Turner Women, 1931

Adeline Martha Mann Turner with her daughters and and other women relatives. (Click to enlarge.)

Back row: Olive Turner Toye; Elliot Jr., daughter of Wallace Foote Turner; Unknown; Unknown; Unknown.

Front row: Adeline Martha Mann Turner; Jessie Turner Hurt; Marie Embury Turner, wife of Henry Mann Turner.

Very front: Ruth, daughter of Wallace Foote Turner.

Turner Party in Late 1940's NEW PHOTO ADDED!

These pictures were taken at a party at the San Francisco home of Kate Elliot Turner Studt.  Her sister Ruth and Ruth's husband Ted Dement were visiting from Colorado that summer, and the party was to gather the Bay Area Turners together during their visit.

Present were the three surviving Turner siblings (Olive, Henry, Jessie) and spouses and descendants of Turner siblings (including of the deceased Chester and Wallace).  Click the pictures for larger versions.

Who is Mystery Woman?  Of the six siblings and their spouses, all are IDed in the photos or were desceased.  Next-generation Turners not accounted for (excluding the children of William, who grew up out-of-state) are Adeline Toye Cox (b. 1895), Wilber Toye (b. 1900), Arthur Hurt (b. 1901), Fritz Hurt (b. 1903), and Elsie Hurt Wood (b. 1907).  Could Mystery Woman be Adeline Cox or Elsie Wood?  Or the wife of Arthur or Fritz?  (The wives of the men seem less likely, since you'd think the husband would be there too.)  Could Mystery Woman be any of the unidentified women in Turner Women, 1931?

 Seated: Olive with children, not identified here for privacy reasons.
First row standing: Henry; May Noble Turner (widow of Chester); Phyllis Turner LaPlante (daughter of Henry); Mystery Woman; Fred Hurt (husband of Jessie)Rear standing:  Kate Elliot Turner Studt (daughter of Wallace); Ray Studt (husband of Elliot); Ruth Turner Dement (daughter of Wallace); Jessie; Ted Dement (husband of Ruth); Marie Adeline Turner Schrieber (daughter of Henry, with arms around her sister in front of her); Henry Turner Jr. ("Hank," son of Henry, behind his two sisters); Cecile DeLeon Turner (wife of Henry Jr.); Wallace Foot Turner Jr. (son of Wallace, mostly obscured by Mystery Woman); Hazel Olsen Turner (wife of Wallace Jr.).

From left to right the adults are: Henry; Marie Adeline Turner Schrieber; Jessie (obscured); Ted Dement; May Noble Turner; Ruth Turner Dement; Phyllis Turner LaPlante; Olive; Mystery Woman (obscured); Cecile DeLeon Turner; Fred Hurt; teenage girl (known, still living); Henry Turner Jr.

Same grouping.  Adeline Schreiber can now be seen behind Henry.

Clockwise from the man standing alone: Ray Studt; Henry Turner Jr.; Phyllis LaPlante; Henry; Fred Hurt; Adeline Shreiber; Mystery Woman; Jessie; Elliot Studt; Olive; May; Cecile.

The Turners

This post is about the ancestors of Adeline Martha Mann's husband, Clarence Helmer Turner.  They're an interesting bunch.

Clarence's paternal grandparents were Rev. John Turner, a Baptist minister, and Mary Ellis.  They had fifteen children, one being Jesse Foote Turner, Clarence's father.  Also of interest here are Jesse's brothers Milo H. and Peter Helmer.

Jesse was born in New York, and throughout his life he had various occupations, including merchant, attorney, and river boat pilot on the Erie Canal.  He married Eleanor "Ellen" DeGarmo, who supposedly was a cook on the boat he was piloting.  They had at least the following children: Clarence Helmer, Frances C. (died young), Gertrude (died young), Frances "Frankie" (adopted), and Charles H. (died young).

 Ellen (DeGarmo) Turner and Jesse Foote Turner

Jesse and various of his siblings moved to Michigan, where Jesse and Milo worked closely together on various business ventures.  Jesse studied law in Michigan, and became a county judge.  In 1952, Jesse and Milo and their families, along with the widow of their brother Samuel and her children, and Ellen's brother John DeGarmo [check -- did he come at the same time?] moved to California by wagon train.  They were followed some time later by brother William and his family.  At first Jesse's family lived in Placerville, where Jesse held various local political offices, then in Ione near Jackson.  In 1863 he became county judge and they moved to Jackson.  Throughout this time he and Milo continued to work closely together. 

In 1864 the oldest son Clarence married Adeline Martha Mann.  Jessie died in 1871 at age 60.  Clarence and Adeline, Milo and his family, and Ellen all moved to the Bay Area, though not all at the same time.  Milo ended up as a justice of the peace in Walnut Creek, by 1880.  Ellen remarried to Thomas S. Phillips in 1878, but he also predeceased her.  In her later years she lived with Adeline and Clarence at their boarding house.  She died in 1903.

