A cut branch

Anyone who has carried their genealogy back more than a century, or who has spent time walking the rows in a cemetery will note the number of children born to a family is much higher than we consider "normal." Likewise, the number of children--and mothers--who die, usually shortly after the birth seems very high from our modern perspective. A few entries from a name study underway illustrates how our understanding of conception, birth control, and general health has expanded over the years, and how that plays out in real terms for real people:

• Barbara, born in 1698, married Anton in Betra, then part of Prussia, when she was 19. She bore 13 children, 8 of whom died as infants. She died at the age of 45, shortly after giving birth to a boy named Anton; the baby also died within days of his birth.
• In the same village, Magdalena married Johann when she was 25 (8 months after their first child was born). She bore 10 children, only half of whom lived to adulthood. In 1777, she and five of her children died in a 6-month period, likely from illness, possibly smallpox.
• Felicitas married Johann in Betra, Prussia, when she was 21 years old in 1778. She bore 12 children, of whom 6 died before the age of one. She died one year after the birth of her last child, at age 44. 
• Afra was born in Betra in 1822, and married Johann Baptist when she was 22--the day after the birth of her first child. She bore four more children, of whom three made it to adulthood. She died 9 months after her last child was born. She was 29.
• Christina married yet another Johann when she was 28 years old. She had one child seven years later, followed by a son when she was 55. That baby lived three months; she died a month after he did in the winter of 1869. 
• Olga was born in Betra in 1888. She never married, and was a midwife. According to baptismal records, she had three children. It is unclear if she gave birth to them herself, or "found them in the swamp" as her family explained it--possibly unwanted children of her clientele. One child died at 6 months of age, and one was killed in WWII by friendly fire.
• Margaret, a first generation immigrant from Betra, married Harry in Pennsylvania in 1911, when she was 22 years old. She had one child three years later, who died within hours of his birth. She never had any other children. 

Mother and child

Smith, anything but common

My mother-in-law (you can read her sweet love story here) has always said she never cared for her surname, Smith, as it was so very common. But I find her grandfather, Joe Smith, anything but common. 

Joseph Edward Smith was born on 31 March 1873 in Whitechapel, and was baptized 24 August 1873. He married Emily Maud Foster in Hackney on 3 August 1896. His occupation at the time was cheesemonger’s assistant. Five years later, in the 1901 census, Joseph is a baker’s assistant and he and Emily are living at 7 London Road, Hackney. Like many, Joe appears to have fudged his age when he enlisted in WWI on 12 December 1915.  

Joseph was devoted to Emily and they celebrated their 50th Wedding Anniversary in 1946. They had four children, three of whom died without issue. His activities in the trade union movement brought him in contact with the family of William Adams: William's daughter ended up marrying Joseph's youngest son: Thelma and her sister Kathleen are the result, the only grandchildren to Joe and Emily.  

Kathleen passed on some reminiscences of their grandfather:

Joseph was a small man, even as a child he looked short to me. The most he would have been was 5 ft , 7 inches tall. I remember he was someone who liked to be outside in the company of other men. He used to go the park and play bowls and he liked to go to cafés for a cup of tea, and I think he met up with his friends there. He smoked a pipe but Emily would not let him smoke in the house. I remember him going into the garden to smoke. He was a nice man with a quiet temperate nature.

Children perceive their family members one way, while adults see things through a different lens. Joe died in 1953, and his legacy earned him several column inches:

[Feb 1953]

TRADES UNION PIONEER DIES

Within 24 hours of being admitted to Langthorne Hospital, Leytonstone, following a short illness, Mr. Joseph Edward Smith, of 18, Coronation-gardens, Leyton, died last Thursday. He was 79 years of age.

Born at Whitechapel, Mr. Smith had lived in Leyton over 40 years. A member of the Leyton and District Committee of the Tobacco Workers Union, he was employed as a tobacco stripper until his retirement in 1938.

A keen trade unionist, Mr. Smith served on Walthamstow Trades Council early in 1900, and during the 1914–18 war contested Leytonstone Ward – then a conservative stronghold – in  the Layton Borough Council elections. In 1893, he was a member of the Socialist Democratic Federation, a forerunner of the Labour Party, and was a founder member of the Shop Assistants’ Union which is now incorporated with N.U.D.A.W.

During 1920, Mr. Smith was actively associated with the Layton and Leytonstone Poor Children’s Outing Fund, a body which had the patronage of a local mayor. 

He served with the Royal Scots in the First World War. 

A widower since March, 1950, He is survived by two sons and a daughter. 

The funeral was at Queens-road Cemetery, Walthamstow, on Tuesday, the service being conducted by the Rev. R.W. Sorenson, M.P. for Layton.

Joseph Edward Smith

A hunting accident

 A SAD TRAGEDY.

