So Quickly Gone

Relocating Leon Bean’s grave in San Jose two weeks ago may have been a quick victory for me, but the discovery must have set something in motion in my subconscious that only poked me awake the other night: the realization that Leon was sixty six when he passed away.

Oh, I know what people say about preceding generations: that we are living so much longer now than people had before. So sixty six years, for that era, shouldn’t have been an unusual point of passage.

True. But put it in perspective. At the point of his death in 1928, his oldest child was thirty seven. The twins were thirty two. The oldest of Leon’s two grandsons had just turned seven.

Meanwhile, I’ve heard a number of acquaintances in their sixties worry about taking care of their parents. We’re talking moms and dads in their eighties and nineties.

While I’ll admit our twenty-first century world is vastly different from that of the 1920s, there was something about that age that caught my eye.

Then, when I found the transcribed excerpt from his hometown newspaper’s report of Leon’s death—in the Redwood City Standard three days after his passing on November 12—I found another detail that demanded my attention: this working man succumbed to an acute illness lasting only a few days.

How quickly things can change for a person.

While I’m grateful to have found a copy of that local report, thanks to the transcription from the Schellens Collection in the San Mateo County Genealogical Society’s holdings, I’ve found one detail that not only irks me, but demands a return visit: that nasty though convenient device known as the ellipsis.

You’ll see in the copy I’ve added below that the tale is not fully told in Mr. Schellens’ version, for in two places, he has inserted the dot-dot-dot that signifies something has been omitted.

Has it been omitted? Or did the transcriber inadvertently insert some extra punctuation where spaces should instead have been used? How can I tell, unless I locate the original? And where else would a Redwood City newspaper original be, besides back in Redwood City?

Oh, I knew I liked it there too much…

Leon S. Bean, former well-known resident of Redwood City, passed away in San Jose at midnight Monday following an illness of only a few days. Death was caused by an acute attack of appendicitis. Mr. Bean was in the building contracting business in this city and in Palo Alto for many years and a large number of the business structures and residences of this part of the county were erected by him. He moved to San Jose about three years ago to take charge of the mill work of a large lumber concern of that city.... He is survived by his widow, Mrs. Emma Bean, and three children, Mrs. Leona Grant of San Francisco; William Bean of Fresno; and Samuel Bean of Boston, Mass. A sister, Mrs. H. G. Watrous of San Francisco, also survives. He was 66 years of age.... Interment will be in Oak Hill Cemetery, San Jose.

Kid In Candy Shoppe, Take Two

If it weren’t for time, expense and distance, I could really get into this research-on-the-road thing. Yesterday marked another return to the Bay Area, where I’ve been pursuing the various wisps of the Samuel Bean family which settled in San Francisco—and then Redwood City—from somewhere in Maine.

There is only one problem with these productive forays into genealogical collections in other counties’ libraries: I find so many other interesting details to capture my attention.

My mission yesterday was to complete the index on all the Bean entries in the Richard Schellens collection housed at the Cañada College library in San Mateo County. During a recent trip there with my husband, our crack research team had not quite conquered the extensive list of mentions culled from historic local newspapers. To go back and recoup those leads, I piggybacked on an all-day business meeting my husband had in the vicinity and hitched a ride to the library, thinking six more hours of work would get me through my wish list.

Surprise. It didn’t.

It more than got me through all those Bean entries.

So, what’s a pumped researcher to do? Look for collateral information!

Sometimes, those of us who exist on a steady diet of family surname links and lines of relationship carry all that stuff around in our heads. We can’t possibly expect our handy family assistants—no matter how willing they might be—to keep up with all those connections. Parsing out assignments to such library assistants usually follows a simplified format, like: “Look up all the entries for Samuel Bean.”

We need to spare those poor, drafted, good-natured research assistants the agony of confusing stuff, like “Samuel Bean’s widow married a guy named Costello, only in the original document, it was actually spelled Costellow—so try to find something on her.”

Guess what I ended up doing with my extra time yesterday, back at that same reference section? You guessed it: play clean-up batter.

That was not all. There was still some time left to check out even more resources than the Schellens Collection listings. I found an obituary index for the Redwood City area which, while admittedly much more recent than the Schellens entries on the nineteenth century Bean family, allowed me to work my way forward in Leon Bean’s sister’s line. Remember my difficulty with searches on a name like Blanche Bean? And my veritable fit over the middle initial for the right Harry Watrous? Grand Slam.

