October 1944

Regina Jonas,
first woman rabbi

Regina Jonas (1902-1944) was the first woman rabbi who was ordained in Germany in 1935. She served the Jewish community of Berlin and continued to help guide the Jewish community until her death in Auschwitz in 1944.

She was born in Berlin 120 years ago and was orphaned at a young age. She trained as a teacher and later enrolled at the Higher Institute for Jewish Studies.

She graduated as an ‘Academic Teacher of Religion’ and her thesis asked, ‘Can a Woman Be a Rabbi According to Halachic Sources?’ Her conclusion, based on Biblical, Talmudic, and rabbinical sources, was that she should be ordained.

At first, she was refused ordination because she was a woman. Rabbi Leo Baeck, the spiritual leader of German Jewry who had taught her, also refused because the ordination of a woman as a rabbi would have caused serious divisions within the Jewish community in Germany. But, on 27 December 1935, she was ordained by Rabbi Max Dienemann, head of the Liberal Rabbis’ Association, in Offenbach am Main.

***

Regina Jonas worked as a chaplain in Jewish social institutions while she tried to find a pulpit. Despite Nazi persecution, she continued her rabbinical work as well as teaching and holding services.

She was arrested by the Gestapo 80 years ago on 5 November 1942, and was deported to Theresienstadt in what is now the Czech Republic. There she continued her work as a rabbi, and Viktor Frankl, the psychotherapist, invited her to help build a crisis intervention service to help prevent suicide attempts. She met the trains at the station and helped people cope with shock and disorientation.

Regina Jonas was deported with other prisoners to Auschwitz in mid-October 1944, and she was murdered soon after at the age of 42. She was largely forgotten until her work was rediscovered in 1991 by Dr Katharina von Kellenbach, a German-born researcher and lecturer at Saint Mary’s College of Maryland.

‘Mem,’ a painting by Yona Verwer of the dome of the Neue Synagogue in Berlin in the ‘Holy Sparks’ exhibition and Rabbi Gesa Ederberg

Berlin’s first
pulpit rabbi

The New Synagogue on Oranienburger Strasse is one of the most eye-catching buildings in Berlin. And it is Berlin’s only Masorti synagogue. Gesa Ederberg became the first female pulpit rabbi in Berlin when she became the rabbi of the New Synagogue in 2007.

Gesa Ederberg’s appointment attracted attention not only because she is a woman and because her appointment was opposed by Berlin’s senior Orthodox rabbi, Yitzchak Ehrenberg, but because of her interesting background and life story.

She was born in Tübingen in 1968, and is married with three children. Born a Lutheran, she first visited Israel when she was 13 and slowly fell in love with Judaism. She studied physics, theology and Jewish studies in Tübingen, Bochum and Berlin and she converted to Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York in 1995.

***

After returning to Berlin, she taught Hebrew school and organised an alternative minyan at the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue, slowly taking on leadership roles in the community that has been at the centre of Berlin’s liberal Jewish community for 150 years.

Gesa Ederberg then entered a rabbinical school in Jerusalem, and she was ordained a rabbi in Jerusalem in 2003. Her first appointment was as the rabbi at the Jewish Community in Weiden, Bavaria, and in February 2007 she became the rabbi at the Oranienburger Strasse Synagogue in Berlin.

She established a Conservative Jewish beit midrash in Berlin, and is also the executive vice president of Masorti Europe. Her status as the first woman rabbi to serve in Berlin since the Holocaust has helped her reinvigorate the Jewish community in Germany.

Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl is increasingly being heard as a Jewish voice of intellect and compassion in the US

A voice for compassion
and social justice

Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl is one of the most influential women rabbis in America, and is increasingly being heard as a Jewish voice of intellect and compassion in the US. She speaks out for diversity and social justice and against racism, she was the first Asian-American to be ordained as a rabbi, and the first Asian-American to be ordained as a hazzan or cantor.

Both Newsweek and the Daily Beast named her as one of the 50 ‘Most Influential Rabbis’ in America, she was recognised as one of the top five in The Forward’s list of American Jews who have had the most impact on the national scene, and the Jewish Telegraphic Agency listed her among the Jews who defined the previous decade.

