THE L. D. BAUN FAMILY

by

Ruth Baun Sayer

 

Transcriber’s Note:

This article appeared in the Sutter County Historical Society News Bulletin, July 1973.

In addition to the text there are photographs which unfortunately do not copy well.

If anyone is interested in viewing the photos, the Marysville Library

(Yuba County, California) has a copy of this publication.

Bracketed [] entries were added by transcriber.

---

One day while I was browsing in the library of the Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts, the librarian smilingly commented, “Just like eating peanuts, isn’t it!”  Yes, genealogical searching is very interesting.  My children and others of their generation in our family got me started and it has stimulated me to do considerable reading – I have a new appreciation of the soul searching our colonists did before declaring their independence of Britain; the seemingly unsurmountable odds under which Washington labored with untrained troops and no real authoritative government to support the war; and life in those days was truly rugged!  We just cannot adequately appreciate what went into the forming of these United States.  Then, the War of 1812.  We had something of a navy by then and I had not known the significant part it played in winning that war.  And, can you picture Radio City, New York having been a farm; as well as most of Manhattan, even as late as 1858?  The city was huddled at the tip of that island.  That is the way Grandpa J. F. Baun of Wheatland first knew New York City.

But I was asked to write about my parents and something of their ancestors.  Because Mama was the seemingly more dominate personality, she may be remembered more vividly than Papa; but I will begin with him because he really was the head of our family and she wanted it that way.  What follows is largely from things Mama told me; verified by newspaper items Mr. Ramey [Earl Ramey?] found, research in San Francisco libraries by Cousin Ruth Hutchinson; Papa’s Philippine letters; and recollections of Cousin Claudine Baun Rolufs of East Nicolaus [Sutter County, California] and myself, Ruth Baun Sayer of Rhode Island, where I came to live in December, 1928.

Louis Daniel Baun, “L. D.” to most people, eldest child of John Frederick and Elizabeth (Pinner) Baun, was born in Wheatland, Yuba County, California, July 13, 1873.  He attended Wheatland public schools, a preparatory school in Berkeley named Baptist College, and received his degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1897.  He majored in Latin and Greek; one suspects his mother had hopes of his becoming a clergyman; he was a Lay Reader in the Wheatland Episcopal Church before his marriage.

It was while teaching in the Virginia School, Yuba County that he became acquainted with Winifred Morrison, daughter of John Hobson and Henrietta Maria [Marie] (Scott) Morrison.  The “Marysville Appeal” for June 21, 1900 carries a most complimentary account of these two young people.  They were married in the early evening of June 20, 1900.  “The parlors were handsomely decorated for the occasion, the young couple standing beneath a floral horseshoe while the Rev. W. L. Clark of Benicia spoke the words that made them man and wife.”  (The Episcopal Church in Wheatland was a mission church.  I presume that the Rev. Mr. Clark had served there at some time.)

“A. J. Dickie of San Mateo acted as best man while Miss Ethel Emery of Chico made a charming bridesmaid.”  (Dickie was a college classmate of my father’s.  Mama attended Chico Normal School for one year and I assume Ethel Emery was her friend there.)

“The bridegroom is the eldest son of J. F. Baun, an old and much respected resident of Wheatland.  . . .He has taught school for three years and has been classed as a very successful instructor.  There are few brighter young men in Yuba County.”

“The bride is one of Yuba County’s most charming daughters.  She is a young lady possessed of every virtue that should adorn a true woman, and she will undoubtedly make a most dutiful and loving wife.”

“After the nuptial knot had been tied, the guests were invited by Mr. and Mrs. John Morrison to participate in the wedding feast.  . . .They left on the California Express for San Francisco.”  (Mama told me this train never stopped at Reed Station, but the state senator was a family friend and arranged with the Southern Pacific to make it stop and that the passengers really looked them over when they got on!)

My father was a great student of history, a very observant person, and more gifted at writing than speaking.  He also had great manual dexterity.  He was just under six feet tall and of muscular build, was a member of the University of California’s football squad and later coached Wheatland’s football team.  Mama’s cousin, Ray Manwell, who later was district attorney in Marysville, was a member of that team.

Papa was really a more adventuresome person than one might have thought.  I vividly recall the year peaches sold for $100 per ton and we got out of debt for the first time (although temporarily I guess).  There was great discussion as to whether to buy new living room furniture or take a trip to South America.  Papa really wanted that trip, but he knew Mama’s practical judgment should prevail.

In 1900 when the U.S. Government sent out a call for 1000 American teachers to go to the newly acquired Philippines, he answered the call.  He had taught in Gridley that first year after their marriage and I was born there on their first wedding anniversary.

