10. Neva Harriet Mallon & Errington Goddard Aubin

This year is fast coming to an end and my accomplishments are few, but some resolutions are already in place. For one, I am pursuing our genealogy research—especially the blanks in the Chatfield ancestry. Most of them I know about by name and parentage, but nothing about their lives.

I so enjoyed Jacquelin’s pennings—her memoirs of ranch life so parallel my early years that I found myself deep in nostalgia—not that I yearn for all the hardships of that era. But I do fondly remember them. All modern conveniences were invented for comfort and easy living, and I like it that way. I abhor camping and the outdoor life, for I have been there when a sheep wagon was the herder’s mobile home, when a pot-bellied stove was necessary for heat and not a conversation piece, when a horse was a working animal instead of a recreational vehicle. And I like my own pillow.

I think back and wonder where all the confidence came from. At 14 and 15 I was a skilled truck driver—wheeling the big feed truck regularly, and trailing the sheep wagon off the mountain through the Wind River Canyon back to the ranch. I am reluctant to drive any vehicle that isn’t an automatic transmission these days. And I haven’t been on a horse since sheep-trailing days or scouting the badlands for reservoir water levels. The old saddle is at Kristen’s as an entryway conversation piece.

Jacquelin writes with such compassion for the hardships endured; the reader can smell the dust, visualize the weathered faces, hear the cock’s crow, and taste the promises of the kitchen aromas. But there was no mention of the heavenly scent of the new-mown hay or the freshness after a rain. There was no mention of the love-light in the eyes of her grandparents who so lovingly cared for her, instilling a moral code unheard of today. She did write of birdsong, and the rooster’s crow, but no mention of the whirr of the separator or the flip-flop of the churn nor each distinct ring of the party-line telephone. I remember many of them. (Our house was four shorts—the ranch was one long and three shorts. And Dad always answered with “hull uh.”)

I sense a lack of warmth for those nurturing folks and I wonder why—why was she there? Am I presumptuous to ask? And was Marjorie the eldest—I think DeVere was the youngest, and was his a family name?

I’m out of paper.

Love, Beverly

Charlotte and Curt came down from Fairfield and together with Clark, Pam, and all their children. We had a small reunion. Margaret’s son Richard was there; as well, my son Jason. It was a short reunion, but a memorable one.

Margaret had been over to Charlotte’s a month or so ago and brought a box of Marian’s pictures which they sorted through. Most were snapshots—only a few photos. This portrait picture was one Charlotte copied; neither she nor I could identify the face at first glance. But in comparing that photo with a color snap of Marian, you, Aunt Marjorie, Audrey and Babe, I decided it had to be you or maybe your sister Marjorie. Verify for me please.

I think Marjorie was at the reunion your parents hosted in 1939, but that was 55 years ago. My memory is not that good. Mother’s was. And I made the terrible mistake of thinking if I can’t remember, I can always ask Mother. Well, she isn’t here to ask, so I have to pry information out of other family members and some are cooperative—most are not.

Interestingly enough that compiler Harry Chatfield gave me a lead to the Charlie Chatfield clan (Grandpa Elmer’s brother and wife Nellie Chamberlain) and after a couple of telephone calls I find that a descendent lives right here in Fallbrook. I plan to meet her soon. Somehow, I had the impression Charlie was the black sheep of the family for no one talks about him. Tell me more. And do you know if Elliot and Sophie Shaw’s son is still living and his whereabouts. And I still want to know who Charlotte Putnam’s mother was. I do know she was related to the Hyatt family at Hyattville, Wyo, but how? I can’t ask Mother, and Audrey never knew.

We are high and dry so the rains did little or no damage here, but north of us the mud slides were devastating. The California coast is receding—no doubt about it.

All’s well here. I still play golf, but I am a sad excuse anymore. It’s good to be on the course and still able to participate, I guess. I am in the process of changing my attitude.

