Baehr-Evans Family History Ver. 22Feb2019

Ramón was fond of his grandmother, Beulah Truelove Evans Spiva.

“I don’t remember much about Grandma, except that she was always there. She liked to cook and
she baked many pies and cakes. She boiled black-eyed peas and made her food Southern style
with fats. Mother wouldn’t eat what Grandma made. Grandma liked to watch cowboy and Western
type programs on television, but mostly she would listen to the radio. Connie and I would sit on the
floor and listen to the radio shows with her. I recall the Green Hornet,and Tarzan and hearing that
only the Shadow knows what lurks in the hearts of men.

“Grandma went everywhere we went, even when my father was shipped to China. She lived with
us in Cherry Point, North Carolina and in Santa Ana, California. I always had my own room, but
Connie had to sleep with Grandma. I really don’t remember anything about Grandma...just that she
was always there, always there.” Ramón Evans, Richmond, Texas, 1997.

“I must have been in high school when she left for Georgia after my father died in 1960. I don’t
remember her leaving, but just all of a sudden, I came home from school one day and she wasn’t
there anymore. She must have taken the bus. I guess Mother would have taken her to the station,
but I don’t remember. Isn’t that odd?” Ramón David Evans, Yorba Linda, 2000

When Ramón was in the Army and stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Connie was at
Queens Center Hospital School of Nursing in Jamaica, New York. Grandma continued baking cakes
and cookies and mailing them to her grandchildren. Ramón and Connie each made trips to Georgia
to visit their grandmother. “I had to go. Grandma said that she was dying and only had a little while
longer to live. When I got there, she was fine.” (Ramón Evans)

Ramón and I were married in 1968 and we drove to see Grandma in the summer of 1969.

Beulah did not smoke “cegretts” but she did chew tobacco. I remember our first visit to Georgia
when Ramón would sit up late with Grandma after dinner. Dinner would always be some variation of
meat, potatoes, gravy, green beans, and cake. Then, Grandma would talk, chew, and spit into her
metal can while Ramón nodded at all the appropriate moments. Unfortunately, I missed these
wonderfully informative sessions as I was in my first month of pregnancy with our first child and slept
away all those irreplaceable hours in the back bedroom of Grandma Beulah’s trailer.

In September, news that a great-grandchild was expected brought happiness to Beulah and her
sister Vallie. Beulah wrote the following.

Congration! Your mother (Ann Gonzálbez Evans) wrote about the expection she so thrill she
going to be a grandmother I am happy for you I know I never get to see it but you will have
something to live for now hope you find a home in Santa Ana what did I do to Anne not had a word
from her since you left is she getting along all write am glad Connie can be there for the blisent event
but I fell I need her worse than you do have had two spells with my hart since you were here had to
stay in bed thanksgiving am better now I know Connie will come to see me if she goes to California.
Beulah Truelove Evans, December 1969.

On April 17, 1970, the news of Charlotte’s birth brought tremendous joy to Beulah and to Vallie.
Charlotte’s name was the only troublesome matter for the two sisters. Vallie solved the problem by
using the Dear Folks salutation on her letters. Grandma started out well enough with “Charlotte” then
went to Charlett, Charltt, Charoltte, Charlott and finally used the safest form, “Babby.”

We drove to Georgia again to see Beulah when Charlotte was four and then in July of 1977 with
Charlotte and Lorraine, a month before Rachel was born.

~ 196~

Grandma’s life revolved around her grandchildren, Ramón and Connie. No letters meant that
she had been forgotten, a dreadful fate. I wrote often to Grandma Beulah in an attempt to keep
family peace.

December 1969 Beulah wrote to us. Again, poor Connie was given no credit for all her drives to
Georgia!
Dear Ray and Anne, Was so glad to hear from you ever one has for-saken me no letter from Connie
one letter from your mother since you were here.

Also, I wrote to Grandma’s sister Vallie to keep Connie out of trouble. From Vallie, July 5, 1981:
Dearest Folks. We knew something had happened since we were so long in hearing, but we’re really
glad to know everyone is alive...We think of you all often and so glad you keep us informed about
the family. No news from Connie yet.

