Margaret S. Kelly, 34, was the oldest of ten children. In 1889, her parents had immigrated to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States from Ireland. She was a naturalized US citizen. The rest of her family (her cousins and grandparents) was still in northern Ireland, so in spring of 1915, Margaret boarded to Lusitania to see her Irish family.
Margaret Kelly was born about 1880 in Ireland to Thomas and Margaret Kelly. She was the oldest of 10 children, although only four brothers and four sisters, for a total of nine children, are mentioned. Court documents state that Margaret moved to the United States when she was 12, though when her parents moved to America in 1889 she would have been 9.
Her father Thomas was a pattern maker in the employ of the Allegheny Foundry Company in Pittsburgh. Margaret had for more than 12 years been in the employ of the Pittsburgh Lamp and brass Company as a clerk and stenographer. For the last four years before her death she was paid a salary of $85 per month. The record indicates that from this salary she made contributions to her father somewhat in excess of the reasonable value of her board and lodgings.
Margaret was lost in the disaster. Her body was recovered, #125. Some of the possession that were recovered with Margaret and returned include her eyeglasses, a very small pocket knife, a small Irish Bible, a coin purse and a ticket stub for a deck chair on the Lusitania and a ledger that included a list of her monthly expenses. Margaret was buried in Common Grave B.
Margaret was survived by her father, Thomas Kelly, and her mother, Margaret Kelly, then 58 and 54 years of age respectively; and also by two married sisters and by four other brothers and sisters who were then minors.
Related pages
Margaret Kelly at the Mixed Claims Commission
Contributors
Lois Sparrow
References
Mixed Claims Commission, Docket No. 2562, page 539.
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