Family Ditto Marks

 

To have identical twins in your ancestry is one thing, but to have those twins named almost identically adds to the record-keeping confusion. In the case of Marilyn Sowle Bean's father-in-law, she did have a situation in which the man and his twin had identical names, except for one detail: the order was reversed. One was named Samuel William; the other was named William Samuel.

There was, however, one vast difference between those identical twins. Due to a freak accident during his teen years, Marilyn's father-in-law became both blind and deaf, a story I've written about several years ago.

Now, thanks to the discovery by a local genealogy enthusiast of Marilyn's discarded photos in a local antique store, I've been able to rescue both a photo of the (deceptively) cherubic twins and a picture from the other end of life, labeled simply "Dad Bean."

The portrait, composed by a photographer in the Engle studio in Redwood City, California, was taken just before the turn of the century, judging by the appearance of the twin sons of Leon and Ella Shields Bean, who were born in 1896.

What was interesting about seeing the candid shot at the other end of Samuel Bean's life was that, had it not been labeled on the reverse, I would have thought it was a picture of William Bean. The photo depicted Samuel Bean, amidst a pile of wood, holding a saw. Unless you knew this blind and deaf man was skilled at woodworking, it might have seemed an out-of-place scene. I know differently, because the only item of furniture passed down to me from this family happens to be a parquet wood chess table built and inlaid by Sam Bean. 

 

More Chess

Moving into yet another decade, Samuel Bean gains his competitive edge, despite his double challenge of being both blind and deaf.

The East Bay metropolitan area finds itself boasting the possibility of a new chess champion, as Sam outpaces the defending champion, a student at the University of California at Berkeley.

Still living at the same address—though his mother, Ella Shields Bean, is by now no longer with him there—Sam is now fifty four years of age. Just moving into his prime, he surely must have thought as he pulled within grasp of first place in yet another chess tournament.

Perhaps a bit prematurely for the scoop on the end result, the Oakland Tribune moves in to report Sam's progress in a brief announcement on May 10, 1950:

            Sam Bean, a blind and deaf salesman of 1807 Santa Clara Avenue, Alameda, is one of the leading contenders in the 1950 chess tournament of the Oakland Chess and Checker Club, club officials announced today.

            Bean has played ten games with eight wins and two draws. Larry Ledgerwood, University of California geology student and defending champion, has won four games, lost one and had two draws.

Another Loss For Sam

Despite Samuel Bean’s rising star in the Bay Area’s world of chess tournaments, all his success in business, personal life and even positive attitude couldn’t protect him from suffering any more losses.

Ella May Shields Bean, Sam’s perseverant and ever-attentive mother who had seen him through every possible life challenge, was now eighty three years of age.

It was only a matter of a few months after the wonderful article on Sam’s life that he had to face the inevitable. After an “extended illness” that eventually landed her in a local hospital, Ella Bean passed away on November 1, 1948.

I can only begin to imagine what a sea change that must have been in the life of the blind and deaf man for whom she had been such a powerful mainstay.

            Alameda, Nov. 3.—Funeral services were held today for Mrs. Ella May Bean, 83, who died Monday at a local hospital after an extended illness. A native of Illinois, she lived in Alameda 35 years. The family home is at 1807 Santa Clara Avenue.

            Surviving are three children, William S. Bean, Alameda automobile dealer; Samuel W. Bean and Mrs. Leona Grant, Alameda; and two sisters, Mrs. Flora Montague, Fresno, and Mrs. Lillie Taylor, Rodeo. There are two grandchildren, Earl R., and Samuel W. Bean Jr.

            Services were conducted at 2:30 p.m., at the Fowler-Anderson Mortuary, 2244 Santa Clara Avenue, by the Rev. John W. Glasse, Presbyterian minister. Interment was at Mountain View Crematorium.

Another Season of Sadnesses

The year of 1928 brought more difficult news for Samuel Bean’s young family. With Maud Woodworth Bean having recently lost one of her twin sons in 1927, following the earlier loss of her own sister Helen, it seems the decade of the ’20s was slated to be a sad one for her.

By 1928, Maud’s father—the blind man she reminisced about having walked with in their orange groves in southern California—was nearing sixty two years of age. A Wisconsin native immigrating first to Sioux City, Iowa, and from there to California, William C. Woodworth was considered a pioneer of the Azusa Valley. He had moved to the Los Angeles area—admittedly a more rural setting in those days—with his parents, Lafayette and Eliza Woodworth. The family had arrived from Sioux City in 1886, settling in Covina.

By the time Maud’s father was twenty four, he had returned to Sioux City to claim his bride, the former Effie Aurilla Williams—marrying, as it turned out, on her birthday in 1890. The newlyweds returned to the Woodworth family farm in California, where they raised six children—though, by this point in 1928, only three of those six were still living. The couple had remained in Covina ever since.

Maud’s father was not always blind, but the disability’s onset had struck him when he was well into his adulthood. Despite that difficulty, William Woodworth was able to attend to the business of running his large ranch.

Yet as the year of 1928 got underway, it became apparent that Sam and Maud were about to suffer another loss: William C. Woodworth passed away at his home on May 22, five months shy of his sixty second birthday. His obituary listed his daughter Maud’s residence as Alameda, California—no surprises as to her location this time—but there is no indication whether she was able to travel south to be present at his funeral.

