The Other Pendergast
Usually when people talk about the name Pendergast in Kansas City they’re talking about Tom, or Jim. Dr. Bill Worley in the Kansas City Tribune has an article on who he terms The Other Pendergast - Mike.
Michael Pendergast and Mary Reidy were both from County Tipperary in Ireland. They were married in Ohio in 1855. 2 years later they moved from Gallipolis, Ohio to St Joseph, Missouri where siblings of Michael had settled earlier. With them they took the baby, Jeames.
In St Joseph Michael & Mary settled permanently and more children were born, among them young Michael and the Tom. In 1876 the eldest, Jim, moved to Kansas City where he was followed by his siblings including Tom by late 1894 when he was 22.
And you know what happened next. The article in the Tribune is about Mike -”the forgotten Pendergast who deserves to be remembered” but given there were 9 Pendergast children I’ll bet there’s more than a few of them that are forgotten.
But, there was another Pendergast—Mike. If you had asked Harry Truman about the Pendergasts, he would have told you he respected Tom, but he loved Mike. You see, it was Mike and his son Jim who appeared in Harry Truman’s haberdashery in the spring of 1922 to suggest that the former Army captain run for political office in Jackson County. That has to have been one of the all-time most important political parleys in Kansas City history, and Tom Pendergast was not in the room!
Anyway, history is good - especially when told by an historian - so have a read of Worley’s article for a taste of what the children of some the early Irish immigrants to the region were doing.
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