Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 20

This is the twentieth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

Sheridan Road looking North from Wilson Ave., Chicago.

Postmarked 24 September 1909 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa

Addressed to:

Mrs. Chas. Sisson.

Marcy St.

Ottawa.

Ill.

Dear Friend.

Having a nice time on the train for Dixon (?).

Yours as ever

Mrs Carrie.

I don't know anything about the sender of this card. I did look up the intersection on google maps and today there is a McDonald's restaurant instead of what looks on the postcard like a beautiful big home on the corner.

Opal Edna Jane Cavanaugh (1906-1946)

Sometimes I find new cousins. This is one of the really fun things that happens as a genealogist. And it happened to me again this week.

My great-grandfather, Art Cavanaugh, had a younger sister, Opal. She died before my father was even born. I've put together a pretty good summary of her life with the documents I have discovered so far, and finally located her grave in the local cemetery, but her children's families are still works in progress. This week, though, I have added quite a lot to their stories.

Opal Edna Jane Cavanaugh was born 16 June 1906 in Springfield, Greene, Missouri to John Houston Cavanaugh and Mary Calier Read. She was the youngest of 6 children;  her birth followed brothers Lexon Charlie, Elmer Diamond, Orvel Burgess, Arthur Virgil, and sister Zona Ruby. In about 1915 the family moved to Yakima, Washington where Opal was living with her parents in the 1920 census. She fell in love about that same time and soon married Gordon Alvin Schmitt, a Canadian citizen, on 5 Jan 1921. Gordon was a farm laborer who traveled from Canada in 1920 to Yakima to visit his sister, Mrs. Sam (Violet) Falconer.

Marriage certificate of Gordon A Schmitt and Opal E J Cavanaugh, 5 Jan 1921, Yakima County, Washington. Ancestry.com. Washington, Marriage Records, 1865-2004. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.  Original data: Washington State Archives. Olympia, Washington: Washington State Archives. Accessed 26 July 2016.

After their marriage, Opal and Gordon moved to Canada where Opal became a citizen and they began their family. Daughter Ivy Myrtle was born in 1923 and son, Fraser Jasper, followed in 1925. In 1926, Gordon was in Michigan where he filed his first papers for naturalization. In 1927, Opal traveled back to Yakima with just her son Fraser. I haven't located a record of a divorce, but both Opal and Gordon  were quickly remarried. Gordon married a woman named Elsie about 1928, and they had a son Kenneth born in 1929. Opal married John Delmonico on 10 June 1929 in Yakima.

In 1930, Opal E. Delmonico was found on the federal census in Everett, Snohomish County, Washington. She was a lodger, employed as a waitress in a café. She was listed as married, but John is found in Beaver, Clallam County, Washington working in a logging camp. He was listed as divorced. Opal's son Fraser hasn't been located on the census yet for 1930. Gordon and Elsie were found that year in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana with their mixed family; Ivy, Elsie's two children from a previous marriage, and little Kenneth.

By 1940, Opal was back in Yakima county. She and Fraser were living next door to her parents, John and Mary. Opal was listed as Opal Peterson, widowed. Another marriage may have occurred, though a record of it hasn't been located. Fraser was found in the Selah schools for several years and was a handsome young man. While his earlier years were rather chaotic, this time in Selah, near his grandparents, was hopefully a happier time for him.

Fraser Jasper Schmitt, Selah High School yearbook, 1943. Ancestry.com. U.S., School Yearbooks, 1880-2012 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. 

Image is cropped from original, accessed online 26 Jul 2016.

In Indiana, 1940 was probably not as happy a time for Opal's daughter, Ivy. About 1933, Gordon made a decision about Ivy's future that is difficult to understand.

An older couple in the area had lost a daughter to pneumonia. Gordon decided to give Ivy to the Earlywines. He is reported to have said, "This is my daughter, she is now yours." After that, Ivy lost track of all the Schmitt family except for her grandparents, John and Magdalena Schmitt. Very few members of the family even knew about her. Later in her life, she did have some contact with her brother Fraser. 

(as told to me by Elaine Schmitt Hill, a first cousin of Ivy's. She got the information from Ivy's daughter Judy.) 

Ivy was living with W F and Bertha Earlywine in Hensley Johnson county, Indiana in 1940. She was listed as a lodger. She retained the Schmitt name until she married James A. Hill about 1942.