Vallie and Frank were very good to Grandma. They took care of her as long as they could and
then put her into a convalescent home. Frank and Vallie was so nice to me they could not have been
any better, but it was so lonesome they had to carry on their work, so I was alone all day. Beulah
Truelove Evans Spiva, March 1970.

And Valley wrote to us about Beulah: She fell about two weeks ago and fractured a bone in her
right shoulder. She was in great pain until we got it x-rayed, then they put it in a sling and she is
more at ease now. I doubt if it ever heals up again. Know one seems to know just how she fell, but
now it takes two nurses to help her about. It’s so sad to see her and Joe up there. Joe is much
worse too. It take me several days to get my nerves back to par when I go up. Elvie is home now.
Ruth stays with her. She really had a long month in hospital. She will not give up smoking
completely. That is really against her heart.

We brought Beulah up here to the house for she got to where she wasn’t eating much that I sent
her. My doctor said that if I tried to wait on her I would be in bed, too. I’ve had something similar to
milk leg and my right leg swells almost as big as two legs during the day...we carried Beulah back to
the nursing home Tuesday. She told me that I was not able to look after her. It hurt me so bad to
see her go back. Frank has just returned from the nursing home and says she is much weaker than
she was. She doesn’t eat but very little. She said to tell you all if she didn’t get better she wouldn’t
be here in three weeks.

I’m calling her doctor tomorrow and see if he thinks she ought to be put in hospital. We’ve carried
her to the doctor twice and the last time he said just keep taking the medicine he had prescribed for
her and that was all he could do. Her blood pressure was mighty high, and she had hardening of
the arteries in the head mighty bad. Her mind seems to be O.K. She really loves you and so do we
all. She wants you to send her a picture of the baby standing so she can see how large she is. She
said one day, “Oh, how I would like to hold her in my arms.” Vallie Truelove Miller.

Beulah’s niece, Pauline Hunt Borden, worked twenty-three years as a dietician at the nursing
home where Beulah was taken. “I had to watch the old folks’ diets. Aunt Beulah was a pleasure to
take care of, but now, Uncle Gus (Sosebee) was a rooster.” Pauline Hunt Borden.

Beulah died March 6, 1975.

~ 197~

Chapter Five

The Abercrombie Family

The Abercrombie (1) name fits into this genealogy through the Evans family. I was told by Vallie
Truelove Miller that Ramón’s paternal great-grandmother, Harriet Lovey Abercrombie, was the
daughter of John A. Abercrombie of Georgia and Catherine Peck of South Carolina.

John A. Abercrombie moved his family from Georgia to Lake City, Florida, in 1860. Lake City,
originally called Alpata Telophka, or Alligator Town, was the site of a Seminole village ruled by the
powerful Chief Alligator, known as Halpetter-Tustenuggee. The chief was an instigator of the Dade
Massacre which began the Seminole War in 1835. When the hostilities terminated, a white
settlement sprang up on the village site and the town was simply called Alligator. Prior to the Civil
War the name was changed to Lake City.

John and Catherine had five children at the time of the move. They were Martha Elizabeth 1849,
Joseph 1851, Rebecca 1855, James Adam 1857, and Isabelle 1859. Their sixth child, Harriet, was
born November 13, 1861, in Lake City, Columbia County, Florida.

Florida was the third state to secede from the Union. The greatest battle of the Civil War in Florida
was fought February 20, 1864, just fifteen miles east of Lake City. Lake City was prominent during
the war as a supply center for north and east Florida. Lake City was also a medical center and
wounded Federal POWs were treated there.