TO THE PHILIPPINES

They sailed from San Francisco on September 12, 1901 on the army transport SUMTER; stopped over in Honolulu a few days, and arrived in Manila October 14, 1901.  Their first assignment was in Camiling, Tarlac Provence – a village north of Manila which then was in the hinterlands.  Mama had many homesick moments but the experience became a happy memory that lived vividly in their minds all their lives.  Papa loved teaching there and one gathers from the responsibilities given him and his relationships with the villagers and the U.S. army unit stationed there that he was held in high esteem.  In addition to teaching he visited outlying barrios to check on their schools or to evaluate possibilities of opening new schools.  The U.S. government paid the teachers and supplied teaching materials, but the local village had to provide the physical facilities.  Mr. Gregorio Romulo, whose home was near the Baun’s, acted as interpreter when necessary and helped in many ways to smooth difficulties aroused by the former teacher.  My folks attended the Roman Catholic Church with Mr. Romulo on special occasions, and Papa developed a good working relationship with the priest who really dominated the life of the villagers.  School was held in the morning; all the saints day parades were then performed in afternoons; certain evenings Papa had class for native teachers.  Mrs. Romulo “mothered” my young mother.  They were the parents of the now world renowned Carlos P. Romulo who is a few years older than I.  He has held many positions of leadership in and for his country, was with MacArthur at Corregidor, and was the first Asian to serve as president of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  When he spoke in Providence during World War II, he praised the work of these teachers.  After his speech I thanked him for that.  He wanted to know my father’s name and insisted he remembered the name “Baun”.

While living out there Papa wrote diary-like letters to his parents.  Grandma saved most of them and gave them to me.  I was urged to edit them, have omitted only duplications, and have entitled them “Serving America’s First Peace Corps” because that expresses the spirit in which this young couple worked and lived among the Filipinos.  These letters are in the Sutter County Library.

On their initial journey from Manila north to Camiling they traveled part way on a good sized “banca” – a sort of raft with a native at each end poling it along.  Their belongings were piled in the center with a covering.  This was not written in any of the letters, but Mama often told about that trip and that she had no fears until an American soldier came aboard to accompany them.  I do have a picture of this taken by my father.

Captain Charles Wheaton Abbot of Rhode Island was the commanding officer of the army unit stationed in Camiling and he too was a great help to my parents as well as providing many social occasions – dances, dinner parties, etc.  The other Americans besides the soldiers were the army doctor and his family, Dr. and Mrs. Minor, who, I believe, were married in Gilroy, California; and the teacher for the girls, also from California perhaps – Mrs. Albright.

Their second year they were transferred to Moncada because the army was being taken out of Camiling (they got most of their provisions through the army) and Moncada was on the railroad so they could get provisions and medical care from Manila more easily.  Here Papa taught in summer school also and was deputy health and sanitation officer.  They weathered a cholera epidemic along with other primitive but less dangerous conditions.

Mama’s health had suffered out there; she weighed only 122 pounds and she was a tall person.  So, at the end of this second school year they sailed for home traveling via Japan and China although their stops in each port were brief.  Papa had found rice culture in the Philippines of great interest and described it to his father-in-law, John Morrison; so that, when electric power came to Ostrom (Reed) Station area, Grandpa had a deep well dug and demonstrated that rice could be successfully grown in California even though Yuba County soil conditions were not as favorable as that west of the Feather River ultimately proved to be.

In 1903 Papa accepted a position teaching English in the Benicia high school.  Finally, however, he decided he preferred the freedom of a farmer and bought ten acres in Sutter County’s new cling peach development in the Barry District about midway on Caminito Avenue.  My sister Rose had been born in Benicia July 22, 1903 and brother Ted also there January 20, 1905.  Papa and his brothers Fritz and Dave Baun built a simple but adequate house which we moved into September, 1905.  This was home to my parents and Rose until fire destroyed it in the late 1940's.  They took up residence on Taber Avenue in Yuba City and it was there Papa died August 22, 1956, and Mama on September 6, 1963.  Both are buried in the old Wheatland Cemetery.  Rose went to live in Fresno near Ted and family.

My father served as a school trustee at Barry for many years; was active in Farm Bureau and Barry Mission Church which he and Mr. Charlie Carlson really brought into being.  Mr. Carlson gave the lot for it on the corner of Barry Road and Caminito Avenue.  Sunday mornings Papa would hitch up old Molly and collect children of migrant and other families to bring to Sunday School.  We walked to church.  He was elected a Justice of the Peace in later years and was ever after affectionately called Judge Baun.  Both of my parents were active in community and school as well as church related affairs.  Mama said she missed being a charter member of Bogue Wednesday Club because of some problem with catching old Maude to drive.  They had a great sense of social justice and civil rights.  They lived their belief in the dignity of man regardless of his social status, racial or religious background.