Love to you all

Beverly

P.S. From the documents copied by the Nat’l archives for pension application, C.S. Chatfield (in his own handwriting) listed his children and he spelled Jacqueline with an “e”. I wonder if the “e” was dropped to distinguish your Mother from Jacqueline, Grandpa Elmer’s sister???
And “Poopsey”—that’s too much!

There were no birthdates of your three children, nor was Marjorie Chatfield’s husband identified—only John Chatfield Tuck in his obituary. Nor, have you ever said who Jacquelin Ewing’s father was. Can you fill in the dates and names?

Gordon Clemens is a descendent of Charles Henry Chatfield and Nellie Chamberlain Chatfield and is a genealogy nut. His mountain of information does explain why that branch of the I.W. family was estranged from the other Chatfields. The history of that estrangement began in Montana when they decided to sell their ranch holdings and move to California to grow rice. They sold their spread and he disappeared into town for four days—gambled away the entire proceeds of the sale. Destitute, she sold the remaining horses for $300 and made the trek by rail with her nine children. Grandpa Elmer helped him earn enough to follow. She took him back (being a staunch Catholic) and they begat two more children.* They both worked for the Diamond Match Co. Ultimately, though, she lived in one end of the house, he, in the other. No wonder I thought it such a strange atmosphere in 1939 when we visited them.

Gordon is the son of the youngest daughter, is 61, and has a sister, Liz, 55, who lives right here in Fallbrook. She and her husband Anthony Duchi bought an old Spanish style house (built in 1932) and are restoring it. They are both movers and shakers.

Amongst his discoveries in cemetery research he found an old tombstone in an abandoned Ute cemetery in Aspen, Colorado: Ida, Dau. Of C.S. and L. Chatfield, born 19 Nov 1866 — died 4 June 1887. So now we know she was Clark Samuel and Louisa Tankersly’s daughter. She drowned in the Roaring Fork under mysterious circumstance. Mary Elizabeth Morrow must have raised her from age 3, I am assuming. Grandmother Della was around 15 at the time of her drowning—surely some other family member talked about the incident. Mother did, but I can’t remember what she said, only that the name Ida rang a bell.

And I still get no response from any of the C.S. Chatfield II family. I want to know Charlotte Putnam’s mother’s name. I don’t know Madge’s maiden name, either. Nor do I know the order of the girls’ births, only that Aura May was the youngest—then Clark III, the baby of the family. I think he was 8 when we visited in 1939. I remember him performing for us with his string puppets. Very talented!

C.S. Chatfield, I lists his children by order of birth (in his pension application), the 5th a Willard (I or J) born 1 Feb 1880 and nothing more is known but for a headstone in the Littleton cemetery inscribed Willard James. Grandpa Elmer’s brother Wert and two babies Myrtle and Grace are also buried there. Myrtle was listed in I.W.’s pension application but no Grace. Both were re-interred in 1885 in the same Chatfield plot.

In our maps of the Big Horns at the turn of the century, Elmer Chatfield had a spread on Spring Creek, Colorado, Chas. Elliot Shaw on Otter Creek, George Sawyer on the NoWood. C.S. Chatfield’s daughters: Della married Elmer Chatfield, Ora married Charlie Shaw, and Mabel married George Sawyer. I know that my grandparents were married in Colorado before they came to the Big Horns, but I do not know about the others, nor when they left that country. George and Mabel Sawyer had a grove at the edge of Hemet in 1939—later moved to Los Gatos. Ora died—probably before Della. Mother did keep in contact with son Elliot for a time—his wife was Sophie and they had one son just younger than I. I think the Sawyers had one son (Ira, I think) who was a professional musician-entertainer. Do you know anything more about these people.

And please identify the enclosed and mail it back to me. Charlotte had the original from a collection of Marian’s that Margaret Tarter brought her. I am guessing it is Mary Elizabeth, but I was wrong about the other photo. Could the other one be any one of the sisters of Grandmother Della? I so regret not doing all this research while Mother was still alive. I’m certain she could have identified them all.

Help me!

