McLaughlin, Ursula
Ursula was my great grandfather’s baby girl, and he loved her very much. She didn’t marry young as was the general rule of the day. She met Cornelius (Neal) Joseph McLaughlin in 1930 and they fell madly in love. The only problem was Neal was an ordained Jesuit Father serving as a Diocesian Priest at Saint John’s Cathedral in Cleveland, Ohio.
Neal and Ursula had five children, three boys and two girls. The oldest was named for both grandfathers as Cornelius Anthony McLaughlin. The second boy was named for Neal’s brother Donald and Ursula’s oldest brother Martin, as Donald Martin McLaughlin. Ursula was the first girl and named after her mother. Veronica was the second daughter, and the baby of the family was Joseph John McLaughlin.
The family moved from Cleveland, Ohio to Los Angeles, California in 1936 at the request of the Bishop of the Cleveland Diocese. The Bishop had arranged for Neal to manage Catholic Church properties for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles with two conditions and two reasons for the family to move. The conditions that the Bishop provided were that (a) he would raise all the children as good Catholics; and (b) that if he survived his companion (Ursula) he would return and celebrate Mass as a priest. The reasons for the move were (a) they would be married under common law if they remained in Cleveland and California didn’t recognize the common law practice covering marriage; and (b) the Pope had sent a Papal Legate to serve a proper bull of excommunication on Neal. The Bishop felt marriage unnecessary since they already shared legally the same last name.
Neal and Ursula left shortly before the arrival of a Papal Legate, Eugenio Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) in Cleveland, Ohio. He came to Cleveland after speaking to Father Coughlin, who was a popular radio figure of that day. Father Coughlin was rebuked by the Vatican for speaking harshly of Franklin Delano Roosevelt while he was President of the United States.
A little known eddy of history, the Papal Legate carried a counter-signed (by the Cardinal General of the Jesuit Order) bull of excommunication for Neal. This was an outgrowth of the Bishop’s request to change Neal’s ordination rite from Latin to Romanian, so that he could marry Ursula and remain a priest. Pius XI didn’t like the request and had attempted to excommunicate Neal because of it. The Bishop declined to serve the original bull of excommunication because Pius XI had failed to have it countered signed by the head of the Jesuit Order, known as the Cardinal General or Black Pope. It appears that the Pope thought Neal was only a Diocesan Priest.
The preceding photo is of Neal, Ursula, Veronica, and Donald and was taken in California during 1937 or 1938. It may be a casual rest stop outside of the Angeles National Forest.
My grandparents also moved to California at the same time but they settled in Oakland, California to be near Bertha Atckison who had remarried Matt Hanson. These two branches of the family became known as the west coast McLaughlin families.
The next to last big family reunion of the west coast McLaughlin families was in 1989 at Joseph and Wendy McLaughlin’s home in South Pasadena, California. The photograph has from left to right, Margaret Therese McLaughlin (Fedele), Lisa Nicolaysen (McLaughlin), Joseph John McLaughlin, Wendy (McLaughlin), and Lisa McLaughlin.