I am looking for information on my great-grandfather, Joseph Brady, born c. 1900. I am not sure where he was born. Here on ancestry.com it says that there was a Joseph Brady born in Nebraska in 1901 whose parents were a John Brady (b. 1860 in Ohio) and a Mary E. Brady (b. 1861 in Illinois), but I am unsure if this is him. I do know for sure that by the early/mid-twenties he was living in Chicago because that was where he met my great-grandmother, Mary Loetscher (Maria Theresia Loetscher). Their only child was my grandfather, Edward Victor Brady, b. 1924 in Chicago.

My dad told me that my grandfather Edward never knew his father. He also told me that back then something bad had happened in the family that caused Mary's sister, Rose, to become a nun because she thought that would make up for whatever “awful sin” was committed. Since I cannot find any record of a marriage license between Mary and Joseph, I assume that my grandfather was born out of wedlock, and that was this "awful thing" that happened in the family. On a few of the census records that I found, it says that Mary Loetscher was single with her child, not widowed or divorced, and on one census it has Edward Brady’s name as Edward Loetscher. So I am quite certain that Joseph and Mary never married.

While my grandfather never knew his father, he was aware of his death when his mother Mary received a call that Joseph was killed by a car in Wisconsin, and she had to have his body brought back to Chicago. I think he died in 1936, but I am not 100% sure. So that is all I know of Joseph Brady. If someone has any information at all on him, I would really appreciate it as I know nothing about my Brady line.