While I was at Wellesley my parents were persuaded by Miss Frances Switzer, county nurse, to be foster parents of some of Sutter County’s wards.  This continued for about twenty years.  Mama liked to say they had reared fourteen children, including three of her own.

L. D. BAUN’S PARENTS

John Frederick Baun, whom Grandma called “Fred” and others “J. F.”, was born May 26, 1835 in Korb, Germany.  He died May 21, 1920 at his home in Wheatland and is buried in the Wheatland Cemetery not far from the big, old cypress trees which, as a young man, he helped to plant.  Quoting from my father’s letter to me of July 12, 1952, “My father was born in Korb, a small place near Stuttgart to which he used to talk about walking along a paved highway with big cherry trees shading the walk.  They would go to the king’s palace and watch the ceremony of changing the guard and other military ceremonies.  His country had fought with Napolean [sic] of France because the king of Prussia had disdained the offer of their stripling prince to join his army.  After Dad’s time the German principalities were all united under William I with Bismarck as prime minister.  How things have changed since then though people there are worse off after all the fighting they and we too have done.”

Grandpa Baun migrated to the U.S.A. in 1852, age 17 years.  He worked for a truck farmer in Manhattan – right where the city of New York now exists.  He attended old Trinity Episcopal Church at the head of Wall Street in lower Manhattan because he figured the rector of such a prominent church would be well educated and thus he would hear good English spoken.  This farmer’s daughter spoke both German and English so was teaching him to speak the language.

Grandpa came on to California in 1858 via Isthmus of Panama.  People have questioned that there was a railroad across the Isthmus then, but in reply to my question about that Papa wrote in 1940, “Oh yes, there was a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama when Grandpa crossed in 1858 as well as later when Grandma came.  Her Uncle Daniel Fraser crossed on mule back when he came out here though.  There was such a scandal about the suffering and disease among those struggling across in the first rushes out here to the gold fields that the railroad was put in.”

 “The Panama Canal” by Frederic J. Haskin, published in 1913 by Doubleday, Page and Co., chapter VIII The Panama Railroad, page 93: “When the United States acquired the properties of the new French Canal Company (1903) it found itself in possession of a railroad for which it had allowed the canal company $7,000,000.  This road in the high tide of its history had proved a bonanza for its stockholders, and during the 43 years between 1855 and 1898 it showed a new profit five times as great as the original cost of construction. . . . In the ten years (of U.S. ownership) it has brought an aggregate profit of some $15,000,000 in addition to carrying supplies for work on the canal.”

Upon reaching California Grandpa Baun worked for a time shoeing mules at the government arsenal in Benicia; later walked to Marysville, crossing the Feather River at Nicolaus; worked a short time at the U. S. Hotel in Marysville; then in Colusa where so many meals included salmon he would never touch fish.  Finally, en route to the gold fields, somehow he took root in Wheatland where he developed a flourishing blacksmith and wagon making shop.  He was an active member of the Odd Fellows and Masonic orders, the Episcopal Church, other civic and business enterprises – a town trustee, director of Farmers Bank, Mayor; led grand march in News Eve Party [New Years Eve?], etc. etc.  A humorous incident of his younger days, but very serious to him at the time:  He took part in a flag raising at French Corral.  Some of the young fellows thought California should join the North in the War between the States; others favored the Confederacy.  The upshot was that one of the Northern sympathizers climbed the tallest pine tree, fastened a Union flag there; then cut off the limbs as he came down.  They also guarded the tree so it could not be cut down.  J. F. favored the North.

In 1871 J. F. Baun married Elizabeth Pinner.  She was born June 6, 1853 in Burgh-Le-Marsh, Lincolnshire, England.  She died September 7, 1942 at the home of son, L. D. Baun in Sutter County where she had lived the last sixteen years of her life.  She is buried with her husband in Wheatland Cemetery.

Grandma came from England in 1869 “for her health” and in the company of a woman escorting a number of English girls to America.  According to her own story she was the only one aboard who was not seasick.  The weather was stormy and the trip long via sailing vessel.  According to her newspaper obituary she sailed from Liverpool.  She landed at port of New York; then, alone went on to Panama by boat, across the Isthmus on the train; by boat to San Francisco; thence via river boat to Sacramento where her Aunt Salomey (her mother’s sister) and Uncle Daniel Fraser met her and took her to live with them in Wheatland.  This was in 1869 and she was 16 years old.  Two years later she and Grandpa were married by a Rev. Mr. McAllister in an early morning ceremony and took the train for a honeymoon in San Francisco.  Practical Grandpa had timed this to coincide with Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows meeting in San Francisco and where he participated in those activities.