Opal was married once more after 1940 to Ernest Caldwell. She died on 1 September 1946 in Yakima, Washington and was buried at Tahoma Cemetery with a simple cement stone. She was only 40 years old. Her adult life was full of heartache and hard times and it's very sad that she died so young. I don't know the circumstances of her death; I'll order a copy of her death certificate soon to learn more.

Grave of Opal Cavanaugh Caldwell, Tahoma Cemetery, plot C 80 NW 7, 
Yakima, Yakima county, Washington. Photo taken by author on 29 May 2016.

Opal (Cavanaugh) Caldwell obituary, newspaper clipping from Yakima Daily Republic, 
published on 2 Sep 1946. 
Copy obtained from the Yakima Valley Genealogical Society's obituary file on 28 Jul 2016.

Ivy and James had seven children, two sons and five daughters. Ivy died on 23 September 1985 in Multnomah, Oregon. Five of her children, Judith, Janice, Allan, Cheryl and Terry, are still living and I've recently made contact with several of them. The eldest child, Franklin Wayne Hill was born in 1943 and died in 2008. A daughter, Karen Lee Hill Main, was born in 1956 and died in 2008.

Fraser was married first to Helen Schweitzer Fisher and they had at least two children. Son Max Jay Schmitt was born in 1947 and son John Huston Schmitt was stillborn in 1949. I've not been able to find Max so don't know what became of him. Fraser married three more times, Alice B Allen in 1952, Ruby L Yost in 1959 and Elberta M Whitman in 1979. I don't know if he ever had other children. He died on 30 March 1980 and is buried at West Hills Memorial Park in Yakima, Washington. I go there every Memorial Day to decorate the graves of my grandparents, Art & Katie, great aunt Evelyn and great uncle Melvin. Next year I'll also look for Fraser's grave and pay him a visit.

Harry Augustus Drew (1875-1936)

Harry Augustus Drew, born 03 Jun 1875 in New Limerick, Aroostook, Maine, was my husband's great-grandfather. His parents were Augustus Hussey Drew (1848-1923) and Margaret Grant (1839-1920).

Harry Augustus Drew

This is cropped from a larger photo of Harry and his son, Mervyn.

It was probably taken in Santa Clara, CA about 1935.

The photo was passed to my husband from his father.

Augustus Hussey Drew is believed to be the son of Moses Drew (1801-1877) and Joanna White (1810-1889). The family is found on the 1850 federal census with two daughters and another son. These children are much older than Augustus, with the oldest girl, Lorena, 21 years old when he was born. The 1850 census doesn't name the relationship between the members of a family, so I have always considered the possibility that Augustus could have been the illegitimate son of Lorena. I'm still looking for solid answers to that question. Even if it someday turns out that he was Lorena's son, there is still a biological relationship to Moses and Joanna, so I'll leave things as they are for now, but with a big fat question mark on my research notes.

Margaret Grant was the youngest of seven children born to James Grant (1797- unknown) and Margaret White (1801-1888) from New Brunswick, Canada. She was born in Aroostook County, Maine, and lived there her entire life. Margaret's first husband, Joseph P. Grant, died in 1864 in the Civil War. The following year, two of their three young children died, leaving her widowed with a young son, Carleton.


Margaret and her son moved into the Moses Drew household, where her older sister Mary was living with her husband, Moses, Jr., an older brother to Augustus. Margaret is listed as a domestic servant in the 1870 census with that family. Augustus must have fallen in love with her, though she was almost 10 years his senior, and they were married on 6 January 1874 in New Limerick, Aroostook, Maine. Harry made his entrance the following year.

By the time the family was visited by the 1880 census-taker, two more children had been born. Mamie Gertrude was born in 1877 and Lenora Ethel in 1879. Carleton had established his own home right next door.

Year: 1880; Census Place: New Limerick, Aroostook, Maine; Roll: 477; 
Family History Film: 1254477; Page: 483A; Enumeration District: 219; 
Image: 0240 Accessed online at Ancestry.com, 21 July 2016.