She was born Angela Lee Warnick 50 years ago on 8 July 1972 in Seoul, South Korea, to a Jewish father and a Korean Buddhist mother, Sulja Yi Warnick, who is descended from King Taejo of Joseon.

Her father, Frederick David Warnick, was descended from Jews who moved to Canada and the US from Moinești in Bacău, Romania, and Zvenyhorodka or Zvenigorodka in central Ukraine. The Jewish community in Zvenyhorodka lasted for 200 years until it was decimated by the Nazis and finally destroyed by the Soviet Union.

***

Rabbi Angela Warnick Buchdahl with women rabbis during a recent visit to Jerusalem

Angela Warnick moved at the age of five to the US with her family. They attended Temple Beth El in Tacoma, Washington, a synagogue her great-grandparents had helped to found a century earlier. But from a young age she experienced demeaning comments from fellow Jews, doubting her Judaism.

At Yale, she was one of the first female members of Skull and Bones, a secret society whose members have included former President George W Bush and former Secretary of State John Kerry.

She met her husband Jacob Buchdahl, a lawyer, at Yale, and then studied at Hebrew Union College. She was invested as a cantor in 1999 and was ordained as a rabbi in New York in 2001.

She moved to Central Synagogue in Manhattan in 2006 as the senior cantor, and she succeeded Peter Rubinstein as the Senior Rabbi in 2014. She is the first woman and the first Asian-American to hold the post in the long history of Central Synagogue, and one of only a few women serving as leaders of a major US synagogue.

President Barack Obama invited her to lead the prayers in the White House at a Hanukkah celebration. She opened the doors of Central Synagogue to hundreds of worshipers from the nearby Islamic Society of Mid-Manhattan when their mosque was destroyed in a fire in 2019, a gesture that became national news throughout the US.

She has been recognised for her innovations in liturgical transformation, her role in social justice work and her work for a more inclusive Jewish community. ‘Judaism has a message for the world that should be attractive to anyone, and we should be less closed, or tribal, in feeling like it is only ours,’ she said in an interview with Haaretz.

Rabbi Jackie Tabick, the first Irish-born female rabbi, was born in Dublin in 1948 and ordained in 1975

The first Irish-born
female rabbi

The Dublin Jewish Progressive Synagogue in Rathgar has been supported by Rabbi Julia Neuberger and other visiting women rabbis and rabbinical students. But the first Irish-born female rabbi is Jackie Tabick, who became Britain’s first female rabbi in 1975.

She was born Jacqueline Hazel Acker in Dublin in 1948. She studied at University College London, and completed her rabbinical training at the Leo Baeck College.

She became the assistant rabbi at West London Synagogue under Rabbi Hugo Gryn, and later became the rabbi of North West Surrey Synagogue and then of London’s West Central Liberal Synagogue in Bloomsbury. She had also played a leading role in interfaith initiatives.

She is married to Rabbi Larry Tabick since 1975, and their son, Rabbi Roni Tabick, is also a rabbi in London.

***

In the past half century, woman have been ordained rabbis in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Syria and Ukraine.

‘In just 50 years, what was once unthinkable has become foundational’ says Dr Judith Rosenbaum of the Jewish Women’s Archive.

‘And the pioneering continues: more firsts will be achieved as the next generation of rabbis break new ground, building and changing communities around the world, and extending the inclusion that their presence as women in the rabbinate represents to other categories, such as race, sexuality, and disability.’

The Dublin Jewish Progressive Synagogue in Rathgar, dating from 1946, has been served by a number of women rabbis (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

This two-page feature was intended for the October 2022 edition of the ‘Church Review’ (Dublin and Glendalough)

Commerford B Martin (1911-1988), engineer and original designer of double-decker commuter train cars

Commerford Beckwith Martin (1911-1988) … engineer and the original designer of the double-decker commuter train cars

Patrick Comerford

Commerford Beckwith Martin (1911-1988) a well-known New York-born engineer and was an original designer of the double-decker commuter train cars.

Commerford B Martin was born in New York on 1 November 1911. His father, Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924), was an English-born pioneering electrical engineer, writer and journalist who worked closely with Edison and Nikola Tesla. His mother, Carmelita (née Beckwith) (1869-1947), was a writer too and was the co-author with Adele Marie Shaw of The Lady Of The Dynamos (1909).