---

California paper tells of Bernard Street's fatal accident.

A copy of the Huntington Park (Calif.) Signal for October 11 containing the following account of the tragic death met by Bernard Street, son of Mr. and Mrs. John Street, has been received by The News:

One of the saddest tragedies to ever cast a shadow over Huntington Park occurred last Sunday morning when the lifeless body of Bernard Street, principal of the Huntington Park grammar schools, was found in the river bottom east of Bell.

Mr. Street had gone hunting late Saturday afternoon and had not returned home when dark came. Mrs. Street grew more uneasy as the hours dragged along, and finally reported his failure to return to some of the neighbors.

A searching party was organized Saturday night and the entire river bottom gone over, but the searchers failed to find him. His bicycle was located where he had left it on entering the field to hunt, but no further trace of him could be found. 

Early Sunday morning another search was started and about 6:00 o'clock his lifeless body was found near a wire fence with a hole in his breast. From all appearances he had climbed the fence and his clothing became entangled in the barbs. He had evidently endeavored to get his clothing disengaged, and in doing so, had dropped the shotgun, which was discharged and the entire load entered his breast.

The news of his sudden ending spread over the entire community. While Mr. Street had only been here a little over a year, he had become known to practically every home in the city. Being the head of the grammar schools, he was known through the students if in no other way and practically every home felt a personal loss in his tragic death. 

Bernard Street was born in Iowa 34 years ago. When he was yet a young lad he moved with his parents to Minn. Early in his young manhood he entered Carleton College, Northfield, Minn. From this institution he graduated in the same class with Miss Ella Richardson whom he married in 1907. They attended college together. They taught together in the same school. They seized life's responsibilities and launched their interests together as husband and wife with hope and promise and traveled together 11 years in the highway of human service.

To them were born four children—three boys and one girl. He came to Huntington Park at the call of our board of trustees of the public schools at the opening of the school year in the fall of 1917. He has brought our schools to that high standard of efficiency second to none in this great county of Los Angeles. Nearline his demise came suddenly and tragically Saturday afternoon, October 5, 1918. He leaves to mourn his growing his widow and four fatherless children, also his father and mother, four brothers and three sisters, none of whom are able to attend the funeral. 

The funeral was held Wednesday afternoon at the funeral parlors of the Huntington Park undertaking company, attended by many of the schoolchildren and a large number of our citizens. The floral offerings formed a regular Bower in the room and represented the love and esteem in which he was held by the children and other people.

Reverend Hugh C Gibson, pastor of the Methodist Church, conducted the service, the burial taking place at Rosedale Cemetery, Los Angeles. 

The entire community extends the deepest sympathy to the heartbroken wife and the little fatherless children.

Cause of death from from the death certificate

What the article does not recount is the aftermath--for not only did Ella and Bernard have four small children, she was pregnant with their fifth. Her brother, my grandfather Russell Richardson, wrote of the event in his journal--only three days after announcing his engagement to Jessie Cutting. Russell is in the Navy--this is WWI and there is a flu epidemic looming--in officer training on Mare Island near San Francisco; his parents are in Sutherlin, Oregon:

October 5. I received a telegram from my sister Ella in Huntington Beach, asking me to come to her as Bernard had been accidentally killed. I phoned the Officer of the Day at Mare Island and asked for permission to extend my absence. He said he had no authority to grant an extension, and advised me when I reached southern California to go to Navy headquarters and ascertain whether my leave had been approved.

I caught the night train to Los Angeles, where I was met by Gail Patterson, a cousin of my mother. Bernard had been out hunting and when he was going through a fence, apparently tripped the trigger.

Ella and Bernard had four children – Harold, Helen, Donald, and Bernard, and she was about six months pregnant (with Mary Kay). My father and mother telegraphed to her inviting her to bring her family to live with them, and she immediately made plans to do so.

The funeral was held on October 8, and on that same day I received a telegram from Mare Island ordering me to return at once. Accordingly, I took the train back home, had a chance to see Jessie for a short time, went to Mare Island, obtained a longer leave of absence, and took the train back to Los Angeles on October 10.

I helped Ella with the packing and the local merchants were very friendly and agreed to dispose of the household goods. Another of Mother’s cousins, Gertrude Mount, was most helpful during this period. She took care of the children like a mother, and acted as sister, doctor, minister, to Ella. Without her heaven-sent assistance, Ella could never have survived.

We boarded the train for Oakland at 7:30 p.m. October 12. Ella almost collapsed, and I insisted that she get into her berth and that I would attend to the children. I took them to the dining car and left them. They managed very well by themselves [Harold was 10, Helen 8, Donald 6, and Bernard 4]. 

