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Charles and Catherine Hanlon, 1917 to 1955

Charles Francis Hanlon was born at Philadelphia on 10 February 1893, the sixth child of Daniel and Mary Ann. Catherine McCauley was born at Philadelphia in January 1896, by the 1900 census and her later census ages; her memorial gives 9 January 1899.

Charles and Catherine married at Philadelphia in 1917 (license no. 375394). In January 1920 they had a home of their own in Ward 36, with their first daughter, Marie, then a year and eight months old. Charles was an inspector of mathematical instruments.

About 1916 or 1917 Charles went to work for Williams, Brown & Earle, Inc., and he stayed with the firm for thirty-nine years, until his death. It was a Philadelphia dealer in optical, laboratory and scientific instruments: microscopes, binoculars, laboratory apparatus and chemicals, drafting instruments, magic lanterns, stereopticons and moving-picture equipment. It won the Franklin Institute’s Longstreth Award in 1902, and its catalog of 1922 was printed at 918 Chestnut Street, the firm’s address. Charles ran its order department, and the Inquirer called him its shipping manager.

In 1940 the Hanlons lived at 2220 Pierce Street, in Ward 36, the house they had occupied in 1935: Charles, 47, Catherine, 44, Catherine, 19, Helen, 17, and Charles, 12. In April 1942 Charles registered in the draft of older men (serial U 1906). He gave his birth as 10 February 1893 at Philadelphia, his home as 2220 Pierce Street, with the telephone Howard 1245, his contact as Catherine Hanlon at the same address, and his employer as “Williams, Brown & Earl,” 918 Chestnut Street. He signed the card in full. In April 1950 Charles, 56, was “Manager Of Order Dept.” for a photographic supplies store, and he lived at 2220 Pierce Street with Catherine, 52, their daughter Catherine, 29, and their son, Charles, 22, a letter carrier. Helen had married.

Catherine McCauley Hanlon died at Philadelphia on 7 September 1953. By her memorial’s birth year she was 54, and by her census ages 57. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery, Yeadon.

The Death of Charles Hanlon, December 1955

Two years later, on the evening of 5 December 1955, Charles Hanlon, 62, was attacked on the street in West Philadelphia. He had been under treatment for a heart condition and was walking toward 46th Street and Baltimore Avenue from the office of his doctor, Dr. Anthony Dale, at 501 South 46th Street. The corner was about eight blocks from St. James the Greater, where his parents had married. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the next day, under the headline “Fatally Beaten Leaving Doctor”: “He heard footsteps of two persons behind him, then suddenly he was struck on the head.” Hurt, he made his way to a trolley, changed to another downtown and reached his home at 2220 Pierce Street, where he lived with his daughter, Mrs. Catherine Squitiere, 34. She called the police, and he was taken to St. Agnes Hospital, where he died at 10:30 that night of a fractured skull. He told his daughter and Detective Francis Davis of the West CID what had happened, but he could not describe the two men.

The paper gave his age as 63 and the firm’s address as 906 Chestnut Street; he was 62, and the firm was at 918. A fuller report two days later, “Autopsy Waited In Fatal Beating Of Ill Widower,” named the detective in charge, Sergeant Patrick Hurley. It described the weapon the police suspected, a 25-inch iron pipe, with a shred of torn sheeting, and suggested robbery: a Moroccan leather change purse was missing, though $10 in cash was left. It also recorded his thirty-nine years with Williams, Brown & Earle. His death notice appeared on 9 December. His death certificate (file no. 110220), signed on 9 and 10 January 1956, gives the manner of death as “HOMICIDE” and the cause as “WAS ASSAULTED ON ST BY PERSON UNKNOWN”. The case was still open when the certificate was signed, and no record of an arrest or a trial is known.

St. Agnes Hospital, on South Broad Street about a mile from the family’s homes, was run by the Sisters of St. Francis in a building of 1880 by Edwin Forrest Durang, the architect of St. James the Greater. It closed in 2004.

Charles was buried with Catherine at Holy Cross Cemetery, Yeadon.