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.

Comments

Post a Comment

All comments on this blog will be previewed by the author to prevent spammers and unkind visitors to the site. The blog is open to other-than-just family members particularly those interested in family history and genealogy.

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Blogiversary & Happy 100th Blog Post!

Image
Today is a big milestone. This is the 100th blog post I have written and the 6th anniversary of the beginning of this blog. I began the blog on January 15, 2011, through a blog writing class I took at California Genealogical Society, taught by Craig Siulinski. It was something I wanted to do but wasn’t really sure what I would focus on. I finally settled on writing about my grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster’s family and this was my first post . In the beginning it was hard to get started. I learned from the Geneabloggers website, that there were blogging memes I could use and I have done that off and on, especially at the beginning. But I finally learned that what worked best was to write about my discoveries as I researched my grandmother’s family. So what have I written in six years? I discovered I have only written four posts specifically about my grandmother: “Mam-ma was a Tomboy” “Fearless Females – Day 12” “Mam-ma 1913-2013” “My Grandpar...
Read more

John Coor of Copiah County Made an Agreement with Joel Hoggatt

Image
This week at RootsTech 2024, FamilySearch announced a new feature that an every-word search was available for U.S. deeds and probates. It is still in the trial mode and can be found at https://www.familysearch.org/en/labs/ . This is the search screen. It clearly states it is for US land and probate records and Mexico notary records. You can do a keyword search or if you click on the “more options” you can add a name. My Find I immediately gave it a try and searched first for records of the COOR family using the keyword search. Up first came deeds from Wayne County, North Carolina.  At the top, you can filter using record year, record type, record place, and collection. For the past few days, I have mainly filtered by record place. I filtered down to Mississippi. You can even filter to the county. The first entry was a document I had not seen before. It was an 1826 agreement between John Coor and Joel Hoggatt to build a set of grist and sawmills. John Coor is my 4x-great-grand...
Read more

Using the Attendees at Lela Ann (Loveless) Lancaster’s Funeral to Discover Residences

Image
Lela Ann Lancaster, my maternal great-grandmother, died on 17 May 1951. [1] She had died in Wichita Falls, Texas, at the state hospital. The doctor’s handwriting is nearly illegible so the cause of death is difficult to determine. She was conflicted with Parkinson’s Disease which probably contributed to her death. Her funeral was three days later. [2] Lela Ann (left) with Warren, daughter Pansy, granddaughter Lela Nell, and son Wayne, c. 1935 Obituary Tells Story of Life Two obituaries were published on the same day in the Stephenville Empire-Tribune on two different pages. One gave information about her life and the funeral, and the other was about who attended her funeral. The transcription of the first is here: "Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster"    Funeral services for Mrs. Warren G. Lancaster, 55, who died at 4:30 a.m. Thursday at a Wichita Falls Hospital, were at 3 p.m. Sunday at the First Baptist Church with the Rev. Felix Gresham and the Rev. Ernest Rippetoe officiating...
Read more