RECOLLECTIONS OF TWO GRANDDAUGHTERS

Ruth Baun Sayer: “Grandma used to tell me about the beautiful bells in the church tower in Burgh-Le-Marsh having been the gift of a ship captain whose life had been saved by hearing the old church bells.  I visited this hamlet briefly in the spring of 1962, arriving at noon with the bells ringing.  This little village is on a rounded, low hill amidst marsh in tulip country like Holland and very close to the sea on the eastern shores of northern England.  It was an old Roman encampment and the large church building was built by the Romans with stone blocks; became Roman Catholic with the advent of Christianity into England; now is Church of England.  As my husband and I drove with friends from Cambridge to Burgh-Le-Marsh we rode through tulip country with canals and windmills like we saw in Holland later in our journeys.

“When I was small and often staying with these grandparents, I recall the Episcopal clergyman coming to hold services and his name was McGovern.  I was baptized in this church the summer before we set sail for the Philippines.  I can still hear grandpa reading evening prayers with his rich, German accented voice.”

Claudine Baun Rolufs: “Mr. McGovern came to Wheatland once a month to hold services; it was a mission church.  He lived in Loomis, had services there and was also Chaplain at Folsom State Prison.  The ministers and bishop stayed mostly at the Baun residence, but sometimes at Mrs. Jeanette Brock’s.”  Claudine contributes these two items: From the records which Nicolaus Lodge F. & A.M. has kept, “J. F. Baun joined the Masonic Lodge at Wheatland in 1871.  He first became secretary in 1887; was elected Master in 1899.  He again served as secretary from 1907-1914 when he resigned because he had decided his health wasn’t so good.”  And from UNIFORM CODE OF GENERAL LAWS published in 1901 which lists all charter members, “The Wheatland chapter of EASTERN STAR was organized in 1881 and both J. F. and Elizabeth Baun’s name appear as charter members.  In 1901, J. F. was Worthy Patron, Bessie Baun was organist, Pauline Baun was conductor.”

Ruth: “Grandma Baun was short with a well covered frame but not fat.  She could bend from the waist and touch the palms of her hands on the floor without bending her knees.  She was a good manager of the home and taught the three daughters to do housework well.  The two older girls were excellent seamstresses, especially Pauline.  I found her a marvelous grandmother with a knack for teaching.  I spent considerable time with both sets of grandparents while my sister was so frail and Ted a baby; and then summers after I was in school.  Perhaps that is where I learned to read long before entering school.  She hated the summer heat and loved the seashore so often went to Pacific Grove for the hottest part of each summer.  One of those summers she took me – a very happy memory out of many.”

Claudine lived in Wheatland and was not quite a year younger than I and we played together.  She writes, “You spoke of Grandma teaching you things.  She taught me many Bible verses and poems.  She had lovely books which she encouraged us to read.  Many winter afternoons as I came home from school, I would stop at Grandma’s, get a book and lie on the rug in front of the fireplace reading for an hour or so.  She was never too busy to play games like checkers and parchisi [sic], or help make doll clothes.  I used to stay there sometimes on a Sunday.  From church and visiting we walked downtown and stopped either at the Elwood Hotel or Carney Hotel for dinner before going home.  What a thrill for a small girl!”

Grandma Baun’s Aunt Salomey came to Wheatland in 1852, the same year as Daniel Fraser, but we don’t know when they married or where.  Since he seems to have come alone across the Isthmus of Panama, yet arrived in Wheatland also in 1852, I suspect they met in Wheatland.

In September of 1886 Mr. and Mrs. Charles Goulden came from Kingston, England to Baun’s.  She was Grandma’s younger sister Jennie who, according to her daughter Verna, had married December 31, 1879 in England.  Verna thinks their father, Mr. Pinner died when Jennie was two or three years old.  The Gouldens made their home in Gridley.  Mama once said that Grandma told her that her father was “mechanically inclined”.  Usually she let others go ahead and do things, but this time she was adjusting the old Singer sewing machine.  According to “Wheatland Free Press” of August 5, 1876, “Mrs. J. F. Baun injured when she is knocked off a windmill tower 20 feet high.  The accident caused by a sudden change in direction of wind while she was on the tower to adjust the mill.”

CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN OF J. F. AND ELIZABETH BAUN

1.  Louis Daniel, born July 13, 1873, died August 22, 1956.  Married Winifred Etta Morrison, June 20, 1900, lived in Sutter County.  Their children: (Anne) Ruth, born June 20, 1901, married Edmund A. Sayer, M.D., December 5, 1928, living in Rhode Island; (Winifred) Rose, born July 22, 1903, living in Fresno; Ted Frederick, born January 20, 1905, married Alice Helen Fellers, August 16, 1929, living in Fresno.

