San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Saloonist was teetotaler, devout Catholic
Sometimes the historical record doesn’t tell the complete story.
Take, for instance, the case of Gilbert Ryan O’Shaughnessy, whose greatgrandson Charles A. Schmidt asked if it was true, as family lore claimed, that O’Shaughnessy had been able to make a living around the turn of the last century as a “whiskey taster.”
As answered in this column March 13, records show it was true. O’Shaughnessy had identified himself for the U.S. Census in 1901 and 1910 as a “rectifier” – an expert in the distilling process who could detect harmful additives in rotgut or keep distilling a decent whiskey to end up with a smoother blend.
The native of County Clare, Ireland, achieved professional familiarity with the unpredictable quality of liquor in his day because he had worked in so many aspects of the trade.
Starting out as a young man with wholesalers of groceries and liquors in Galveston and San Antonio, O’Shaughnessy knew how to build barrels as well as how to fill them with safe spirits and sell them on to retailers. He also was a popular saloon keeper, running the high-end Brady Parlor Bar in San Antonio’s Main Plaza and sometimes juggling one or two other bars at the same time.
There was only one thing O’Shaughnessy didn’t get about his chosen trade: actually drinking the alcohol.
“He spit the whiskey out after tasting it,” said Marie O’Shaughnessy-Martin of Austin, one of his granddaughters and the family genealogist.
“He was a man of great character,” O’Shaughnessy-Martin said, and before her grandfather even found himself among the two-fisted Texas drinkers, “He had taken the (temperance) pledge and wore a button so people knew he did not drink.” Whiskey-tasting was just a job to the teetotaler – “another plus to hiring him,” his granddaughter guesses.
A younger son who didn’t stand to inherit the family dairy farm in Ireland, young O’Shaughnessy emigrated and married
the daughter of Irish parents. The couple had started a large family in Galveston, then suffered the tragic loss of their 5-year-old daughter, Antoinette Pauline “Netta,” second to youngest at the time, in the Galveston storm of Sept. 8, 1900.
“My grandfather searched for her for two weeks,” O’Shaughnessy-Martin said. “I do not believe they ever got over the horror of that storm.”
When he found her, they buried the little girl and the family moved to San Antonio.
O’Shaughnessy already had launched a thriving career in the liquor industry, but he may have had some ambivalence about it. Although he was an able host or “saloonist,” he waved off some of his customers with a cautionary poem. O’Shaughnessy-Martin still has it, the words legible on a sign darkened with age and the ghost of old-timey tobacco that used to hang on the wall of the Brady Parlor Bar:
“Know all fair-minded men of this town/We are licensed to sell liquor and beer. No drugstore sign hangs over our door/You’ll find no prescription case here.
We pay heavy taxes for the privilege/And expenses of the government to share. For the trade of the drunkard and minor/And the needy, we really don’t care. We desire to do business with gentlemen/With those who have money to spare…
“For the wife of a poor drunken husband/I feel sorry and pity. In this case, please serve us with a plain written note/And he’ll get nothing to drink in the place. If the fathers and mothers and sisters/And brothers would all do the same/It would not take long to convince you/That saloons are not always to blame.”
Whiskey was only a small part of O’Shaughnessy’s life, his granddaughter said. His children and grandchildren grew up to find good jobs, wore the uniform of this country in wartime, were called to the religious life, one (Gilbert Jr.) became a successful jazz musician and another became an international golf champion.
Meanwhile, Gilbert Sr. grew deeply involved in the Ancient Order of Hibernians a fraternal organization for Irish or Irish American men, becoming the
local group’s president in 1908.
San Antonio’s Division 1 was founded in 1882 with 30 men. On the national and international levels, the order had various factions and political connections, most sensationally with the Molly Maguires, a coal-country secret society linked to prolabor activism. If true, that whiff of danger had been tamped down by the early 1900s when O’Shaughnessy joined here.
The exclusive order was supported by Catholic clergy, and the most prominent local citizens, politicians and merchants of Irish ancestry belonged; members voted on prospective Hibernians, and not all were accepted. Another group, the Irish American Society, was less conspicuous, though there was some overlap in its membership.
The local order met over the years at the premises of other lodges – Elks and Owls – or another ethnic group venues such as the German Casino Club, Meyer Hall and Turner Hall. The Hibernians planned all year for two big events – a celebration of the anniversary of their charter in the fall with a gala dinner and ball and a daylong St. Patrick’s Day celebration that began with a pair of Masses, low and high, in St. Mary’s Catholic Church, traditionally the parish for Irish American or other Englishspeaking Catholics.
Out-of-town clergy from the pulpits of North America’s most prestigious cathedrals preached guest sermons and reprised their themes at dinners. With the ladies’ auxiliary, the Daughters of Erin, the Hibernians staged elaborate plays and musical programs, sometimes for the benefit of “land reform” movements in Ireland.
The rest of the community was invited, with joint choirs including the German American Liederkranz and the Hispanic San Fernando Cathedral choir. Often the grand finale on the evening’s vaudeville-style bill was Gilbert Ryan O’Shaughnessy, whose Irish dancing brought down the house.
As automobiles became more common on city streets, a Hibernian-sponsored St. Patrick’s Day parade grew to include the decorated cars of many of the members, especially the women. Irish American soldiers released from duty at Fort Sam Houston for the day marched, as did Catholic school children and women’s sodalities. O’Shaughnessy was tapped as chairman of the festivities in 1908, signaling the trust of the community.
The practical O’Shaughnessy went through another unintended career shift later in life. His granddaughter said he learned to drive in his 60s so he could work for the city Parks Department after Prohibition. Before Prohibition, she said, “He rode a bicycle and owned a horse. He did own a car, but his children drove it.”
When O’Shaughnessy died, he was eulogized by the parish priest of St. Cecilia’s for his generosity to the church and the needy: “With the great democracy of the Catholic Church, his enthusiastic love for and staunch adherence to the faith of St Patrick and St. Brigid entitle him to walk among the princes of the people.”