    Family number 52

Augustus N Drew, 31, works in sawmill

Margrett Drew, 41, wife, keeping house

Harry A. Drew, 5, son

Mame G. Drew, 3, daughter

Lenora E. Drew, 1, daughter

Margrett Grant, 78, mother-in-law

Chas. C. Pollymore, 46, boarder, laborer

    Family number 53

Carlton O Grant, 21, farmer

I came across a book that described the area of a mill owned by Moses Drew and the family homesite. It's not known if this was our Moses, but it's likely since we know the family was living in that area. This may have been the mill where Augustus was working. More research is being done on the family in that area. Here is an excerpt from that book:

"There are two lakes, called the Limerick Lakes, of about three miles in length, averaging half a mile in width. Upon the thoroughfare between the lakes there is a saw-mill, the property of Mr. Moses Drew, some nine miles from the village of Houlton, and a valuable quarry of limestone, where are two kilns, from which Houlton and the adjacent country are supplied with lime. The eastern lake is separated from the west branch of the Meduxnakeag by a swell of land, running nearly east and west, upon which those families settled, presenting a romantic view of the lake on the south, and the more remote settlement at the north. Those lakes afforded many pleasure excursions, sometimes on rafts, in log canoes or skiffs, frequently combining pastime with fishing, which was found expedient in those days of all work."

excerpt from - J. Kendall and George H. Gilman. History of the Town of Houlton, Maine, from 1804 to 1883. Haverhill, Massachusetts: CC Morse & Son, Book and Job Printers, 1884. Pages 33-34. Accessed online 21 Jul 2016 at https://archive.org/strea/historyoftownofh00kend.

Today these lakes are known as Nickerson Lake (the eastern lake from the passage) and Meduxnekeag (or Drews) Lake. There is a road that runs along the northern shore of Nickerson Lake through the tiny town of New Limerick called Drews Lake Road. It meets a road near Meduxnekaug Lake that turns south called Drews Mill Road. It's clear that the Drew family was prominent in the early days of settlement in the area. What fun it would be to take a trip there and explore the area in person.

The railroad came to Aroostook County in 1870, ending at Houlton. It brought big changes to the area, and it changed the course of Harry's life. With the arrival of the railroad, the lumber industry began to decline. There is a twenty year gap before another record is found for Harry, but by 1900, both he and his father had relocated to the town of Houlton where jobs were more plentiful. Harry was employed as a truckman, which, according to Merriam-Webster, was a member of a fire department that operated a hook and ladder truck. On 21 March 1900, Harry married Jennie E. McDonald. Jennie was born in Canada in April of 1877, the daughter of William and Emeline McDonald. The family migrated to Houlton, Maine in 1887, where Jennie's brother, William, was born a few years later. It's assumed the parents died before 1900, because young Willie is living with his older sister and her new husband, Harry in the census that year.

Year: 1900; Census Place: Houlton, Aroostook, Maine; Roll: 589; Page: 8A; 
Enumeration District: 0027; FHL microfilm: 1240589. 
Accessed online at Ancestry.com, 22 July 2016.

I've not been able to find out what happened to Jennie, but by about 1905, Harry traveled across the country to California, without her. The railroad took him there. Probably, it literally "took" him there, but what I meant was, from that time on, Harry was employed with the railroad in Santa Clara, California.

In 1906, he married Nellie Gertrude Miller, the daughter of William Miller and Irene Sabra Scarritt. Nellie was born on 10 December 1872 in Iowa, the oldest of three children. By 1900, she and her widowed mother are both found in California, employed in different households, as servants. I've not been able to find what became of Nellie's sister Florence, or of her brother, Ervin. After Nellie and Harry were married, Irene moved in with them and lived in their home the rest of her life.

Year: 1910; Census Place: Santa Clara, Santa Clara, California; Roll: T624_106; 
Page: 12B; Enumeration District: 0108; FHL microfilm: 1374119. 
Accessed online at Ancestry.com, 22 July 2016.

In the first four years of their marriage, Harry and Nellie had two children that died by the time the 1910 census was taken. See the center of the image above where the numbers 2 and 0 are recorded. They are in columns labeled "number born" and "number now living", information that was asked of all mothers. Irene has also lost a child by this time, but it's not known which of Nellie's siblings had died. An interesting thing about this census is that column with the "M1" on the line for both Harry and Nellie. This denotes that the marriage is the first for them both. I wonder why Harry didn't divulge his earlier marriage to Jennie. It makes me think that he may have been hiding something... Hmmm. Not shown on the cropped image above is Harry's occupation, Motorman for Street RR, or the columns showing that he owns his house free of any mortgage. The railroad and California are treating him well financially.

On 20 April 1911, in Santa Clara, Harry and Nellie welcomed a son, Mervyn Augustus Drew.