Adeline Toye Cox, granddaughter of Clarence, says in her oral history:

My mother's grandmother's maiden name was Ellen De Garmo, and she couldn t read or write. When she married [Jesse Foote] Turner, who later was a judge in Jackson, the story is that she told him if she was good enough to marry him when she couldn't read or write, why, she was good enough still so she never learned.  It apparently was a problem in her later days, because she -- then a widow -- lived in Berkeley with her son and daughter-in-law, and then the son died, and my grandmother had the boarding house for students. Ellen De Garmo couldn t fill in her time. She couldn't read or write, and she was too old to be trusted with some of the kitchen and cooking and so on, and I ve been told that it
was very difficult for her because she d been a hard worker all her life, and here she was, an appendage.

So why is Jesse's brother Peter Helmer Turner of interest?  Although he stayed in the midwest, his granddaughter Jessie Skinner married Jesse Foote Turner's grandson William DeGarmo Turner.  So William, like his youngest brother Wallace, married a second cousin (on their father's side in William's case, on their mother's side in Wallace's case).

More to follow -- this post is still very incomplete!

The Common Ancestors

Olive Smith and Clement Trowbridge were the great-grandparents of both the Turner and Trowbridge siblings.  Their daughter Olive Lucinda Trowbridge had a daughter Adeline Martha Mann, who was the mother of the Turner siblings.  Their son James Smith Trowbridge had a son Nelson Seymour Trowbridge who was the father of the Trowbridge siblings. (Both Olive Lucinda and James came to California in 1852 with their families, and both ultimately settled in Jackson.)

 Olive Smith was born in 1784 in Clarendon VT, and Clement Trowbridge was born in 1774 in Pomfret, CT.  They were married June 20, 1810 in Sheldon, VT.  They had five children:

• Frances Honor Trowbridge, b. April 20, 1813, married Henry G. Whipple
• Nelson Clement Trowbridge, b. July 8, 1815, married Evaline Oliver
• James Smith Trowbridge, b. December 4, 1816, married Mary Ann Seymour
• Olive Lucinda Trowbridge, b. October 29, 1818, married Henry Rice Mann (then William McKim)
• Adeline Runnels Trowbridge, b. October 11, 1821, married David Lewis Johns

All the children were born in Vermont (Census records).  Clement was "in business" in Cambridge VT, then in 1832 they moved to Medina NY.  Some time later, when James was a young man, the family moved to Albion, MI.  They were among the early settlers of Albion. (Trowbridge genealogy)

May 9, 1846, a masonic lodge was founded in Albion with Clement Trowbridge as the first "W.M.," whatever that is (Calhoun County Business Directory for 1869-70). 

According the Trowbridge Genealogy:

Mr. Trowbridge  was a man of strong character and courageous spirit.  One of his granddaughters (Mrs. Hugh H. Dobbins) has a carving knife made from the point of a British officer's sword, which he wrested from him and broke over the latter's shoulder during the border troubles with the Canadians.

The 1850 Census shows Olive and Clement at ages 64 and 76 living with daughter Adeline and her husband David Lewis Johns, in New York. David was a farmer, and ten years older than Adeline.

Clement died December 22, 1853, in Albion, MI.  After his death, Olive lived with Adeline and David Lewis Johns in Chicago (1860 census).  David was now a lawyer.  Olive died September 14, 1868, in Chicago.

Their daughter Frances and her husband lived in Sheridan, MI, where he worked as a machinist, and then in Galva, IL.  A possible H.G. Whipple, age 40, appears in the 1852 California Census right next to James Smith Trowbridge's and Olive Lucinda Mann's families.  Did the brother-in-law accompany them to California, but then return east?

Their son Nelson and his wife moved to Georgia.  He was a speculator, and owned 30 slaves.  By 1870 they had moved to New York City.  He was retired and they had domestics.

Trowbridge Sisters and Mother?

 These two pictures are from the collection of Elliot, Kate Elliot's oldest child.  The woman on the left in the top picture is Kate Elliot Trowbridge, holding Wallace Jr.  The younger girl is Elliot.  The man in the bottom picture must be Kate Elliot's husband Wallace Turner.

The intriguing question is the identity of the others.  My guess is that the three women are Kate Elliot's sisters Eloise and Olive Rose, and their mother Kate Clayton Trowbridge. (Click the links to see closeups along with other pictures of these individuals.)  The older girl would be Eloise's adopted daughter Hope.  Their ages in this picture would be abt. 37, 25, 66, and 7.  If these identifications are correct, this is the first clear picture of Kate Clayton we have found!

However, the timing is extremely tight. Wallace Jr. was born Feb. 1912, and in these pictures he seems like he has to be at least one year old.  (Though the hair may be deceptive.  Other pictures of him extremely young show a thick head of hair.)  Olive Rose's first child was born in August 1913, and in these pictures she is not visibly pregnant.  We have one source that claims Kate Clayton died in 1913.  Add to all this that they seem to be dressed for Spring (light dresses, though they are carrying coats; one girl has a flowered spring bonnet), and the only possible date for the photos would have to be abt. March 1913.

Another difficulty is that Kate Clayton was an invalid in 1907, though we don't know with what or for how long.  At any rate, the older woman on the right doesn't look like an invalid who will die in less than a year.