The stories we don't know

Courtesy Mike Enright from World War I.

If you wonder how I got started on the love story I did last week, it came about from a donation given to the Genealogy Library by Mike Manker, which included several pictures and news clippings from a home that had been auctioned off years ago. The home, which if my story is correct, was next door to where his aunt and uncle lived and they had purchased it after the gentleman who owned it passed away. Mike and I talked about the man, Mike Enright, and I had vague memories of him but of course when you are young and dumb, you don't always ask the right questions or listen carefully to the answers.

I am guilty of that even with my own parents and close relatives, so it's no surprise that I would be that way with someone I barely knew. It's only after we get older and start wondering about what our previous generation experienced that we understand how much precious information has been buried with them.

So this article has two purposes: unfold what little I could ascertain about Mr. Enright from the contents and try and find living close relatives to see if they wish to have some of the mementos saved all these years.

Courtesy An old photo of a smelting company in Colorado was found in a McCook home.

I've spent a lot of time searching this family and it appears that there were Enright relatives in McCook in the 1930s. One item was a Commencement folder from MHS for the senior graduating class of 1931. Dora G. Nyrop was the high school principal at the time and G. L. Burney was the president of the Board of Education. Listed as one of the graduates was Eleanor Enright, but I have no information that leads me to believe that she was Michael's daughter; perhaps a niece.

Mr. Enright had an interesting life from the looks of the pictures contained in the small trunk. He apparently served with the Red Cross during World War I as the picture shows, and if all the 1900s street maps on Paris, France are a clue, he may well have been an ambulance driver like so many Americans were including famous people such as Walt Disney.

He also worked in Pueblo, Colorado at the Philadelphia Smelting and Refining Company, as the second picture depicts. On back is written: Old Phili Smelter 1911; M. Enright, Chas Swan, F. S. Slater.

If you have any information concerning this family lineage, I would appreciate some help. Our library doesn't need to have the originals, we will just digitalize them for our records. My contact email is sdoak@swnebr.net.

Southwest Nebraska Genealogy Society's library winter hours are Wednesday from 1-4 p.m. We are located at 110 West C Street, Suite M-3.