CHALFONT, Pennsylvania (GBT) — Julia Ann "Sheila" Graham Cunningham passed away last month at her home in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, at the age of 92. She was born on January 25th, 1929, the daughter of the late Joseph A. Graham, Sr., and Julia Corr Graham.
I visited Aunt Sheila home at home in 2014 and received a wealth of family history information. She had numerous clippings and mass cards that offered various leads of investigation, as well as her own baby book, completed by her mother. Aunt Sheila put me in contact with Eleanor Hentschel, who is the the first cousin I met from the McShane branch of the family. At Eleanor's invitation, attended a McShane family reunion in 2018. Sheila, Eleanor, and I sat down together the following year at Eleanor's home and shared more family history. I had wanted ever since to visit both Sheila and Eleanor again, but work demands have been heavy, and good intentions were postponed. With the onset of the COVID pandemic, those postponements became indefinite.
As COVID restrictions eased in the fall of 2021, I considered inviting Aunt Sheila be the first guest interviewee on my podcast, but I heard, unfortunately, during winter break, that she was unwell. She passed away on January 12th. Here are some excerpts from her obituary, as published in The Intelligencer of Doylestown:
She was the beloved wife of the late James H. Cunningham to whom she was married to for 50 years. … She was born in Philadelphia and resided in Chalfont for 45 years. … Sheila started her career as a junior buyer for Strawbridge & Clothier and retired as a part time salesperson for Fotomat Corporation. … As a longtime member of St. Jude parish, she organized trips for the St. Jude Seniors for nearly 30 years. … Sheila will always be remembered as a loving mother and grandmother. She enjoyed vacationing with family, researching her Irish heritage and crossword puzzles.
Sheila was buried next to her husband, Jim, at St. John Neumann Cemetery in Chalfont. Jim died in 2009. I will remember Aunt Sheila the most for the times that she and her family visited her brother, my grandfather, also Joseph A. Graham, at his summer home in Wildwood, New Jersey, where our families would share long, back-deck conversations together over our favorite food and beverages. My condolences go out to the Cunningham family on the loss of their mother and grandmother. ⬮
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