Scattered Stones
The Series
Six Lives · One Family · Four GenerationsThis is not a conventional genealogy. It is a reckoning with what tuberculosis did to one Brooklyn family across seventy-two years — and with the women who survived it, adapted to it, and kept the next generation alive when it took everyone else.
The family buried its first tuberculosis death on January 1, 1871: George McKenney, age 42, at Holy Cross Cemetery, Brooklyn, Lett Row L, Plot 336. His widow Ann Lynch purchased a family plot that day. Over the next seven decades, that plot received Margaret McKenny (1884), John Kenny (1888), John Corbett (1949), and Elizabeth Kenny Corbett (1950). Tuberculosis accounted for four of the five generations of death. The fifth was Helen Robertson Verhoek, who died of it in 1942 at thirty-five, in the fourth generation of the same family.
Running parallel to the disease thread is a second one: the pattern of women who stepped in when the disease took parents. Ann Lynch MacKinney raised her daughters after George died. Mary F. MacKinney raised her nieces after John Kenny died. Elizabeth Kenny Corbett was present at 12 Elm Road after Joseph and Mary Agnes Robertson died within twelve days of each other in January 1924. Each generation's loss produced the next generation's guardian. The women who stayed were the ones who survived.
Each biography in this series stands alone — a complete documented life, with primary sources, evidence citations, and the narrative arc from birth to burial. Together they form a single continuous story spanning 120 years.
The Tuberculosis Thread
Five deaths from the same disease across seventy-two years: George McKenney (1870), Margaret Kenny (1884), John Kenny — pulmonary phthisis (1888), Mary Agnes Robertson (1924), Helen Robertson Verhoek (1942). The women in this series are largely the ones who didn't die of it — or who died of something else, or who died of it last.
The Generational Care Pattern
Ann raises Margaret and Mary after George dies. Mary F. MacKinney raises Elizabeth and Mary Agnes after both parents die. Elizabeth is present at 12 Elm Road when Mary Agnes and Joseph die in January 1924. Eighteen-year-old Lillian Robertson raises her siblings. Each loss produced a keeper. None of these women chose the role. All of them stepped into it.
Ireland → Brooklyn → New Jersey
Ann Lynch and George McKenney arrive from Ireland in the 1840s, settling in Brooklyn's Ward 7. The family roots in Brooklyn for two generations. The Robertson family bridges Brooklyn and North Caldwell, New Jersey. Elizabeth Corbett dies back in Brooklyn, in the borough where she was born. The arc is complete — from the Ward 7 tenements of 1860 to Holy Cross Cemetery, 1950.
All five deaths documented by primary source death certificates. The same disease in the same family across 72 years.
Mary F. MacKinney, Elizabeth Kenny Corbett, Eliza Kenny, and Ann Lynch McKenna each outlived it.
Coming soon: "Five Deaths, One Family, Seventy-Two Years" — the blog post connecting this thread.
The Women Who Stayed
Each biography stands alone as a complete documentary life. Together they form one continuous story.
Episode 1
Live
Three Names, One Life
She enlisted in the U.S. Navy at thirty-nine and told them she was thirty. She served twelve days before the Armistice. She raised her sister's children after the twelve-day catastrophe of January 1924. Proving her three names belonged to the same woman required a decade of research and one government card that put both names on a single line.
Read Her Story →
Episode 2
Coming Soon
The Root
She came from Ireland, married George McKenney, buried him on New Year's Day 1871, and purchased a family plot at Holy Cross Cemetery the same morning. Over the next seventeen years she raised her daughters as a widow, nursed her dying daughter-in-law, and died in 1888 knowing her granddaughters would be cared for. The plot she purchased that January morning holds the family to this day.
In Preparation
Episode 3
Coming Soon
The Other Grandmother
Her husband died before 1854. She never remarried. In every census afterward she appears alone — head of household, raising John and James Kenny without a partner. In the 1880 census she is living with John and his infant daughter Elizabeth, the granddaughter who was almost certainly named for her. She died December 2, 1887. Her maiden name is unknown. Almost every fact about her life comes from what is absent in the records.
In Preparation
Episode 4
Live
The One Who Stayed
For ninety years her portrait was carefully preserved without a name. When her identity was confirmed in October 2025, her story proved extraordinary: from placing desperate newspaper ads for housework in 1887 to factory forewoman to boarding house owner — all while raising two orphaned nieces who had nowhere else to go after November 1888. She never married. She gave forty-seven years.
Read Her Story →
Episode 5
Coming Soon
Twelve Days
Her husband Joseph died January 14, 1924. She died January 26 — twelve days later — in the same house. Three children were orphaned within twelve days. The disease that killed her was the same one that had killed her mother in 1884 and her grandfather in 1870. Her death certificate, confirmed by the researcher's own mother, names her parents exactly as the research establishes: John Kenny, father. Margaret McKenny, mother.
In Preparation
Episode 6
Coming Soon
The Last
Mary Agnes's daughter. Sixteen years old when both her parents died within twelve days of each other in January 1924. She married Les Verhoek and had two children. She died in 1942 at thirty-five of tuberculosis — the same disease that had killed her mother, her grandfather, and her great-grandfather. The 1923 photograph believed to show her as a teenager in the backyard of 12 Elm Road may be the last photograph of her before her parents died.
In PreparationThe Son Who Searched (c. 1886–1924)
Joseph Robertson Sr. — Mary Agnes's husband — is fully documented as Episode 7 of the companion series Scattered Stones: The Robertson Family of Blairgowrie. He traveled to Georgia searching for his missing father David, who vanished in the swamps in 1910. He never found answers. His marriage to Mary Agnes Kenny united two immigrant families traced independently. His death on January 14, 1924 — twelve days before Mary Agnes — set the clock that orphaned their three children.
Read Episode 7 →Joseph Jay Robertson Jr. (c. 1920 – 1991)
The youngest child of Joseph and Mary Agnes — the boy in the sailor suit in the 1923 photograph at 12 Elm Road, four years old when both parents died within twelve days of each other. He grew up under his sister Lillian's care, served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, and wrote home across the years of the war. His daughter Judy Robertson Apicella preserved those letters, visited the archives, and became an essential collaborator in the family research. He is the only child of Mary Agnes without a documentary biography of his own — that page is in preparation.
In PreparationThree Names, One Life — The Elizabeth Kenny Corbett Case Study
The BCG-standard identity proof for Elizabeth Kenny, Lillian Marie Kenny, and Elizabeth Corbett. Twelve record sets, the birth date reconciliation, the informant error analysis, and the VA Master Index Card that settles the question. The methodology page documents every source in Evidence Explained format.
View Case Study →