Commerford B Martin took his first name from his grandmother, Catherine Commerford (1825-1882) , who married Thomas Martin in Thanet, Kent, in 1853.

Commerford B Martin studied engineering at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. As a student, he was an active member of the Beta Chapter of the Kappa Delta Rho Fraternity in Cornell University. Kappa Delta Rho (ΚΔΡ), commonly known as KDR, is a college fraternity with 84 chapters, 35 of which are active. These chapters are spread across the US, primarily in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions. Kappa Delta Rho’s open motto is ‘Honor Super Omnia’ or ‘Honor Above All Things.’

After graduating from Cornell in 1933, Commerford Martin became a well-known engineer, and he was the original designer of the double-decker commuter train cars.

He married Miriam Stearly Carr (1913-1987) on 9 March 1935, a daughter of Ernest Linwood Carr and Gertrude N Carr.

Commerford Martin died on 19 January 1988, aged 76, in Saint Louis, Missouri, and he was buried in the City Cemetery, Saint Louis.

His former fraternity, KDR, honours Commerford Martin with an annual scholarship awarded to KDR members. The Commerford B Martin Engineering Scholarships were endowed by his widow Miriam Martin.

Commerford Beckwith Martin and Miriam Stearly (Carr) were the parents of two sons:

1, Frederick Reynolds Martin (1937-1988) of Jersey City, New Jersey. He was born 18 May 1937 in Philadelphia. He married Kathryn Parry, and he died on 26 August 1988, aged 51 in Hudson, New Jersey. They were the parents of two sons:
1a, James Logan Martin, of Montross, Virginia.
2a, Alan Parry Martin of Norcross, Georgia.
2, Thomas Commerford Martin.

Reaching the Holocaust survivors who live in isolation and poverty

Lena Goren (90), a Greek-born Holocaust survivor living in New York … she is receiving food from the Met Council

Patrick Comerford

Some of the most disturbing news in Ireland this week has included reports on the rising levels of food poverty and the insidious rise in racism.

This Friday evening, I am also disturbed by reports that thousands of New York-based Holocaust survivors are living below the federal poverty level, and many are living in isolation as a direct consequence of the global pandemic crisis. Many of these Holocaust survivors are over 80 years old and are without family, friends, or access to food.

It is estimated that about 80,000 Holocaust survivors are living in the US and a third of them live in poverty. About one-third of the food pantries in New York City closed because of the crisis. The homebound elderly are stuck at home and have no way to get food.

One major programme in New York that seeks to reach out to them and to meet their needs is run by Met Council, the Metropolitan New York Coordinating Council on Jewish Poverty.

Met Council is a New York City-based non-profit Jewish charity and social services organisation that offers many services to help hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers in need.

One of New York’s highest-profile Jewish leaders, David Greenfield, has been the CEO of the Met Council since 2018. His initiatives include a digital food pantry initiative to serve more than 200,000 New Yorkers that rely on Met Council’s food distribution network, and a $35 million initiative to combat poverty in partnership with the UJA-Federation (United Jewish Appeal), the largest local philanthropy in the world.

In recent months, more than 1,000 Holocaust survivors in New York have benefited from a special Met Council programme that focuses on their specific needs, with a $1 million grocery delivery programme.

‘Right now, my lifesaver is what I get from the boxes, Lena Goren (91), a Greek-born Holocaust survivor who lives in Queens, told the New York Post. ‘The food coming here helps me a great deal.’

The programme served 3,076 New Yorkers one recent week, and a third of those who received food — 1,112 — are members of New York’s community of Holocaust survivors.

Lena Goren was born in Thessaloniki in Greece in 1930, the daughter of a rabbi. Her family moved to Larissa when her father became the Chief Rabbi of that city. The family hid from the Nazis in a fremote monastery after mayor of Larissa warned her father they were about to be deported.

Met Council is delivering food and groceries to Holocaust survivors in New York

Each weekly box of groceries sent out by Met Council includes a pound of fruit and a pound of vegetables, canned beans, tuna, rice, pasta, cereal, milk, granola bars and other items, according to David Greenfield. ‘It’s literally a matter of life and death,’ he said. ‘We can’t tell people who are sick and elderly to go leave their homes and wait on line for hours just so they can get some food.’