Harriet’s father had joined the 9th Florida Infantry, Company E, as a private on August 9, 1863.
He was on the Confederate company muster roll in 1863 in Capatin Stewart’s Independent
Company, Florida Infantry. While in service, John received news that his wife, Catherine Peck
Abercrombie, had died in Florida of scarlet fever, May 25, 1864. The following month, John was in
Receiving and Wayside Hospital, or General Hospital # 9, Richmond, Virginia. Then, he appeared
on the register of General Hospital, Howard’s Grove, Richmond, Virginia, where he died of yellow
fever on September 30, 1864. Back in Florida, plans had to be made for the younger orphaned
children, including Harriet, to be taken back to Georgia to live with relatives.

A certificate of guardianship was issued to William Abercrombie, John’s brother, and William
returned the Abercrombie orphans to Lumpkin County, Georgia. The uncle and his wards traveled
probably through Jacksonville and Savannah on their way to North Georgia. Harriet grew up in
Lumpkin County, Georgia. She married the county physician, Dr. Wesley Emory Evans. She
assisted him in his work as doctor, railroad depot agent, mail clerk, and unofficial community judge.
Their railroad depot, which was also their home, was known as Leo, Georgia. Harriet died January
23, 1945 in White County.

Harriet Abercrombie Evans and Wesley Evans had eleven children, three dying as infants.

1. LUCY ALBESTOS September 4, 1882 -- November 14, 1926. She married Leece Spiva. This is
the same Spiva/ Spivey family into which Beulah Truelove Evans married in 1922.

2. HARRIET MARY “HATTIE” October 21, 1884, married Gordon Lee McAfee. She died on August
7, 1946.

3. MATTIE March 2, 1886 married Hansel H. Hunt in 1903. She died August 18, 1962.

4. JOSEPH was born on January 2, 1888 then died when only ten months old on November 12 of
that same year.

5. DAVID (PAUL?) was born on October 5, 1889. He married Beulah Truelove. He is the grandfather
of Ramón Evans. David was 28 years old when he died November 16, 1917.

~ 198~

6. DEWITT CARTER was born on February 8, 1895. He married Nora Boggs (b. 1895). He died
June 7, 1947.
7. DANIEL TATE was born November 1, 1896. He married Glady Kinney.
8. EVA MAE was born January 1, 1902. She married Ernest Benson Whitfield, son of Peter
Davidson Whitfield and Frances Truelove.

Endnotes: Part Three: Chapter Five

1. In Henry County, May 30, 1822, deed in Walton County Georgia, by James Higgens of Walton and
James A. Crombia (Abercrombie) $150.00. Lot #101, 6th District of Henry. Several other
Abercrombies are listed in this periodical: John (born before 1840); Abner, Leo, Leonard, Charles,
Miller. “James Abercrombie witnessed character of James Boyd (Ireland) who lived in the US 1795
or 1796 and for the last thirteen years in Georgia.” There is also mention of a grave stone in Laurens,
South Carolina, with the name of JONATHAN MCCALL ABERCROMBIE (August 4, 1837--
November 7, 1901) who was a Confederate soldier, 1st South Carolina Cavalry, Company B.
Georgia Genealogical Magazine, Winter 1970 #35.

~ 199~

Chapter Six

JOHNNY NEWTON TRUELOVE

Johnny Trulove was born August 16, 1937
to Franklin and Ruth Usher Truelove in
White County, Georgia.
Everyone liked Johnny and as a boy he
was known as Buster, but as an adult he
was called Buck.
He was a jack of all trades, and ended up
a blacksmith, specializing in ornamental
iron.

Johnny “Buck” Truelove 1998

On May 21, 1998, Johnny “Buster Buck” Truelove came to visit Ramón and me in Richmond,
Texas. Johnny, known as Buck to everyone, had with him his wife, Willie Mae Adams, their daughter,
Debbie Truelove, and her husband, Gary Petty. Gary had come to Texas to pick up his two
daughters from their mother’s house. The girls lived in and went to school in the Cy-Fair area in
north-west Houston, but spent their summers in Cleveland, Georgia, with their dad and Debbie.
Debbie is a school teacher and goes by the name of Mrs. Truelove. When a Truelove, male or female,
marries, the spouse’s surname becomes superfluous.

