Chester Helmer Turner

We have little information about Chester and his wife May, probably because they had no children and so there was no one to pass on stories.  Chester was born May 7, 1873, in Jackson CA, the fourth of the six Turner siblings.  The family was still living in Amador Co. in 1880, but he would have still been a child when the family moved to the Bay Area. 

In 1896, age 22, voter registration shows him living at the family home at 2239 Dwight Way in Berkeley, working as a clerk.  He was 5'5" as is described as light skinned, brown hair and brown eyes.  (The same record lists his father Clarence Helmer Turner, age 55, same address, and father's cousin Nelson Seymour Trowbridge, age 51, living at 2119 Bancroft.  Presumably the two families were in close contact.)

When he was ~24 he married Margaret May Noble, also ~24, known in our family as Aunt May.  She was born in Montana (1910 census) or Wyoming (1930 census) and her parents were born in Ohio. According to the 1940 census, she had an 8th grade education.

In 1910 they were living in Lassen County, Township 3, where he was a farmer, "working out" (working for someone else). 

In 1918 his draft registration card shows his permanent residence at 716 Market St., Oakland, but place of employment as Winnemucca, NV.  He was working as a carpenter for Western Pacific Railroad.  May was living at the Oakland address, and he registered in Oakland.  He was 45 years old by this time, which explains the relatively late date of draft registration.  He is described as short and slender.

I have a note of them living in Newcastle, Placer County, CA, and also of them having an almond orchard.  Date and source uncertain.

He died Sept. 27, 1929, at the age of 56.  After his death, May moved to Alameda.  The 1930 census shows her at age 57 living with Olive and Fred Toye (Olive was Chester's sister), and the mother of the Turner siblings, Adeline Martha Mann Turner.  In the 1940 census, at age 67, she was living in an apartment on Sutter Street in San Jose and working as a labeler for a coffee company.  She died 15 Sep 1959 at age 86 in Alameda (county or city?).