The Met Council spends about $165,000 a week on the programme, which David Greenfield says has been underwritten largely by a $500,000 donation from real estate mogul Jane Goldman. All told, the charity has raised $1.2 million to support the effort. Greenfield points out that the programme is open to homebound seniors of all faiths.

When Met Council realised that Holocaust survivors were going to be home alone without food during Passover, they reached out to Uber and created a first-of-its-kind pilot to deliver 500 Passover food packages directly to the door of Holocaust survivors. These efforts made national news on CBS and in the New York Post and AM New York.

A Met Council volunteer recently delivered food to a Holocaust Survivor who was in tears, telling the volunteer through a closed door to please stick around a bit. The survivor said she is her 90s and this is the most horrible thing to happen to her since the Holocaust.

She continued, ‘I’m living in a small apartment, been here for weeks with no one to talk to, and you are the first person I spoke to in weeks.’

It is estimated that about 80,000 Holocaust survivors are living in the US and a third of them live in poverty. About one-third of the food pantries in New York City closed because of the crisis. The homebound elderly are stuck at home and have no way to get food. Met Council is their only lifeline, and has made it a priority to get this food to them.

Holocaust survivors have already suffered more than any of us can imagine. This Friday evening, I have donated to Met Council. You can consider sponsoring either six meals for $18, twelve meals for $36, a box for $55, or two boxes for $110 by clicking HERE to make sure that Met Council can continue to deliver food to isolated, lonely and impoverished Holocaust survivors in New York.

Shabbat Shalom

Praying in Ordinary Time 2021: 105, Saint Mary Aldermary, London

Saint Mary Aldermary … ‘the most important late 17th-century Gothic church in England’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Patrick Comerford

Good morning from Crete, where I am staying this week and next on the eastern fringes of Rethymnon.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the attacks in New York on 11 September 2001. I still have graphic memories of that day, which one of the grimmest days I had working as Foreign Desk Editor at The Irish Times.

Before the day begins, I am taking a little time this morning for prayer, reflection and reading. Each morning in the time in the Church Calendar known as Ordinary Time, I am reflecting in these ways:

1, photographs of a church or place of worship;

2, the day’s Gospel reading;

3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.

My theme for the coming weeks is Wren churches in London, and my photographs this morning (11 September 2021) are from Saint Mary Aldermary on Watling Street and Bow Lane.

The magnificent fan-vaulted plaster ceiling in Saint Mary Aldermary is by Henry Doogood (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

According to Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, Saint Mary Aldemary is ‘the chief surviving monument of the 17th-century Gothic revival in the City and – with Warwick – the most important late 17th-century Gothic church in England.’

There has been a church on this site for over 900 years, and it was first mentioned in 1080. The name probably indicates that this is the oldest of the City churches dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Burials in the early church include Richard Chaucer, said to be the father of the poet Geoffrey Chaucer.

The mediaeval church was rebuilt from 1510, when Sir Henry Keeble financed the building of a new church. The tower was still unfinished when he died in 1518.

The poet John Milton married his third wife, Elizabeth Minshull, in the church in 1663. Three years later, Saint Mary Aldermary was badly damaged in the Great Fire of London of 1666, although parts of its walls and tower survived.

The church was mostly rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in a Gothic style. Henry Rogers left a legacy of £5,000 for rebuilding a church, and his widow agreed to use it to fund the rebuilding of Saint Mary’s. According to some sources, she stipulated that the new church should be an exact imitation of the one largely destroyed.

Wren rebuilt the church with an aisled nave, six bays long, with a clerestory and a short chancel. The nave and aisles are separated by arcades of clustered columns, supporting somewhat flattened Gothic arches. The magnificent fan-vaulted plaster ceiling is by Henry Doogood.

The east wall of the chancel is set askew in relation to the axis of the church. The slender piers, slightly pointed arches and clerestory are all typic of the Perpendicular style. The Gothic tower is one of the finest of its kind in England.

During World War II, this Wren church was damaged by German bombs in the London Blitz. All the windows were shattered and some plaster fell from the vaulting, but the building itself remained intact. The church was designated a Grade I listed building in 1950.

The East Window and High Altar in Saint Mary Aldermary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Luke 6: 43-49 (NRSVA):

[Jesus said:] 43 ‘No good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit; 44for each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush. 45 The good person out of the good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evil; for it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.

