Herminie Templeton Kavanagh

Who was Herminie Templeton Kavanagh?

Herminie Templeton Kavanagh was a British writer, most known for her short stories.

She was born Herminie McGibney, the daughter of Major George McGibney of Longford, Ireland. She became Herminie Templeton after her first marriage to John Templeton, and Herminie Templeton Kavanagh after her second marriage. Her second husband, Marcus Kavanagh, was a Cook County judge in Chicago, Illinois from 1898 to 1935.

Accounts differ on how she and the judge met, and where and when they married. In July 1908, the Chicago Tribune announced that they would be married at his parent's church in Des Moines, Iowa, but that the judge was "reticent as to the details." Another article in the Tribune, several weeks later, said that Mrs. Templeton had been abandoned by her first husband in Chicago circa 1893. In the course of the clerical work in the city recorder's office by which she supported herself, she met Kavanagh, and they were to be married at the church in County Waterford, Ireland where his parents had been married. "It is said there has been a silent understanding and a wait of over ten years" until news of Templeton's death in 1907, the article explained. But the following day, the Tribune reported that they were married in Dublin, Ireland on 19 August 1908, by a monsignor from Des Moines, Iowa.