Illustrating James Mulvaney's Life

When my cousin Maureen saw that I'd begun posting the documents she'd sent me from her grandfather's life, she sent along a few pictures of him as a young man.

This first picture, Maureen tells me, is possibly of James in the Army Fire Corps. She thinks he may be on the left, in the middle of the group of three. I agree that that's certainly the person in this photograph who looks most like James in the pictures that follow.

This is a photograph of James Mulvaney from his time in the Army. If you look closely, you can see that the buttons on his uniform bear patriotic American Eagle insignia.

This last photograph is of James Mulvaney as a young firefighter for the NYFD.

*******

Now to see what you think, I'm going to repost a mystery picture that we've thought might be of James as a young boy.

Maureen found this among her aunt's things, so we believe, though we don't know, that the subjects are Mulvaneys, most likely James, since, after all, it was in the possession of the James Mulvaney family. James was the oldest of the Mulvaney siblings, so it makes sense that he may have had to pose with each new sibling, too. If the boy is James, it could even be possible that the baby is Nana (Veronica Mulvaney Mulcahy Hopkins), who was the youngest of his siblings. The swarming children at the margin of this photograph lend credence to that theory, as well: James is the oldest, posing with Veronica the youngest (or maybe Harold, second youngest), while the middle children - Mae, Grace, Tom, Willie, Raymond - run around and play. And I think the boy in this picture looks like the James Mulvaney in the pictures above. What do you think? Of course, even if they do look alike, most of the other candidates for the identification of the older boy in the last picture are relatives of James; they'd look like him anyway! I'm interested to know, though, whether you see the resemblence, too. What do you think?