WILLIAMSBURG — The last name Dunphy is iconic in Williamsburg and remains honored, plastered on the front door of the Anne T. Dunphy School. For just a brief moment when the new school was going up, there was discussion to change its namesake, but the community said absolutely not.
Descendants of the Dunphys haven’t had a family reunion since 1915. That changed last week when the Dunphy diaspora met in Williamsburg, drawing family members from as far as Texas and New Jersey.
And like any family, when the relatives got together there was a mix of family myth and hard facts extracted from newspapers and obituaries that stirred conversations.
The majority of the seven family members present were meeting each other for the first time. What they shared was a belief in the importance of keeping family stories alive.
“When people die, families fade out,” said Ann Dunphy Becker of Texas, who made the trip to visit the town her ancestors settled in.
After her father died, she took it upon herself to start researching the family. She dug through photographs, census records, documents and old stories, eventually connecting with relatives and descendants she had never met.
“I just started digging and digging,” she said.
Gathered around a table in the Meekins Library, those present passed around pictures, noting resemblances to descendants in the room, and pointing out how the old family house at 103 Main St. has gone relatively unchanged. They also discussed how Dunphys tend to have deep voices, and more sons than daughters.
Becker pieced together a history stretching back to 19th-century Irish immigrants. The family traces its roots in the area to John Dunphy and Mary Cody, who came from Ireland around 1856. They eventually settled in the Haydenville area and had a large family — 12 children, 10 of them boys. One son died young, leaving what became known as the “Dunphy Nine,” the nine brothers whose descendants spread across the region and beyond.
The brothers followed different paths. Some worked in the mills and brass works that powered the local economy. Others became doctors, dentists, lawyers and Catholic priests.
The family also left a mark on local institutions. Anne Dunphy, for whom the Anne T. Dunphy School was named, was a teacher and principal.
“It’s a classic American story,” said Christopher Dunphy, who came from West Springfield. “This couple fleeing Ireland, you know, in the potato famine, looking for a new life for themselves, and then they find each other in this small little village of Haydenville.”
Catherine Koulgeorge, whose maiden name is Dunphy, said she knew her grandfather, Ed Dunphy, was the eldest of the nine brothers’ descendants in her branch of the family. But beyond that, she knew little of the family’s history.
“I really didn’t know a lot,” she said. “I knew that my grandfather Ed Dunphy was the eldest, and beyond that, I didn’t really know too much history about the family, so I was just anxious to learn more.”
Tony Papirio, who lives in Belchertown, said he grew up with pieces of the family history but came to the reunion with a renewed appreciation for how much had been lost.
His grandfather was Dr. Henry Dunphy, a physician and orthopedic surgeon who practiced in Palmer. Papirio spent his first few years living with his grandparents in an ancestral home before moving to Pittsfield.
“From all the memories that I have, which are kind of, I guess, just as historians would consider folkloric memories, the fact that Anne is doing this brings up so many memories of my past,” he said.
“There are stories and things that I never thought anybody would ever be interested in hearing about again,” Papirio said.
That is what makes the reunion meaningful to him.
“A lot of this stuff is, you know, it disappears with the people,” he said. “I think it’s a fascinating thing.”