2.  Bessie Fredericka, born December 18, 1874, died December 22, 1968.  Married James Marshall, May 1905 – no issue.  Lived in Gridley then Merced.

3.  Paulina Jane (Jennie), born November 30, 1875, died November 1959.  Married Fred J. Wolfe, June 1909 – no issue, lived in Oroville.

4.  Rosa Wilhemina, born February 26, 1878, died 1945.  Married Eugene Harvey Jordan, February 22, 1905, lived in Sacramento, son (Eugene) Baun Jordan, Watsonville, California.

5.  Frederick Fraser (Fritz), born December 1879, died July 19, 1926.  Married Jessie Springer, January 16, 1901, lived in Wheatland.  Children:  Claudine (Mrs. Ted Rolufs), Nicolaus; Elizabeth Rose, Oakland; Irwin Frederick, Redding; Leslie Hobart, Florida.

6.  David Charles, born February 1883, died April 1942.  Married Edna Porter, lived in Wheatland, later Grass Valley.  Daughter Catherine married Eric Schindhelm, formerly of Grass Valley, now Santa Cruz.

All six children with husband and wife are buried in Wheatland Cemetery.  The places of residence of the grandchildren are as of January 1973.

MRS. L. D. BAUN

Everyone who knew Mama very well doubtless was aware of her interest in people – not as a gossip, but out of love and concern.  This interest extended to old buildings and landmarks in general and what had gone into the making of them.  In 1947 she was in an automobile accident which broke many bones which made walking most difficult, but she scarcely complained and kept in touch with telephone and visitors as developing heart problems increasingly limited mobility.  During the seven years of widowhood she had me make notes on her reminiscences; I am also indebted to my cousin Ruth Hutchinson in San Francisco for considerable help in documenting some details.

Mama’s father, John Hobson Morrison came to California with his parents Anne (Farquaharson) and Hugh Morrison when he was two years old.

Hugh Morrison, the first of that name in this family in America, was born January 22, 1822 in Paisley, Scotland and attended school in Edinburgh.  At the age of twenty-one he immigrated to America arriving at New Orleans in 1843 where he taught school for awhile.  In 1847 he enlisted in the United States Army and served in the Quartermaster’s Department under General Taylor along the Rio Grande River.

Anne Farquaharson was born in Montrose, Scotland May 8, 1822 and had come to New Orleans where she was living with a sister.  She and Hugh Morrison became acquainted and were married at Fort Sam Houston May 13, 1847.  After the war ended they moved to New London in Clark County, Iowa where their first two children, Jane and John were born.

Hugh was a tall, large blonde man with curly hair and whiskers.  He acquired skill as a painter of interiors and worked as such in Texas and Iowa.  He also had literary talent.  In his later years he wrote articles and poems on the topic of hydraulic mining and its evils, which items were read at meetings and published in newspapers of the day.

While living in Iowa he took a trip to Oregon, without family, to look over that part of the country but returned and, in 1852 came to California.  The little family, with children aged 3-1/2 and 2 years, traveled with just one other family in oxen drawn prairie schooners encountering only friendly Indians.  They traveled via Immigrant Trail and Donner Pass, landing on Bear River outside Wheatland near what came to be called Carlin Bridge (according to Winnie Baun).  The river filled with soil washed down by hydraulic mining so that his land was spoiled and he moved to “red land” about halfway between Reed (now Ostrom) Station and Wheatland.

Anne Farquaharson was rather short of stature and a brunette with dark brown eyes, wore her hair parted in the middle.  She must have been a very competent pioneer woman.  When Archibald was born, her husband was away with a herd of sheep and she took care of the entire birth process alone!

She was very fond of her daughter-in-law Henrietta, John’s wife.  Little Johnny who died about a month before his sister Winifred was born, was said to be tubercular and the doctor recommended camping out so Anne and Henrietta, the latter eight months pregnant, went camping in the foothills with the sick baby, but to no avail.  Between having crossed the plains in covered wagon as a child and this episode, Henrietta was never interested in camping again!

Anna died February 8, 1901 and Hugh on October 25, 1903.  Both are buried in the Wheatland Cemetery.

The children of Anne Farquaharson and Hugh Morrison:

1.  Jane, born 1848, or thereabouts, died in childbirth November 29, 1870.  She was the wife of Thomas Hammond.  Baby died age 10 months.

