Birmingham Memories

Posted on my Facebook Page - December 16, 2016 Honored by Friends          On this day, December 16, 1943, my Dad, Pvt. Daniel J. Birmingham, 3rd Marine Division was wounded by shrapnel in the back of the head at Bougainville in the Battle of Hellzapoppin Ridge. He was awarded the Purple Heart Medal “for injury received as a result of enemy action in the South Pacific Area” on this date. The Marine next to Dad was killed by the blast.       After being wounded he was evacuated from Bougainville to the U.S. Naval Mobile Hospital N o. 8 in Guadalcanal, then to Naval Base Hospital No. 3 in Espiritu Santo, New Hebrides. Dad arrived back in the states in February of 1944 and spent further recovery time at the Naval Hospital in San Diego until April 1944.      At that time Dad was able to travel back to Pittsburgh where he was reunited with his family and friends. He was honored at a gathering at the Italian-American Club, a fe...

Introduction The BIRMINGHAM family name first appears in Cumberland Maryland in 1851 with the birth of Michael Birmingham, the third child of James and Bridget Birmingham. James Birmingham, born in 1818, and his wife Bridget emigrated from Ireland to the United States, possibly through “British Canada”.  They first arrived in the United States before 1847 and their first child was born in New York. Their emigration was likely a part of the Irish Potato Famine. My great-grandfather, Daniel Birmingham was the brother of James Birmingham. He was born in Ireland on July 3, 1809 and immigrated to the United States in 1830. He first resided in Baltimore where he worked as a Quarryman in the stone quarries north of the city of Baltimore. There he would meet his wife to be, Ellen Collins, also an immigrant from Ireland. They would marry in Baltimore on December 31, 1849. Daniel and Ellen would start their family in Baltimore (Towsontown) where their first six children were born. Aro...