Nelson Seymour Trowbridge and Adeline Martha Mann Turner were cousins whose families moved to Jackson CA in the gold rush. They grew up and had six children each. Two of their kids married each other and became my great grandparents. You can contact me at mlwilson at ucsc dot edu.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Adeline Martha Mann & Clarence Helmer Turner, parents of the Turner siblings

Adeline Martha Mann was the granddaughter of Clement Trowbridge and Olive Smith, and the daughter of Olive Lucinda Trowbridge and Henry Rice Mann:

Henry Rice Mann was a cabinet-maker.  They married in Michigan, and they had four children: Marian, Henry R. Jr., Adeline, and Hetty.

Henry Rice Mann came to California in the gold rush.  His diary of the trip is in the Bancroft Library, and we have a digital copy.  Olive Lucinda and the children followed some time later by covered wagon (possibly accompanied by her brother James Smith Trowbridge and his family, and brother-in-law Henry G. Whipple, without his family), only to receive news on the way that Henry Rice Mann had been killed by a bear.  (A captive bear, not a wild bear.)  Adeline was about 7 at this time.  The family continued to California, and Olive Lucinda became a hotel keeper in Jackson (1852 Census).  She eventually eventually married her late husband's business partner, William McKim:

Adeline grew up and married Carence Helmer Turner, son of Eleanor "Ellen" De Garmo and Jesse Foote Turner.  Adeline, Clarence, and their children eventually moved to the bay area in the 1880's, where Adeline ran a boarding house for students at 2239 Dwight Way and Clarence worked as a bookkeeper.  His mother Ellen lived with them.

The right-hand picture was taken in 1902.  The adults on the left side are Adeline, Clarence, and Ellen DeGarmo (rear); The three younger women on the right side are Jessie (rear), Olive, and Chester's wife May (far right).  The two children are probably Olive's children Adeline (age 6/7) and Wilber (age 1/2).  Jessie had a ~1 yr old son, but he apparently isn't in this picture.  May and Chester had no children as far as we know.  Wallace wasn't married yet, Henry had recently married and had no children yet, and William's family lived out-of-state, so there were only three Bay Area grandchildren at this time.  (This is a scan of a photocopy.  Eventually we will get a scan of the original.  The adults are identified on the back of the photograph in a note written by Phyllis Embury Turner LaPlante.)

Here are Adeline and Clarence in about 1903.  

Adeline Cox (grandaughter of Adeline & Clarence, through their daughter Olive) says in her oral history:
[They moved to the bay area] well, for whatever reason, either his drinking problem or the fact that there were very few opportunities for work for young people. My grandmother came to San Francisco in the 80s somewhere to size up the situation and left my mother in charge of the household and the younger children. My mother [Olive Eleanor Trowbridge] at that time was fourteen or fifteen years old. Eventually she had trouble controlling the rest of the children, so she has told me, and so she, I guess, got word to her mother that [she should] fish or cut bait, and the family moved to San Francisco. My mother s uncle, my grandmother s brother [Henry Rice Mann Jr.], was a very well known insurance man in San Francisco. Mann and Wilson was the name of the firm. He was in the state legislature a time or two and was well to do. We were always the poor relations, and my mother was very aware of that.
[My mother] worked in an office in San Francisco, in the insurance company.  He gave employment to a number of cousins and to my grandfather, his brother-in-law.  So, they lived then in San Francisco, and it was some time later that they moved to Berkeley and they bought this big house on Dwight Way; they bought it from a relative.
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.

Clarence died around 1905 (an error in the Cox oral history says 1929).  According to Adeline Cox's oral history, she sold the house and went to keep house for her youngest son Wallace, then unmarried.  It's unclear whether she then lived with others of her children (Adeline Cox says she "lived around with her children"), but she ended up with her daughter Olive in Alameda.  She died March 15, 1932.

Adeline's brother Henry Rice Mann Jr. moved to Sacramento (1866) and then to San Francisco where he worked in the insurance business and lived at 843 Mission (1873), then at 3004 Sacramento (1886) then at 2011 California (1890) (CA Voter Registers).