2.  John Hobson, born November 20, 1850, died December 22, 1921 in the Rideout Hospital in Marysville.  His funeral was held at his home at Ostrom Station; he is buried in Wheatland Cemetery.  He farmed extensive acreage of grain, had cattle, sheep, hogs, a few goats and a large number of horses and mules.  He also cared for an olive orchard owned by a Mr. Ehmann of the Ehmann Olive Company.  (Grandma had his recipe for curing olives and I can easily recall seeing her soaking them in a large wooden vat; then we always seemed to have a small barrel of olives at home – after school munching!)  Their house was close by the main line of the Southern Pacific railroad and Grandpa had large warehouses across the tracks from the home in which he stored grain for shipment and also rented space to other ranchers.  Every circus that came to Marysville always plastered huge signs on these buildings with the result he seemed to have an endless supply of free tickets which we older grandchildren enjoyed using.  He invented a steam engine that used straw for fuel; owned one of the first Yuba tractors which replaced the 30 head of horses and mules needed to pull the combine harvester; he had his own plant which manufactured illuminating gas for the home.  Once when he and Grandma went to San Francisco the room clerk, in showing them to their room, inquired if he knew how to put out the gas light; Grandpa blithely said, “Oh, yes just blow it out”.  A worried clerk!  Grandpa wasn’t a talkative person but when he told an incident it sounded like a Paul Bunyan story.

His private blacksmith shop was located not far from their house.  A son, Arch, was interested in the new automobiles just making their appearance and made a small model of one which I remember seeing him work on out there.  A Dodge car with open tonneau replaced the horse and small wagon Grandpa used in supervising ranch operations.  His sheep dogs rode the running boards; a jug of cold coffee was always on board to slake thirst.  In 1915 he had an Oakland touring car which Arch and Gene took turns driving when their parents and I traveled to the San Francisco World’s Fair.

3.  Hugh, born in 1852 shortly after the family arrived in California, was a rancher; married Belle Hutchinson (half sister of F. L. Hutchinson who married John’s daughter Minnie).  They had one daughter, Ernestine, who died in 1924.  Later Hugh took up ranching in Tulare, California.

4.  James, born November 1854, was in business in Sacramento.  He had attended Sacramento Business College.  He married Mary Whittenbrock and they had a daughter, Gertrude and two sons, Leland and Raymond.  Until World War II took Leland to France, he worked on “The Bogue Place” on Stewart Road, Sutter County which his cousins, John’s four sons Hugh, James, Arch, and Gene had bought.  He married Norma Middlehoff of Sutter County.

5.  Archibald became a gold miner; never married.  His story of adventure will follow after David.  These two sons attended St. Mary’s College.

6.  David married Caroline Laney [Laby]; their children were Lloyd and Mildred.  According to Mama, Arch and Dave fell in love with the same girl; Dave won her and Arch, in 1894, disappeared.  For sometime a cloud hung over Dave.  Then one day a Mr. Baldwin returned from the Klondike with the exciting news he had seen Arch Morrison mining up there.  After that he made several trips home.  My memory of him is from one of these visits seeing him drive a beautiful pair of matched bays to a buggy; I think it impressed me because we used one horse to pull ours!  Dave Morrison was a Yuba County Supervisor.  He farmed with his father and the farm became his upon his father’s death.

“Marysville Appeal”, Monday, October 12, 1931, page 2:

“Gone for a year with no word having come from him after he left San Diego for a point far down in the Yacqui country in Mexico to dig up a pot of buried gold, Arch Morrison. . . .is believed to have been murdered by the Indians.”  The article tells how he and some friends of Klondike days were mining down in Mexico and hostile Indians attacked them.  They negotiated with the chief and he was about to let them take what gold they already had if they would leave immediately, but one refused and was shot.  They were stripped of all possessions, tied to burros and taken to a fishing village where they were eventually rescued by an American survey ship in the gulf.  Arch returned to Dave’s but left again after a few months; returned to Mexico with companions and was never heard from again.

John Hobson Morrison and Henrietta Maria [Marie] Scott were married January 18, 1876, by the Rev. James Kelsey.  E. E. Meek was county clerk and B. F. Dam a witness. [This would be Ben Dam, brother of Cyrus King Dam, Jr. who married Henrietta’s sister Frances Leona Scott.] The children of Henrietta and John Morrison:

1.  John, died in infancy

2.  Winifred Etta, born September 30, 1878, married Louis D. Baun June 20, 1900

3.  Anne Farquaharson, born September 28, 1881, married Francis Michael Lazear

4.  Jennie Bell, born January 9, 1883, died of pneumonia, age 5 years

5.  Minnie Gertrude, born August 27, 1886, married Frederick Lafayette Hutchinson

6.  Hugh Alvin, born January 25, 1889; married Laura Odell Castle

7.  James Howard, born May 31, 1891; married Rose Hastings

8.  Louis Archibald, born September 23, 1893; married Vivian Heisch

9.  John Eugene, born April 20, 1896; married Irlene Cook

The three daughters with their husbands are buried in the Wheatland Cemetery.  Hugh, Arch, and Rose Hastings Morrison are buried in Sutter Cemetery.  Jim lives on his ranch at Bogue Station.  Gene lives in Yuba City.  (As of January, 1973)