As if added as a melancholy postscript, that same year ended with the somber note of Sam’s own father’s passing. Leon Bean, the divorced husband of the persistent Ella Shields Bean, added his own passing to the family’s season of sadness with his death on November 12, 1928—a year the likes of which Sam and Maud surely hoped would soon be past.

Photograph, above, from the collection of Bill Bean. Unidentified man and child on tractor. This unmarked photo most likely post-dates Maud Woodworth Bean's father, William Woodworth, and possibly is from an entirely different branch of the extended family.

Where’s Sammie?

In all these latest newspaper clues about the Samuel W. Bean family of Alameda, California, there is something missing that troubles me.

Have you noticed?

When Sam and Maud traveled south to visit Maud’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. William C. Woodworth, the Covina Argus newspaper announced the arriving couple’s names—but no mention of their newborn son.

When the Argus provided the surprising announcement that Maud was returning from Texas to spend an extended visit at her parents’ home—most likely during her pregnancy that resulted in the birth of her twin boys—it indicated Maud’s return as if she were traveling alone.

Where was her now-four-year-old son, Sammie?

I would normally have presumed that the answer to such a question would have been, “With his mother.”

In this case, though, I’m beginning to wonder. Perhaps it wasn’t a case of a newspaper refusing to make any acknowledgment of the very existence of children. Perhaps Sam and Maud were traveling the country—as some later newspaper articles explained—making public presentations and selling Sam’s books. With the challenge of arranging both business details and travel itinerary for a blind and deaf poet, perhaps Maud was not up for also being full time supermom.

While I don’t know this for sure, I am guessing that maybe that near-unnoticed silence on young Sammie’s behalf was owing to the fact that Sammie might not have been with his father and mother.

Maybe Sammie was still at “home” in Alameda, at 1807 Santa Clara Avenue, with the woman who still lived at that address: his grandma.

Was Ella Shields Bean serving as surrogate mother? I think back, now, to the pictures I have of a very young Sammie—hanging out with Uncle Bob Grant while he fixed cars. Perhaps Ella’s daughter, Leona Grant, popped in often to help with her mother’s new responsibility as grandmother.

Missing those regular newspaper reports that kept me up on Sam Bean and the details of his life, I forgot that maybe someone else also might have gotten swallowed up in that silence: a little boy whose parents were busy covering the miles to earn the “living” that ended up keeping them away from home.

Early Departures and Missing Documents

While Flora Shields Montague may have lived to see nearly ninety years of life—despite early newspaper reports seeming to indicate the contrary—some of her family members didn’t fare so well. Perhaps that is another wake up call to face reality in the early 1900s in rural America.

Flora’s sister Ella Shields Bean lived to squeak past the eighty year mark. Another Shields sister, Lillian Taylor, did likewise—though she did suffer the loss of a child at an early age.

But it’s those others that remind me of the harsh life that we no longer experience first hand.

Oldest Shields child, Alice Newell, lost her life before the youngest of her three daughters became a teenager—a loss of memories for a child growing up.

The Shields’ family’s second-born, son Adolphus, made it past the seventy year mark, but lost his own wife—or at least she disappeared from the records—before the 1920 census was taken.

And like her sister Alice, younger Josephine, wife of Wright Henry Spencer, passed away before her youngest child was even five years of age, if indications from the 1910 census prove to be correct.

The tricky part for the researcher is that these life events fell during a span of time in which documentation is not readily available online. With no sign of a death record to be found online, how can I be sure, then, that these departures weren’t disappearances owing to another cause? While divorce was not as common during those times, it is a possibility. However, the California Divorce Index on FamilySearch.org doesn’t begin its records until the year 1966—hardly helpful for someone trying to find missing wives prior to 1920.

Another option—that of searching for obituaries in local newspapers—is also impeded by lack of online resources for those specific dates.

It is as if that specific period of time has entered a Black Hole—or, if you prefer, a “Cone of Silence.” The frustrating lack of resources for the time period being sought—in the face of an apparent abundance of other digitized genealogical material—may seem just as inept as Get Smart Agent 86’s insistence on repeatedly going back to the same source of faulty coverage.

Sometimes, the only answer is to just get in the car and drive to the city where the real resources are kept.  

Knowing The Rest of the Story

It occurred to me yesterday, after posting the newspaper article about young Flora Shields Montague’s devastating illness, that it might have suggested a tragic ending for the young bride.

Of course, I hadn’t thought of that at first—I know the rest of the story. Sometimes knowing something all too well does, indeed, constitute what some have called, “The Curse of Knowledge.”

If you aren’t familiar with that concept—“The Curse of Knowledge”—let me explain it by using some quotes from the people who coined the phrase, expanded upon its application, and use the concept in their professional efforts. Though these people work in fields not remotely associated with genealogy, I find the concept helpful in examining the difficulties we might encounter as we enthusiastically attempt to engage our friends and family with what we see as the fascinating topic of our family history. Perhaps it is partially because we are all too familiar with the stories we convey that we fail to engage our casual audiences.

“We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others,” explain Chip and Dan Heath, authors of the book Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. “The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly.”

That’s why they call knowledge a “curse.”

Looking back to my post yesterday, in leaving poor Flora hanging between life and her anticipated demise, I can see now why it might have someone concerned. But I didn’t think much about it yesterday.

