Posted By:	megan riley
	Email:
	Subject:	Coffee (Coffey) Bloomington IL
	Post Date:	July 09, 1998 at 10:41:19
	Message URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/coffee/messages/100.html
	Forum:	Coffee Family Genealogy Forum
	Forum URL:	http://genforum.genealogy.com/coffee/

I am looking for a connection to a Coffey (Coffee) who lived in Bloomington, Illinois, around 1900. It may have been Theodore or Reuben Coffey (both living in Bloomington in 1926). Mr. and Mrs. Coffey raised my father, Clayton Cliff Riley, who was, in theory, orphaned as an infant. His parents (John Robert Riley of Springfield, Ohio?, and Mary Ida McIntyre (sp)) went out and did not return. At the time there was a fire and most of the downtown was burned. This would most likely have been the Great Bloomington Fire of 1900. Mr. Coffey invented something "important" for washing machines, but, according to the story my father told, the company Mr. Coffey worked for "stole" his idea/invention. Mrs. Coffey was something "big" in the church, but which church is unknown. Might have been Roman Catholic or Episcopal. Mrs. Coffey wanted my father to become a "priest", so it may have been Catholic. I do not think the Coffeys had children of their own, but all this is based on recollection only. Any Riley or Coffey information would be most appreciated.