Grandma Morrison’s forebearers seem to have arrived in America in colonial days.  A great grandfather is said to have been one Samuel Watson who fought in the Revolutionary War.  We find several of that name in that War and have not yet documented this.  [From a copy of the Watson family bible:  Samuel Watson was actually Henrietta’s great-great grandfather; his son John was the father of Elizabeth “Betsy” Watson who married Rosamond Scott.]  Her grandfather, Rosamond P. Scott was born in Georgia; fought as a Tennessee volunteer with the West Tennessee Militia in General Jackson’s Army at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812.  His five sons were born in Wayne County, Tennessee, namely: John T. Scott, Samuel Watson Scott (her father), Joseph W., James M., and Miles A. Scott.  In 1837, the family moved to Madison County, Illinois near Alton.  James and Miles came to California in 1850; Samuel Watson Scott crossed the plains in 1865 with wife Frances Belk (born in England – family associated with silver company there) and six children.  They traveled in covered wagons with 20 or more other families – horse and mule drawn vehicles.  Their oldest child, Leoni Frances [Frances Leona] was 17 at the time and her account of the trip is in the California Historical Society.  (It was dictated in the presence of her son, Bert Dam to his secretary.)  She married Cyrus King Dam two years later and says her father sat outside during the wedding ceremony because Dr. Dam was a Yankee, but that time mellowed their relationship.  Other children who made the trip were: Charles, who never married; Henrietta, Mrs. John Morrison; Fillmore, whom Mama thinks married and had a large family; Emma, Mrs. H. Charles Henderson; George McClelland, bachelor and well known “mule skinner”; Julia Allen, Mrs. William Marion Ostrom. Born in California were Ellen, Mrs. Edmund T. Manwell (who became Marysville District Attorney and was shot to death in Wheatland when called to the Durst Ranch to mediate a labor dispute said to have been fermented by the I.W.W.  The assassin had aimed at Mr. Durst, but “Uncle Ed” moved in front of him at the wrong moment.)  The youngest child of S. W. and Frances Scott was Elizabeth, Mrs. Charles Justus.

As mentioned earlier in this chronicle, my preschool years were spent largely with my grandparents, as well as summers until I was old enough to be helpful.  One of my vivid recollections on the Morrison ranch is that of riding on the combine harvester which seemed big as a box car to me!  Uncle Hugh drove the team of 30 horses and mules.  In more recent years I began to wonder if I remembered correctly.  When the issue of “News Bulletin” [“Sutter County Historical Society News Bulletin”, issue unknown] arrived with a picture of such a machine on its cover, I immediately got a magnifying glass to count the horses – my memory was correct!  Uncle Arch “tended separator” but I wasn’t allowed up there.  I rode on the platform down below where the grain came down a chute – Uncle Jim presided over this department.  Uncle Gene, who is only a few years older than I, always accompanied Grandpa in his wagon supervising – they called him “The Little Superintendent”.

In those years we had two Christmases; gifts were few and simple; the emphasis was on family.  We would leave home in Sutter County at sun up on December 24^th for the drive to Ostrom Station where we celebrated on Christmas Eve.  Next morn on to Wheatland for Christmas Day.  The roads followed around the sections and quarter sections so it was a long drive with team.  I recall how big Bilby’s Hill looked with the road going right over the top – that was between Ostrom and Wheatland.  Now it is only a slight elevation, but Papa and I would walk up that hill.  It helped to warm us on a cold morning as well as lighten the load.

There was one Christmas at home because Papa was still convalescing from a broken hip.  He worked as a checker in the Yuba City packing shed after peaches were harvested and fell to the ground when he backed out of the box car because someone had moved the plank to the platform, not realizing he was working in there.  Our Christmas tree was a rather small pine branch.