Love, Beverly

I still am blank on Chas Eliott and Ora Chatfield Shaw, the Ida who drowned mysteriously in the Roaring Fork river, and Clark II’s first wife’s name (Charlotte Putnam’s mother). Gordon found the headstone in an abandoned Ute cemetery near Aspen. It read Ida Chatfield, birth and death date, daughter of C.S. & L. Chatfield. Somebody’s memorabilia must have something more. Phil Van Wert, Willard I, and two babies Myrtle and Grace are buried in the Chatfield plot at the Littleton, Colo. cemetery. “Wert” and Myrtle were I.W.’s children, but Willard born in 1880 was C.S.’s son, but was not on the 1890 census roll. Do you know anything about him? And baby Grace is a total blank.

Always good to talk to you!

Love, Beverly

Making the Best of “Hard Times”

Mrs. Aubin was born in September 1908 in Princeton. Princeton is a very small town in central California Colusa County along the Sacramento River. Her father, James Frederick Mallon, introduced rice farming to the state, and was doing so while Neva grew up. In her late ‘teens’ her family, feeling that her older brother, James DeVere, needed a little more challenge in schooling, moved to Oakland. Neva traveled to the New England Conservatory of Music in the late 1920’s. She married and had a child in the early 30’s, then traveled back home to Oakland … her family borrowing her travel money to get her and her new daughter home as her father had lost everything when agricultural prices toppled. Oh yes … Mrs. Aubin is my grandmother and her new baby girl is my mother:

“When I was growing up there was not much in Princeton. There was a store and a bank and two saloons. We always had to walk across the street so that we wouldn’t go in front of the saloons. I was in Princeton until the third grade. That was until DeVere was ready to go to High School, and my mother wanted us to come down to the city. My father stayed in Princeton, taking care of the rice or sheep. He would come down on weekends, or we would go up to the ranch. We had a Cadillac and a car called a “Winton”. It was a sports car and it was a great looking car. DeVere love to drive it. I learned to drive with a Model T. It was black … they were all black.

I told you about my Dad, advertising in the East for people to come West to California … he would go back to Kansas and Colorado and tell people what a wonderful place it was. Of course what he was really trying to do was to sell the rice fields! They were about a dollar an acre for an empty field. Mother asked him what he would say. He said the main thing people asked him was, “Are there any flies there?” He would tell them, “Well you DO see them?” and Mother said that’s just as good as telling a lie. We had a Chinese Cook wagon and the outside of it would be glued to the side with flies.

I was twenty-one years old when the stock market crashed in October of 1929, I was just ready to go East to school, and did go, because my folks had the money. I was studying with a teacher here who advised me to go to the New England Conservatory in Boston and study with a man named Alfred DeVoto. While I was back there my folks lost everything … a lot of people did. But my Dad would not borrow from the government. I had to cut my schooling short partly due to money and partly because I had a baby. I could have gone on with that because for a time we lived with Grandma Aubin so that was fine. It was good in Boston … except for Errington … that part I didn’t like. I loved school and I always wanted to wait table. I went to Shafts and they had four different floors: one for Men, one for Women, one for mixed and the ground floor was their candy shop. They hired me as a greeter and I got thirty-five cents for two hours. Then I’d go out and find a hat to put on and come back and spend my thirty-five cents eating there … and it was always great food.

When it was time to come home my folks borrowed money from the Harry Craviato family. I came home on the train with your mother. She was 8 months old (1933). I wouldn’t get a divorce for eight years, until Errington did it, because he wanted to get married again.

When my Dad lost everything he never came back fully. You see DeVere was here going to Boalt Law School and that also took money. My Dad had a breakdown … I think just sheer worry about everything, really, is what happened. So DeVere quit law school, which he hated to do, and went back up to the ranch and took over for my Dad.

My parents paid for my schooling but I helped support myself playing the piano. Back home in Oakland I played for a vacuum cleaner company. I had to take a streetcar and played for them in the early morning before they went out to sell their Premier Vacuums. They had all familiar tunes with words made to it for selling vacuums. I still have the book because I look at it sometimes and think my golly how could those people have been so stupid!”

