Alice Curry was born on Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, in the Bahamas. She was the second of the seven children of Martha Albury and Benjamin Curry. She grew up in the Bahamas, moving to Key West with her parents around 1844. She immediately met and soon married John Owen Boyle, a 25 year old Irish immigrant from Dublin, who had settled in Key West between 1840 and 1845 and was already well established, making a good living as a grocer. The couple was married March 6, 1845 in her parents' home. John was elected city councilman later that year. By 1850, the family had property valued at $4000. The couple's first child, Mary Josephine Katherine Boyle, was born early that year, on February 10, 1850. Over the next 19 years, John and Alice had eight more children: John Eugene Boyle, born November 15, 1852; Martha Ann Boyle, born February 28, 1854; Ella Boyle, born September 25, 1856; William Wallace Boyle, born in July 1858; Ernest Benjamin Boyle, born in January 1862; Jefferson Francis Boyle, born November 21, 1863; Joseph Patrick Boyle, born in September 1866; and John Francis Xavier Vincent Boyle, born in 1869. At least two of the children died when little more than a year old, Ernest Benjamin in 1863, and Jefferson Francis in 1864. All of the children were baptized in the Catholic faith. Alice converted to Catholicism and was baptized in February 1864, sponsored by her daughter Katherine. By 1860, John was Customs Inspector and owned real estate valued at $2000. The family was living next door to Alice's brother Benjamin Curry and six households from her older brother William Curry. They probably were living on Ann Street, on land that was once a pond in the center of town that had been filled in by a major hurricane in 1846. Alice's father died in 1865, followed by her mother six years later. By 1870, John was working as an accountant. Their oldest daughter, Kate, was teaching and in 1872, would marry Stephen Mallory Baldwin, a Civil War Veteran. In 1874, their third daughter Ella would marry Peter John Gildemeester, move to New Orleans and subsequently to Manhattan, New York, and have four children. In 1872, John and Alice's first grandchild, Mary Lillian Baldwin, was born to their daughter Kate. Their first grandson, Peter John Gildemeester was born in March 1877 in New Orleans to their daughter Ella. Sometime before 1880, Alice's husband John died. When he died is not certain, although there was a severe yellow fever epidemic in 1875. After John Boyle died, Alice and all of their children who survived to adulthood, except Ella, lived together on their Greene/Ann Street property. This is probably where she and John had lived for years. The Boyle property was in the block bounded by Ann, Greene, Duval, and Front Streets, with frontage on Ann and Greene Streets. The house must have been fairly large as Alice's 1880 household consisted of her sons Joseph, age 13, and John, age 11, her daughter Kate, 30, Kate's husband Stephen Baldwin, age 33, Kate and Stephen's three children - Carry, Ruby, and Harry, and a 16 year old adopted daughter, Elnora Ashley. Alice's son William and her daughter Martha were most likely also in the household but at the time of the 1880 census, were in New York visiting their sister Ella Gildermeester. Alice's wealthy brother William Curry lived in the next block on Ann Street, at the corner of Caroline. Her sister Rebecca Curry Lester lived a block away on Simonton near its intersection with Greene Street. On October 1, 1881, Alice sponsored the baptism into the Catholic church of Mary Olivia Bethel, who was preparing to marry Alice's son William Wallace Boyle on October 25, 1881. Alice would live to see at least eleven of her grandchildren: six of Kate Boyle and Stephen Baldwin's children, two of William Wallace Boyle and Mary Olivia Bethel's children, and three of the children of Ella Boyle and John Gildemeester. By 1885, the entire family was living on Greene Street. One household consisted of Alice, her two younger sons Patrick and John, and her daughter Martha. Alice's son Joseph was working for the telegraph company. The next household was composed of Alice's daughter Kate and her husband and four children. Her son-in-law Stephen Baldwin was working as a steamboat clerk. Alice's son William and his wife, their two young sons, and a fifteen year old female servant from the Bahamas lived next door in a smaller house at 509 Greene Street. Tragedy struck the family in 1886. Alice's Ann Street house was destroyed in the fire that swept the western part of the city in 1886. The fire started at 2 AM on April 1 at the San Carlos building on Duval Street, near Fleming, only a few blocks from Alice's house. The fire quickly swept north to Greene and Ann Streets, engulfing Alice's home and leaving her and her nine member household homeless. A week after the fire, Alice died of pneumonia. She died April 8, 1886, at the age of 58. She was buried in the Boyle family plot in the Catholic section of the Key West City Cemetery. It is probable that John Owen Boyle is also buried there. Cemetery records indicated that Alice's son William Wallace Boyle is also buried there, though the only headstones remaining are those of her daughter Kate Baldwin's family. Alice died five months before the birth of grandson John Louis Boyle. She was survived by her daughters Catherine Baldwin, Martha Boyle and Ella Gildemeester and by her sons William Boyle, Joseph Boyle, and John Vincent Boyle, who was only 17 at the time of his mother's death. ©2010 by Claudia Naugle