Why?

Because I knew the rest of the story.

Maybe you’ve experienced something similar, in trying to unpack a story you’ve discovered from your own family history. You know it’s a great story. But try telling your audience—whichever friend or relative you’ve happened to corner in your enthusiastic regaling of the intricate details. The missing link—the part you forgot to mention—might be just the key to help your listener grasp the significance of the event.

I wasn’t too worried about Flora, for instance, because of some very solid evidence I had found years ago. While I haven’t yet rescued it from my storage boxes of decades-old research notes, I do recall details indicating that it was Flora’s own husband, in a civil service capacity acquired much later in his professional standing, naming a new street—extending along the Shields property line, east and west from Blackstone Avenue in Fresno—after his father-in-law, William Shields. Every time I drive south, passing the Shields Avenue exit on California Highway 99, and know the instigator behind that sign’s origin, I am reminded that Flora and her husband did quite well in their long tenure in Fresno society.

I also knew that Flora’s name made it into two documents post-dating that 1897 newspaper report: the 1900 and 1910 census records for Fresno County.

There is no doubt in my mind, though, that something devastating happened to Flora and Frank. For one thing, they remained childless throughout their married life. In the 1900 census, Flora declared herself to have not been the mother of any children—though in 1910, she reversed that report to state that she had been the mother of one, though a child no longer alive. By 1920, Flora was listed having an occupation of Christian Science Practitioner.

Could some of the threatening health issues she surely endured throughout those decades have caused her not only physical trauma, but a crisis of faith as well?

That she survived the malady that prompted such dire newspaper reports as the one I shared with you yesterday is not only confirmed by the subsequent census reports, but also by the death record that demonstrated the age she attained at her passing. For someone assumed to not make it much past her twenties, Flora Shields Montague lived until March 3, 1963—giving her a lifespan of over eighty seven years.

What Comes After “I Do”

With all the marriages in the Shields family I mentioned yesterday, the most logical next juncture—at least from the perspective of a researching genealogist—would be the arrival of the grandchildren. And with six children freshly married off, William and Elizabeth Shields did indeed see quite a few grandchildren in their day.

Times approaching the turn of the last century, however, cannot be viewed with quite the same lens of assumptions as we use in surveying our own times. As mentioned in the comments made yesterday by one reader—“Far Side of Fifty”—the perspective of the times sometimes led people to see things quite differently. I’m sure that would also apply to that traditional expectation of grandchildren.

A little snippet of news I stumbled upon recently in a Fresno newspaper caused me to stop in my tracks and realize how very different life was in the last hundred years.

I found the little article thanks to the search engine at Ancestry.com and their collection of historic newspapers. Sometimes—especially if you are researching family residing in the smaller towns—you can find all sorts of tidbits about daily routines in the life of your ancestors. Mostly, they are cheery recountings of who came to dinner last weekend, or which out of town guests were currently at so-and-so’s summer home.

This article wasn’t that kind of report.

Published in The Fresno Weekly Republican on Friday, January 15, 1897, the article was buried at the bottom of the sixth column on the seventh page, past reports of Superior Court business and results of exams for prospective grade school teachers.

Its sad note recalled the recent wedding—November 25, 1896, seven weeks prior—of William and Elizabeth Shields’ youngest daughter, Flora.

Montague’s Sad Mission.

His Return to Attend the Bedside of His Bride.

            Frank L. Montague has returned from Salt Lake City to attend the bedside of his bride, formerly Miss Flora Shields, who is seriously ill. They were married a few weeks ago, and Mr. Montague went ahead to Salt Lake City, where they intended to live, to prepare their home. During his absence his wife was taken seriously ill. He also became sick in the Utah capital, and was in a serious condition in a hospital there. He improved somewhat, and as soon as possible, though hardly well enough to make the trip, returned to his wife.

            It is doubtful if Mrs. Montague will recover. The many friends of the young couple, so recently happy, deeply sympathize with them in their affliction.

Imagine the Happiness

Weddings are always happy occasions—unless, of course, you are the one who is paying for them.

Imagine the situation of one William James Shields, farmer, of various counties in northern California in the late 1800s. As was common for those times, William was the proud father of many children—among them, five daughters.

Moving his family west from Illinois in 1873, he settled them first in Marin County—the region, today, contiguous to the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. Not satisfied with his property just six miles south of what is now the city of Petaluma, he purchased acreage farther south, in San Benito County, and moved his family there in 1875.

By that time, Daughter Number One was nearing seventeen years of age.

If San Benito was the wide-open country of rolling hills and grazing land that it appears to be now, farming might have been just fine, but prospects for suitors most likely appeared dismal.

Perhaps that was not at the forefront of Mr. Shields’ mind when he opted to cash in on his property in San Benito a little over a year later, but the family’s move to San Mateo County improved Daughter Number One’s prospects considerably.

Announcements for Wedding Number One were soon made, and Alice V. Shields assumed her new name upon being happily married to Thomas Freeman Newell in 1877.

A lull in family happiness ensued—no doubt having nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Child Number Two was a son and not a daughter. Neither would it have hinged upon the fact that father William Shields had decided, once again, to purchase property elsewhere.

This time, the move was to far away Fresno County. The date for the move was the year 1884.

