James McSheehy (March 1995)

This post is part of a series of editorials written by Bert Walsh during his tenure as president and past president of the Shasta Historical Society. Readers are advised that his humor is often irreverent and rarely politically correct. 

Click here for the table of contents for the entire collection of his editorials.

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Moving momentarily away from our area, I would like to share some remarks made by San Francisco Supervisor James McSheehy, circa 1918 to 1941. As McSheehy once said, "These are crouched in language which is perfectly oblivious."

"It has all the earmarks of an eyesore."

"You are putting the horse before the cart."

"Ladies, I have here some figures which you can carry in your heads, which I know are concrete."

"I may have been ill and unable to attend meetings, but no one has a right to say I've been incumbent."

Gosh, if James is till around, I wonder if he would like to write the newsletter.

--BTW

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Bad luck, good luck

But for luck (and not just good luck), many, if not most of us, would not be here.

In 1949, a boy was born into my maternal Grandmother's family; on that auspicious occasion, the boy's grandfather, Howard Beck Cutting, typed a six-page letter, which included some tidbits of family history. We all know that lore almost always contains both bits of truth and bits of conjecture as we strive to fill in the blanks (in both personal and world history), but it does make for a good story.

And so it was with the improbable tale of how a young man from Massachusetts met a young woman from Tasmania. I'll let excerpts from Howard's letter tell the tale:

You know Tommy, you had a very narrow escape from not being here at all. Way back in 1869 a train had stopped at a little station in California to take on passengers, and having done so it had started up to continue on its way. A man running to catch that train failed to do so by a slight margin. Perhaps he was very much disgusted with himself for having missed it, however, I am sure that he was glad he had done so. If he had caught it there would have been no Tommy Cutting. 

[…]

Great-great grandfather and great grandfather had learned the painting trade and they went into business in San Francisco. They accumulated some property, however, for one reason or another such pieces were sold, presumably at a profit. It was during this period of their work in San Francisco that great grandfather [Eugene Augustus] Cutting took a day off in 1869 to go to Redwood City. A railroad had been constructed from San Francisco to San Jose 50 miles south of the city. He was the man who missed the train back to San Francisco and during the interval while awaiting the arrival of the next train he met Mary Beck.

Drawn by the rush for gold in California, the family of Eugene Augustus Cutting had come to San Francisco from Sudbury, Massachusetts; The promise of gold and riches also brought Mary Beck's family to California from Launceston, Tasmania. Eugene and Mary were married in 1869 in Redwood City, San Mateo, California, and had four children. 

As if that wasn't enough good fortune, they lived through the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. The fire was ultimately stopped only six blocks from their home in the Mission District.

Eugene Augustus Cutting and Mary Beck

+++

As a postscript, the baby boy to whom the letter was addressed passed away just a few months ago, after two-year battle with a disease that finally took him, all too soon. 

Mystery dinner invitations

It's one of those interview or cocktail hour questions: If you could invite [insert number here] people, past or present, to dinner, who would you invite? Common responses are people like Albert Einstein, Johnny Cash, and even Anakin Skywalker. 

But to the family researcher, this would be an amazing opportunity. I would love to hear from my great-grandmother Julia about the love affair that brought her daughter into the world--and how she felt about that daughter finding her birth father as a grown woman. I would also ask if she actually married my great-grandfather, and what on earth they were doing having a baby in a mining town in Nevada when their lives were in San Francisco. 

I would also invite my great-grandfather, who accepted Julia, a woman with a past (and a young daughter), and gave them his name and heart. I would want to talk to him about why he split from his family in New York, how he got across the country (was he aiming for San Francisco, or is it just where he ended up?). I'd also love to know how, if he wasn't speaking to (or about) his family, did he end up with his older brother's trophy. I actually would love sitting down with the entirety of the New York Walshes, even if they might well empty my stores of whiskey. 