We reached Oakland at 1:40 p.m. after a very hot, terrible trip. Sydney Watson [yet another cousin] and her mother took us all in and cared for us, I don’t know how; but it was done. And on the following day, October 14, we boarded the train at 11 o’clock, on our way to Sutherlin, where we arrived at 2 p.m. October 15. Some friends of Father and Mother with automobiles met us and took us out to our parents’ home. Dear old Mother – she had everything planned, arrangements made, and with no confusion.

On October 15, I took the train back to Mare Island, arriving October 18. During this period the flu had been very serious and I was required to go into quarantine at Mare Island. We were all wearing flu masks. I obtained permission to go to Oakland to get my clothing, and this gave me a chance to reach Jessie for a short time.

November 11, 1918. Armistice was signed and peace descended on the world.

In the 1920 Census, Ella and her now five young children are still living with her parents; by 1930, she is back on her feet and renting a home in Minnesota, a single mother with five children, teaching high school. 

A woman and the union

An earlier post outlines how my Grandmother, Ruth Thompson Walsh, grew up in, managed, and eventually retired to a hotel. Her son, describes an event at the Biltmore Hotel in San Francisco that led to pickets in front of the hotel:

"At the Biltmore hotel mom managed the dining room and supervised the maids. […] Around 1941 mom had occasion to fire a janitor who felt he could intimidate a woman boss. This led to a union picket line around the hotel for many months and meant that we had to bring in all food and supplies by private auto. Fortunately all of the employees and guests were loyal and supportive." 

The strike made the newspaper: 

San Francisco Examiner, Oct. 11, 1941

"Picket lines were thrown around the hotel, which is operated by Mrs. A.M. Walsh, a widow, as a side issue to the major dispute over wage increases and a union shop, after a houseman had been discharged assertedly for 'incompetence and intemperance.' 

Culinary workers and bartenders, who have been participating in the strike against ten other members of the Hotel Employers Association, stressed that they had not called the strike and that it was 'no concern of ours.' 

The houseman, according to Mrs. Walsh, was discharged Tuesday after numerous complaints had been received from tenants. Thursday, Russell Dreyer, secretary-treasurer of Local 14, telephoned and demanded that the houseman be reinstated. When she refused, he told her curtly, Mrs. Walsh said, to 'tell it to the pickets.' 

Only one employee, a maid, refused to pass through the picket lines yesterday morning, Mrs. Walsh said. She employs sixteen persons, including maids, cooks, waitresses and telephone operators. 

Meanwhile the Biltmore and ten other hotels which were picketed continued to operate as usual. 

Spokesmen for the Local Joint Executive Board said they had no announcements to make regarding extension of the pickets to sixteen other hotels which are members of the Employers’ group." 

The strike dragged on--without really interrupting the hotels' businesses--ebbing and flowing with the holidays, until the spring of 1942, when the War Labor Board was called in to negotiate a truce. While the dispute over the question of back pay for striking workers remained a source of contention, the pickets petered out, and life took on a semblance of normalcy. 

The other story of Ruth standing up to staff was related by my father who said that once during dinner, she noted that the meat was tough, even though she had purchased an expensive cut of beef. She slipped downstairs to the kitchen to discover that staff was enjoying a tenderloin instead of the guests. The cook was summarily fired, and replaced by a black woman, who, as it turns out, was a better cook, and a stable influence in my teenaged father's life. 

To the happy graduate

School was never an easy thing for my father, who much preferred tinkering and sailing to book work. The expectation was that he would be an engineer like his father--which commonly attracts tinkerers, but requires oodles of math classes and the like. 

He managed to barely graduate from Lowell High School in San Francisco, and decided that sailing the seas was for him. He saw the writing on the wall in Korea, and not wanting to be drafted as an army private ("cannon fodder" he called them), he enrolled in the California Maritime Academy to become an officer.

He had academic problems because of his poor math background and had to drop out just before graduation. He recounted how astral navigation just about broke him, but after about six weeks of concentrated self-study he was able to earn his Third Mate’s License and the school subsequently gave him his degree. 

He spent a couple of years as working as an able seaman on the Matson Line's Matsonia between California and Hawaii, until it was decommissioned, and then on a Standard Oil tanker, the H. D. Collier, where he was in line for a third mate’s job when the local draft board intervened and he had to apply for active duty in Korea with the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army..

From 1950 to 1952 he served on the USS Catamount (a landing ship dock) in Japan and Korea, mostly in the engine room. This was his first introduction to a steam power plant and he found it interesting. He was less enamored of the battles, and the damage it wrought on the bodies and souls of young men. 

After being discharged he took advantage of the GI Bill to graduate from the University of California in June 1957 with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering. The wide smile on his face on graduation day tells it all. 

Bert on graduation day with friends
Robert Doherty and Ted Wise