It didn’t take long for Child Number Two to announce his intentions, and a marriage—to young Elsie, she of the maiden name I’ve yet to discover—followed in 1887.

Ripe for happiness, the now-settled farmer must have gone nearly delirious with joy, as Daughter Number Three followed suit close upon the heels of her brother, and—not to be undone—her just-older sister, Daughter Number Two (you thought I had miscounted, didn’t you?) snagged her man not seven months afterwards.

To recap: daughter Lillian Elizabeth Shields became the new Mrs. George W. Taylor in November, 1988, soon taking up residence far to the north in Mendocino County; and daughter Ella May Shields became the bride of Leon Samuel Bean in Fresno on June first of 1889, returning to the San Mateo County environs where her family had once resided.

Tally: four marriages, three to pay for.

Thankfully, all was followed by a peaceful seven years’ hiatus in which Papa Shields could regain whatever financial solvency he once commanded.

Not to be outdone, for the family’s grand finale, youngest daughter Flora bested her just-older sister Josephine by a scant thirty days, marrying Frank Luman Montague in Fresno on November 25, 1896, making this the family’s fifth wedding. Christmas Eve became the day of Josephine’s nuptials to another Fresno man, Wright Henry Spencer.

I can only imagine what a Christmas that must have been for their father.

Above: Among the many unlabeled photographs in Bill Bean's collection, this unidentified young couple, dressed for a festive occasion, accompanies an elderly woman who looks very much like she might be Ella Shields Bean.

Missing Siblings and Those Aha! Moments

As much as I scoured all the online databases to discover those missing siblings of Ella Shields Bean—especially considering the mystery “David” and “Bill” I’m still puzzling over—I have, so far, had no luck.

I still think online genealogy databases are indispensable. Of course, more than that, I highly regard obtaining documents from their original source—provided one is so disposed as to travel to those locations. And I’m ever grateful for each digitized newspaper added to the growing presence of online resources.

But there is still more. Like relying on a shot in the dark, I sometimes go back to square one: that white page with the simple dialog box staring out at me from the middle of an empty page under the multi-colored “Google” banner. I enter my phrase—usually a full name, enclosed in quote marks—hit “Google Search” and hope for the best.

I never click “I’m Feeling Lucky,” for I seldom am.

Unless, of course, Google™ returns me the kind of hits I’m in the mood to see.

With the advent of Google Books, I’ve warmed considerably to the concept of Me, the Lucky Researcher. And those shots in the dark seem to find their target more frequently.

Consider the quandary I mentioned yesterday: the fact that the 1910 census showed Ella Shields Bean’s mom as the mother of eight children. Concerned that, try as I might, I could only find six, I did far more than what I’d consider my due diligence in tracking down the names of the missing two children.

Of course, in my efforts, I looked primarily in California—the state in which the family settled after removing from Illinois in the 1870s. It didn’t occur to me that the missing two children had died before the family’s arrival then. Even so, finding records of deaths prior to the 1870s in Illinois might have also been a challenge, had I pursued that possibility.

However, with my “shot in the dark,” last-ditch effort of entering the name of their father—William James Shields—in the Google™ search engine, I was reminded of one other resource: Google Books.

Originally popping up in the search results as a format at ebooksread.com, a biographical sketch for William Shields provided the answers I needed. In searching for a more readable—and clickable—format, I then discovered the same book, James Miller Guinn’s History of the State of California and Biographical Record of the San Joaquin Valley, California at another website. And there, on pages 1436 and 1437 (talk about long-winded!) of Guinn's book, was a thorough recounting of the family history of both William Shields and his wife, the former Elizabeth Margaret Marsh.

In the midst of that volume—originally published in 1902, the year of William Shields’ death—I found the details that answered my question about the missing two Shields children: 

Mr. and Mrs. Shields became the parents of eight children: Alice V ., deceased, married Thomas Newell, of Selma; Adolphus, a farmer on Whites Bridge road, is a Knight Templar Mason; Charles E. died in infancy; Ella M. became the wife of Leon Bean, of Palo Alto; Lillian E. married George Taylor, of Ft. Bragg, Cal.; Josephine P. became the wife of Wright Spencer, of Fresno; Flora D. is Mrs. Frank Montague, also of Fresno; William Alexander died in infancy.

So it was to be Charles E. and William Alexander who were the missing two Shields children. With kudos to Google™ for both its search and book digitization programs, I now have a tentative—albeit undocumented—answer to my question about those 1910 census numbers.

In finding the answer to one question, it perpetuates another: who are Bill and David? I’m still no closer to finding the identities of these two mystery Shields connections than I was prior to this search. Such is the never-ending chain of genealogy research.

How To Expand That Big Picture

Old family letters often open up further research possibilities by introducing us to names and relationships not previously anticipated. Ella Shields Bean’s letter home to her father in Fresno, California, certainly helped introduce a few others in her family.

I already had the names and pertinent information on several of Ella’s siblings, but a look at two resources told me I was still missing something.

First, in the census after Ella’s father’s passing, I found Ella’s mother listed as a widow next door to the home of some of her grandchildren—and their father, Ella’s brother-in-law, along with a wife by a different name than that of Ella’s sister who had married him. That, alone, tells me there were some significant changes since the prior census was taken.