While I have yet to meet any of the members of the genealogical society hosting this reference section of the Cañada College library, I’ve found their collection to be well organized and stocked with intuitive index aids and other tools researchers get really excited about. The San Mateo County Genealogical Society—much like many such societies—has initiated projects that feature the people of their local history, and some of these resources contain elements that aren’t found in any online databases at this point. To have this material well organized and within grasp through well-thought-out finding aids is a treat.

Having found all the research “candy” that I had my heart set on finding, I guess this will be my last trip to the Redwood City area for family history research.

Let me amend that: until I discover what I don’t know that I don’t know, it seems this will be my last trip to check out San Mateo County’s Genealogical Society library holdings.

But you know how addictive such candy can be to those of us with a research sweet tooth.

  
Photograph from the collection of Bill Bean--unlabeled, as so many of his photographs were. The name of the railroad company was probably "- - - Pacific Lines" and the engine displays the number "5." However this vignette from the photograph memories of the Bean family may fit into their story, I'm just glad I didn't have to rely on that same mode of transportation yesterday to get me to my research destination. 

Where Laura Isn’t Buried

As easy as it was to find the burial location for Leon Bean during our San Jose trip almost two weeks ago, it was not so easy to find another relative: the mysterious Laura Carrier.

If you remember, Laura Carrier is a new name to me. I found it by accident while reveling in my new-found historic newspaper resources that opened up the journal on late 1800s northern California cities. While searching for Leon’s sister, Blanche, I had uncovered a mention of her “cousin” in a funeral announcement.

While I knew that Blanche had married Harry Griswold Watrous, and that their family was now living in San Francisco, I had no idea she had a cousin with a surname Carrier. Actually, I still don’t know about any cousins for Leon or his sister Blanche because I know nothing of either of their parents’ siblings. Each of that older generation, as far as I can tell, had come to San Francisco from Maine, alone. Not until that recent research trip to San Jose did I even know where in Maine they might have originated.

There were several logical steps to take to ferret out some information on this Laura Carrier. First, of course, was to contact the cemetery listed in the newspaper clipping. This was simple: I had been to Cypress Lawn, the cemetery mentioned in Laura’s announcement, since I had attended the funeral and burial of a friend’s father there just last fall. Locating the cemetery information online, I gave them a call in preparation for my upcoming trip to the San Jose area, since the cemetery would be a short distance up the peninsula. I could go there and photograph the headstone myself—if there was a headstone.

Naturally, I also was eager to inquire as to whether Laura was buried in a family plot. This information might open up several other research possibilities, and provide clues as to how, exactly, Laura and Blanche were cousins.

The response to my phone call to Cypress Lawn, however, did not bode well for me. Transferred to a department which landed me on a voice mail recording, I left my message with doubts as to whether a long distance return call would even happen.

It didn’t.

With my trip now only a day or so away, I decided to call back and see if a second approach would yield better results. With much apologies and promises, another employee handled my request. While she was certainly gracious, it turned out I wasn’t to appreciate her answer any more than the first response.

Laura, it turns out—at least according to the cemetery’s records—was not buried in Cypress Lawn.

Now what?

I hurried back to my online resources to check whether there might have been two cemeteries with the same name. I checked to see when the cemetery I contacted had been established (the dates matched up).

Granted, after seeing mistakes in almost every type of written record I’ve ever consulted—from newspapers to death certificates to even headstones—I was willing to allow that the San Francisco Call had gotten it wrong, and listed the cemetery in error.

My next step could be to try to get a copy of Laura’s death certificate, but since I’m returning to the Bay Area soon, I don’t exactly have the luxury of such a wait.

I wondered who might currently have the records for the mortuary—since, by this time over one hundred years later, it would be unlikely that the company is still in existence. First, to be sure, I checked to see if I was searching in the wrong city. The funeral was to take place on Mission Street, so naturally I had originally assumed that referred to the Mission Street in San Francisco—but since Laura actually died in Oakland (across the Bay), it occurred to me there might be a Mission Street in Oakland, too.