A few years later, in 1918, Harry completed the draft registration for World War I. His registration was part of the third round, for men aged thirty-one to forty-five. This registration gives his full name, address, birthdate, occupation and employer, signature, and a physical description - tall, 5'10", medium build, brown hair and brown eyes. This doesn't mean he ever served, and I don't believe he did. All men in certain age groups were required to register and it was a pretty big deal.

United States, Selective Service System. 
World War I Selective Service System Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918. 
Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration. M1509, 4,582 rolls. 
Imaged from Family History Library microfilm.
Registration State: California; Registration County: Los Angeles; Roll: 1544322. 
Accessed online at Ancestry.com, 22 July 2016. 



Year: 1920; Census Place: San Jose, Santa Clara, California; Roll: T625_148; Page: 22A; Enumeration District: 183; Image: 361. Accessed online at Ancestry.com, 22 July 2016.

The 1920 federal census, shown above, now includes little Mervyn. The family is living in the same house as in 1910 and Harry is still employed as a motorman with the railroad. Below, in 1930, we learn a bit more as new information was added for this year. The $5000, center column, is the value of their home and it's consistent with values of other homes on the street. The "R" next to it shows that the family owned a radio. Harry is still employed as a motorman, working for Peninsula Railway. The Peninsula Railway was a commuter train that ran daily back and forth between San Francisco and San Jose. Harry's mother-in-law is no longer listed. I haven't found a death record for her, but assume that she has died.

Year: 1930; Census Place: San Jose, Santa Clara, California; Roll: 219; Page: 18B; 
Enumeration District: 0070; Image: 391.0; FHL microfilm: 2339954

This is a photo of the home as it looks today, from Realtor.com, accessed 22 July 2016. http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/383-Atlanta-Ave_San-Jose_CA_95125_M22529-42961. Originally No. 4 Atlanta St., it later became known as 383 Atlanta Ave. The home was built in 1910 and was small by today's standards with only two bedrooms and one bath.

Harry is believed to have died in January 1936, though I don't have any records of his death. However, in the 1940 census, Nellie is listed as widowed so we have confirmation that he died before 1940. Nellie lived to be 103 years old, passing in 1976. One hundred and three! But that's another blog post...

Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 19

This is the nineteenth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

Chippewa River loggers

Postcard No. 18 featured the Chippewa River. This one was mailed the same day and I believe also features the Chippewa River. The river was important to the local lumber industry as it was used for transporting logs. The area was lush with timber and the river's tributaries contributed to the transportation network. In the late 1800's, dams were built all along the river by loggers. (Source: Wikipedia) This postcard is not labeled, but I believe it captures a moment from those early days of logging in the area.

Postmarked 19 September 1909?

Sender unknown.

Addressed to:

Mr & Mrs. Chas Sisson

Marcy St.

Ottawa Ill.

Postcard 18 was also mailed from Eau Claire on the same day. Originally I thought the date was 1909 as I sorted the postcards in the collection. Now, I'm not sure. The year is smudged so that it's very hard to read. It could be 1903 or 1908. 

Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 18

This is the eighteenth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

BOATING ON THE CHIPPEWA, EAU CLAIRE, WIS.

No. 4240

Postmarked 19 September 1909?

Eau Claire, Wisconsin

When I first sorted these postcards, I tried to decipher the dates and put them in order that way. Now I look at this one and the next and I can't tell for sure that the year is 1909. Both cards were mailed the same day. This one bears a one cent stamp, the next one, a two cent stamp. I thought that was unusual, too.

Sender unknown.

Addressed to:

Mr & Mrs Chas Sisson

403 Marcy St

Ottawa

Ill.

The Chippewa River flows across the Northwestern region of Wisconsin and has always been a popular destination for boating and canoeing. Eau Claire is one of the cities situated along it's shores. I don't know of any relatives living in the area at the time, so this was probably mailed by a friend or family member while traveling.



Nancy Charity (Moser) Cavanaugh (1846-1875)

Nancy Charity Moser was my 3rd great-grandmother. It was no easy task to find her.

I knew that my 3rd great-grandfather, William Cavanaugh, had at least two wives. One I knew simply as Nancy C., and the other was Elizabeth Latimer. My 2nd great-grandfather's death certificate listed his parents as William Cavanaugh and Mary Webb. I thought Mary must have been yet another wife and I searched for evidence of their union and proof that she was the mother of John Houston Cavanaugh. I found William on the 1860 census, before he was married, living with his parents. In 1880, he was listed with Elizabeth and several children. I hadn't found him anywhere in the 1870 census, the year of John Houston's birth.

