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...

DECEMBER 7, 1941: This Day in Pittsburgh Everyone alive on this day would remember what they were doing when hearing the news of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Just as future generations would remember where they were on November 22, 1963, and September 11, 2001. The Japanese Attack On this Sunday morning, Japanese bombers under the command of Mitsuo Fuchida were approaching Hawaii’s Hickam Field, a few miles from Pearl Harbor and heading directly for “Battleship Row”. At 0753 hours, in the skies over Hawaii (1:23PM Pittsburgh) Fuchida sang out, “Tora! Tora! Tora!” - Code words which told the entire Japanese Navy that they caught the United States Pacific Fleet unaware. At 1:47PM that afternoon Navy Secretary Frank Knox calls and informs President Roosevelt of the ongoing attack. At 2:05PM President Roosevelt calls Secretary of State Cordell Hull and tells him not to say anything about Pearl Harbor when he receives the Japanese envoys, Nomura and Kurusu, who were to ...

THE BIRMINGHAMS: A FAMILY HISTORY (1809 - 2013) documents the immigration of my paternal great grandparents, Daniel Birmingham and Ellen Collins, from Ireland to Baltimore Maryland in the 1830's and eventually to Cumberland Maryland where they raised their eight children, including my grandfather, Daniel Collins Birmingham. Around 1895 Daniel Collins would move to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania where he would meet his wife, Mary Rodgers. They would eventually settle in the Mt. Washington section of the city where they would raise my father, Daniel James and his sister Mary Rodgers. In 1887 Louis Buchner and his wife Thekla would leave Bavaria Germany for the United States. After a few years in Boston they would also move to Pittsburgh and make their home in Mt. Washington and raise their four surviving children, including my maternal grandfather, Andrew Buchner. In 1913 Andrew would marry Nellie Miller and they would raise their three children, including my mother Helen Marie, in Mt. Wash...