The key item in that census—a next-to-impossible page to read in the 1910 census, by the way—was that, even though Ella’s mom was now a widow, the total number of her children, including those still surviving, was still enumerated on the record. That number, incidentally, exceeded the count I had on record by two.

Who were those two?

A lot can happen in a ten year span, and the distance between 1900 and 1910 held a lot of changes for Ella’s family. I had that funny feeling that I was missing something when I stumbled upon another helpful resource—which also demonstrated the importance of not overlooking local resources.

While the Internet may be the darling of many genealogy researchers, it just doesn’t serve up every document detail that would help us flesh out the picture of our families’ lives. On the other hand, local agencies and organizations dedicated to archiving city or county histories are sometimes a loosely-organized patchwork of exactly the documents that could help uncover the answers to our family mysteries.

Connecting the needy researcher and the resource-rich but digitally isolated local organization can be a challenge. Sometimes, though, when those organizations create their own website—be it ever so humble—we researchers may then begin to access those far-flung local collections via our computers.

Sometimes, all it takes is a little time and patience with a Google™ search.

Since I’ve been working on this series regarding the Bean and Shields families, let’s take this instance of Ella’s siblings. Thanks to one local collection, I’ve been confronted with names and details that I hadn’t known about the family previously—stuff that tells me I need to dig deeper.

That collection was referred to online, thanks to the website of the San Mateo County Genealogical Society. Unfortunately, that website does not assign separate addresses for each page in their site, so I can’t provide a specific URL for the page where I found Ella’s family information. But I can tell you how to navigate the site to find it.

The collection that opened my eyes to the Shields family information I had missed is called The Schellens Collection. This is a 191 volume manuscript, compiled by one local history enthusiast named Richard Schellens. This was his lifetime labor of love, a collection of abstractions, newspaper clippings, photocopies, hand-drawn maps, and many other secondary resources. The original collection was organized into binders by the Redwood City Archives Committee.

The only drawback was that the original collection lacked one thing: an index.

This is where the local organization entered the project. The San Mateo County Genealogical Society spearheaded the volunteer effort to create the index for the immense collection. That index is now provided on their website. You can find it by going to the main website page, looking down the left margin to the heading, “Library,” then clicking on the entry labeled, “Databases.” That brings up a new screen on the right. Scroll down that right screen about mid-page, where it reveals the clickable choice, “Schellens Collection Index.” That provides an approximate alphabetical range to help you get started. (I say approximate because I had to reverse gears and go to the slot labeled “Bar” to obtain my “Bean” entries!)

It was there, in a 1902 entry for Mrs. Leon Bean (that would be Ella), that I saw the note, “death of David Shields.”

David Shields?

Could that be one of the missing Shields children referred to in mother Elizabeth Shields’ 1910 census entry?

To find out, I have a few options. First, I can take that year and name and try some searches of my own in collections of archived historic newspapers online. Ancestry.com provides me that option—though the collection for Fresno newspapers doesn’t always include the dates I’m seeking, and the search for which Bay Area newspaper also ran the article might get overwhelming.

There are other historic newspaper collections, too—such as a thorough, clickable resource Heather Kuhn Roelker mentioned in her blog, Leaves for Trees, or the list Kenneth Marks rounded up in his recent Google+ Hangout and recapped in his blog, The Ancestor Hunt.

In case I don’t want to be so thorough about my online efforts, I can contact the San Mateo County Genealogical Society. Just like many other genealogy societies, the San Mateo organization offers to conduct research for a reasonable fee, and locating items cited in the Schellens Collection is their forte.

Then, another option—especially for me, considering the short distance involved—I can make arrangements with one of the two libraries in which The Schellens Collection is housed, and go there to do the research, myself.

With the many entries in the collection’s index for the Bean, Shields, and related families in the Redwood City area, that last option suits me best.

Just like the San Mateo County group did, hundreds of other genealogical societies across the country have contributed countless volunteer hours to collect, organize and house significant items of interest to local area historians and genealogy researchers. While you may not be pursuing family history in the northern California county of San Mateo, you likely could have your own research augmented by material on hand at county organizations such as this one. Thankfully, many of these societies have an online presence, whether directly accessed through a website, or indirectly reached through a page on Facebook or even a blog. Thanks to the capabilities of search engines, it makes it easier for us to connect with the local societies concerned with the areas our ancestors once called home, and we can repaint that picture and soak up that ambience through the help of those who call that same place home, now.

No Use Trying to Write

Sometimes, old family letters introduce more questions than they answer. And if one is really lucky, an unsolvable mystery may be thrown in as an added bonus.

Such is the case with this last segment of Ella Shields Bean’s letter home to her father, William James Shields in Fresno, California. It’s not just because the letter leaves me wondering what was written on the missing second page. The details that were included are so unexpected that I have no clue how to connect these dots to the larger family picture.

It leaves me asking questions like:

• Bill? Who’s Bill?
• What “coppiests”?
• There was a trial?

Ella’s next youngest sister was Lillian—nicknamed Lillie. Lillian married George Taylor a half year prior to Ella’s own wedding to Leon Bean.

Since Lillian was not quite on my genealogical radar at this point, I took a moment to check out what could be found online for her. As far as I can see at this point, the couple had four children, with the oldest—Hazel Alice—having a date of birth with as many variations provided as documents I’ve been able to find.