46 ‘Why do you call me “Lord, Lord”, and do not do what I tell you? 47 I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. 48 That one is like a man building a house, who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it, because it had been well built. 49 But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, immediately it fell, and great was the ruin of that house.’

The Gothic tower is one of the finest of its kind in England (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

The Prayer in the USPG Prayer Diary today (11 September 2021) invites us to pray:

Today is the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks in New York. We pray for all those affected by this tragic event through bereavement, injury and shock.

The World War II memorial window in Saint Mary Aldermary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Yesterday’s reflection

Continued tomorrow

A triptych of the Transfiguration in Saint Mary Aldermary (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Saint Mary Aldermary on Watling Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Ali Comerford returns to Kilkenny and releases her debut single

Ali Comerford, Kilkenny-based singer and multi-instrumentalist … ‘He Knows’ is her debut single

Patrick Comerford

‘He Knows’ is the debut single from the Kilkenny-based singer and multi-instrumentalist Ali Comerford, released earlier this month (4 March 2021). Ali was born and raised in Kilkenny, and she started playing and studying classical music at the age of 4.

After completing a Masters of Violin performance at the Royal College of Music in London, she relocated to New York, where she completed a Masters of Music in Viola Performance from the Manhattan School of Music.

After years as a first call freelance session musician for various string ensembles and chamber orchestras in New York and touring the world, Ali returned home to her native Jenkinstown in Co Kilkenny in January 2020.

Faced with the biggest stretch of free time in 14 years, she used her artistry to process and bring closure to the various ups and downs of life and has recorded her debut album of original folk-based but classical influenced songs.

During the coronavirus lockdown, she threw herself into song-writing. ‘At the very beginning of the first lockdown I set myself a target that I had to complete a song every week and it was a great way to keep my mind off things. Gradually I’ve been able to build a routine that has kept me sane although there still are good days and bad days.’

‘He Knows’ has been described by reviewers as a stunning listening experience, filled with intriguing folk tones and pop appeal. One reviewer said, ‘Comerford’s compelling musicianship and deft lyrical ability is impressive and a joy to listen to.’

‘He Knows’ is described as a piece of rich musicianship as Ali Comerford creates a delicate tune wrapped in intricate instrumentation and sweet tones. ‘Her lulling vocals caress a dreamy melody, while a blossoming string arrangement provides a pristine and innocent atmosphere. As the instrumentation grows in volume, the song becomes more vulnerable and expressive.’

Talking about the song, Ali says, ‘He knows is a lilting song about leaving an unfulfilling relationship, the ups and downs of seeking support elsewhere and the resignation that the truth will always come out.’

Lyrically, the track oozes sincerity and heartfelt emotion:

Oh but there must be a way out,
Of this maize that I’ve been working on,
But I’ve built the walls so high with doubt,
Do I keep on building ’til he’s gone.

She counts Carole King, Emily King, PJ Morton, Yebba, and Jai Paul among her musical inspirations, but adds, ‘there are really too many to count. It’s incredible and very inspiring to see what people are creating.’

Other influences and favourites include ‘Jealous Guy’ by Donny Hathaway, the Bonnie Raitt version of ‘Angel from Montgomery’ written by John Prine, and ‘Need Your Love So Bad’ by Fleetwood Mac, which she says is ‘the perfect lullaby’.

She is active on Instagram, Facebook and twitter, and her music is available on all major platforms, including Spotify and Apple Music. A live gig she played at the Ballykeeffe Amphitheatre in Kilkenny for the launch of He Knows can be found on YouTube.

Her new single He Knows, Don’t Wait and Come Home are tracks on her debut album due for release this summer.

Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924): editor and pioneering electrical engineer

Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924) … theology student before turning to a career in journalism and electrical innovations

Patrick Comerford

Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924) was an English-born American electrical engineer and editor who lived for most of his life in New York. His work is closely linked with Thomas Edison.

Martin was born in Limehouse, London, on 22 July 1856, the son of Thomas Martin and Catherine (Commerford).

