The Barretts are my pioneers. Patrick and Mary are my first ancestors to reach America (in 1847) and the only ones to leave the calamatous St. Louis behind for the frontier of Franklin County, Missouri. They built a log cabin that is still occupied today.

As we piece together their story, we find a family that is ambitious, organized, and hard-working... if, sadly, plagued by untimely death. Their grandson (my grandfather) Tom Barrett dropped out of high school to support his family when his father died. He began a chain of grocery stores in north St. Louis and patented a board game before his own untimely death at the age of 43.

During World War II, 6 of the great-grandsons gave up their lives.

When the Going Gets Tough: Mary Gardiner and Patrick Barrett Love in the time of famine and fever, 1847-1852. Their story is also published in "Tribe of the Breakaway Beads"

Catawissa Homesteaders, 1858(ish)-1906 Barrett Family Tree, from Mary & Patrick thru a few generations

Tom Barrett: the American, 1882-1926 His mother Ellen Gibbons Barrett. Her story is also published in "Tribe of the Breakaway Beads"

The Fallen Soldiers Toll of World War II, 1941-1945

 

 

FAMILY NEWS

On 4 April 2008, the Mark Twain Community Resource Center and its Hip-Hop Health Initiative, along with the City of St Louis, celebrated the ground-breaking of the Hip-Hop Garden -- a school-community garden project at Barrett Brothers Park. Part of that occasion was dedicated to the memory of the Barrett family: fallen soldiers, neighborhood grocers, and Irish potato famine refugees.

MEDIA RELEASE: Barrett family history

REMARKS by Susan Barrett Price. For audio remarks by Alderman Jeffrey Boyd, Kyria Virshelle, and Susan Price, click on Flash Player below.

Journal report, 4.10.08