Despite the temptation to be lured down that bunny trail, I’ve withstood that bright, shiny decoy because of another discovery: according to the United States census closest to the date of this letter, Lillie and George had moved their young family far from Fresno to northern California.

The location of their new home may shed some light on a summertime photo I had posted a while back of young Leona and the twins at the Noyo River in Mendocino County. For that is exactly the place where Ella’s sister and her husband were residing at the time of the 1900 census.

One mystery cleared up—just in time for another mystery. I have no idea who the “Bill” is that was involved in a court case Ella mentions as she wraps up this letter to her father.

If that weren’t enough, the letter just dribbles off the end of the page. There is no second page. But, as Ella mentioned, Leona has just awakened from her nap, and there is just “no use trying to write while she is around.”

End of letter. Even if there was a second page.

 

            How is Lillie and babies, and what are they going to do? It will soon be Thanksgiving again where are you going to eat turkey this year. We are going to be alone and have duck. You had better come and take dinner with us. We had a fine rain last night and this forenoon and I guess it is not over yet. I am ever so much obliged to you for sending that plush. By the way I got a package of Fresno papers out of the office last week that was sent me in 1891, the time Bill was having his trial about cheating the coppiest’s out of their saleries. Well Leona is waking up so I must stop as there is no use trying to write while she is around.

            Well this is Sunday 26^th guess I’ll try and …

Family and Fences

Though it is frustrating to know that the letter young mother Ella Shields Bean wrote to her father was undated, I’ve been formulating a way to pinpoint the year based on the reports Ella gave of her young daughter.

In the first part of Ella’s letter, posted yesterday, since she was discussing the seriousness of her daughter’s illness, I had presumed Leona was still an infant. Born July 28, 1891, Leona would have been barely four months old when the letter was written on November 24—if it had been written that same year.

Later mention of Leona’s talkative ways, though, probably indicated a letter dated at least 1892, or more likely 1893.

In the next section of the letter, which I’ve included below, Leona had been up to further antics, making me wonder if she weren’t even older. She certainly was stronger. The only thing I know for sure is that the letter couldn’t have been written after 1895, for the twins arrived in March of 1896. If Ella had thought she had her hands full before that date, I would have loved to take a peek at any of her letters written after that date—if she had the time to even write a letter!

Before continuing with Ella’s letter to her dad, I need to add a few details about the family constellation. By the 1890s, “Mrs. Beane,” Ella’s mother-in-law, would have been a widow. That referred to the former Celia W. Hankerson of Maine, who had traveled all the way to California and married Samuel Bean in Redwood City in 1861. By the time of this letter in the 1890s, Samuel Bean had been gone for almost twenty years.

“Blanch and Harry” refer to Ella’s husband’s sister, Blanche Celia Bean, and her husband, Harry Griswold Watrous.  They were married a year and a half prior to Leon and Ella’s wedding on June first, 1889. Though Harry and Blanche spent much of their time in Redwood City, they evidently also lived for a while in San Francisco.

With Leon a building contractor, it makes me wonder, every time Ella mentions any buildings, if Leon had had a hand in doing the work himself. I wonder if the sweet picture of the children on the porch displays the very remodeling project that Ella referred to in this letter.

 

We have the house moved over like I was telling you, and the porch built on the front and east side, and a four foot walk from the front gate to the back door. I like it much better over here, we also have a five foot board fence between us and Mrs. Beane so Leona can not pull any more pickets off. Blanch and Harry have moved in the City again. The Mid-winter Fair buildings are just advancing very fast. I suppose you will be up again when it commences. We are going sure if nothing happens to us before then.

If She Run Away

While Leon S. Bean was busy working on his several contracts in the Redwood City area, his young wife, Ella, had her hands full at home. She had Leona to keep her occupied.

A letter written on her husband’s business stationery by Ella to her father—dated all but the actual year—captures a moment in this young mother’s life. While she certainly sounds like she had her hands full, I’m not sure who is the more interesting character—the child with antics not unusual for someone of this age, or the mother with her own ways of handling parenting.

                                             Redwood City, Cal., Nov. 24^th, 189-

Dear Father:—

            Your letter was received some time ago, and the package received last week, intended to have written before now, but Leona had the Grippe about five weeks ago and it left her with a real bad cough, couldn’t seem to get any thing to stop it, untill I gave her goose oil that was fine. It soon stopped it. One day and night last week I was afraid it was going to turn in something else, as she was so tight, when she would cough, but she is alright now and is such a mischief she talks everything now. This morning she was standing watching it rain, all at once she ached for papa said he would get wet and she was sorry. She don’t climb on the fence any more, and does not run away so much for she saw a woman whipping her little boy. I told her it was because he run away and if she run away the woman would whip her, so she is afraid to get very far from the gate.

Settling Down to Married Life

One can hardly say that Ella Shields Bean had developed a “sense of place” in her early adult years. Having arrived from her native Illinois along with her family by 1875—when she was about ten years of age, herself—she spent some of her teen years living in San Francisco, and some of those years living in Redwood City. By the time she was twenty, her family had moved yet again to a farming community far removed from the northern California ambience of the Bay Area.

At least the family was still in California. However, that’s one huge state in which to say one is “still” together.