Your Grandchildren seemed so interested in the Chatfield heritage, I made copies of Harry Chatfield’s history of the three brothers that came to the United States with Henry Whitfield who founded Guilford, Connecticut Sept 29, 1693. The brothers were Francis, Thomas, and George. All of us are descendents of the Thomas and George families. Francis died in 1646. This you will note the #’rd generations back to George. To me, most of it is jahooey—my interest only goes back a couple of generations.

That’s why I copied only the I.W. and C.S. pages. Besides one more generation back to Levi #7, my grandparents were one and the same, amen! The Colorado history is extensive—both were prolific—especially C.S. I enclose their pension applications for verification in their own handwriting. I remember Mother telling me that the Chatfields tended to “spell it like it sounds”—check C.S.’s spelling of Missouri. Lots of people still pronounce it the way he spelled it.

The applications themselves correct the flawed census records, excepting a birth date for baby Grace and what happened to Willard I, C.S.’s son born in 1880.

If you know any of this information be sure and write me. The young folks might like to delve into it.

Love, Beverly

Neva—
Could this be Mary Elizabeth Morrow? I remember Mother telling me she saw my brother Elmer as a baby. He was born 2/1/21 when she was 72 years old. She had to be visiting at the ranch in Worland to have seen Elmer.

And were you ever told anything about Ida’s disappearance and drowning. My memory of any Ida was Charlotte Chatfield’s mother, Ida Hyatt. I have verified that through a Hyatt grandson (Milton Hyatt) who had all the family pictures.

Della, of course, was my Grandmother. She eloped with Elmer Chatfield (her first cousin) and they were married September 18, 1892 at Ogden, Utah. (This information was a recent find in the Cheyenne library from a book on ‘Progressive Men in Wyoming’ dated 1903.)

Ora, the second daughter, married Chares Elliot Shaw and for a time ranched in the Big Horns having followed the Elmer Chatfields to greener pastures. They had one son Elliot whom I met somewhere here in Southern California in 1939, so I do not know when they left Wyoming. Ora died long before I ever heard her name.

Clark II first married Ida Hyatt and she and her children, but for Charlotte Mary, all died in the 1918 flu epidemic. (The Hyatt’s were also ranchers in the Big Horn and Ida was a sister to the family I know, but I think she and Clark remained in Colorado.) He railroaded at Basalt where he married Madge Rosa. When they moved to California, I do not know. Clark III did send me some of this information, but neither he nor Charlotte’s son seem interested in the family tree, And that surprised me—if I had a namesake, I’d want to know more about her.

William Arthur, the fourth child, married Ada Miller in Basalt, Colorado and subsequently followed the clan to the Sacramento valley—3 children and one granddaughter raised as their own. A Willard I., born in 1880, is buried in the Littleton cemetery—no date and no information. Of course Mable you know about—as well as Jacqueline, Levi, and Marjorie.

I remember meeting Uncle Lee in 1939. At the time he was bedridden from a heart attack or stroke, but I can’t recall his wife’s name nor if they had any children. She endeared herself to me for she was so gracious. The house was a mess, but she made no excuses for the disarray—just invited us right on into the bedroom to see Uncle Lee. At the time, I thought I must remember that—never to apologize for a messy house, especially if you’re caring for a sick person. People are more important.

I can identify Ora because I already had a picture of her, also one of Calla, but the hat in the photo is a conversation piece. How in the world did she keep it on? Somewhere in my research I learned that she was a piano teacher.

The other pictures were sent to me by Gordon Clemens (Grandson of Charles Henry and Nellie Chamberlain Chatfield) and he asked for identification. Do you know who any of them are?
I am improving daily from my bout of pneumonia last month. It has delayed my return to the golf course—I hope I haven’t forgotten the game. The weather has been perfect to be playing–I just don’t have the energy yet. 75 is too young to give it up!

Love always, Beverly

Regards to Jacqui and Sheafe.