Nelson Seymour Trowbridge Sr. & Jessie C. "Katie" Clayton, parents of the Trowbridge siblings

Pictures of Katie and Nelson taken by their adult daughter, Jessie June, during the family's time in Alaska.

Here are two pictures that we have tentatively identified as Kate Clayton Trowbridge.  They were taking at what appears to be a spring outing, next to or on a boat, with three of her daughters and their children.  If our identifications are correct, this must have been spring 1913, so it would have been shortly before she died.


It seems like this woman has to be related to the Trowbridge siblings.  The resemblance to Eloise, Nelson Jr., and Olive Rose is striking, particularly the shape of the lower half of the face and the nose. Kate C. is the most likely identification, based on age and who else is in the full picture.

Katie was born October 23, 1848 in Dudleyville, AL.  Her father, Joshua Elliot Clayton, came to California in the gold rush, and we have a digital copy of his diary from that time.  At some point the family joined him in California (need to do more research on this).

Nelson was born July 6, 1845 in Battle Creek, MI.  He was 6' tall, brown hair, brown eyes (1). He was the grandson of Olive Smith and Clement Trowbridge, the common ancestors of the two families.   His father was James Smith Trowbridge, and his mother was Mary Ann Seymour. The family lived in Emmet, MI, in 1850, and moved to California in 1852, when Nelson was 7.

From "The Bay of San Francisco": "accompanied his parents across the plains to California, in 1852, first locating at Shingle Springs, El Dorado county, where the father engaged in mining until 1854, at which time the family removed to Jackson, Amador county.  He graduated at the State Normal School in May, 1866, and taught school in several places in California; became the bookkeeper for the Oneida Mining Company in January, 1869; later he went to Santa Cruz and clerked a year.  In 1871, he went to Nevada and engaged in merchandising and mining until 1890, when he came to Berkeley and formed the partnership already mentioned; but he is still interested in business in Nevada.”

Here is a list of facts that helps to trace Katie and Nelson's travels:
  • July 1845 Nelson born in Battle Creek MI
  • 1852 Nelson's family moved to Shingle Springs
  • 1852 Nelson's family lived in Calaveras county (Calif census)
  • 1854 Nelson's family moved to Jackson
  • 1866 Nelson graduated from Calif State Normal School
  • 1866 Nelson lived in Sacramento, occupation manufacturer (Calif Biographical Great Books)
  • 1866 voter registration, Sacramento, 
  • April 20, 1866, voter registration in Jackson, age 21, profession teacher (also lists his father, James Smith Trowbridge, occupation farmer, age 49)
  • Jan 1869 became bookkeeper for Oneida Mining Company
  • May 1869 married
  • July 1870 living in Amador Township #1 (post office: Jackson), Nelson was a clerk for a mine (census record)
  • Abt 1870 James born
  • 1871 lived in Santa Cruz and worked as a clerk (voter registration record).
  • 1871 moved to Nevada
  • 1872 James died in Eureka Nevada
  • 1874 Jessie June born in Utah
  • 1875 Tybo, Nye County, Nevada, merchant (Nevada census)
  • abt 1877 Eloise born in Nevada
  • 1880 living in Nye County Nevada, merchant
  • abt 1882 Leslie born
  • 1886 Kate Elliot born
  • 1888 Nelson Jr. born
  • 1888 (Trow. Gen.) or 1890 (Bay of SF) moved back to Berkeley, formed mercantile business
  • 1890 voter registration, merchant, Durant Ave. east of Choate in Berkeley 
  • 1891 co-founded the First Unitarian Church of Berkeley
  • abt. 1891 Olive Rose born
  • 1894 took charge of the Bald Eagle Mine in Sumdum Alaska (family moved back & forth 4 times in the next 5 years)
  • 1896 lived at 2119 Bancroft in Berkeley, and his profession was listed as mining (1)
  • abt 1899 moved back to Berkeley (i.e. no longer based in Alaska) due to ill health, ran mines in different counties until 1904
  • 1900 census Berkeley, all kids but Jessie June living with them, plus nephew Nelson Gunn
  • 1904 moved to Glen Ellen, started a poultry farm with Jessie June (Trowbridge Genealogy)
  • 1910 Kate living with Leslie & William Brown, Nelson Sr. presumably dead
  • 1913 Kate died (according to Tami Allred on Ancestry.com)