I think I would enjoy talking with my great uncle Vincent, who drove a flashy car, married a new-age German woman (who sang opera and penned poetry), and who left his house to his secretary, a spinster who kept the business running while he was living it up with his wife. He's also the younger brother who stepped up for his nephew when my grandfather died prematurely. As an aside, I would let him know that we share a birthday, and ask if he knew the circumstances of his birth. We'd probably share some laughs, too. Of course, I'd set the table with his wife's silver, which was passed on to me. 

I might also include my Grammie, with whom we shared meals every Sunday, and for all her commitment to family research left us precious little about her own life and family. I know she was social, and I would love to sit with her, and have her tell me who the smiling people in the group pictures were. I'd really like to ask about George, who is clearly her beau, but did not become her husband. We would use her silver, monogramed with her maiden initials on the table.

I would be beyond ecstatic to fill my weekend calendars with dinner parties for each and every one of my brick walls, but alas, that is not part of the question, and those amazing conversations will never take place. 

They say that dead men don't speak, but the fact that part of them literally forms part of us in the form of inherited DNA, does give voice to them, confirming the family lore, or exposing secrets buried over the generations. Those of us with stamped letters and envelopes sealed with a kiss and Victorian hair art will hold on to them, as they may allow our ancestors to speak once more, even if we can’t invite them to dinner.

A message from the past that may speak to us

Putting the pieces together

Julia Ann Jordan was born 24 Aug 1847 in Bangor Maine, to Eben Jordan and Abigail Hutchinson. Between the birth of her brother James Eben in 1851 and 1865, her mother must have died, as she received a bible from Bangor elementary teacher Miss Eliza A. Thayer in August of 1865 (the newspapers describe it as a Flag Presentation where the teacher gave bibles to all her students), inscribed "God Bless the motherless child." Julia kept the bible.

Julia's inscribed Bible

Among Julia's possessions was also a letter addressed to Julia A. Jordan from a soldier stationed at White Oak Church during the Civil War, with the lyrics to The Girl I left behind me, a sentimental and popular tune during the war. The Church served as a camp from Jan 25 - Apr 28 1863. The soldier does not sign his name, but gives us his regiment number: 6th Corps 2nd Division, Co. I, 7th Regiment "The Voluntiers." From historical records, we know that after the Battle of Antietam the 7th Maine was sent home to Maine to recruit, leaving White Oak in Oct 1862, and leaving Bangor Jan 21, 1863. Julia would have been 15 years old. 

Julia gave birth to a daughter, Estelle Abigail, on 23 September 1864 in Bangor; Julia was 16 years old at the time. While there is no birth or marriage registered to Julia Jordan in Maine, in the 1930 US Census, Julia states that she was first married at age 17, and a birth is recorded on 23 September 1864 in Bangor for an unnamed child of undetermined gender to Richard and Julia Davis.

Records from the National Archives show that a Richard Davis of Bangor served in the Maine 6th Corps 2nd Division, Co. I, 7th Regiment during this time period. He mustered out in December 1863, and took 30 day's leave in his home state before re-enlisting--nine months before Estelle's birth. According to a 1904 newspaper article, Estelle was kidnapped from her father in 1869. Richard takes a new wife in 1870. 

Shipping reports indicate that Miss Julia Jordan arrived in San Francisco on August 11, 1865 on the Pacific Mail Steamship Company’s steamer Sacramento, coming from Panama (via Acapulco and Manzanillo; one Canadian passenger died on the trip). No child is noted. But she may not have been alone: the 1865 San Francisco City Directory shows an Eben Jordan as mate on the steamer Sacramento. Given that we have been unable to find Eben in any Maine census after the birth of Estelle, this seems too convenient to have been a coincidence. 

In the 1880 US Census for San Francisco, Julia—a “dealer in fancy goods”—is married to David Walsh (a teamster), and they have three children, all with the surname Walsh: Stella, 15 (at school); Vincent, 8; and Albert, 2. If David had officially adopted Estelle, the papers would likely have been lost in the 1906 earthquake and fire. What is clear, both from the paper trail and family lore, is that she was part of the Walsh family.