A quick check to the 1895 city directories at Ancestry.com revealed three things:

• No listings for any Carrier family in Oakland
• No listing for a Mission Street in Oakland
• No listing for a funeral home by the name shown in the newspaper article.

Well, if not in Oakland, then was it in San Francisco? After all, that was the home city for the newspaper carrying the announcement. I had to look at the 1896 directory for San Francisco, as Ancestry.com didn’t have a volume for the year of Laura’s death. Of course, there was no need to inspect the city street listings for a Mission entry—I was already sure of that. It was reassuring to see entries in the San Francisco directory for a few others with the Carrier surname, plus another spelling variant. As far as the name of the business, I was pleased to find my confirmation: the name as the newspaper reported it, plus the location at that same address, 946 Mission Street.

What was the possibility that that business would still be in existence today? I took my chances and made the entry in Google™. Keying in “Halsted and Company” along with the name of the city and the type of occupation, I hit the right result at the top of the listings. There still is a Halsted funeral home in San Francisco—albeit merged with some other company names.

Could it possibly still have the records I’m seeking? Though I’ll give it a try, I doubt it. Keep in mind the one cataclysmic event standing in between Laura’s passing and our modern times: the 1906 earthquake. According to the company's website, in the aftermath of the earthquake, the original Mission street location was completely burned.

And the records, I presume, as well.

Going Up Rocket, Coming Down Stick

One thing about pursuing family history research via historic newspapers: you can gain a sense of the changes in expression over a span of one hundred years or so. Looking at all the newspaper entries while researching the surnames associated with the Samuel Bean family of Redwood City, California, I certainly noticed that. Language changes.

You might think English is English is English, but it simply is not so.

So while I pored over entry after entry at the California Digital Newspaper Collection, I soaked in the ambience of life, the way these ancestors expressed it.

In one of the many false starts I encountered along the way—the multiple entries for a Harry Watrous not our own—I ran across one particular expression that I thought fitting for what I was experiencing right at that moment.

I have no idea what the expression might have meant to residents of northern California in 1883, but I’ll let you have a look at it and see if you take away the same message I do.

From the front page of the Sacramento Daily Union on November 21, a Lucy Harper—supposedly writing from the very art capital of the time, Paris—analyzed her new-found artistic sensation, the Harry Watrous that turned out not to be part of my Bean family’s line.

An excerpt from her observations:

I am always glad to signalize the advent of any new American star on the horizon of art, and it is my pleasing task to-day to tell of some very admirable work just executed by a young American painter, Harry Watrous…. He is still very young, and has not been studying long, but he is not only exceptionally talented, but he is an earnest, conscientious worker, and his progress within the last year or two has been something to marvel at. His success has not been the case of “going up rocket,” with the chance of “coming down stick,” but it has been achieved by steady, patient study and persevering work, joined to great natural gifts.

Despite my disappointment that this Harry Watrous wasn’t my Harry Watrous—well, Blanche Bean’s Harry, to be precise—I couldn’t help but notice the aptness of the expression for exactly what was happening to me in this research quest.

Sometimes, the hits keep coming at us, fast and furious, and we think we are rolling in the data riches of a research jackpot—only to discover that what we first thought wasn’t exactly how things turned out in the end.

It’s not just that “what goes up must come down.” It’s a matter of recognizing that, even when something seems like it will be not only a sure thing but the next best thing ever, it might not end up that way.

Sometimes, no matter how wonderful the exponential increase of all these online resources might be, there still is the need for archives that hold records that we may touch. We still must have those repositories where the original documents can be preserved and referred back to, if need be. Sometimes, slow and steady wins the research race.

That’s the kind of reminder that makes me glad I’ve got a research trip to the Bay Area lined up for the near future. Yeah, it means I’ll have to get in my car, time things just right to miss the rush hour traffic, and somehow jive with the individual schedules of all the libraries and cemeteries I’ll need to visit. But at least that’s the kind of Plan B I can keep in my back pocket for when such things happen.

Sometimes, those new options do “go up rocket” yet “come down stick.”


Photograph above: Unidentified woman in hat, possibly from 1890s, from the collection of Bill Bean. As I received it, the photograph was hand trimmed--a hallmark of Bill's sister, Leona Bean Grant--from card stock, apparently removed from a gray backing, of which traces still adhered to the glue. There was no label on the back.