I have so much more to learn about this family—both the Shields branch and the Bean branch. Researching the Bean family pre-personal-computer-age, thankfully, was made somewhat easier by virtue of the Bean family’s arrival at about the same time as the Gold Rush. While I didn’t have the benefit of the multiple online resources we’re blessed with today, it serendipitously turns out that a forty-five minute drive brings me to the California State Library—a place which, over the years, has accumulated an archive of every single newspaper ever published in the state.

Well…at least, that’s what the librarian told me at the time.

Among the collection of California newspapers duly indexed by meticulous librarians, the Bean family—as well as the Shields family in their later years—figured amply within the entries in the newspaper index. For which I’ve been ever grateful!

If I can locate where my own less-than-meticulous filing system doomed the photocopies of relevant articles to be filed, I’ll be able to share those tidbits with you in the next few days. I haven’t missed the fact that these particular issues are still not within the collections of those several online archival companies, so finding my copies will be our only opportunity to get that exact zing of the wording.

Meanwhile, let’s meet Ella’s groom: the California-born Leon Samuel Bean.

Leon was born in May of 1863, so he was only a couple years older than Ella. It makes me wonder if the two of them might have attended school together. Since neither family seemed particularly religious—unlike the other family lines I’ve researched, where I owe my success to the zealous record-keeping of the religious institutions to which those families were affiliated—I have no idea where else Ella might have met Leon. Perhaps Leon’s younger sister Blanche, who was the same age as Ella, might have been the link that connected the two, but how am I to find this out, now?

Leon and Blanche were born to two Maine residents who had, independent of one another, decided to make the long, harrowing journey around the horn from the northeastern coast of the country in Maine, all the way to San Francisco. If I remember correctly, father Samuel arrived first in San Francisco, followed later by his wife-to-be, Celia Hankerson.

I know little else about Leon in his younger years. Unfortunately, Bill Bean’s jumble of family photographs does not include any portraits of Leon before the one I found, labeled, “L. S. Bean, 48 yrs.”

At that point—which would have been about the year 1911—he looks formal, dignified, professional.

And quite bald.

Such a professional portrait would not be surprising, considering Leon Bean was known not only in Redwood City and San Mateo County, but also in neighboring Santa Clara County, as a reputable general contractor.

However, the date of this photograph—the only one of Leon S. Bean left in his son’s collection—indicates that it was taken on the eve of an event sure to make a substantial difference in the life of each of his family members.

And those newspapers would be sure to tell of it.

Tracking the Shields Family

Now that you’ve been properly introduced to the young Ella May Shields, let me take you on a journey to retrace the steps of the Shields family of Illinois.

Ella’s parents—Irish immigrant William James Shields and the former Margaret Elizabeth Marsh—were married in Illinois. Best I can tell so far—albeit without the requisite documentation—the place was Genoa in DeKalb County, and the date was New Year’s Day of 1858. Of course, that information is subject to change with the slightest paper trace that it might have turned out differently.

An 1860 census—which I am not yet sure I can trust—shows William’s young family residing not in Illinois, but in Bourbon County of Kansas Territory. William shows up in that document, roughly at the appropriate age and from the right birthplace. His wife—if this is indeed the right person—was listed by her middle name, Elizabeth, rather than her first name, but otherwise everything else seems to be in order, from place of birth in New York, to current age. And baby Alice, their firstborn, shows a place of birth, just the year prior, in Illinois. So we see evidence that the family is already on the move.

Maybe.

Later census records show subsequent children—well, almost all of them—born in Illinois, however. And the 1870 record does confirm that the Shields family made their way back to a place then known as Drummer Grove Township in Ford County, Illinois.

But not for long.

Somehow, William, his wife and children Alice, Adolphus, Ella May, Lillian and Josephine, made it all the way from Illinois to somewhere in northern California before the baby of the family—Flora—made her appearance in 1876.

What I would love to learn is how they made the trip. Though my romantic mind yearns for stories of covered wagons making the trek over the rugged terrain, 1875 does seem a little beyond that scenario. But not by much.

If they had the money, the Shields family may more likely have traveled by the overland route of the first transcontinental railroad.

That, however, would only have brought them to the east bay. And I have records that they were farmers farther south in Fresno County by 1900.

Voting records provide hints that William Shields may have lived in San Francisco for a while—but then, how likely is it that the William Shields listed in some of those Great Register records would be my William Shields? There is no disputing that that is a fairly common name to be had.

The 1880 census, thankfully, pinpoints one place of residence in California: San Mateo County. Most likely, the Shields family lived for a while in or near Redwood City.

That provided the key—though momentary—link for Ella to meet her future husband. I say momentary, however, because by 1886, a William Shields shows up in the Great Record of California as a registered voter in Fresno County.

Just under three years later, Ella May exchanges vows with one Leon Samuel Bean of Redwood City, and the celebration is hardly over in Fresno before her beloved whisks her away from parents and siblings and back to her former hometown in Redwood City.

From that point on—though not necessarily staying for all that time in just one place—Ella Shields Bean is a Bay Area woman.

Union Central Pacific Railroad Great Over-Land Route Timetable cover, 1881 engraved illustration, courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain. 

Ella in Episodes

I thought about entitling this post “Polka Dot Ella.” Or maybe “Ella Through Swiss Cheese.” Something with spots through which only glimpses might be caught. You get the idea.

