Rosemary Dobbins Lloyd

Papa Nelson Trowbridge had a sister, Mary Eloise Trowbridge,

who married a man named Dobbins.  He was a Presbyterian minister, and they lived in various places around California and ended up back in the bay area, where they were a socially prominent family.

Among their many children were Hugh Trowbridge Dobbins (1866-1943) and Rosemary Dobbins (1869-1959).  Rosemary attended Cal in 1888!  Earliest I've found yet of the women in our family who attended Cal.

Hugh became a Presbyterian minister like his father, and in 1895, at age 29, married Roberta Tomlin Lloyd,

daughter of Lewis Marshall Lloyd,

a Missouri state senator, Confederate army captain and prisoner of war, turned Los Angeles land baron and inventor.  The wedding made the society news, and Rosemary was one of the bridesmaids.  At the time of the wedding the Lloyds lived at the corner of Oxford and Rose in Berkeley, I'm guess at this house:

But wait, there's more!  Eighteen years later, Rosemary, who had remained single and been an active and prominent society woman in the bay area, married Lewis Marshall Lloyd himself, her brother's father-in-law.  He was 77 and she was 44 at the time of the wedding, and his first wife had died two years before.  Lewis and Rosemary lived in Los Angeles, and after his death nine years later she returned to Berkeley.  Here is Rosemary in later years:

  This story is interesting for its own sake, but it also connects to my immediate family.  Rosemary was the older cousin with whom my grandmother Elliot lived when she was a student at Cal.

From Elliot's affidavit:

I entered the University of California in the Fall semester, 1927, majoring in English as my father had intended that I should become an English teacher. In October of that year my mother died suddenly, two weeks before the anticipated birth of a child. Since my step-father was ill at the time, I took charge of the household and funeral arrangements, and for the rest of the semester cared for the family while continuing my studies at the University of California. At the end of the semester my stepfather secured a housekeeper and I moved to live with a distant cousin, Mrs. Rosemary Lloyd, in Berkeley. I lived with her for the next three years while my brother and sister remained with my stepfather.  

It's interesting that Elliot refers to her as a distant cousin.  She was the first cousin of Elliot's mother, so Elliot's first cousin once removed.  But I suppose if they weren't close it could feel like a distant relative.  I imagine that Elliot felt very much like the poor churchmouse relation. 

From notes that I took during a conversation with Elliot when I was in high school:

[After high school] Elliot went to live with Aunt Rosemary, her mother’s cousin on the Trowbridge side, who had married a wealthy man, who died.  Elliot lived with the maid.  It was a big house, with silver at the place settings and so on.  Elliot “learned by stumbling.”  After her mother died Elliot moved back to take care of [siblings] Ruth and Wallace.  It was evident that [stepfather] Frank was madly looking for a new wife.  She went back to live with Rosemary again.

Note that the chronology is unclear -- did she go to live with Rosemary when she started college, or only after her mother died?   

Rosemary's house in Berkeley was 2844 Garber Path (phone directory) or 2845 Garber Path (census), just across the street.  I'm inclined to trust the former.

The overall impression is that Elliot was very uncomfortable there.  I recall a story Elliot told me about being obliged to share a room, and indeed a bed, with a maid, and how much she resented it.  It's unclear if this was at Rosemary's house or some other house where she worked, since the affidavit says: "I spent my next three summers doing domestic work by which I was able to earn enough to continue college."  (But if she spent that three years living with Rosemary, it seems unlikely that she would have physically moved out to go do domestic work for the summers. Hence it seems likely that she shared a bed with the maid at Rosemary's house.)

The census shows a Helen Perry, age 23, living at Rosemary's house at the same time as Elliot.   Was this the maid? She is listed as a "guest" while Elliot is listed as "cousin."  Like Elliot, she is listed as in school, and not employed.  Could she have been working for Rosemary to work her way through school?  Could Rosemary have been too polite or embarassed to admit it to the census taker?  Further sleuthing on Helen Perry shows she came from a family of farmers, and didn't finish college until age 33 while still single, presumably because she was supporting herself.  Since she wasn't a relative, this definitely sounds like someone Rosemary would have hired as an employee, not taken in socially as a "guest."  Perhaps the situation at Rosemary's house was rather fluid and undefined, with both Elliot and Helen expected to do domestic work in exchange for their board?  Perhaps the domestic work Elliot did was actually for Rosemary, for pay, during the summers, and Elliot herself was too embarassed to say so directly?