Bridget Delia Silk O'Rourke
Birth: 23 Mar 1868, Beech Hill, Co Galway, Ireland
Death: 24 Mar 1942, San Francisco, CA
Spouse: Martin O'Rourke
Birth: 1867, Lissycasey, Clare, Ireland
Marriage: 10 Feb 1891, St. Paul's Catholic Church, San Francisco
Death: 29 Aug 1939, Agua Caliente, Sonoma, CA
Children: Frank James (1892-1979) Martin Joseph (1899-1955)
Irene Katharine (1895-1977) Elvira (1904-1991)
Maude (1898-1994)
Bridget Silk (who always went by Delia) was born on March 23, 1868, in Beech Hill, Galway, and was baptized at Bullaun Church on May 4, 1868. Her godparents were Patrick Gibbons and Mary Silk. Delia was 16 when she came to America on the SS Austrian with her mother and siblings. Like her siblings, she had no formal education but could read and write. Delia lived with the family at 10th and Mission, then at 28 Precita with her brother Patrick’s family. Somewhere along the way, she met Martin O’Rourke.
Death: 24 Mar 1942, San Francisco, CA
Spouse: Martin O'Rourke
Birth: 1867, Lissycasey, Clare, Ireland
Marriage: 10 Feb 1891, St. Paul's Catholic Church, San Francisco
Death: 29 Aug 1939, Agua Caliente, Sonoma, CA
Children: Frank James (1892-1979) Martin Joseph (1899-1955)
Irene Katharine (1895-1977) Elvira (1904-1991)
Maude (1898-1994)
Bridget Silk (who always went by Delia) was born on March 23, 1868, in Beech Hill, Galway, and was baptized at Bullaun Church on May 4, 1868. Her godparents were Patrick Gibbons and Mary Silk. Delia was 16 when she came to America on the SS Austrian with her mother and siblings. Like her siblings, she had no formal education but could read and write. Delia lived with the family at 10th and Mission, then at 28 Precita with her brother Patrick’s family. Somewhere along the way, she met Martin O’Rourke.
Martin was a recent immigrant from Ireland, having just arrived in 1889 or 1890. He had been born to Simon and Margaret (nee O’Connor) O’Rourke in Lissycasey, County Clare. Lissycasey is a rural area halfway between Ennis and Kilrush in the south part of Clare. Martin was one of seven children, three of whom (Martin and his brothers James Simon and Patrick Simon) definitely came to San Francisco and one of whom (Michael) stayed in Fall River Massachusetts. Martin was naturalized sometime after 1898, so he does not appear in the California Great Registers where a physical description was included. If the descriptions of his sons on their WWI draft registrations are any indication, he would have been short and slender with black hair and either blue or grey eyes.
Martin and Delia married on February 10, 1891, at St. Paul's Catholic Church. They moved into an apartment at 1 Lundy Lane in Bernal Heights, where their first child was born the next year. The apartment was just two blocks up Coso Avenue from Patrick’s boarding house. Martin worked as a clerk at PJ Silk’s grocery store for two years before becoming a teamster.
In 1894, he took a job driving for Somers & Company on California Street. Somers was a hay, coal, and fuel provider. The labor was very difficult, but Martin was a strong young man, known for being able to carry a grand piano on his back. The next year, the family moved down to First Street where their second child, Irene, was born. They moved again the next year, to the 300 block of Harriet Street, near Sixth and Bryant. The rest of their children were born here over the next seven years. His brother Patrick Simon O’Rourke also lived on Harriet and owned a hay, coal, and fuel business named O’Rourke & Company (on Folsom), but Martin never worked for him. After the Earthquake, Patrick became heavily involved in real estate and owned a great deal of property around town. He died two days before the Stock Market Crash in 1929.
Like his brothers-in-law, Martin was involved in the labor movement and took part in the 1901 Labor Day General Strike. Like the General Strike of 1934, this strike started as a Longshoremen’s strike and became a general strike as the year wore on. According to Carl Carlson in his essay 1901 Labor War for FoundSF.org,
In February a new formation, the City Front Federation, united the Sailor's Union of the Pacific, the longshoremen's unions, and the then-new Teamsters' Local 85. Teamsters' refusal to haul luggage from a non-union drayage firm caused the strike. Company after company locked out their workers who refused to haul the non-union luggage.
