Saturday, March 2, 2013

What Happened to Leon’s Son


While Leon Bean may have been entering a successful phase of his life, there seemed to be another compartment of this man’s existence that wasn’t faring quite so well.

You may remember I’ve mentioned that Leon and his wife, Ella, were the proud parents of twin boys. While I’ve spent quite a bit of time describing twin William Samuel’s successes in life—particularly in the business realm through ventures like his DeSoto dealership in the east Bay community of Alameda—I haven’t said much about twin Samuel William.

There’s a reason for this: Sam was both blind and deaf.

Sam, of course, has his own story, which I am still in the process of researching. It’s a story that deserves attention, not only for the challenges he faced, but for the accomplishments he achieved.

Like any family, the Bean family has passed down their own share of “myths” about family episodes for which descendants don’t quite seem to have a satisfactory explanation.

When it comes to the reason for Sam’s injury that precipitated the loss of both his eyesight and hearing, I’ve heard two conflicting reports. One was that Sam was in a baseball game and caught an errant fly ball—in his eye. The other story was not quite as innocent, but much more believable: that Sam caught the short end of a rock fight.

Now that I’ve been fortunate enough to find some decent online resources for old Bay Area newspapers, I thought I’d take a look at what could be found to straighten out the family myth about Sam.

Thankfully, it didn’t take much searching to uncover one story about an injury Sam sustained. It was, however, neither ball game nor rock fight that was being reported.

Horrifyingly, it involved a gunshot wound.

A point-blank statement was printed in the San Jose Mercury News on page three of the September 21 issue of 1906—the same year Leon was so busy with an onslaught of building contracts:

Accidentally Shot.—Samuel Bean, the 10-year-old son of Contractor L. S. Bean, living on Addison avenue near Webster street, in Palo Alto was wounded in the abdomen by the accidental discharge of a 22-caliber revolver while out shooting blackbirds Wednesday evening. Fortunately the bullet did not penetrate the abdominal cavity, and the lad will probably recover in a week or ten days.

8 comments:

  1. Sad. Some certainly seem to have more than their share of injuries during their life. At least you know that at age 10 he still had his eyesight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Michelle, this story really opened up to me the possibility that maybe Sam really was accident-prone. Did things just "happen" to him?

      Delete
  2. Twins named William Samuel and Samuel William! Someone has a sense of humor. Never heard of that one before.

    My cousins at age 10 were out shooting squirrels in SC, so I have no trouble understanding this story. Apparently the age for a boy to get his "first gun" was nine years old, in the South. I'm not sure there were many blackbirds in the South . . .?

    Poor Samuel. I'm anxious to hear what caused his major injuries. I'm guessing fireworks, because I know of people that has happened to. Good luck sleuthing, Jacqi!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Mariann, that choice of names seems to take the cake, doesn't it? However, Samuel and William were the names of both grandfathers. Perhaps by this time--and, after all, considering the Bean family's two-child tendencies--Sam and Bill's parents might have been thinking this would be their last opportunity to name any sons in honor of the grandparents. Rather abrupt manner of cramming in the honors all in one lump, but who knows what traditions of "twinliness" might have been currently in vogue at that time.

      I know it did give teachers and other governmental administrators fits over the years--not that the twins would have ever thought of causing such disturbances ;)

      Delete
  3. Poor Sam -- he certainly lived under a dark cloud in his younger years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wendy, while I don't know much about Sam's later years, it appears that that dark cloud may have shadowed him for the rest of his life in more ways than one. I have yet to complete my research on this story, but I know there are other sorrows to come...

      Delete
  4. Some people just seem to attract this sort of "misadventure".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's funny that I never thought about that before--but when I ran across this news clipping, I started wondering...

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...