What a Difference One Letter Can Make

So, here I am, flying along in my genealogy research with the aid of my bright shiny new toys—several newspaper archives with effective search engines (ahem)—and, just to supercharge the thrill, I decide to work on a surname sure to produce viable results.

I zero in on Watrous. That’s the surname of the man Leon Bean’s sister Blanche married in 1888. With a name like that, there couldn’t be too many false hits, right?

To tell the truth, I’m doing this particular search because I’m trying to find background information on why Mrs. Harry Watrous has a cousin from Wisconsin. That would be her husband’s old stomping ground, not hers. But that blip of a news article I mentioned yesterday said it was her cousin, not his, who passed away in Oakland, California; I’m desperately trying to find out who this Laura Carrier from Wisconsin might be. After all, I’m certainly open to discovering a whole new branch of the Bean or Hankerson families.

With a first name like Harry, I’m thinking this Mister Watrous couldn’t be too elusive. After all, my other bright shiny research toy—the name website I found the other day—says that Harry is a name currently considered “rare.”

But now is not when Harry Watrous was in his heyday. Born in 1862 in Wisconsin, Harry was in his prime by the time my what-to-name-the-baby database picks up on the history of name popularity.

The 1880s, while not even near the year of Harry’s birth, saw the name’s popularity hold steady at a rank of twelve, moving into the top ten most popular boys’ names by the first half of the 1890s. By the time Blanche and Harry named their own son in 1903 (Harry, of course), that name had settled back down to thirteenth place in the popularity race.

I should have gotten that clue. There were a lot of Harrys out there in this Harry’s heyday.

That, by the way, is why they invented middle initials. So that one won’t confuse this Harry Watrous with that Harry Watrous.

But you already knew that, didn’t you?

I, however, have been blithely ignorant of that fact, so enamored am I of my newfound bright shiny newspaper research toys.

I’m finding stuff like:

Mrs. Harry Watrous talked on the life of Clara Barton…

Mrs. Harry Watrous, special field worker for the Y.W.C.A…

Prominent among the women workers were Mrs. Harry Watrous…

Then I come to an entry mentioning admirable work just executed by a young American painter, Harry Watrous…and I think I’ve hit the jackpot. Fame! Fortune! Recognition!

This genealogy stuff is fun!

I make a beeline to Wikipedia, my favorite online place to look up stuff.

Like: “Who is Harry Watrous?”

There was an artist named Harry Watrous. Only, to learn anything about him from his Wikipedia entry, I’d have to know how to read Dutch. Why only the Dutch would be interested in Harry Watrous of San Francisco, I don’t know, but I suppose Google™ Translate is always there to assist me, if I get that curious.

In the meantime, it isn’t dawning on me that Harry is such a popular name, until I hit a news clipping telling me

Mrs. John E. Ortlieb and son from Jamestown, N.Y., are passing the winter in California and were Christmas guests of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Watrous at the family reunion of Mrs. Watrous family, the Farwells of Berkeley, eight of whom were present.

Wait! Farwells? Um…that’s not Blanche’s maiden name.

And that’s when it dawned on me that middle initials can become very important.

I went back and took a look at a lot of other newspaper articles. Some were just mentions of “Harry Watrous.” But many others included a middle initial.

Can you believe, in just the San Jose newspaper, I found not only a Harry W. Watrous—and I have no doubt that this is in addition to the Harry Willson Watrous who was the artist I already mentioned—but a Harry A. Watrous, in addition to my Harry G. Watrous?

Admittedly, by 1900, San Jose’s population was over 21,000. But three Harry Watrouses in a city of that size is still incredible to me.

All I can say is: thank goodness for middle initials. Better yet—make that middle names. At least, I hope a name like Harry Griswold Watrous will give our man enough space to differentiate himself from all those other Harry Watrouses out there in San Jose.


Above right: Harry Willson Watrous, "Sophistication," oil on canvas, originally entitled by the artist, "A Cup of Tea, A Cigarette, and She" for a 1908 National Academy of Design exhibition. One has got to love an artist whose talents include not only a way with words, but the ingenuity of devising the Lake George Monster Hoax. From the collection of the Haggin Museum, Stockton, California, via Wikipedia; in the public domain in the United States, European Union, and those countries with a copyright term of life of the artist plus seventy years or less.