Ramón took the Trueloves to the Swinging Door Restaurant for barbecue. I met them there after
dinner. I apologized for my tardiness. I had been at a lecture. “I guess they told you what for!”
Johnny commented. I was pleased to hear that Johnny and Debbie are interested in genealogy.
They trace Trueloves back to Ireland and England in the 1500s.

~ 200~

Johnny told us that he hadn’t known his own name until he was in the fourth grade. “Everyone
just call me Buster and Granny she call me Buck, so my name was always Buster or Buck. When
time come to go to school, we don’t register or nothing like todays, just follow my brother and them
to school one morning. Teacher ask me my name I said Buck so she write down Buck in her book.
Next year the same teacher then the next year she pregnant and a new teacher come in. She ask
my name I said Buck so she ask my brother and he said, ‘Johnny Brown.’ She write down Johnny
with I-E’ at the end like a girl and I cried and cried cuz I ain’t no girl. So, she spelled it with a Y at the
end. Then all Third Grade I was Johnny Brown Truelove. By Fourth Grade we had a new teacher
and she want everybody bring a birth certificate. Thens when I find out my name is Johnny Newton
Truelove. I was named for my two grandfather, Johnny and Newt, that’s Jasper Newt Truelove.”

Johnny reminded us of the visit he and his family had with us at our Shasta house in Santa Ana,
California, in 1977. “We left out on the Fourth of July to see you folks in California. I peenched holes
in ten tars (tires) on that trip. We came in a Chevy with a camper on top. Only vehicle I ever buyed
a Chevy. Only once I got me a vehicle was a Ford truck. It was at a auction. I reached me over to
spit and they said ‘sold’ and right there I bought me a Ford. Every time I drove it, it cost me money.
Then one time I had me a Mistang, but I didn’t knowed it was a Ford…just some fancy name they
give a vehicle then it come out it was a Ford. Then there one more, a Mitchubiti. We call er Miss
B, or worse sometime. The mechanic there in Cleveland just not involved in forn cars…can’t get
parts for them. Only car ever pull is a Chevy. You crank it up and off you go; you want to stop, you
cut it off. Other vehicle, you just can’t crank em up when you need em. One time Debbie and me
even tried to jump Miss B off, still she won’t pull. We got ten, twelve, maybe fifteen vehicle there in
the front yard at home.”

At this point Gary interrupted with an aside. “Every time we mow the grass we find a vehicle we
forgot about.”

“One time,” continued Johnny, “our boy Denver was in twelfth grade and need a parking sticker.
He’d went to the principal and asked for ten sticker. Principal said, ‘You know you only get one
sticker. One for the main car that you drive.’ Denver stood his ground. ‘I don’t have a main vehicle.
My main vehicle the one my Daddy got gas in.’ Denver got him two sticker. One to afix in one car
and another as back up. Principal said, ‘You don’t tell anyone I give you two stickers, Denver. You
know this isn’t allowed.’

“One time, Denver drive to school a whole month and each day drive him a different vehicle.
Willie Mae here work in a factory and every day she just try each one until one crank up and that her
vehicle for the day.

“Anyway, our trip to California we didn’t tell you we coming. We never knowed when we be there.
We got there, took out a phone book, call every Ray Evans there was. Finally found the number,
but your daughter, Charlotte, keep answering, saying ‘not here’ and hanging me up.

“I asking for Ray EEEvans. She say,‘No, this is the Evans.” So, we just drive out there to find
you. I don’t remember much of the visit. Had me a headache after ten peenched tars and the
windshield got busted out that trip. Mostly at your place the girls stayed inside, I stayed outside
watched Denver play on your daughter’s big wheels up and down, up and down the street, so he
won’t cause trouble inside.

“Then we just got in the camper and drive back to Georgia. Never did get to see your mother,
Ray. I didn’t knowed what day it was and thought it was Sunday and it was only Saturday. Thought
we had to be back in Georgia quick. Then on the way we got to I guess Arizona I run outa gas. Had
enough gas, but with the wind bucking so, camper just run out sooner than usual. I got me a gas
can and was no sooner out of sight, when I see me a campsite down a cliff. I thought one camper
hep another camper out so I goed down there and ask for a right (ride) to a gas station.

