John and his family were enumerated in the 1910 US Census taken April 15th at their home on Silverwood Street.  John was 25 years old Alice 23, Elizabeth 4 and John Jr. 2. Also living in the house was Alice's brother Matthew McGooch, age 20.  Matthew's occupation was listed as a carpenter while John’s as a moulder in an iron mill.

September 12, 1918 John complied with the national law that required all males register for the draft. He did so at his local Draft Board at 4215 Manayunk Avenue in Manayunk. Although registered he was never called for service in World War I.

As a young girl, John's niece Trudy Tinneny remembered visiting her Uncle Johnny and Aunt Alice at their home on Silverwood Street.  She recalled that her Aunt Alice always seemed to be ill and resting on a cot which was permanently placed in the dinning room of the home.  Another memory of those visits was her Aunt Alice always had mashed potatoes. 

John's grandson Howard Cossabone recalled the time when John decided to extend the basement under his home on Silverwood Street.  John would excavate the basement by hand and put one or two buckets of dirt out by the side of the street each week with the trash for the trash men to cart away.  

John made his only trip back to Scotland in June of 1925. He sailed from New York to Glasgow aboard the T.S.S. Cameronia arriving June 28th then traveled to Greenock where he visited relatives for several weeks.

According to the ship’s manifest John stayed at 87 Wellington Street in Greenock which was likely the home of a relative. Throughout the visit he inquired about his sister Mary Jane’s husband John McColgan.  McColgan was originally from Greenock and followed Mary Jane to America and married her. The couple settled in New Jersey. Mary Jane died from complications following childbirth leaving John with four young children. Unable to care for them, he took them to an orphanage and left the area never to be seen again.

John and his brother Jim took Mary Jane’s children from the orphanage. John and Alice took Isabella to raise, James and his wife raised Edward. John were raised by John’s sister Margaret and her husband Edward McKenna. Catherine "Kitty" was raised by Barney and Mary Malloy. Additional details about Mary Jane and her family can be viewed at her Biography. 

John didn’t drink alcohol until he was in his 50s and then only a couple of glasses of beer a week. Like some of his siblings who abstained, he may have done so as a result of seeing his father’s issues with alcohol. 

John and Alice’s children were Elizabeth, John, Alice, James, Joseph, and Marie. John and Alice also raised his sister Mary Jane McColgan’s daughter Isabella who, although not formally adopted, used the name Tinneny instead of McColgan.

John had a wonderful sense of humor. His great nephew Richard Tinneny went to school with Jim Tinneny and spent a lot of time at the Tinneny home on Silverwood Street. He had fond memories of these visits.  Aunt Mary always treating him to home made pie, sandwiches, cookies or other treats. He was impressed that his Uncle John always stopping what he was doing and coming into the living room singing, dancing or telling stories.              

The following photos were taken in the back yard of John and Alice’s home on Silverwood Street during what was likely a family Easter gathering in the mid 1930s.                                                                              

All males were once again were required to registered for the draft with the onset of world War II. April 27, 1942, John registered at Local Board 21 located at 471 Levrington Avenue. He was not selected to serve likely because of his age and his employment in a critical civilian occupation at the steel mill that supported the war effort.

John’s wife Alice died in 1942. She was buried shortly before noon on Monday October 26 in Lot no. 267, Section 11,  Westminister Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd. She was buried in the grave with their 7 year old son James who had died in 1918.   

The owners of the burial lot were Alice’s brother and sister-in-law Matthew and Elizabeth McGooch.  Alice was buried in grave 4 of the 4 grave lot.  Her brother Matthew and his wife Elizabeth are buried in grave 1.  John and Alice’s son James was buried in grave 2.  John was also buried in grave 2 in 1960.  Two McGooch family members, Mary and Matthew Jr. were buried in grave 3.

John met his second wife Mary Margaret Redmond at a restaurant near the Midvale Steel Company where he worked.  Mary was the daughter of James Redmond and Bridget Mahr. She was born in England while her parents were on their immigration journey to America. Mary was raised in the Fish Town/Brewery Town section of Philadelphia. She and John were married at Saint Elizabeth’s Catholic Church on North Twenty-Third Street in Philadelphia in 1946. Mary’s sister Frances and her husband Horace Roehmer were sponsors for the ceremony.

Each summer the steel mill closed for 2 weeks. John took advantage of the shutdown to take Mary and Jim to Wildwood, New Jersey for 3 weeks each year.   

Johnny played the piano. He was a great walker and never owned a car.  He would routinely walk from the family home on Silverwood Street up to Ridge Avenue in Roxborough to pick up a bucket of paint, hardware for a projects around the house or to do other shopping.  He and Mary made the long uphill walk right up to the end of his life. 

He followed politics very closely and was a life long Democrat but wasn’t politically active beyond voting.  He kept up on current international, national and local news by reading the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin every day. 

Late May 1960 John began having chest pains that were suspected to be coronary.  He was admitted to Roxborough Memorial Hospital and after about 3 days the doctors decided that it wasn’t coronary after all but probably gall stones.  They operated and removed the stones but the strain of the illness and the operation too much on his heart and it gave way.  Johnny died at the hospital on June 13, 1960.

After a Mass at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church, John was buried shortly before noon Friday, June 17th in Lot No. 267 Section 11 at Westminister Cemetery, Bala Cynwyd, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  

Following are screen captures relating to gravesite Section 11, Lot 267 Westminster Cemetery. The images are from posts by Ken Robinson, great-grandson of John and Alice, on the Findagrave website.

Mary remained in the family home on Silverwood Street until about 1983 at which time her son Jim helped relocate her to the Norlyn Court Apartments in Plymouth Township near his home.  She lived there until, due to health reasons including a broken hip and severe diverticulitis, it was necessary for her to be move into the county home in Oaks, Pennsylvania.  She died 17 or 18 December 1988. Mary was cremated and her ashes placed in the mausoleum in Saint Matthew’s Cemetery in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.

Note: The descendants of John Joseph Tinneny include: Tinnenys in his line, Cossabone, Kamm, O'Neill, Doruozio, Thummel, Long, Schwark, Ford, McDowell, O'Malley, Mullen, Snyderman, Janson, Kratz, Robinson, Graczyk, Whittle, Doruzio