Soon hundreds of locked out Teamsters found themselves among others who had already been on strike: restaurant cooks and waiters, bakers and bakery wagon drivers, metal polishers, and all fourteen unions of the Iron Trades Council, who were part of a national strike. City Front Federation voted to stage a waterfront strike, which began on July 30 and ran to October 2, 1901.
An Employers' Association appeared two months after the founding of the City Front Federation. Association bylaws forbade any member from settling with a union without permission from the executive committee. The Employers' Association was the real power, pushing aside attempts to mediate and enlisting Mayor Phelan and his police force in their efforts. Their goal was to eliminate the unions altogether: “The vital principle involved in the present controversy is that of non-interference by the labor unions, or their representatives, with the conduct of the business of employers,” they announced. Strikebreakers were brought in and city police rode with them. The police were instructed to beat people but to make no arrests. Police behavior during this strike was a major factor in the fall Mayoral election which brought Eugene Schmitz, his patron Abe Ruef, and the Union Labor Party to power. After two months on strike, the Governor intervened, bringing together the Teamsters and the representatives of the Drayman's Association, but excluding the Employer's Association. Within an hour an agreement was reached, and the Employers' Association disappeared in months, having lost on its “vital principle.” The strike toll: 5 dead, 300 injured. A gun battle on Kearny Street in broad daylight involved “special police,” (hired goons) and strikers.
There was an M. O’Rourke at a meeting in Oakland in August to explore the question of having an independent labor ticket for the elections that fall, but there is no way of knowing if this was our Martin.
In 1903, one of the more difficult events in Martin’s life occurred. A five-year-old girl named Catherine Roddy got under his wagon without him knowing. Martin started up the wagon and ran over her leg. Her right ankle was crushed and the leg needed to be amputated. She died the next day. It must have been devastating, especially with Martin having three young daughters of his own.
The O’Rourkes were living at 314 Harriet Street in 1906 when the Fire swept through. Martin was off at work helping clear debris and rubble when the neighborhood began to burn. His daughter Maude told her grandchildren years later that she just remembered Delia telling them to “run for the hills” and she and her sister Irene put their little sister Vera in a wagon and headed south toward Potrero Hill, the quickest way away from the fires.
After the Fire destroyed the South of Market area, the family moved permanently to Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill and the Bayview had been isolated areas until 1865 when the Long Bridge across the Mission Bay was built. The bridge changed the Potrero from a distant non-man’s land to a residential hub. The bridge was closed after Mission Bay was filled in during the early 1900s. The earliest neighborhoods were Irish Hill (leveled in 1918 for landfill) and Dutchman’s Flat, both in what is now know as Dogpatch. Irish Hill, just east of Illinois Street, was a rough area with many boarding houses for factory workers. Several Irish gangs cropped up and crime was rampant, but, as the Dogpatch became more industrialized, residents moved west onto Potrero Hill. After the Quake, Potrero Hill was used as a temporary shelter and tent city just as Bernal Heights had been. Many, like the O’Rourkes, settled in the area. About half the residents were Irish, with the rest being an eclectic mix of Scots, Russians, Slovenians, Serbians and Italians.
By 1907, Martin and Delia had moved their family into the house at 216 Texas Street and they lived there for the next 15 years. The 1910 Census showed they owned the house, though it was mortgaged. The house is no longer there. Several of the smaller houses on the block had been pulled down in the 1940s to be replaced by larger ones. The lots for 216 through 230 were merged into one lot by 1949. The original house may have been an Earthquake Shack. 216 was at the back of the lot.
The 1910 Census shows Martin working as a teamster for an oil company, but the Langley-Crocker Directory also showed him as a watchman. His great grandson Brian remembered that Martin’s daughters talked about their father working as a teamster down on the docks, where “the Irish were treated worse than the [African-Americans].” Martin owned a second wagon and team of horses, and he had a mentally disabled assistant who could not make deliveries on his own, but who could drive the second wagon and follow wherever Martin drove. The 1920 US Census listed Martin’s occupation as policeman in the shipyards, but the Directory still showed him as teamster. He may have been working multiple jobs to afford the mortgage on the Texas Street house, and, by 1920, they had paid it off and owned the home free and clear.
In 1914, Delia’s first grandchild, Mervyn Fenlon was born. Over the next ten years, she would have five more grandchildren. Frank’s sons Francis, James and Vincent were born over the next three years. Maude’s son Edward was born in 1920. Her granddaughters—Frank’s daughter Bette and Martin’s daughter Dorothy—were born in 1923 and 1928, respectively. Her final grandchild, Martin’s son Robert, was born in 1930. All told, Delia had more grandchildren than any of her siblings. Patrick was the next closest with six grandchildren.
