Her name has been forgotten in the history of Bradford. Intentionally, perhaps. Married for nearly a decade in the 1920s to the rich son of a Bradford millionaire, she lived the life of a wealthy socialite, but a combination of marital indiscretions and expensive living ended the marriage by 1931. She was Ellen Jane Sweeney, T. Edward Hanley’s first wife.
Ellen Jane Sweeney was born in 1875 in Elk County to Patrick and Walburga Sweeney. She had one sister, Mary, and six brothers, Michael, William, Eugene, Edward, Charles and Clarence. The family relocated to Bradford at the turn of the century and lived for a time at Charlotte Avenue but the Sweeneys had a contentious marriage and Patrick left the family in 1904 and moved to Salamanca. The brothers found jobs, married, and moved to other towns; Mary became a nun, Sister M. Devota, in Erie. And Ellen? Ellen was determined to lead a very different life; preferably one with money.
She moved to New York City to become an artist and clothes designer, and transformed herself into a sophisticate. She met T. Edward Hanley there in the early 1920s. Hanley was 26 years old; Ellen Jane was 45. Hanley was a bit of a playboy in his youth, the son of William Hanley, a Bradford millionaire who had earned a fortune in brick manufacturing, construction, gas, and oil.
Edward was a successful businessman, intelligent, wealthy, and handsome. Hanley served in World War I, although he never went overseas, and was a graduate of Harvard University in 1915. He was a member of the local “Saints and Sinners” club, noted for wild parties and women. It was said “Ed had always been attracted to entertainers, and because of him Bradford was frequently visited by show people, sports figures, and circus performers.”
While details of their courtship are unknown, Ellen had an advantage — she had lived in Bradford, and her family were Catholics; an important consideration to T. Edward Hanley’s father, William Hanley, a pious and devout Catholic. In 1924 William Hanley would be honored with the Knighthood of Gregory the Great, the highest honor a layman could receive from the Catholic church. A personal letter from Pope Pius XI himself occupied the award. No doubt Hanley Sr. viewed the coming marriage with concern.
Nevertheless, Ellen Jane Sweeney and Thomas Edward Hanley were married in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Nov. 26, 1923. His father, William Hanley and a few other friends were present. Her mother, Walburga Sweeney, had died in 1910; none of her family attended.
Ellen Jane and T. Edward returned to Bradford and bought a house at 501 East Main Street in July 1924. The home was the former residence of Russell Case, who built a new home just down the street. This white two-story house, which is still standing, would be eventually be the home and future location of the art collection of Hanley’s second wife, Tullah.
The Hanleys built a new garage in 1924, and Ellen Jane created a studio on the second floor. A fire in February 1926 badly damaged the garage and destroyed two cars stored inside. With her studio gone, Ellen Jane decided to travel. She left that fall for an extensive visit to India and visited with friends at the palace of the Maharajah of Alwar.
Upon her return in May 1927, she was interviewed by the New York Times. During her trip, she met with several Indian leaders, including Rabindranath Tagore (writer, poet, social reformer, and the first non-European to receive the Nobel prize in literature) and Mahatma Gandhi. She said “I think far more of meeting Gandhi in his home six miles from the Sabarmati River than I do of any of my talks with other distinguished Hindus.”
“Gandhi’s health is improved, which was due, his son told us, to his enforced rest during the two and a half years he was in prison. He is very active and not so thin and fragile as I expected. He was much interested in America and said he would like to visit this country, but his work lay in India with his own people.”
She also shot a full-grown tiger while visiting the Maharajah. “Tiger shooting is not such great or dangerous sport as one would imagine it to be,” she said. “We had 100 elephants, 200 beaters, and 100 footmen who formed a huge circle with the elephants on one side and when the tiger emerged from the jungle I felt sorry for the big striped beast. He never had a chance.”
Upon Ellen Jane’s arrival back in the states, she returned to Bradford, but continued to travel frequently on Hanley’s money. Eventually, her long absences from home took their toll and the marriage began to unravel.
William Hanley, Edward’s father, became suspicious and hired a private detective to investigate her absences and soon reported to Edward that Ellen Jane had been seeing other men.
A Reno, Nevada divorce soon followed in May 1931. T. Edward Hanley returned to Bradford, but all traces of Ellen Jane Sweeney Hanley vanished. Whether she took back her maiden name, remarried, or left the country is unknown. The date of her death remains a mystery as well.
T. Edward Hanley, however, found love again. Fourteen years later, he would meet another woman, Tullah Innes, and marry her in December 1948. But that’s another story.
