LIZZIE KENNEDY BURKE

 

Lizzie KENNEDY BURKE.  Lizzie KENNEDY BURKE, a distinguished member of a remarkable family whose careers reflect honor upon San Francisco was the sixth child in the family of Eliza King KENNEDY, wife of Thomas KENNEDY of Navan, County Meath, Ireland.

 

In 1849, Mrs. KENNEDY, her mother, then a widow, arranged to bring her family of one son and six daughters to America, and by 1851 they had all arrived in New York.  They then started for San Francisco, Anne and Alice by way of Cape Horn, Lizzie and Mary by way of Nicaragua, Mrs.  KENNEDY with Kate and Delia and Patrick came late by way of Nicaragua.  Before the close of 1854 they had all settled in San Francisco, where the KENNEDY’s became one of the best known families of the early days and through their own achievements and the achievements of their descendants they have remained prominent in the life of the city and state.

 

In 1866 Miss KENNEDY married William Francis BURKE, a native of Cork, Ireland.  He was for a long time in the shoe business, but for the later years of his life was assistant manager of the San Francisco Clearing House.  He was a well known figure in the business and banking life of the city.

 

Mrs. Lizzie KENNEDY BURKE is a most remarkable woman.  With two of her sisters, Alice and Kate, she entered the school department of San Francisco in 1857.  Alice left the department upon her marriage to James LYNCH, but Kate and Lizzie remained. Kate until her death in 1890 and Lizzie until her retirement from the school department in 1914 after fifty-seven years of distinguished service.

 

During these years of service she held many prominent positions in the department.  For many years she was vice principal of the Union Primary Cosmopolitan Grammar School.  Later she was principal of the Union Primary School, and for over twenty years, to the close of her career, she was principal of the Columbia Grammar School.  Thousands of citizens of San Francisco have passed under her teaching, and men and women in all walks of the city’s life look back upon their days with her with pleasure, and still hold her a welcome guest in their homes and in their offices.  There is not a large or powerful organization in San Francisco today that does not number among its influential members former pupils of Lizzie KENNEDY BURKE.

 

During her service in the schools Mrs. Burke conceived and planned and with the help of her sister, Kate KENNEDY, organized the Teachers’ Mutual Aid Society of San Francisco.  This association was the first of its kind.  It is now in its fifty-first year, and is still practical, solvent and successful, a monument to the foresight of its founders and a model for other associations of similar character throughout the United States and England.

 

Mrs. BURKE has the further distinction of having served as the only woman member of the Charter Committee of One Hundred, convened to draft the city chapter in 1898, which later became the present organic law of San Francisco.

 

There were four children in the BURKE family;  Katherine Delmar BURKE, founder and principal of Miss BURKE’s School for Girls; Elizabeth King BURKE, now deceased, who was the wife of the late Jere T. BURKE of the law department of the Southern Pacific Company; William Francis BURKE, assistant postmaster of San Francisco; and John Kennedy BURKE, general superintendent of the Baker, Hamilton & Pacific Company of San Francisco.

 

Elizabeth and Jere BURKE left a family of seven minor children.  Mrs. BURKE assumed the guardianship of these children.  Four have now attained their majority.  Sherman, the eldest, is a captain in the United States Army; having entered the army service during the World war; Barbara BURKE is vice president and associate principal of Miss BURKE’s School.

 

Mrs. BURKE is now eighty-nine years of age, active, vigorous, still keenly interested in affairs and current events, and she now holds the important and essential position of supervising teacher upon the faculty of her daughter’s school.

 

Of the other members of the KENNEDY family Patrick J. KENNEDY was a stock broker both in San Francisco and Virginia City and a well known notary public in San Francisco for many years before his death.  He married Jennie CORDIEL, daughter of a Philadelphia family.  Their children were: Thomas F. KENNEDY, now representing American interests in Mexico; Eugene P. and Leo K. KENNEDY, mining engineers.  Mrs. Robert A. KINZIE and Gerald KENNEDY, who is connected with the Farmers Loan Bank.

 

Kate KENNEDY became a noted educator, and through her suit with the Board of Education of San Francisco for the tenure of her position as principal of the North Cosmopolitan Grammar School, she secured the rendering of the famous “Kate KENNEDY Decision,” which gives the California school teachers a stronger hold on their positions than those of any other state in the Union.  The Kate KENNEDY Club, an organization of teachers, and the Kate KENNEDY School are named after her.

 

Anne KENNEDY, another daughter, married John M. CUSHING, a pioneer who came from  Massachusetts to San Francisco.  Their sons, Oscar Kennedy CUSHING and Charles S. CUSHING, are engaged in law practice in San Francisco under the firm name of CUSHING and CUSHING.  Both of these men have risen to the highest eminence in their chosen profession.  Mrs.  CUSHING’s daughter, Caroline, is the wife of Prof. Clyde A. DUNIWAY, president of the University of Colorado Springs, but at the present writing, during his sabbatical year, is head of the Students’ Union in London, England.

 

Mary KENNEDY married Peter GAUGHRAN, an accountant, and spent the long years of her widowhood in California.

 

Alice KENNEDY married James LYNCH, a pioneer who came to California with STEVENSON’s regiment in 1846.  The details of early life in California may be found elsewhere in this work.  Their children were: James K. LYNCH, for years with the First National Bank of San Francisco, and later the first governor of the Federal Reserve Bank there; Francis W. LYNCH, who has been in the U.S. Customs Service in San Francisco for many years; Mrs. Thomas KAVANAUGH; Henry W. LYNCH, who is in the cattle business in San Luis Obispo County; Alice LYNCH, who is in the postal service in San Francisco; and Mrs. Archie SMITH of San Luis Obispo County.

 

Delia KENNEDY married James MOFFITT, a pioneer printer, who later became a member of the firm of BLAKE, MOFFITT & TOWNE, paper merchants.  Her sons are James Kennedy MOFFITT, banker, and a regent of the University of California, and Dr. Herbert C. MOFFITT, the eminent physician.  Mrs. MOFFITT’s daughters are Lucy, Mrs. John Hampton LYNCH of New York, and Alice, the late Mrs. George DOUBLEDAY of New York.

 

Of the original KENNEDY family two survive, Mrs. Delia MOFFITT of Piedmont, Oakland, and Mrs. Lizzie KENNEDY BURKE.