- Born
- 1909
- Died
- 1978-11-23
- Spouse
- person/lester-connaghan-1922
- Eras
- Modern era
- Concepts
- healthcarecommunityheritageirish-arranmoremaritime
- Within
- Beaver Island
Summary
Victoria A. “Vicki” (Pociask) Connaghan (1909–1978) was the wife of Lester D. Connaghan (1922–2005), a Beaver Island commercial fisherman and later Great Lakes tugboat pilot whose own family was descended from Arranmore Island, County Donegal. She was listed in a January 1974 Beaver Beacon hospital note as “Mrs. Lester (Vicki) Connaghan,” a patient at Little Traverse Hospital in Petoskey.
History
Vicki married into, rather than was born into, the island’s large Connaghan family: Lester’s 2005 obituary states he married Victoria Pociask in Chicago and that “Vickie gave him two sons” — Daniel and Robert — before she predeceased him on November 23, 1978. She and Lester made the island their year-round home from June 1975, after decades based in Chicago while Lester worked the lakes. She died November 23, 1978, age 69, at a Traverse City nursing home; funeral services were held at Holy Cross Church and she was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery. Her obituary names surviving sons Daniel, then of Cromwell, Connecticut, and Robert, then of Albuquerque, New Mexico — Daniel later became a Roman Catholic priest, officiating at his father’s own 2005 funeral — and a sister, Mrs. Loretta Mancevella of Chicago.
Evidence and limits
Vicki Connaghan is not the “Vickie Connaghan” who was a daughter of Hugh and Catherine L. "Katie" Connaghan. Separate Beacon notices from the 1960s and a 2009 obituary identify a different woman, “Vickie Connaghan Dudley McDermott” — later Mrs. Robert McDermott — as one of Katie Connaghan’s eight surviving daughters, mother of Charles “Chuckie” Dudley (1942–2009). The shared first name and married-into-the-family surname invite exactly this kind of conflation; this article documents only Lester’s wife, born Pociask. The 2005 obituary’s marriage date for Lester and Vicki appears in the source as “Nov 4, 1934,” which would place the marriage twelve years before Lester’s own 1922 birth; this is almost certainly a transcription error and is not repeated here as a fact.
Open questions
- What was Vicki (Pociask) Connaghan’s family background in Chicago?
- What was the correct year of her marriage to Lester Connaghan?
See also
Kin
Sources
- Names Mrs. Lester (Vicki) Connaghan as a patient at Little Traverse Hospital in Petoskey. The exact spouse/name pairing bridges the record to the cemetery entry for Victoria A. (Pociask) Connaghan, spouse of Lester Connaghan; the cemetery gives only years.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1974-01_Beaver-Beacon
- The held six-page issue scan is paired with the OCR source and confirms the published notice or report; it does not expand the source-specific identity, event, or outcome claims.data1 · beaver-island-archive · scans · beaver_beacon · issues · 1974-01_Beaver-Beacon
- Lists Victoria A. (Pociask) Connaghan (1909–1978), spouse of Lester Connaghan.
- Reports the November 23, 1978 death of Mrs. Lester Connaghan, 69, at a Traverse City nursing home; funeral at Holy Cross Church and interment at Holy Cross Cemetery; states she had been an island resident since June 1975, formerly of Chicago; and names surviving sons Daniel of Cromwell, Connecticut, and Robert of Albuquerque, New Mexico, one grandson, and a sister, Mrs. Loretta Mancevella of Chicago. The holding institution's portal restricts automated access; the archive holds a copy of this issue and can provide it on request.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 1978-11_Beaver-Beacon
- Beaver Beacon, February 2005, "Lester D. Connaghan" (obituary).Lester's own obituary states he married Victoria Pociask in Chicago, that she gave him two sons, and that she predeceased him on November 23, 1978 (matching the 1978 obituary above). It gives his birth as September 25, 1922, in the same paragraph as the marriage date, which the OCR renders as "Nov 4, 1934" — twelve years before his own birth, and almost certainly a transcription error for a later year; the marriage date is not asserted here. It also states Lester's parents were Hugh and Catherine "Katie" Malloy Connaghan, and that Hugh's own grandparents, Hugh Connaghan (b.1834) and Bridget O'Donnell (b.1854), came from Arranmore Island, County Donegal, Ireland. No public copy of this file is known; the archive holds one and can provide it on request.data1 · beaver-island-archive · beaver_beacon · 2005-02_Beaver-Beacon
Added 1 August 2026 · revised 4 August 2026. Recent changes
Cite this article
Beaver Island Archive, “Victoria A. "Vicki" Connaghan”, https://beaverislandarchive.org/people/victoria-a-vicki-connaghan/, accessed [date], citing Beaver Beacon, January 1974, “Hospital Notes.” (and 4 further sources listed on the page).
Last revised 2026-08-04. Fill in [date] with the date you read it — this page is static and cannot know that.
BibTeX for “Victoria A. "Vicki" Connaghan”RIS for “Victoria A. "Vicki" Connaghan”