Estelle married Frank Henderson Cranford (a carpenter) in 1886 in San Francisco. They made their home in San Francisco, and had two sons, Richard Jules in 1887, and Carson Francis in 1889. Richard died before his first birthday; Carson, a painter of houses and film sets, survived to a troubled adulthood, and is found in several western prisons during his life. He died without issue.

But the past always comes back: A San Francisco Call article of 1904 tells of a visit by Estelle and Frank Cranford to Richard S. Davis of Brewster, Maine (across the river from Bangor), describing it as the reunion of a child who had been kidnapped by her mother. The newspaper recounts a happy reunion with the family, which would have included Richard’s wife of 40 years, and his son Charles Franklin Davis, and his wife and children.

Family described Julia as independent and strong-minded. After David’s death in 1910, she lived with her unmarried son Albert, who was a mining engineer and who traveled often. In May 1911, she gifted 160 acres to her sons Vincent and Albert near what is today the Long Ridge Open Space Preserve in the hills over Saratoga, California. 

When Albert and his bride Ruth Neely Thompson purchased the Biltmore Hotel in San Francisco around 1928, Julia moved into the hotel as a guest. Julia died of pneumonia on December 22, 1934, in San Francisco, survived by her two sons and Estelle. She was 89 years old. Julia is interred with her beloved David at Woodlawn Cemetery in Colma. 

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.

Clippings: A Promising Athlete

From the San Francisco Chronicle, 1896

A PROMISING ATHLETE
Walsh, a High School Boy of San Francisco, Who Walks With Style and Speed.

            There is a High School boy in San Francisco whose performances as a walker indicate that in him are the possibilities of the future coast champion. His name is A. M. Walsh and he lives at 1631 Ellis street. He is 18 years of age, 5 feet 7 ½ inches in height and of slight build, for he weighs, in meager track dress, but 114 pounds.

            In March, 1895, he practiced for the first time to heel-and-toe movement that is the essential part of fair walking, and in a trial on the Olympic Club grounds covered a mile in about ten minutes. Previous to that he had accustomed himself to rapid walking in going to and returning from the High School, a distance of 10 blocks from his home. That was his first training, so he was not conscious of it at the time.

A.M. Walsh, a Coming Walker (From a photograph by "The Elite.")

A.M. Walsh, in the original photograph

Young Walsh now walks a mile in 7 minutes 30 seconds. What that means may be imagined when it is asserted that a very great majority of men, take them as they pass on the street and untrained, cannot run a mile to a fire in that time. For one who is practically in his first year as a walker this is remarkable speed. Generally three years are necessary to develop a walker, and in the larger universities today there are few men whose performances surpassed the work of this beginner. The intercollegiate record for the Pacific Coast is 7 minutes 25 2-5 seconds and was made over three years ago by Harry Timm, a very tall, wiry, long-limbed athlete, who was graduated from Stanford University in 1893.

The best previous collegiate record had been held by George Foulkes of the University of California. During the last three years the record has not been threatened. L. T. Merwin of the University of California gave some good exhibitions in the East a year ago, but his time here has not been worthy of note is the performance of an experienced member of a great athletic team. Merwin is, however, a very fair walker, although his style is not the best, and his height and strength give him an advantage over a smaller man. Foulkes was a sick-set football-player, a “plodder” in his style of walking and probably incapable of very great speed because of his muscular build. Timm’s style is more like that of Walsh, an easy, loose-jointed rapid movement. But Timm’s fault was a left knee that would not always straighten completely back before the heel was raised.

And a failure to “lock” the knee to have a total of one foot and the heel of the other on the ground simultaneously subjects a walker to a caution from a watchful judge. Three cautions disqualify a man from further competition in the race, or one caution on the final 100 yards will disqualify him.

