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Young Owen O’Grady was born in Kinnadoohy, Co. Mayo in 1886, the son of Owen O’Grady and Honor O’Malley (she was a neighbor and the daughter of Jack O’Malley brother to Patrick O’Malley, father of our immigrant Michael). He was the oldest of 6 boys and two girls. He immigrated to America on the Saxonia traveling from Queenstown to Boston in 1909 to live with his brother John Grady of 8 School St., Somersworth, NH. When he got his citizenship in 1916, he was a shipping clerk with the Great Falls Bleachery and Dye Works. His sponsors were Michael O’Malley, tax collector of 79 Prospect St. and John Reilly, saloon keeper of 94 Union Street. Around 1918, he got a job as a conductor on the Dover, Somersworth and Rochester Street Railway Company. In New Hampshire, his surname was Grady.

Per the Foster’s Daily Democrat of Dover; On July 6, 1925, there was a sensational accident at the junction of Central Avenue and Silver Street shortly before 6:30 in the evening when an electric car … left the rails and plunged across the street over the sidewalk and entered the bay window of a tenement house occupied by Mrs. Holmes B. Rounds and Mrs. Carrie Rundlett. It appears that as the car came over the hill … the air brakes refused to function. As the car came over the brow of the hill, Mr. Grady tried to check the speed by applying the air brakes, but they refused to work. … the speed increased and when it reached the curve in the road, the car left the rails and continued across the street, went over the edgestone which is at least six inches above the gutter, passed over the sidewalk, tearing up the bricks, crashed through the fence, carrying it up against the side of the house and the front end of the car plunged through the bay window of the house, smashing some valuable antique furniture that was in the window. The car was in charge of Owen Grady, motorman of Somersworth and contained two passengers…. Motorman Grady and the two passengers fortunately escaped injury. …Mrs. Carrie Rundlett had been seated in the bay window but had entered another roomminutes before the car crashed through the window. Hundreds of spectators visited the scene during the evening to witness the accident.

On July 15, the paper on page1 reported that Owen Grady Died Today in Somersworth. "Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends". … these words are applicable, although to a lesser degree, to the case of Owen A. Grady, popular conductor-hero of Somersworth who this morning died at his home on Linden Street as a result of injuries sustained on July 5th in a trolley car accident at Dover, when, without regard for personal safety, even for life itself and thinking only of the safety of his passengers and motorists and pedestrians in the path of a runaway trolley car which he was operating…Somersworth is proud of "Ownie"… the injuries he sustained were internal and throughout this period of suffering he was given but little relief from the pain which resulted. …. The world needs more men like "Ownie". He left a wife, Mary Cullinane and three sons, Owen, Donald, and Raymond. He was a member of the Knights of Columbus and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. His heroism was also described in an article by Una O’Malley in Au Choinneal, the Louisburgh Ireland parish magazine

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