(1) 1896 voter registration record

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Turner Siblings

The six Turner siblings were Jesse William De Garmo, Olive Eleanor, Henry Mann, Chester Helmer, Jessie Gertrude, and Wallace Foote.  All were born in Jackson, the gold-rush town where their parents grew up (with the exception of the second child, Olive, who was born in Surprise Valley).  The family eventually moved to Berkeley in the 1880's, where the mother Adeline ran a boarding house for students at 2239 Dwight Way and the father Clarence worked as a bookkeeper.  His mother Ellen De Garmo Turner, lived with them.  The older siblings would have been nearing or in adulthood at the time of the move.  Only the youngest two siblings, Jessie and Wallace, attended Cal.

Wallace Foote Turner






Wallace Foot Turner (or Wallace Foote Turner) was the youngest of the Turner siblings.  Born August 16, 1878 in Jackson CA, he moved as a child with his mother and siblings to San Francisco and then Berkeley.  He attended Cal, graduating in 1905, at the age of 27.  (Why the delay in going to college?)  Starting in 1907 he may have lived in Glenn Ellen along with his mother Adeline Mann Turner, sister Olive Turner Toye, and niece Adeline Toye, commuting to Vallejo to teach while the family ran a poultry farm together.  (Adeline Toye Cox's oral history mentions an uncle in this context, and Wallace seems like the only possibility.)  This would also fit with the family story that he courted Kate Elliot Trowbridge when she was a piano teacher in -- memories vary -- Ione or Glen Ellen.  (The Trowbridge parents and some children moved to Glen Ellen in 1904, also to do poultry farming -- Trowbridge Genealogy.  This was probably not a coincidence.  The Turner mom and the Trowbridge dad were first cousins who grew up together in Jackson, so they presumably stayed in touch.)

Wallace and Kate Elliot married October 24, 1908, in Oakland. He was eight years older than her.  Their first child, Kate Elliot Jr., was born Dec. 2 1909, in Esparto, where Wallace had a teaching position.  Their second child, Wallace Foot Jr., was born Sept. 21 1912 in Ione.  According to a living family member, he was the superintendent of Preston, The California boys reformatory.  He eventually took a teaching position in Santa Barbara, where [fill in details].  Their third child, Adeline Ruth, was born there Nov. 26, 1916.

Near the end of WWI (for about the last 18 months of it) he went to Europe with the YMCA, and returned with health problems that incapacitated him.  He was unable to work, and the family moved inland to Lancaster CA for his health.  The family ran a small dairy farm there.  He died May 31, 1922, at the age of 43.

The top right picture is intriguing.  It's a tintype that was found in Elliot Jr.'s collection.  The young man is clearly Wallace, but is the woman Kate Elliot?  The nose, mouth, and eyebrows look right, not so much the eyes or hair.  But it seems unlikely that Elliot Jr. would have kept a photo of her father and another woman!  If it is her, then this was probably taken during their courtship, perhaps in Glenn Ellen or somewhere they went on a day trip?

The bottom two photos are from the 1914 and 1916 yearbooks of Santa Barbara High School. 


Jessie Gertrude Turner


 With sister Olive, and with niece Elliot:
  

With Elliot, Olive, and husband Fred:


The second-youngest Turner sibling, born Jan. 4, 1876, in Jackson CA.  She attended Cal (class of 1897), and married Frederick Octavius Hurt, who was from England.  Family lore is that he proposed to her by Strawberry Creek on the Cal campus. They lived in Berkeley in a house that they had built at 2197 Regent St.

The 1900 Census shows her living with her parents at age 24, and it says she's a university teacher.