An official birthdate

For the vast majority of us, our birth certificate is our primary proof of identity and existence (on paper). As genealogists, we rejoice when we find one, especially when it lists things like the parents' names, bridging generations.

There is a certain irony that my Grandmother, Ruth Thompson, who spent years on her family's genealogy and who was a state regent of the California DAR for several years, had no birth certificate of her own. 

She was born July 25, 1884 in Steele City, Nebraska, which had a population of about 375 people at the time (and the population has been declining ever since). The town, hardly worth its moniker of "city," was founded in 1873 when the St. Joseph and Western Railroad was extended to that point. It is no accident that Ruth's father was a railway employee. Needless to say, the town did not have a city hall or other place to register her birth (or the births of her sisters). The family bible has single line notations for their births--and college graduations.

But since the government had determined that 65 was the official retirement age, and she qualified for social security payments in 1949, not having a birth certificate finally became an issue. So she started her journey to get a birth certificate. 

The first thing she learned was that she was not alone--in the 1940s, as many as 40 million Americans did not have an official birth certificate, likely mostly rural residents. And as it turns out, most vital statistics offices decided early on that family bibles were not acceptable proof of birth. So even though she had a photostat of the bible's family record, that didn't do the job. 

But something interesting happened in around this time: the Soundex system gained traction--and the US Census Bureau undertook transferring all the data from the 1920, 1900 and 1880 censuses to 100 million individual punch cards, all filed using Soundex. My mother clipped an article for Ruth out of the Sunday paper:

"The Soundex system, installed by the WPA in the less hurried depression years, makes use of phonetic filing. Thus, all names like Martin are filed, state by state, under the letter M and the code number 635. If your family name was wrongly recorded or even changed slightly, it still will be there under such variations as Mardan, Marden, Mardyn, Martan, Marten, Martyn, Merten, Merton, Morden, Morten, Mortin, Morton or Murten. And, for a nominal fee, the Census Bureau will send you an official transcript of its records concerning you, which may serve as a substitute 'birth certificate.'"

It was that last sentence that held the key. Correspondence shows that Roy V. Peel, Director of the Bureau of the Census, provided her with an official transcript of the census enumeration that included her 9-month-old self living with her parents (Geo. C. and Mary Fay Thompson) in Omaha Nebraska in 1900 (that census wasn't released until 1972). The 1900 census asked for the birth month for all residents, which established her birth month and year as July 1884. 

It cost $4 with the Douglas County clerk to file an affidavit from her cousin Robert Neely to prove her birthday was celebrated on the 25th of July, and that she had been born in Steele City. And so, on July 15, 1954, she received her Certificate of Delayed Birth Registration -- just 10 days shy of her 70th birthday. 

The innkeeper's daughter

When I was a girl, every Sunday we would pile in the car with Dad and go get Grammie. When I was little, that meant a trip from the east Bay to San Francisco, where we would pick Grammie up from her suite at the Geary Hotel. In season, we would head to the wharf and pick up crab and fresh sourdough bread for lunch. 

It never occurred odd to me that my Grammie lived in a hotel, but then I didn't really understand the concept that my parents had a life before me. But they did, and as an adult considering retirement options, I now understand her choice to live in a hotel: she'd been doing it most of her life.

When my Grammie, Ruth Neely Thompson, was a girl, her parents owned and operated a hotel in Omaha, Nebraska. Her father had worked for Union Pacific Railroad in many roles, and purchasing a 60-room hotel around 1892--with eighty permanent guests--was a natural extension of this. In 1910 George was listed in the census as a grain dealer--even though he is the first person listed at the Merriam Hotel; his wife Mary is the one actually running the hotel. 

The Merriam Hotel, Omaha, Nebraska

A contemporary description of the Merriam calls it a "First Class Family Hotel" where people could "live comfortably and economically in clean bright rooms and apartments." The rate was $1.50 a night. One of the people who stopped at the hotel was an engineer named Albert Walsh, who had taken a job in Omaha to manage the Gabriel Snubbers Agency (they sold automotive shock absorbers). Ruth was 39, and Albert 46 when they married in 1924.

Shortly after their marriage, Ruth and Albert moved back to his hometown of San Francisco, where they built a few houses for resale. After the birth of their son in 1926, they "settled down" and bought the Biltmore Hotel at 735 Taylor Street in San Francisco. A charming residential hotel at the base of Nob Hill, they struggled to make it work: she managed the kitchen and housekeeping, he dealt with customers and repairs. 

The Biltmore Hotel, San Francisco

Their marital bliss was short-lived: in 1941, Albert died of a massive heart attack, leaving Ruth to run the hotel and raise their 14 year-old son. In a true twist of irony, the onset of WWII and the flurry of shipbuilding and military activity in the Bay Area meant that the hotel turned into a cash cow, and they could live comfortably--and sock away money for the future. 

When it came time for Ruth to retire, she did what came naturally: she sold the hotel (which today remains a residence, renting tiny efficiency studios for usurious prices), and moved into a hotel herself. It wasn't until she broke her hip--during a vacation when she was 72--that she deigned to move into something resembling assisted living. 

But she was always near us, and every Sunday, we would bring her into our home from wherever she was living at the time. And it explained why there were a few towels embroidered with "Biltmore" in our linen closet.