I had passed my seventh birthday when I began school.  Miss Rosetta Fox was the teacher of all grades; there were about 14 in our first grade.  Grandma Baun had taught me to read; one day when our class was lined up in front for a reading lesson, I was whispering the words to Ted Littlejohn who stood next to me.  I was punished with a little switch on my ankles.  That year, the winter of 1908-1909, Barry School House burned and school was held in Joe Heidotting’s granary which was an old schoolhouse.  I am not sure when another teacher was added, but Ted had a Miss Mary Mahoney in the first grade.  Mr. “Benny” Lemenager was teacher of our upper grades when Miss Catts had the lower ones.  Mr. Frank Willard taught during my years there also.  Both he and Mr. Lemenager were very good teachers, but Mr. Willard had a rather “low boiling point” with the result there were a few lively times with the big boys – Lloyd Littlejohn and Gene Montna come to mind.  At recess “shinny” was a favorite sport; sort of a simplified version of field hockey played with a small peach limb curved at one end and a block of wood for a puck.  Perhaps other girls joined the boys in this, but Marie Holmes and I were always in the thick of it.  She also played on the boys’ baseball team.  Some of us used to race each other and Mama tells of the day I came home joyously announcing that Ernest Lehner had beat me – I had been taller and was glad the boys were catching up with me in height.

In the fall of 1915, Alice Christ and I entered Marysville High as there was none in Yuba City.  Frances Stohlman was a year ahead of us; we three rode together in a buggy of Mr. Stohlman’s; the horse was my father’s, and Mr. Christ paid the stable bill in town.  On rainy days we used our two seater wagon so Ernest Lehner and Clarence Hoon, who rode their bikes, rode with us.  At one period we rode the “Motor” which ran between Davis and I guess Marysville; Ada and Jack Ashford got on at Tudor, quite a group of us at Oswald, and Helen Smith, who spent two years with her Grandmother, Mrs. Hodges, boarded at Bogue.  The last year of high school, Mr. Lehner had bought a secondhand E.M.F. (dubbed “every morning fixum”) and Alice and I rode with Ernest.  He went out for after school sports so she and I took up typing under Mr. Pribble and spent after school time practicing.  Belle Hudson also did this – she rode in with someone from Yuba County.  We three became quite proficient and won top honors in a Northern California typing contest our teachers had organized.

My brother Ted also attended Marysville High – he was four years behind me and rode his bike to school.  He is probably remembered as center on Marysville’s football team; he also played that position at College of Pacific.  Mama became a real football fan; she and Papa scarcely missed a game – Ted played in every game of each season.

I entered College of Pacific, September 1919, located then in San Jose, and enjoyed the college years thoroughly.  I majored in English and Biology, but came interested in Physical Education.  The men’s coach, Swede Righter, coached us girls in basketball and we won over any team of girls that would play us except University of Nevada where the altitude was too much for us, and the San Francisco CYO (I think it was) Catholic Girls Team.  I remember trying to guard a young woman who seemed to me to be six feet tall!

During those years Pacific still had an Academy and I coached sports there my last two years, thus earning my college expenses.  From there I attended Wellesley College’s Department of Hygiene and Physical Education’s two year graduate course with special emphasis on administration; then returned to Pacific at President Tully Knoles’ invitation, to organize the teacher training department of Physical Education for Women.  Pacific was by then located in Stockton.  With the assistance of two girls majoring in Physical Education, Alice Fellers and Helen Loveridge, I taught everything in the department.  One has the courage to do anything when fresh out of college.  Two summers I worked at Stockton’s Camp Fire Girls Summer Camp Minkalo up in the Sierra above Jackson at Silver Lake; first summer as chief land sports counselor and the second as camp director.

In my three years teaching I was able to repay the various loans that made it possible for me to attend Wellesley; I also had a scholarship there both years and worked the intervening summer at Westboro, Massachusetts, State Hospital, a fine institution for the mentally ill.  The Director was experimenting to learn whether getting certain patients outside and participating in modified athletics would help them.

During high school years I cut peaches at “Lige” Davis and then Berry Brothers; packed plums at the Bogue Ranch.  My first two years at Pacific I typed numerous term papers, ran the mimeograph machine and waited on tables.  All of these experiences were rewarding, both in friendships and general “know how”, as well as necessary financially.

Since coming to Rhode Island in 1928 I have enjoyed working in many civic and church related enterprises; sometimes in leadership positions.  These experiences have greatly enriched my life in friendships and in learning.  I have been a delegate to United Nations Seminars; Churchman Seminars in Washington, D.C. (once called upon to introduce Senator Sparkman at a luncheon); to a UNESCO conference in New York.  In 1952 the New England Southern Conference of the Methodist Church elected me their first lay woman delegate to the General Conference – this met in San Francisco that year but the location had nothing to do with choosing me!  The women stirred up interest among the men to have the conference woman’s society president a lay delegate for a change.  In 1964, another big surprise: United Church Women of Rhode Island nominated me for Rhode Island State Mother of the Year and the judges chose me.  What pleasure that would have given my parents!  They always took great delight in the accomplishments of us children.  But to them really goes the credit and the honor.  Their disciplines were good; they taught more by example than precept.