Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Another brother of Joan Beamis has died. John Crohan “Jack” Malley passed away at the age of 90 on Saturday, March 5, 2016. Among Joan’s other siblings, her brother Fr. Jim Malley died last June. Her sister Janice died in 2012. Joan was the first of her siblings to pass in 1990.
In 2009, Jack Malley provided substantial information about his family and their kinship with the family of Frank & Jesse James to Stray Leaves publisher Eric F. James. Much of what Jack provided ended up in James’ first volume of the history of the Jesse James family – Jesse James Soul Liberty, Behind the Family Wall of Stigma & Silence.
About his family, Jack Malley informed Eric F. James, “My mother (Marguerite Hazel Burns-Malley) was the only one who would not talk about the James brothers. She was somewhat of a Boston socialite in her pre-marital years. We, her children, thought it was terrific, and our grandmother Mary Louise James-Burns was “pumped dry” for stories.” Mary Louise James-Burns, a daughter of Frank and Jesse’s uncle Drury Woodson James, lived with the Malley siblings as they grew up.
As Jack Malley stated, “It is ironic that D.W.J. (Jack’s great-grandfather) was a rancher and cattleman. I spent my life in agriculture. First, running a 100 cow dairy herd with my father in New Hampshire and then 30 years as a soil conservationist with the Soil Conservation Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture in New Hampshire and Maine, working with farmers.
“Grandmother Mary Louise James-Burns (Jack’s grandmother) lived with our family until her passing. She and I shared a great love of farming and she maintained a great interest in our farm and herd. My Dad provided her a home from the day he married her daughter Marguerite. They were great friends and rabid Democrats! Our Mother was somewhat ashamed of her James cousins and did not care to discuss the subject with anyone – even family!!!”
News of Jack’s passing was provided to Stray Leaves by his nephew, J. Mark Beamis. Mark informed Eric about Jacks’ final days. “He was getting hospice at home for congestive heart failure since January. On Friday, they moved him to a nursing home and he wasn’t there 24 hours before he left. I think he ‘planned’ it that way.”
An extensive and loving obituary of Jack Malley outlines in detail his personal life and interests, as well as his accomplished career in conservation and preservation. The obituary is well worth reading.
In recent news, the Malley family farm where Joan and her siblings grew up now will become a women’s recovery center. The Malley family farm is the place where the first discovery was made by Joan Beamis, leading to her researching and writing the first genealogy of the Jesse James family, Background of a Bandit. Following the death of the Malley siblings’ parents, Rep. James Francis Malley and Marguerite Hazel Burns in 1974 and 1983, the Malley home then became the Malley Boys Farm. With Jack’s passing, the family home now enters a new stage, becoming the Sober Sisters Recovery Transitional Home for women.
☞Today in Old-West History -- On today’s date 119 years ago, Sunday, October 19, 1902, notorious Old-West outlaw & fiddle player James Hardin “Uncle Jim” Younger (1848-1902) met his earthly demise at the age of 54 when he committed suicide by gunshot whilst on parole at Saint Paul, Minnesota.
☞Requiéscant In Pace, Jim Younger.
☞Jim Younger was one of the central figures of a band of the most desperate outlaws the Old West ever knew -- the infamous James-Younger Gang, which was formed by Jim’s brother Cole Younger along with Frank & Jesse James.
☞Jim Younger joined the Confederate Army during the War Between the States (1861-1865) & served with Quantrill’s Raiders. In 1864, he was captured by Union troops & was imprisoned until the end of the War.
☞After the War, Younger worked on various ranches until he joined the James-Younger Gang in 1873. When his brother John was killed at Roscoe, Missouri in 1874, Jim left the gang & went out west where he worked on a ranch in San Luis Obispo, California.
☞In 1876, Jim returned to the gang, & on September 7 he participated in a bank robbery that became known as the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid. During that robbery he was shot & captured. The James brothers escaped, but Cole, Jim, & Bob Younger were shot up by a posse, arrested, & sentenced to long terms in the state penitentiary at Stillwater, Minnesota, where they were afforded celebrity status.
☞Jim Younger’s fiddle was one of the few possessions that he was allowed to have with him in prison, & he played it often. As time passed, Jim noticed that a little bird would appear most every day in the window of his jail cell. It seemed as though the bird came to listen whenever Jim played his fiddle. Jim was lonely & he befriended the bird which he named “Swipsy.” The bird would fly into the prison cell & Jim would always try to have crumbs to feed Swipsy. One day, a fellow prisoner killed the little bird just for spite. Jim then painted a picture of Swipsy on the back of his violin to remember his little feathered friend.
☞In 1898, the prison warden allowed the prisoners to throw a Christmas party at his own home, with Cole Younger portraying Santa Claus & Jim Younger playing his fiddle.
☞Paroled in 1901, Jim became engaged to his long-time lover Alix Mueller; however, because of the terms of his parole he couldn’t marry her.
☞On October 19, 1902, after a failed attempt to sell tombstones & then insurance, Jim Younger locked himself in his room, wrote a suicide note to Alix, picked up his revolver, & blew his brains out.
☞In 2013, Jim Younger’s fiddle, which was played by him at the famous 1898 Christmas party at Stillwater Prison, was sold at a Dallas, Texas auction for over $11,000.
☞The left-hand photograph depicts the image of Swipsy the Bird that Jim Younger painted on the back of his fiddle. The right-hand photograph depicts an undated studio portrait of Jim Younger.
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Stray Leaves Daily updated their info in the about section.
After 10 years, our webpage for the Flat Lick Baptist Church & its founder John M. James has been updated. New additions include a video about the rebel preachers and their Traveling Church, the "talented, but erratic" pastor Joe Martin James, photos of the 100th & 200th anniversaries, slaves in the congregation, collapsing stone walls, Flat Lick on YouTube today - all waiting for a new pastor to take the reins in the 21st century. ericjames.org/wordpress/2011/05/13/flat-lick-baptist-church/
Flat Lick Baptist Church Founded by John M. James
ericjames.org
Estimated reading time: 9 minutes John M. James, the grandfather of Frank & Jesse James, arrived on the Kentucky frontier in 1782 in the company ofFor Drury Woodson James, founder of Paso Robles, CA., and all his descendants, PASO ROBLES FOUNDERS' DAY 2021.