The aggravating thing about researching Ella Shields Bean is that I’ve been able to find early indications of her youngest years near her birthplace of Peoria, Illinois, then a smattering of her young adult life in and around San Francisco, her early married life in Redwood City in California’s San Mateo County, and then those long, endless dreary years of older life at the “Beanery” in Alameda.

Those are the “dots” in Ella’s life that I’ve been able to find—mostly pre-Internet, usually at California’s state library in Sacramento, and often while sitting on the floor next to some quite-inaccessible index file in a dusty corner of the old building.

The problem is that I have not yet been able to figure out how to connect those dots.

So consider this next series of posts on Ella Shields Bean to be my genealogically-inspired Rorschach ink-blot test. Or my roots-inspired Jackson Pollack creation. Or my Oscar Madison throw-the-spaghetti-on-the-wall-and-see-if-it-sticks technique. You take your choice.

To whichever style you prefer to liken my approach, here’s the bottom line: despite the hodgepodge of documentary evidence, I’ll try to post the story as consecutively as possible, moving through the timeline of Ella’s life in a relatively orderly fashion. But there are no guarantees that all my long-filed research results will magically glom on to my fingertips the moment I reach for them. Above all, there is little to no hope that I’ll be able to conjure up second copies of documentation to cover those missing segments of Ella’s life story.

As researchers, we do what we must do. All the rest…well, all the rest will hopefully appear with the next addition to the databases at all our favorite genealogy websites.

So here’s the overview on Ella. Based on her daughter Leona’s notes, Ella Shields was born to William and Margaret Marsh Shields in Peoria, Illinois on April 22, 1865—placing her right in the middle of what turned out to be a good-sized family.

Somehow—and here is an example of those spots I know nothing about—Ella and the rest of the Shields family surfaced in the San Francisco Bay Area around the time of the 1880 census. They resided in San Mateo County, most likely in Redwood City.

Whether the Shields family actually lived in San Francisco before or after that time, I don’t know. However, for whatever reason, Ella Shields chose a photographer in San Francisco for her portrait when she was twenty years of age. Her likeness was taken at

Elite Photographic Studio

838 Market Street, Opposite Fourth

San Francisco

Medal awarded over all competitors for the Best

Photographs at the State Fair 1879

Medal awarded over all competitors for the Best

Photographs at the Mechanics’ Institute Fair 1880

Jones & Lotz.

Ella’s photograph was most likely taken in 1885. In the copy I now possess, one end of the card was evidently cut off to make room to display it in a frame.

Someone—maybe her daughter Leona in later years, though it doesn’t appear to be her handwriting—wrote a brief label on the reverse: “Ella Shields  20yr.”

She was still listed only as Ella Shields, for she had not yet gotten married. That event didn’t occur for another four years—another “dot” which we will save for another day.

Taking a Step Back in Time

While there are so many more photographs that I have yet to identify in the mystery box from Bill Bean and his sister, Leona Bean Grant, I think it is time to move on and delve into the stories of the previous generation.

You’ve already met their mother, Ella Shields Bean, in past posts, but let’s re-acquaint ourselves with the woman we’ll focus on in the next few days as we push the timeline back from the mid 1900s to the previous century.

Ella Bean may have sensed that she was not photogenic—or perhaps cared little for such “new-fangled” contraptions as Bill’s Polaroid cameras. She did, however, have a persistent son who loved to tinker with machines and see what they could do to make life easier or more enjoyable.

I imagine Bill—who, as an adult, lived for much of his younger married life as his mother’s next door neighbor—would often stop by his mom’s place, pop his head in the door, and call out, “Hey, mom, come look at this!”

Why do I imagine that?

Because I have a number of photographs of the aging Ella Bean, sitting at that very same  front entryway to her home, putting up with Bill’s photographic experiments.

One—thankfully labeled on the reverse, “Mother + Chang, 1940”—even bears the imprint of someone’s misplaced fingerprints. I imagine those prints belong to Bill…in more ways than one.

Ella, who for several years also provided housing for her other son—Sam, Bill’s blind and deaf twin brother—was live-in grandmother to two active boys as well. Chang may well have provided some canine companionship not only for Ella, but for her young charges as well.

By 1940, the date of this photograph, Ella would have been seventy five years of age. She most likely had been living in that same home in Alameda, California, for over twenty years—a story we’ll take a closer look at in the next few days.

Another photo—making it seem much as if Ella did nothing all day but sit on her front stoop—was labeled, “Ella Shields Bean, 82 years.”

More likely, it was her son, once again saying, “Come on out in the sunlight and let me take your picture.”

By the time Ella reached that age, it would have been 1947—less than two years before her passing. And yet, she still retained that strong, no-nonsense appearance of several years prior. I often wonder how similar she might have been, at that age, to the way I remember her daughter Leona being in her older years. After all, in their younger years, Leona took after her mother so much.

Though there are very few treasures in Bill Bean’s mystery box of photographs that reveal the younger Ella Shields Bean, I have been able to retrace Ella’s steps and connect with her family stories through research I did years ago at the California State Library. Long before the advent of personal computers—and certainly before the age of the Internet—I was still able to ferret out gems regarding Ella May’s early years of marriage to Leon Samuel Bean, and even stories from her family after they settled in Fresno, California.

In the upcoming week, I’ll share some of those details as we turn our attention to what can be discovered about a much younger Ella Shields Bean.