Shadows: Great-Grandfather George Warren Lancaster

I have a photo of my mother’s grandfather, George Warren Lancaster when he visited their home in Walnut Creek in California. This would have been in the late 1940s, before my mother’s parents, Tom J and Pansy Johnston, moved to Pleasant Hill in late 1949.

How do I know? The background of the photo is the yard of their house in a rural part of Walnut Creek. I have other photos of my mother and my grandmother with the house in the background. This photo of Warren doesn’t show the house but it clearly shows a rural location. The Johnstons moved to a suburban tract home in 1949.

I don’t know the exact location of the house. Personal records in my archives always listed their address as Route 1, Box 49 in Walnut Creek. My grandmother told me they rented the house from Mr. Ford and had wanted to buy it, but he was not interested in selling it.

I did discover a 1947 directory covering Walnut Creek and Lafayette that listed Tom J. Johnston’s address as Route 1, Box 49, living on Castle Hill Road. 

Also having a Route 1, box 49 was Wharton Ford, who lived on Glenhaven Avenue.

To discover how close those two roads were, I check a Google map of Walnut Creek. Castle Hill Road intersects with Glenhaven Avenue. The two houses could have been adjacent to each other and around the corner from each other on any of the four corners. Today’s map has many more houses than were there in the 1940s.

A portion of Walnut Creek showing the intersection of Castle Hill Rd and Glenhaven Ave

Shadows
What makes this photo fit the theme this week is Warren’s right side of his face is in the shadow which disguises his full face. This is the last photo that I have of him. Too bad he hadn’t been photographed in full sun.


#52Ancestors-Week 44: Shadows

This is my fifth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe. I write each week on one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

Copyright © 2022 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-grandfath
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