John Calvin Gordon & Helen King Gordon

My great grandparents, John Calvin Gordon & Helen King Gordon, were married on June 18, 1882 in Brooklyn, New York.  One of the witnesses to their marriage was Helen’s brother, Thomas F King. 

 

John & Helen had six children during their marriage between 1883 and 1902 including Charles, Walter, Lillian, Jean, Clifford and Helen, and a baby, Dorothy, who died at birth. 

John Calvin Gordon was born in 1861 in Brooklyn, the son of John C Gordon & Mary Elizabeth Snedeker Gordon.  In the 1880 Census, at 19 years of age, he was listed by occupation as a carpenter.  And before he was 30 years old, John was noted as a builder in the 1887 Brooklyn City Directory.

Below is a compilation of newspaper ads placed in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper between 1893-1900 for homes built by John Calvin Gordon.

The only photo that I have of John Calvin Gordon is a snapshot of him and Helen taken circa 1900 at a park or fair, however you really can’t see what he looks like at all.

 

Helen Teresa King Gordon was born circa 1860/1861 and we have conflicting documentation on her birth information.  Helen was the daughter of Thomas Patrick King who died during the Civil War and Margaret Smith King, an Irish immigrant who arrived in New York with her family at 15 years of age.  Early documentation shows her name as Ellen or Ella and later documents show her as Helen.  The 1880 Census even has her as Nellie, and she was working as a “saleslady” at that time.

Helen was the youngest of four children and was just a toddler when her father died in a Civil War battle [see the blog post, Lost Soldier Found in Arlington Cemetery, published on August 19, 2021].  Helen's mother struggled to provide for her young family doing ironing & washing and also cooking, not an easy life I am sure.

 

Helen Teresa King Gordon died in Washington D.C. in 1919 during a visit to the home of her daughter Lillian Gordon Lenehan.  According to the death certificate, she died of influenza and pneumonia at a time near the end of the Spanish flu epidemic. After Helen’s death, the youngest Gordon child, Helen Marie who was 17 years old, went to live with her older sister, Jean and her husband, Harry.

John Calvin Gordon later married a widow named Elizabeth Dorothy Berry McAuliffe. John died in 1945 at 84 years. 

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Key Individuals:

     John Calvin Gordon  (1860 – 1945)

     Helen Teresa King Gordon  (1861 – 1919)

- Jane Scribner McCrary