His mother, Catherine Commerford, was born in 1825 in Ramsgate, Kent, the daughter of Nicholas William Comerford (1786-1858) and Mary (née Muddle) of Thanet, Kent. Nicholas and Mary Commerford married 25 September 1815 in Saint Lawrence, Thanet, and they were the parents of:

1, Robert Smith Commerford (1817–1880), born 1817, Ramsgate.
2, Mary E (1820– ), born 1820, Ramsgate.
3, Ann (1821– ), born 1821, Ramsgate.
4, Catherine (1825–1882), born 1825, Ramsgate, the mother of Thomas Commerford Martin.
5, Martin Commerford (1827– ), born 1827, Ramsgate.
6, Nicholas William Commerford, (1828–1893), born 23 November 1828, Ramsgate. He was born 23 November 1828 in Ramsgate. He married Susanna … and lived in Islington and West Ham. Nicholas Commerford died January 1893, aged 64. They were the parents of one son and one daughter:
• 1a, Nicholas W Commerford (1859–1923), borrn 1859 Islington.
• 2a, Susannah (1862– ), born 1862 Highbury.
7, Henry Commerford (1832–1912), born ca 1832, Ramsgate. He married Sarah Baker (1830- ) in April 1860 in Thanet, Kent. He died in January 1912 in Thanet, Kent, aged 80. Henry and Sarah Comerford were the parents of four children:

• 1a, Henry G Commerford (1861– ), born Ramsgate.
• 2a, Sarah Ann (1861– ), born Ramsgate.
• 3a, Nicholas W Commerford (1863– ), born Ramsgate.
• 4a, Charles M Commerford (1868– ), born Ramsgate.
8, Charlotte Commerford (1833– ), born 18 August 1833, Ramsgate.

Nicholas William Comerford died 15 February 1858 in Ramsgate. His second daughter:

Catherine Commerford (1825-1882) married Thomas Martin (born ca 1828) in Thanet, Kent, in 1853. She died on 1 August 1882 in Gravesend, Kent, at the age of 57. Thomas Martin and Catherine (Commerford) were the parents of three sons and three daughters:

1, Catherine (Kate) Comerford Martin (1854-1897), died in hospital in Maidstone.
2, Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924).
3, Frederick W Martin (1859-1931), married Edith Gould (1860-1948) in 1885. They were the parents of:
• 1a, Leslie Commerford Martin (ca 1888- ).
• 2a, Edith Joyce Martin (ca 1893- ).
• 3a, Edward Cecil Martin (ca 1895- ).
4, George Ernest Martin (1861-1922), of whom later.
5, Ellen Maud Martin (1863-1913), born Gravesend.
6, Emma Martin (1864-1867), born Gravesend, died in infancy.
7, Emma Martin (1867- ), born Gravesend.

After the death of Catherine (Commerford) in 1882, Thomas Martin married his second wife, Jeannette Wilson Smiles (1845–1926) on 9 August 1883, in Brockley, Kent, and they were the parents of four more sons:

7, Margaret Smiles Martin (1884–1960), born Gravesend.
8, Mark Martin (1885–1937), born 28 August 1885, Gravesend.
9, Douglas Sutherland Martin (1887–1914), born April 1887, Gravesend. He enlisted during World War and died aged 27 on 22 November 1914 in Boulogne, Pas-de-Calais, France, where he is buried.
10, Alan Smiles Martin (1889- ), born April 1889, Gravesend, Kent.

Thomas Martin’s pioneering work with the submarine cable industry gave his second son Thomas Commerford Martin a unique experience as a boy when he was allowed to spend much of his time on the cable-laying steamship SS Great Eastern. It was then he made his early acquaintance with Professor William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin.

Thomas went to school in Gravesend before studying theology at the Countess of Huntingdon Theological College in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, perhaps hoping to be ordained a Congregationalist minister (Cheshunt College and Westminster College, Cambridge, joined together in 1967).

However, at the age of 21, Thomas Commerford Martin left England and moved to the US in 1877. In New York, he entered Thomas Edison’s laboratory at Menlo Park in 1877, and he remained there until 1879. Some of the experimental work on which he was engaged involved the early phonograph, the electric pen, printing and embossing telegraphs, and the carbon telephone transmitter. He was associated with Thomas A. Edison in several inventions of the day, and wrote many articles about them in the New York newspapers, notably on the telephone, microphone, and phonograph.

Due to ill health, however, he resigned in 1879, and went to the West Indies, where he worked as a journalist, worked for the Government of Jamaica, and was editor of the Daily Gleaner from 1880 until the end of 1882. There he married his first wife Elizabeth Gould in Kingston.

