Maria Magdalena Mendivil was born sometime between 1832 and 1839 in Altar, Sonora, Mexico. She came north around 1857 with three of her brothers. While her brothers went on to Monterey, California, in search of work, Magdalena remained with family friends in Yuma. By the time the brothers returned, however, they found that Magdalena had moved in with George Kippen, an agent for a mining company, who was about twenty years older than she.
To date, no record of an actual marriage has been found. Very likely this was because George Kippen was already married to Jane A. Nichols of Fairfield County, Connecticut, by whom he had three children. Sometime after the birth of the third child, George left Connecticut for good. By 1852, he was working as a miner in California.
The 1860 federal census of Colorado, San Diego County, California, shows George Kippen and Madalena Maldives [sic] living there in the same household, although not married. Their first son John was born 1860. John was quickly followed by a daughter, Delfina.
Having had little success at mining, Kippen got a contract to haul supplies from California to the military outposts in Arizona. He was at Camp McDowell, working as a sutler’s clerk and pharmacist, when he died suddenly on 22 February 1868 and was buried in the post cemetery. Because Kippen was a civilian employee, his body was not transferred to the national cemetery in San Francisco when the post was decommissioned in 1891. His headstone can still be seen today at Fort McDowell.
With Kippen dead, Magdalena was hard-pressed to support her children. By 1870 the family were living in the household of a Charles Foster in Arizona City, Yuma County, Arizona. They appear on the 1870 federal census under the surname “Kippin”.
Around 1871, Magdalena met and married a wagonmaster, Frank “Owen” Donnelly, in Yuma, Arizona. Donnelly, an Irish Catholic, had been born around 1837 in the village of Tyme, County Cork, Ireland. Upon immigrating to the United States, he found few job opportunities for Irish immigrants. So, on 21 June 1859, Donnelly enlisted as a private in Battery F, 2nd U. S. Artillery, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and served until he was discharged on 2 May 1862.
Frank “Owen” Donnelly and Magdalena’s first child, Amelia was born 12 April 1872 in Yuma. Isabelle “Lizzie” was born 7 April 1874, and Katherine “Kate” Inez was born 6 December 1878. The Donnellys eventually moved to a ranch near Florence, on the San Pedro River.
By 1890, Frank Owen Donnelly was infirm and living in the Old Soldiers’ Home in Sawtelle, Los Angeles County, California. He died there on 21 September 1894 and was buried in the National Cemetery in Los Angeles. Magdalena received a widow’s pension based on his Civil War service.
On the 1900 federal census, Magdalena was recorded living in Pinal County, Arizona, on the Donnelly ranch with her son John Kippen, daughter Kate Donnelly, and granddaughter Elsie Harrington. She died of pneumonia in Phoenix on 11 February 1905 and was buried in Rosedale Cemetery, Phoenix.
-by Donna
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