The recent public release of 1950 census records provides an additional data point from the lives of great-grandparents James Louis Hynes and Bessie Gordon Hynes. In 1950 they lived at 107-29 134th street in Queens, New York.
A search of today’s maps places this location in the industrial periphery of JFK airport, near the intersection of the Belt Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway.
There is no question that the 1950 census record is for our ancestors, James and Bessie Hynes–all details match, including James’ profession and country of birth. There is also no question that the address on the census record is the former Queens neighborhood suggested by the current-day map search–adjacent records on the census form consistently reference other nearby streets and landmarks.
Idlewild Airport, named after the golf course it displaced, opened in 1948. At that time it was a small operational airfield and terminal surrounded by future terminal early construction sites in accordance with an ambitious master plan that would eventually grow into the futuristic JFK airport of the 1960s and the densely-packed mess that exists today.
Early versions of the airport master plan show the 134th street neighborhood barely surviving, adjacent to airport maintenance shops and earlier versions of city expressways.
It’s hard to put a positive spin on this information about the late lives of James and Bessie Hynes, just as it was difficult to find positive ways to read James’ abrupt 1945 resignation and sparse 1953 death notices. It’s also hard to imagine that south Queens was what James had in mind when, in his 1945 resignation letter, he expressed his desire to move “somewhere in the south” after spending some time in his hometown of Newburgh NY.
This queens neighborhood was about 5 miles southeast of the Bushwick neighborhood where the family lived in the 1920s, and about 10 miles west of the Freeport neighborhood where the family lived before and after living in Bushwick. In 1950, James’ and Bessie’s son and his family were already living in California, having long since lived in upstate New York and Michigan. Their other surviving children remained in Massachussets. James’ sister Addie’s Newburgh home was more than a two hour journey away. There were no family reasons to move to this Queens neighborhood. At best, it would have been a familiar region for James and Bessie, perhaps with a few old friends living nearby, but nothing more.
A New York death record, previously disregarded because there was no reason to believe he lived in New York at the time, shows that a James Hynes, born in 1875, died on July 16, 1953. No note of James’ passing has been found in New York newspapers. The timing and circumstances of Bessie’s death remain unknown.
As a final note, the 1950 census shows James’ age as 65 and Bessie’s as 70. James’ reported age, over the years, has been pretty consistent with this figure, including his Shoal Arm NL birth certificate showing his October 1884 birth. Estimates of Bessie’s age, on the other hand, have been all over the map. The 1880 Census, for example, lists her as 6 years old at the time, consistent with the 1873-1874 birth year range which seems to be most trusted by various sources. We have previously noted the couple’s age difference at the time of their 1905 marriage–James 20 and Bessie as old as 32 at the time. Under these awkward circumstances, it is perhaps easy to understand how under-reporting of her age could have become a persistent habit over the years.
Bridging the Silences 