52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 25: Earliest – Lancasters Come to California

This is my second year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

I always thought that my mother and her parents were the first of my mother’s family to live in California. Tom J. Johnston, his wife, Pansy Louise, and daughter, Lela Nell, came to California during World War II. Tom worked on construction projects for the US military.

However, when working on my Lancaster line, I discovered that Pansy’s great-grandmother, Martha Jane (Polly) Lancaster, died in Orosi, Tulare County, California in 1932.[1] She had been in California twenty-nine years, and six years in that town.

So how did she come to be in California in 1903 when her husband, George W. Lancaster, died in Dublin, Erath County, Texas on 14 January 1919?[2]

There was a divorce between Martha Jane and George in Pima County, Arizona Territory in 1893.[3] Five days later, Martha married Noah Flood Parks on 28 December 1893 in Phoenix, Maricopa County.[4]

Martha and Noah Parks first appeared in Imperial County, California, in the 1910 census with two of their children, Daisy and Rosy, who had been born in Arizona.[5] By 1920, they were living in Kings County, with Martha’s son, Reginald Lancaster.[6] In 1930, Martha was living in Tulare County with her daughter, Rosa White, Rosa’s husband, Harold, and Rosa’s children, Janice and Leslie.[7] Her husband, Noah, was living in the Tulare County Old People’s Home.[8]

Not only did Martha and her new husband, Noah, move to California, but four of George and Martha’s children.
  • Margaret Rose Lancaster married first, Arthur N Pauff, and moved to Los Angeles sometime after Arthur’s death in 1912 in Las Vegas.
  • George Elden Lancaster was living in Imperial County in 1910 and later moved to Tulare County where he died in 1957.
  • Reginold Lancaster was also in Imperial County at least by 1918 and he died in San Luis Obispo in 1962.
  • Jesse Polly Lancaster was living in Imperial County in 1910 and died in Fresno County.

Now my grandmother had among her papers a letter written to her in 1946 from her aunt Margaret. My grandparents were living in Walnut Creek, Contra Costa County, and Margaret’s address was in Glendale, California.[9]  From the letter, it was obvious that Margaret kept up by mail with her brother, Carl (William Carlton Lancaster, the oldest), who was the only son who stayed in Texas with his father, George.

I had spent many hours trying to find the death date of Martha Jane Polly Lancaster. She just disappeared and no record of her could be found in Texas. It wasn’t until a cousin saw my query on an old Rootsweb site and answered that she had remarried and died in California.[10] It opened up a whole new wave of research!

These are the first of my family to live in California sometime around 1910!

Tulare Advance-Register, 8 Apr 1932, p. 1

[1] California Department of Health Services, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Standard Certificate of Death, certificate 32-024489 (1932), Mattie Jane Parks.
[2] Texas Department of Health Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate 536 (1919), George Wilson Lancaster, digital image, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org).
[3] Pima County, Superior Court Records, SG 8 case 2250, Lancaster v. Lancaster, decree, 23 December 1893; Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, RG 110.
[4] Maricopa County, Arizona, Marriage Licenses & Certificates, RG 107, SG 8 Superior Court Records, 1893, Noah F Parks & Mattie J Lancaster, p 405; Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records, Phoenix.
[5] 1910 U.S. census, Imperial, California, pop. sched., Imperial Twp, ED 13, sheet 7b, Noah F. Park, digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com); NARA T624.
[6] 1920 U.S. census, Kings Co, California, pop. sched., Corcoran Twp, ED 120, sheet 14a, dwelling 301, family 312, Reginald T. Lancaster, digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 May 2005); NARA T625.
[7] 1930 U.S. census, Tulare Co, California, pop. sched., Orisi, ED 54-38, sheet 24a, Harold L. White Tulare, digital image, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com), NARA T626.
[8] Ibid, ED 54-81, sheet 4b, Noah Parks, NARA T626.
[9] Johnston Family Collection, privately held by Lisa Suzanne Hork Gorrell, [address for private use], Martinez, CA 94553, letter from Margaret Pauff to Pansy Johnston, 1946.
[10] An email from Eddi Hagemann, sometime in 2004 or 2005. We corresponded for a while, sending each other new findings. She has since passed away.

Copyright © 2019 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

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