Walsh has never yet been cautioned for an unfair step and he has won six medals. His steady improvement in speed is shown in the records of events he has entered: September 14, 1895, 9 minutes 6 seconds; April 11, 1896, 8 minutes 3 3-5 seconds, breaking the school record of 9 minutes 4 seconds; May 2, 1896 Coast championship, when he finished 9 yards behind Merwin whose time was 8 minutes 10 seconds; June 13, 1896, 7 minutes 49 2-5 seconds; July 4, 1896, 7 minutes 40 seconds, at Stockton, where he was beaten by Henry Timm; July 16, 1896, 7 minutes 39 seconds.

Walsh’s stride from toe to toe is 52 inches and from toe to heel is 42 inches, though the inside seam of his trousers measures only a fraction over 33 inches. As yet he has not acquired the low, gliding side-swing movement of the foot, so well exemplified in the easy style of Horace Coffin, the champion walker of the coast. That is another possibility.

Bert T Walsh Obituary

Redding Record-Searchlight

Wednesday, December 21, 2005

Bert Thompson Walsh 

December 28, 1926 – December 11, 2005

Bert was born in San Francisco, son of Albert Marion Walsh and Ruth Neely Thompson. He was a graduate of Lowell High School, and made lasting friends in the Sea Scouts, sailing on San Francisco Bay. After getting his third mate’s license from the California Maritime Academy, Vallejo, he sailed for Matson Navigation Company on the Matsonia, and on the standard oil company tanker HD Collier.

He volunteered as an officer for the USNR in 1949, and saw active duty during the Korean War. From 1950 to 1952 he served on the USS Catamount (an LSD) in Japan and Korea, mostly in the engine room. This was his first introduction to a steam power plant and he found it interesting. Discharged as an Lt.jg, he utilized the G.I. Bill to graduate from the University of California in June 1957 with a BS degree in Mechanical Engineering.

As a licensed Professional Engineer in California, Oregon and Washington, he was project manager for Chevron asphalt plants in Troy, New York; Calgary, Canada; and Phoenix, Arizona. A subsequent major project was successfully moving Phillips & Van Orden’s printing plant from San Francisco to San Jose without interrupting production.

In 1969 he first came to Redding to work for Kimberly-Clark at the Anderson paper mill. In 1976 he moved his family again when he went to work for Pacific Engineering Company, a private consulting firm in Portland, Oregon, and remained there for 10 years, engaged on projects in the Northwest and Canada.

Bert and his trees: "If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden;
if you want to be happy for life, plant a tree."

He took early retirement in 1986 and happily returned to Redding with his wife Madge. Here he resumed his volunteer activities with the Shasta Historical Society, serving on its board of directors 1990-1996, and as its president from 1992 to 1994. Both he and his wife enjoy delving into local historical research; Bert devoted much of his energy to locate lost grave sites and cemeteries, meeting interesting local people wherever he went.

Generally undemonstrative and unpretentious, he was known for his ready wit, his dry, apt (and often irreverent) remarks. After a major heart attack in 1999, he knew he was living on borrowed time. His heart and lungs finally failed; hospitalized, he met his death peacefully. Madge was with him.

He was one of the last surviving members of his Sea Scout crew and of an informal group of his classmates from the California Maritime Academy. He was also a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers; the Conference of California Historical Societies; E Clampus Vitas; Horsetown-Clear Creek Preserve; Turtle Bay Exploration Park; and the First Christian Church, Disciples of Christ, Redding.

He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Madge Richardson Walsh; their son David Richardson Walsh of Beaverton, Oregon, their daughter Caitilin Walsh of Redmond, Washington, her husband, Alfred Hellstern, and two grandsons, Marcus and Daniel Hellstern. Audrey, a stillborn granddaughter predeceased him.

Memorial services are to be held at 2 PM Saturday, January 14, 2006, at First Christian Church, Redding, Pastor Heather Hennessey officiating. His ashes are to be interred at Redding Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions to the church or a charity of your choice are suggested.