P.J. McGuire transitions from cement worker to dairyman

Peter J. McGuire wore several hats during his lifetime, but at the end of his life, the one that he claimed as his own was that of dairyman. A rare milk bottle, the image of which is shared by Paula Sulser Hulse, is tangible evidence of McGuire’s significance in the town that he adopted as his own. Contributed photo

MARY LOU MONTGOMERY

Perhaps it was the lure of steady employment that guided Peter J. McGuire from Palmer, Mass., to Hannibal in the early 1900s. It was widely known that there was opportunity in the little town located on the banks of the Mississippi River. Under construction, just to the south of Hannibal, was the new Atlas Portland Cement Plant. The facility was strategically located and poised to ultimately provide the cement needed for the construction of the Empire State Building, and the Panama Canal.

The son of a Scottish-born carpet weaver in the Massachusetts textile industry, and one of six children born to Peter S. McGuire (born 1840) and Elizabeth Fallon McGuire (born 1844)  the young New England transplant seemingly left his family behind when he made the move to Missouri.

In Hannibal, as early as 1903, he went to work in the cement industry, where construction was under way on the Atlas Portland Cement Company’s new plant. He resided at 202 Fourth Street, South Hannibal, in a boarding house located on the southwest corner of Jefferson and Fourth, operated by James F. Stewart and his wife Elizabeth. (The building was originally designed by Cornelius A. Treat, and constructed in 1860 as the sanctuary for the First Congregational Church.)

Other cement plant workers boarding at this house in 1903, according to the city directory of that year:

John Doyle,

Edgar Eroh,

Alex Knappenberger, and

William H. Newhart.

Another boarder:

Albert Nicholson, baseball player.

Newlyweds

In late August, 1903, Peter J. McGuire and Miss Lulu C. Fitzgerald of Hannibal, were married. She was the first-born daughter of John and Julia Friedel Fitzgerald, who made their home on Palmyra Road, near the entrance to what would become Riverview Park. For many years, John (Jack) Fitzgerald operated a successful second-hand shop at 204 Bird Street.

Peter McGuire continued to work for the Atlas Portland Cement Company into 1914, at one time serving as supervisor of concrete. During those years, Lulu McGuire gave birth to two children: Katherine, born about 1909; and Lawrence, born about 1913.

Where they lived:

1909: 300 1/2 Third, South Hannibal;

1910: 308 Locust; and

1916: 834 Reservoir.

In 1916, McGuire was a driver for the Hannibal Bottling Works, and in 1918 he was working for the Burlington Railroad.

Ultimately, by 1922 he and his wife were owners of a single-story frame home at 801 Pleasant, located on the southwest corner of North Sixth Street and Pleasant. ( Lot 10, Ruffner’s Subdivision of Out Lots 85 and 86.) There, he opened a dairy operation.

Operating a dairy:

Dairymen and milk dealers in Hannibal, advertising in the 1925 city directory:

Henry Bier, 408-10 Mark Twain Avenue;

C.F. Bishop and Company, 309 S. Fourth;

Bluff City Dairy, 2313 Market;

Herman E. Long, 3201 West Ely Road;

Peter J. McGuire, 801 Pleasant;

Pevely Dairy Co., 103 Broadway;

Quality Dairy, 112 S. Seventh (owned and operated by John W. and Clarissa Smith); and

J. Blanton Robinson, 118-20 Hill.

McGuire’s Dairy

Details regarding McGuire’s Dairy are scarce. The Sanborn Fire Prevention Map of 1925 shows an outbuilding on the southeast corner of his property, adjacent to Sixth Street. Did this building serve as a bottling facility? Maybe.

Advertisements from his tenure as a dairyman indicate that the milk he sold was from Jersey cows. In January 1917, Mr. McGurie’s brother-in-law, Leon Fitzgerald, advertised a Jersey milch cow for sale in a Hannibal newspaper. Did Mr. McGuire sell the milk from his brother-in-law’s Jersey herd? Perhaps.

Dairy memories

In 2014, Mary Margaret Smith shared her memories of growing up in a “dairy” family. Her story, (written by Mary Lou Montgomery) was published in the Jan. 11, 2014 edition of the Hannibal Courier-Post. At the time of the interview, she was 86. Her parents, John W. and Clarissa Smith, operated Quality Dairy from the mid 1920s, (when Peter J. McGuire was in the dairy business locally) until 1949.

Mary Margaret Smith’s memories may be somewhat different than the experiences of Peter J. McGuire and his family. But they are representative of the era of the local dairy man delivering milk to his customers.

Her father purchased milk from local dairy farmers, and used eggs that his wife collected from the chickens she raised in order to make ice cream. The ice cream was flavored naturally, such as with home-grown strawberries.

“Mom and I would wrap butter by hand,” she said. Employees included Bill Fohey and Teddy Poore, and they would compete “to see who could lift a can of milk over their head with one hand. You had to have muscles to work for a dairy.”

She said that delivery was a big part of the business. A delivery runner would pick up the note from the customer’s front porch, then run back to the truck to fill the order. People would lay the money on the doorstep to pay for the milk. “Nobody would bother it. Life was different then,” she said.

The 1930s

Mr. McGuire stayed with the dairy business throughout the 1920s, listing himself as a dairy deliveryman in the 1930 census.

His brother-in-law, Leon Fitzgerald, 49, who, as mentioned previously, was a farmer who dealt in Jersey cows, met an unfortunate fate in April 1936. He was the passenger in a car driven on Mark Twain Avenue by Robert Stehman. Three days following an automobile accident, Leon died of injuries at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. He was survived by his wife, Bessie May Fitzgerald, and seven children: Walter, Robert, Julia, Dorothy, Johnny, Eddie and Charles.

Other survivors included his siblings:

Mrs. Pete (Lulu) McGuire of Hannibal;

Miss Til Fitzgerald of Hannibal;

John O. Fitzgerald of Palmyra; 

G.W. Fitzgerald, Portland, Ore.;

Mrs. J.H. Sharkey, Center; and

Dan Fitzgerald of Hannibal.

By 1937, (the year after his brother-in-law died) Mr. McGuire had left the dairy business behind, and was working as a stonemason for James E. Kelly, who was doing business as Hannibal Monument Company, 116 N. Fourth.

Mr. and Mrs. McGuire continued to live at 801 Pleasant St., until their respective deaths in 1952 and 1953.

They are buried together at Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Peter J. McGuire advertised his dairy business in the Hannibal Labor Press, May 10, 1919. Note he specialized in milk from Jersey cows. newspapers.com

Leon Fitzgerald, who farmed his family’s land in the Scipio Tract, near Palmyra Road/Harrison Hill, listed for sale a Jersey milch cow in the Hannibal Morning Journal, Jan. 23, 1917. Newspapers.com

Mary Lou Montgomery retired as editor of the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post in 2014. She researches and writes narrative-style stories about the people who served as building blocks for this region’s foundation. Books available on Amazon.com by this author include but are not limited to: "The Notorious Madam Shaw," "Pioneers in Medicine from Northeast Missouri,” “Hannibal’s ‘West End,’” “Oakwood: West of Hannibal,”  and “St. Mary’s Avenue District.” Montgomery can be reached at Montgomery.editor@yahoo.com Her collective works can be found at www.maryloumontgomery.com