The Gallaghers of Ballinrobe

country store was practically a company store, where
mill workers would do most of their shopping because
they could buy things on credit.
Mom-Mom was born May 11, 1897, in
Hockessin. She lived next to her grandmother Margaret
(Bigley) and Peter Lafferty when she was first born and
moved to the farm on Valley Road in 1905.
During the influenza outbreak of 1918,
children were dying so quickly that doctors would often
give their names to the undertaker when they got sick.
Hockessin’s undertaker, Alexander Guthrie, lived just up
the street from the May family on Valley Road. When
Mom-Mom was a girl, she would bring flowers to the
undertaker’s, and on one such visit she saw one of her
brother’s name listed. It’s unclear whether it was John
or George May who was ill, but thankfully the brother
did not pass away.
Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop were married Dec.
30, 1919, at St. John’s Church in Hockessin. They raised
four children: Catherine, Ann, Francis and George.
When first married, they moved to Yorklyn, to a house
on Benge Road, below Auburn Heights. Pop-Pop
worked at the mills. Their first two children were born
there -- Aunt Catherine on Nov. 26, 1920, and Ann (later
Gilson) on July 8, 1922. The family briefly moved to
Deepwater, N.J., where Franny was born May 31, 1925.
They then relocated to 1720 Hancock St. in Wilmington,
close to Brandywine Park. By 1930, with the Great
Depression under way, the family was back in
Hockessin, where Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop’s fourth and
final child, George, was born Aug. 26, 1932.
They rented a home on Valley Road for $18 a
month, and Pop-Pop was working as a bus driver.
Sometime in the 1930s, Pop-Pop started working in the
Marshall Brothers fiber mill, which soon became
National Vulcanized Fiber. NVF soon replaced the
snuff, grain and paper mills as the main industry in
Yorklyn. In 1940, Pop-Pop’s income was $1,007; the
median family income for that year was $956. He retired
from NVF as a machinist in 1961. By the late 1970s, the
cost of medical insurance had risen so much that his
pension no longer covered the bill and he had to write a
check to the fund rather than receive one, he told his
grandson Pat Gallagher.
After Mom-Mom’s mother, Katie (Gormley)
May, died in 1941, the family moved in with her
husband in her house on Valley Road. When George
May died in 1950, the house was left to their daughter,
Mary. However, Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop would live
out the rest of their lives there. The house was adjacent
Aunt Catherine, left, at her First Communion at St.
Ann’s in Wilmington. With her are brother Franny
and sister Ann.
to St. John the Evangelist's rectory, and Mom-Mom
took care of the pastor, the Rev. DiMichele, and the
church. She was a member of the Altar Society of both
St. John’s and later its replacement, St. Mary of the
Assumption, in Hockessin.
In December 1944, Franny Hoopes was taken
prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge in
World War II. He was initially listed as missing in
action. When Mom-Mom first received the news, her
hair turned white almost overnight. Franny was freed
as the Americans eventually advanced into Germany.
Sometime around 1970, Pop-Pop’s talented
grandson Bart Gilson drew a sketch of the weatherworn
barn at the Valley Road farm. At the time, there
was an old saw-horse in front of the rustic building.
Pop-Pop didn’t want it to interfere with Bart’s
drawing, so he laid it on its side so it would be out of
the way. Bart must not have realized Pop-Pop’s intent,
or thought the saw-horse added too much artistic
value, because the saw-horse (on its side) made it into
the drawing.
Later in the 1970s, a man named Gerald
Fuller came to the Hoopes’ home. He said he was
writing a book on the Hoopes family and wanted to
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