By the bye, “singer and actress” for me should be designated as avocations — I was never a professional, although I did sing pretty much all my life. My “working life” was pretty much at home, and then, when I was single, in the offices of several dentists as office manager and sometime assistant. In my grandmother’s family, anything to do with the Entertainment Business was considered beyond the pale. I’ll send you a copy of a piece I wrote called “Saturdays, Sundays, and Sin.” You’ll get the picture!

Sep 20, 2008: Neva (Mallon) Aubin celebrates her 100th birthday (born Sep 19, 1908) with family, friends, caregivers, bagpipes, Scottish dancer, Tonga dancers, piano player, singers, pictures, food, champagne, cake, cards, and a hall full of Cal Berkeley balloons. Her eyesight is a bit dim, her hearing is best from her left ear, and her step is slightly unsteady—but other than that—she appears no worse for the wear!
To date, Neva is the only Chatfield in this line to make the 100-year mark. Bravo for her!

Neva had a true talent for friendship — her interests always focused on others rather than herself. At a recent celebration of her Centennial Birthday over a hundred well-wishers came to salute their friend and confidante. She was famous for her neighborhood Christmas parties; the crowded living room would ring with music as Neva played carols for the festive sing-a-longs. A longtime member of College Avenue Presbyterian Church, Neva contributed much to the congregation with her musical talents and personal outreach to all.

Neva was married to Errington Goddard Aubin for several years. A second marriage, in 1984, to George H. Kyme, also a teacher and longtime friend, ended with Dr. Kyme’s death nine years later. Neva was preceded in death by her brother James DeVere Mallon, his wife, Chellie Howard Mallon; her sister, Marjorie Mallon Truman, and brother-in-law, Stanley R. Truman, M.D. She leaves behind a loving daughter, Jacquelin Aubin Ewing, son-in-law Sheafe Ewing, M.D., her deeply devoted grandchildren, Thomas B. Faulkner, his wife, Tina Bunyard Faulkner, Alison D. Faulkner, and Mary E. Faulkner, FNP; as well as “step-grands” Peter K. Ewing (Claire,) Todd S. Ewing (Luciana,) and Joslyn Ewing Sabol (now deceased); great-grandchildren Justin, Sarah, and Nathaniel Rolfe, Melissa, Thomas and Amanda Faulkner, Lucas, Tate and Ana Beatriz Ewing, Mason and Sawyer Moranville; and three great-great grandchildren. Her son-in-law, Robert E. Faulkner, was a close and loyal friend. The family expresses their appreciation for the loving assistance given Neva by her caregivers, Fitalika Tupou and Luisa Malolo.

A service of Thanksgiving for Neva’s life will be held at College Avenue Presbyterian Church, 5951 College Ave., Oakland, 94618, at 1:30 PM, Sunday, November 23, with a reception following the service. The family suggests any donations in Neva’s memory be made to College Avenue Presbyterian Church.

I took bundles of Rosemary tied with white ribbon for the graves of the family already buried there, and a bundle tied with gold ribbon for Mom. I read the Jewish poem which is often recited when visiting family graves. (“We Remember Them”). I believe it is part of the Yom Kippur observance. Each of the family in attendance put a rose—from Mom’s garden—in with the ashes. This touch as a result of my daughter-in-law’s thoughtfulness.

We had a little picnic following this, and a toast with Peach Bellinis—Mom’s favorite drink (peach puree with Prosecco). All of my Seattle grands (Alison’s children) were there, and two of Thom’s kids flew out from Missouri.

I have written a brief “history” of Neva, and will send you a copy, along with the service leaflet for tomorrow’s Thanksgiving Celebration. It’s an imperfect thing (the “history”) but okay for the moment—and not bad considering I did it in one evening! Mom’s pastor has her on such a pedestal (“Our great Prayer Warrior,” etc) I wanted people to know there was SO much more to Neva Aubin than the sweet little old lady in the back row!! I have to give this much to Rev. Gamley: he only knew Mom for the last year-and-a-half of her life — her More Saintly Period!

Oh—one more thing: Cal won the Big Game!!

A perfect day, indeed.

Will be in touch —

Jacqui