By 1921, Delia and Martin seem to have sold the house on Texas Street and were renting at 344 Utah. In 1924, they moved into 1170 Hampshire. It is unclear whether they owned or rented the small two flat Victorian with a detached building in back, but their daughter Vera lived there for twelve years after Delia and Martin moved out of the City. After Vera moved to Napa, her sister Maude lived there until 1940.
Delia’s daughter Maude told her grandchildren that Delia worked very hard all her life. She loved gardening and always kept a vegetable garden to help feed the family. All that hard work led to arthritis. Martin had also developed rheumatism from all his physical labor on the docks. Brian remembered his aunts saying that every morning Martin had to be strapped into a leather truss and take two shots of whiskey just to prepare himself for the day ahead. A few more shots of whiskey would end the day helped him wind down. Because of their maladies, Martin decided to retire and moved out of the City. They relocated to Sonoma.
On May 4, 1925, the O’Rourkes bought a house on the Sonoma Highway in Agua Caliente. They paid Bertha Mesmin and John Wescott $3000 for the house and land, and they would live there until their deaths. The O’Rourkes probably had visited Michael Silk’s cabin in nearby Fetters or the Coogan cabin in Agua Caliente. They would have known about the therapeutic powers of the warm springs. Delia’s grandson Frank told his daughter that Agua Caliente was like an Irish townland, with separate houses, plenty of open land and fresh air, and lots of (mostly retired) Irishmen all around. The houses all had rose gardens out front, with picket or split rail fences instead of the ubiquitous stone walls of Ireland. Leaving the crowded City and moving to an area very like the ones in which they grew up must have been like a homecoming of sorts. They most likely owned the house on Hampshire Street and that would have made the move affordable, because of the income from the rent. The 1940 US Census did show that, while Delia did not work, she had “other income.”
In 1926, Martin made the papers again. He was driving a teamster friend named James Foley near Black Point Road outside of Petaluma when they collided head-on with another car. Foley was “thrown through the windshield and suffered serious internal injuries.” He ended up in a San Francisco hospital but he recovered. Martin, miraculously, was unhurt. Martin was a tough man, in more ways than one.
Martin and Delia seem to have enjoyed their retirement, relaxing, gardening, and enjoying the warm springs for the next 14 years. The family visited during the summers and on three-day-weekends. Agua Caliente became a touchstone for the grandchildren and provided a place for the cousins to reconnect.
Martin and Delia married on February 10, 1891, at St. Paul's Catholic Church. They moved into an apartment at 1 Lundy Lane in Bernal Heights, where their first child was born the next year. The apartment was just two blocks up Coso Avenue from Patrick’s boarding house. Martin worked as a clerk at PJ Silk’s grocery store for two years before becoming a teamster.
In 1894, he took a job driving for Somers & Company on California Street. Somers was a hay, coal, and fuel provider. The labor was very difficult, but Martin was a strong young man, known for being able to carry a grand piano on his back. The next year, the family moved down to First Street where their second child, Irene, was born. They moved again the next year, to the 300 block of Harriet Street, near Sixth and Bryant. The rest of their children were born here over the next seven years. His brother Patrick Simon O’Rourke also lived on Harriet and owned a hay, coal, and fuel business named O’Rourke & Company (on Folsom), but Martin never worked for him. After the Earthquake, Patrick became heavily involved in real estate and owned a great deal of property around town. He died two days before the Stock Market Crash in 1929.
Like his brothers-in-law, Martin was involved in the labor movement and took part in the 1901 Labor Day General Strike. Like the General Strike of 1934, this strike started as a Longshoremen’s strike and became a general strike as the year wore on. According to Carl Carlson in his essay 1901 Labor War for FoundSF.org,
In February a new formation, the City Front Federation, united the Sailor's Union of the Pacific, the longshoremen's unions, and the then-new Teamsters' Local 85. Teamsters' refusal to haul luggage from a non-union drayage firm caused the strike. Company after company locked out their workers who refused to haul the non-union luggage.
Soon hundreds of locked out Teamsters found themselves among others who had already been on strike: restaurant cooks and waiters, bakers and bakery wagon drivers, metal polishers, and all fourteen unions of the Iron Trades Council, who were part of a national strike. City Front Federation voted to stage a waterfront strike, which began on July 30 and ran to October 2, 1901.