They returned to New York at the end of 1882, and edited The Operator. He then became the editor of the Electrical World in 1883, and produced first issue almost single-handedly. He remained as its editor for 26 years until 1909. During that time, he was a founding member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), and at the age of 30 was elected its president in 1887-1888.

He represented US institutes and societies at the Kelvin Jubilee at Glasgow University in 1896.

Martin was also instrumental in Dr Schuyler Skaats Wheeler buying the Latimer Clark Library for the AIEE, and securing a gift of $1.5 million from Andrew Carnegie for the Engineering Societies’ Building and Engineers’ Club. As president, he opened the new building with Carnegie in 1907. He was president of the Engineers’ Club of New York in 1907-1908.

From 1909, he was the executive secretary of the National Electric Light Association, which he had helped to found in 1885.

He also became secretary of the New York Electrical Society in 1923, of which he had been a charter member, and in 1900, its president.

Thomas Commerford Martin was the author of numerous electrical books, and he contributed frequently to the leading encyclopaedias and magazines, including the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. As special electrical expert for the US Census Office in 1900-1915, his reports on the vast range of electrical industries and utilities were of tremendous importance.

During World War I, he chaired the Marconi Fund for Italian War Relief and was secretary of the Florence Nightingale Hospital for training nurses in France.

His publications included: The Electric Motor and Its Applications (1887), Inventions, Researches, and Writings of Nikola Tesla (1893) and Edison: His Life and Inventions (1910).

Martin lectured at the Royal Institution of Engineers, London, the Paris Société Internationale des Electriciens, the University of Nebraska, and Columbia University. He was decorated by the French Government as Officer de l' Instruction Publique in 1907. He was one of the founders of the American Museum of Safety and of the Illuminating Engineering Society. He was a member of several other engineering and scientific societies.

Thomas Commerford Martin died on 17 May 1924 at the House of Mercy Hospital in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.

He married his first wife, Elizabeth Gould (1864-1909), in Kingston, Jamaica. She was the daughter of John Gould of Gravesend, and she died in 1909. In 1910, he married his second wife, Carmelita Beckwith (1869-1947). Carmelita was the co-author with Adele Marie Shaw of The Lady Of The Dynamos (1909). Thomas Commerford Martin was the father of three sons:

1, Arundel Commerford Martin (1883-1889).
2, Kingsley Gould Martin (1886–1951).
3, Commerford Beckwith Martin (1911-1988). He was born 1 October 1911, New York; died 19 January 1988, St Louis, Missouri. He married Miriam Stearly Carr (1913-1987), and they were the parents of two sons:
• 1a, Frederick Reynolds Martin (1937-1988).
• 2a, Thomas Commerford Martin.

Meanwhile, the Commerford family name was continued in the family of Thomas Commerford Martin’s brother, George Ernest Martin (1861-1922), among his children and grandchildren.

George Ernest Martin (1861-1922) was born in Gravesend, Kent, in 1861. A coffee and tea salesman, lived at Wotton St Mary, Gloucestershire. He married Mary Louisa Eltenton (1861-1938) in 1889. He died 26 October 1922 in Gloucestershire. They were the parents of:

1, Mary (Molly) Commerford Martin (1889-1970), born Harringay, married Richard Howells Watkins (1895-1980) in 1925.
2, George Lister Martin (1890-1916), born Harringay, died on the Somme during World War I, 21 July 1916.
3, Jean Martin (1892- ), born Hornsey.
4, Mabel Eltenton Martin (1898-1954), born Hornsey.
5, Thomas Basil Commerford Martin (1901-1970), of whom next.

Thomas Basil Commerford Martin (1901-1970), born Stroud Green, London, 19 September 1901. He married Helen J Bragg (1905- ), July 1930, in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. He died 16 March 1970, Glamorgan, aged 68. They were the parents of two children, including a son:

Jim Commerford Martin (1934-2012), born Birmingham 11 May 1934, married in Cardiff 1958, he lived in Stratford Upon Avon, and died on 10 September 2012.

Thomas Commerford Martin (1856-1924) … the Commerford name continues among his grandchildren

Last updated: 31 July 2022; 1 August 2022; 3 August 2022