The Ford Family

Born	December 28, 1854 BallyMahon, Ireland
Died	February 29, 1932 Cleveland, Ohio
Father	Joseph Sweeny
Mother	Catherine Egan

Spouse	Mary Sweeny
Children	Joseph Thomas Sweeny John Leo Sweeny Catherine Grady Nora Sweeny William Daniel Sweeny Edward Joseph Sweeny Vera Grane

Bio
William Sweeny was born in BallyMahon, Ireland, which is a town on the River Inny in the southern part of County Longford. William emigrated from Ireland along with many other starving Irish, as their homeland was in the middle of a great famine.

He later married an Irish girl named Mary Dunn, and they had 7 children together. Their oldest son, Joseph, was an accountant and rose to the position of Finance Director for the City of Cleveland. Sons Leo and Edward found work in the trades. Leo became a carpenter like his father, and Edward a plumber.

The oldest daughter, Kitty, married a man named Grady and her only boy became a doctor. (This same Dr. Grady later signs the death certificate for Aunt Vera's husband Joe). Nora, the middle sister, was a spinster and a bookkeeper. The story is told that it is Irish tradition for one of the daughters of a family to stay single and be the caregiver for the parents and somehow Nora was it! As it ended up, William lived a healthy life until his death at 78. His wife got dementia and ended up living with her youngest daughter Vera. Vera's daughter Margaret said that Nana was an awesome playmate, as she thought she was a 7 year old girl.

William's youngest boy - William - became the most successful of the family, beginning his career at 15 as a mail boy for Ferro Corporation. William rose to be an officer with the position of Treasurer, before he left to sign on with Dobeckman Industries as General Manager in 1932. He retires as Executive Vice President with this division of Dow Chemical, and is called an "Industrialist" in the paper.

Well, when Williams's baby sister Vera graduated from high-school she wanted to go to work. This was a bit of a scandal for this Irish immigrant family, and the story is that hard-working William paid Vera to "stay home where she belonged." Personally, I believe it was William who found this little sister her husband. It is a fact that Vera indeed married Joe Grane on April 10, 1920. She was already 25 years old! I have often wondered how a farm boy from Independence would ever meet little Irish Vera up in Lakewood. As luck would have it, another interesting item is that Joseph left the farm life, moved to Cleveland, and got himself a job at Ferro Corporation right there with the Industrialist Irishman. What a coincidence!