Both Nancy C. and Elizabeth Latimer Cavanaugh's are buried in Shaddy Cemetery, Grovespring, Wright County, Missouri. Nancy's tombstone records her death date as 28 July 1875. Also buried there are two toddler girls, daughters of WS and NC Cavenaugh, according to their tombstones.

• Mary M. Cavenaugh born 25 November 1871, died 22 November 1872
• Arminda C. Cavenaugh born 24 October 1873, died 5 December 1874

This was narrowing down my search for Mary Webb. I knew there was a son, James, born in 1868, then John in 1870. I surmised that William and Mary had married about 1867 and maybe she died during or shortly after John's birth in February of 1870. That would have allowed a reasonable amount of time for William to remarry and conceive the child Mary M., born in 1871. I searched for marriage and death records, as well as a Webb family in the area in 1860. I kept coming up empty.

I came across a transcript of a Wright County guardianship case that assigned William Cavanaugh as guardian of the minor children of Annzi Moses on 2 November 1869. Since this was so close to John's birthdate in 1870, I knew I wanted to find out more. But first I wanted to locate the family in the 1870 census. It was really bugging me. Maybe the last name had been transcribed incorrectly and that's why it wasn't showing on an index. So I started looking through the census that year in Wright County, Missouri...page by page. On one page, under an ink stain, the family I was searching for was found!

Year: 1870; Census Place: Wright, Missouri; Roll: M593_826; Page: 445B; Image: 139063;

Family History Library Film: 552325

Family number 248 was transcribed as Wm, Mary, James and John Erace, with Polly, Catharine, James and Wm Mosier. This John was the right age as my John with parents born in Tennessee and Indiana (information that matched with other sources). Wm is written at the far end of the line for the name, suggesting a long surname. It's super hard to read, but the first part of the surname could be CAVE. The spellings Cavanaugh and Cavenaugh were both seen in records for this family. I really thought that my "Mary" was hiding under that thumbprint shaped ink stain.
There were also all those Mosier children. Recall the guardianship record regarding the children of Annzi Moses? Moses, Mosier...close. Next, with the first names of these Mosier children, I searched for them in the 1860 census. I found a Moses family, in Wright County, that appeared to be a match.

Year: 1860; Census Place: Wright, Missouri; Roll: M653_660; Page: 921; Image: 360;

Family History Library Film: 803660

Family number 268 was transcribed as Emezah, Rachel M, Nancy E, John W, Sarah J, Martha E, Mary A, Caroline M, James E, and Wm W Moses. Looking at the record, the last name looked to me more like Moser. The four youngest children are a close match with the 1870 record I found; Mary is commonly given the nickname Polly, Catherine and Caroline are similar, James and William are a match. A closer look at Nancy and that middle initial looks like it might actually be a C. I wondered if this could be Nancy C., the wife of William that died in 1875. The age is right, and if it is her, the relationship made the connection with the guardianship record that I was looking for. But why would William have been named guardian for these minor children, siblings of Nancy, prior to his marriage to her? The theory I was following so far had Mary Webb as William's wife at least until February 1870.

I pulled out John's death certificate again. The informant was his son Elmer Cavanaugh. Elmer would have never met his grandmother, so this is not real reliable information. Looking around in the family, I found that John's wife's had a maternal grandmother named Mary Webb. Perhaps Elmer had heard the name or found it written somewhere and confused the relationship. I was beginning to believe that Nancy C. was actually John's mother.

Nancy's father, Emeziah, was a civil war casualty. It was his death that resulted in the guardianship case.

National Archives and Records Administration. U.S., Civil War Pension Index: 
General Index to Pension Files, 1861-1934 [database on-line]. 
Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2000.

I ordered the military pension file in hopes that I would find documentation proving William's relationship to the children; I was hoping for the marriage record of William and Nancy. The file arrived, but it didn't mention William's relationship to Emeziah, Nancy, or the minor children. It did give evidence that Emeziah's wife was the initial guardian of the children, and that she died in 1869. It was then that William was named guardian.