An Employers' Association appeared two months after the founding of the City Front Federation. Association bylaws forbade any member from settling with a union without permission from the executive committee. The Employers' Association was the real power, pushing aside attempts to mediate and enlisting Mayor Phelan and his police force in their efforts. Their goal was to eliminate the unions altogether: “The vital principle involved in the present controversy is that of non-interference by the labor unions, or their representatives, with the conduct of the business of employers,” they announced. Strikebreakers were brought in and city police rode with them. The police were instructed to beat people but to make no arrests. Police behavior during this strike was a major factor in the fall Mayoral election which brought Eugene Schmitz, his patron Abe Ruef, and the Union Labor Party to power. After two months on strike, the Governor intervened, bringing together the Teamsters and the representatives of the Drayman's Association, but excluding the Employer's Association. Within an hour an agreement was reached, and the Employers' Association disappeared in months, having lost on its “vital principle.” The strike toll: 5 dead, 300 injured. A gun battle on Kearny Street in broad daylight involved “special police,” (hired goons) and strikers.
There was an M. O’Rourke at a meeting in Oakland in August to explore the question of having an independent labor ticket for the elections that fall, but there is no way of knowing if this was our Martin.
In 1903, one of the more difficult events in Martin’s life occurred. A five-year-old girl named Catherine Roddy got under his wagon without him knowing. Martin started up the wagon and ran over her leg. Her right ankle was crushed and the leg needed to be amputated. She died the next day. It must have been devastating, especially with Martin having three young daughters of his own.
The O’Rourkes were living at 314 Harriet Street in 1906 when the Fire swept through. Martin was off at work helping clear debris and rubble when the neighborhood began to burn. His daughter Maude told her grandchildren years later that she just remembered Delia telling them to “run for the hills” and she and her sister Irene put their little sister Vera in a wagon and headed south toward Potrero Hill, the quickest way away from the fires.
After the Fire destroyed the South of Market area, the family moved permanently to Potrero Hill. Potrero Hill and the Bayview had been isolated areas until 1865 when the Long Bridge across the Mission Bay was built. The bridge changed the Potrero from a distant non-man’s land to a residential hub. The bridge was closed after Mission Bay was filled in during the early 1900s. The earliest neighborhoods were Irish Hill (leveled in 1918 for landfill) and Dutchman’s Flat, both in what is now know as Dogpatch. Irish Hill, just east of Illinois Street, was a rough area with many boarding houses for factory workers. Several Irish gangs cropped up and crime was rampant, but, as the Dogpatch became more industrialized, residents moved west onto Potrero Hill. After the Quake, Potrero Hill was used as a temporary shelter and tent city just as Bernal Heights had been. Many, like the O’Rourkes, settled in the area. About half the residents were Irish, with the rest being an eclectic mix of Scots, Russians, Slovenians, Serbians and Italians.
By 1907, Martin and Delia had moved their family into the house at 216 Texas Street and they lived there for the next 15 years. The 1910 Census showed they owned the house, though it was mortgaged. The house is no longer there. Several of the smaller houses on the block had been pulled down in the 1940s to be replaced by larger ones. The lots for 216 through 230 were merged into one lot by 1949. The original house may have been an Earthquake Shack. 216 was at the back of the lot.
The 1910 Census shows Martin working as a teamster for an oil company, but the Langley-Crocker Directory also showed him as a watchman. His great grandson Brian remembered that Martin’s daughters talked about their father working as a teamster down on the docks, where “the Irish were treated worse than the [African-Americans].” Martin owned a second wagon and team of horses, and he had a mentally disabled assistant who could not make deliveries on his own, but who could drive the second wagon and follow wherever Martin drove. The 1920 US Census listed Martin’s occupation as policeman in the shipyards, but the Directory still showed him as teamster. He may have been working multiple jobs to afford the mortgage on the Texas Street house, and, by 1920, they had paid it off and owned the home free and clear.
In 1914, Delia’s first grandchild, Mervyn Fenlon was born. Over the next ten years, she would have five more grandchildren. Frank’s sons Francis, James and Vincent were born over the next three years. Maude’s son Edward was born in 1920. Her granddaughters—Frank’s daughter Bette and Martin’s daughter Dorothy—were born in 1923 and 1928, respectively. Her final grandchild, Martin’s son Robert, was born in 1930. All told, Delia had more grandchildren than any of her siblings. Patrick was the next closest with six grandchildren.
By 1921, Delia and Martin seem to have sold the house on Texas Street and were renting at 344 Utah. In 1924, they moved into 1170 Hampshire. It is unclear whether they owned or rented the small two flat Victorian with a detached building in back, but their daughter Vera lived there for twelve years after Delia and Martin moved out of the City. After Vera moved to Napa, her sister Maude lived there until 1940.
Delia’s daughter Maude told her grandchildren that Delia worked very hard all her life. She loved gardening and always kept a vegetable garden to help feed the family. All that hard work led to arthritis. Martin had also developed rheumatism from all his physical labor on the docks. Brian remembered his aunts saying that every morning Martin had to be strapped into a leather truss and take two shots of whiskey just to prepare himself for the day ahead. A few more shots of whiskey would end the day helped him wind down. Because of their maladies, Martin decided to retire and moved out of the City. They relocated to Sonoma.
On May 4, 1925, the O’Rourkes bought a house on the Sonoma Highway in Agua Caliente. They paid Bertha Mesmin and John Wescott $3000 for the house and land, and they would live there until their deaths. The O’Rourkes probably had visited Michael Silk’s cabin in nearby Fetters or the Coogan cabin in Agua Caliente. They would have known about the therapeutic powers of the warm springs. Delia’s grandson Frank told his daughter that Agua Caliente was like an Irish townland, with separate houses, plenty of open land and fresh air, and lots of (mostly retired) Irishmen all around. The houses all had rose gardens out front, with picket or split rail fences instead of the ubiquitous stone walls of Ireland. Leaving the crowded City and moving to an area very like the ones in which they grew up must have been like a homecoming of sorts. They most likely owned the house on Hampshire Street and that would have made the move affordable, because of the income from the rent. The 1940 US Census did show that, while Delia did not work, she had “other income.”
In 1926, Martin made the papers again. He was driving a teamster friend named James Foley near Black Point Road outside of Petaluma when they collided head-on with another car. Foley was “thrown through the windshield and suffered serious internal injuries.” He ended up in a San Francisco hospital but he recovered. Martin, miraculously, was unhurt. Martin was a tough man, in more ways than one.
Martin and Delia seem to have enjoyed their retirement, relaxing, gardening, and enjoying the warm springs for the next 14 years. The family visited during the summers and on three-day-weekends. Agua Caliente became a touchstone for the grandchildren and provided a place for the cousins to reconnect.
Martin died on August 31, 1939, sitting on his front porch. He was 73 years old. The cause of death listed on his death certificate was rheumatism, but few of his descendants doubt that alcoholism was a major contributing factor. Years later, when the house was torn down, dozens of whiskey bottles were found in the rubble. His requiem mass was at St. Peter’s Church in the Mission (which has his daughter Maude’s parish at the time), and he was buried in section R at Holy Cross Cemetery on the hillside overlooking the cemetery.
Of the siblings who outlived their spouses, Delia was the only one who did not spend several years alone. Her mother was a widow for 32 years, and her sisters spent between 12 and 42 years. Delia was only without Martin for three years. She passed away on March 21, 1942, at the home of her daughter Irene. The cause of death was determined to be colon cancer. She was 74. Her mass was at St. John’s Church (Irene’s parish) and she was buried with Martin at Holy Cross.
Of the siblings who outlived their spouses, Delia was the only one who did not spend several years alone. Her mother was a widow for 32 years, and her sisters spent between 12 and 42 years. Delia was only without Martin for three years. She passed away on March 21, 1942, at the home of her daughter Irene. The cause of death was determined to be colon cancer. She was 74. Her mass was at St. John’s Church (Irene’s parish) and she was buried with Martin at Holy Cross.
Maude passed on to her grandchildren that Delia was “a little woman with big children.” Not much else has been passed down about her personality or interests. She was 16 years old when from Beech Hill to San Francisco. She married at 23 and stayed married for 48 years. She was the only one of her siblings to move out of the City, though she returned at the end of her life. Though three of her siblings had more children than she, Delia’s descendants accounted for a quarter of the 4th generation and a third of the 5th generation. She shepherded her family through the 1906 Earthquake and Fire, its aftermath, the First World War, and the Great Depression. This little woman not only had big children, she had a big family which has had a large impact on the City as policemen, firemen, and real estate investors. They all owe it to her and her strength and endurance.