I looked again at that 1870 census and closely examined the name under the smear of ink. While I initially thought it was Mary, as it was transcribed, I saw that it could easily be Nancy. The whole center of the name is within the ink stain. The age and birthplace match the information I found for Nancy Moser. There is also the fact that Nancy's younger siblings were living in the household under a recent guardianship agreement. Nothing came up in my search for a death record for a Mary Webb Cavanaugh of that age, time and place. No marriage records were found for William Cavanaugh and Mary Webb. In fact, the only evidence suggesting "Mary Webb" existed was the death certificate information supplied by Elmer Cavanaugh.

My conclusion was that Nancy C. Moser was the first wife of William S. Cavanaugh and the mother of his first four children; Mary, Arminda, James and John. After Nancy's death, William married Elizabeth Latimer. There was not a wife named Mary Webb.

In 1850, her full name, Nancy Charity Moser, was given on the census record. Nancy Charity Moser, my third great-grandmother, was born 11 October 1846 in Greene County, Indiana to Emeziah Moser and Rachel Mahala Watkins. She was the oldest of eight children. Her family migrated to Ozark County, Missouri by 1850 and then on the Wright County by 1860. Her daddy died in the war, her mother died soon after, she buried two baby girls, and then she died at the dreadfully young age of 28, leaving two little boys without a mother. In her short life she suffered great tragedy, and, I hope, great joy. I'm so glad I found her. 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=65404655

Created by: PSC

Record and photo added: Feb 09, 2011

Find A Grave Memorial# 65404655



Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 17

This is the seventeenth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

East Entrance Golden Gate, Yellowstone National Park.

An interesting thing about this postcard is the texture caused by embossing some of the landscape features. Trees, rocks, and mountain tops are highlighted this way.

The stamp skews the postmark a bit, but it looks like Sept 15 at 7pm. I can't make out the year on the postmark, but the year is included in the handwritten date.

Downer's Grove

Sept 15 1909

 Mrs Edith Sisson

Ottawa

Ills

408 Marcy St

Dear Edith

I am come

down

18 Sept to see

see you from

your *love?*

Antie *J?* C

I believe this was written by Edith's Aunt Jane, though the signature is just initials and hard to read. The handwriting matches a card written by Jane just a few weeks earlier and I know she lived in Downer's Grove, Illinois.

Jane Wright (Duffield) Cross (1850-1932) was the daughter of Robert Duffield (1810-1885) and Mary Wright (1812-1875) and youngest sister of Edith's father, William Duffield (1833-1925). Jane grew up in Ottawa, but moved with her family to Downer's Grove in the late 1870's when niece Edith was a teenager. Visits back and forth were frequent. Jane's husband, Alfred, died before the 1910 census and may have already passed when Jane wrote this note to her niece to plan the next visit. Telephone service was still in its infancy in the Chicago area at the time of this postcard and likely that at least one of the households, maybe both, had not installed a phone. Even if they had, the call was considered long distance and would have been very expensive to make.

Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 16

This is the sixteenth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

SOUTH BOSTON, Mass.

Head House and Beach City Point.

U. S. 600

Postmarked in Boston on 23 August 1909.

Addressed:

Mr & Mrs Chas Sisson

Marcy St

Ottawa

Ill

Message:

Having a good time

Art & Ted

I haven't identified the authors beyond those first names at this time. Maybe something will come up in later correspondence that helps.



Duffield/Sisson Postcards No. 15

This is the fifteenth in a series of postcards from 1908-1914 discovered last year in the Sierra Madre, California home of Warren Brown after his death. The collection of memorabilia was saved by his grandparents and passed down to Warren, my husband’s cousin.

Warren’s mother, Edythe Grace Sisson (1897-1978), was the daughter of Edith Amy Duffield (1864-1926) and Charles Herman Sisson (1868-1927). Charles and Edith were married in Ottawa, Illinois in 1895. They remained there until the early 1920s when they moved west to Los Angeles, California.

Driveway Douglas Park, Chicago, Ill.

This postcard is the first in the series that wasn't mailed, but I'm including it with the postmarked cards because it includes a date and place.

Downers Grove

August 23, 1909

Dear Edith

I received a letters from Emma say 

Miss Young to move in new home 

that will be nice 

I have been sick or I would write to befor

from your Auntie

JWC

Jane Wright (Duffield) Cross (1850-1932) was the daughter of Robert Duffield (1810-1885) and Mary Wright (1812-1875) and youngest sister of Edith's father, William Duffield (1833-1925). The Emma mentioned in the note is Jane's daughter. Jane lived in Downer's Grove for at least 30 years. Her husband Alfred died before the 1910 census and may have already passed when Jane wrote this note to her niece.