~ 201~

“The wife came out said ‘Just a minute. I’ll get my husband’. The husband come and crank up
his car and drive me all the way to town for gas. Well, we get to talking and I said I’m Buck Truelove.
And the man said, ‘I bet you from Georgia way you talk.’ Anyway, he said he knew a Truelove in the
war (World War Two) and turn out he was in the Army with my half brother, Fats. Fats was half
brother Elwin Clifton Truelove, but we called him Fats. Fats died in 19 and 48. Seems everywhere
we go we find a Truelove. Even run out of gas in the desert, we find a Truelove.

“See, my daddy, Frank, he married twice. First, he married Ollie Harris; she died in 19 and 33.
They had Bonnie Mae, Franklin, and Fats. Then Daddy married Ruth; she brought her three children
to the marriage, so that made six. Then Daddy and Ruth had me, so that made eight in all. See,
Daddy had four children, right? And Mama Ruth she had four children, am I right? Well, that make
eight. Eight in the family.

“Anyway, we go as far as New Mexico, I carried the camper to a mechanic as I thought we like to
never get back to Georgia. There was a half-breed or wet back or something there he told me the
tar (tire) weight’s the problem, said I could fix it myself, use his tools. I did. He charge me maybe
ten dollar tool rent then we left out and no peenched tars the rest of the way. Camper did us fine for
a good many year. Finally, I blowed out the engine and that was that.” (Johnny Truelove)

Johnny Truelove entertained us until well after midnight. We hated to go to bed, but our guests
had to be up and away early the next morning. Johnny wanted to take us out to breakfast. “We not
here for you to be going to trouble for us.” I insisted upon a home cooked breakfast, so that I could
hear more stories. Johnny ordered some kind of saw-mill gravy, but he had to settle for what we
Yankees had on hand. “Don’t worry on us. Just fix anything that fest (fast)!” After our meal and
while we said our goodbyes, Johnny cleared the dining table for me. “Mays-well do something . You
stand there talk to Willie May. Them stand there talking. Nothing else to do. Mays-well hep.”

Our cousins “left out” at noon. We led them to Highway Six and they were off to Cy-Fair. Johnny
had promised Gary’s girls a surprise. Johnny is the very image of Abraham Lincoln and had brought
his tuxedo and an old top hat to present one of his Lincoln performances at the girls’ school.

Ramón and I attended the Truelove Family Reunion on September 20, 1998. Johnny and Willie
Mae Truelove had the house ready for any relative who came. Since we arrived first, we had our
choice of the bedrooms. Each room had its own Christmas tree and its unique theme. One was the
Purple Room, and another was the Western Room. The bedroom down in the basement had its own
tanning bed.

Johnny encouraged us to sleep in the Western Room. “This here room has the bed your great-
grandmother died in!”

“Each year at Christmas time, tours come through the house to see my Christmas trees.” Willie
Mae Adams Truelove, 1998.

The Trueloves treated Ramón and me wonderfully. They took us to eat at their favorite
restaurants and to see the sights in White County. In downtown Cleveland, Johnny saw Ludeen
Seabolt and introduced us to her. She had been his fourth-grade teacher. We visited Johnny’s
daughter Dianne Truelove’s photography shop. Then we went to call upon the Hunts, Voyce and
Imogene, at the Circle H Farm. Next door to the Hunt business was the house were Ramón’s great
grandfather Wesley Evans had lived. We then saw the houses that Johnny’s children Denver and
Debbie were building. Both were lovely homes right near their parents on Truelove Street. Johnny
told us that Denver bought blueprints for his house, looked at the plans, then tore them up, and built
himself a house.

~ 202~

The day of the Truelove Family Reunion was perfect. Cousins came from Georgia and Alabama
and, of course, Ramón and I were from Texas in 1998. Everyone brought a covered dish and Ramón
and Johnny bought the barbecued meat. Willie Mae did a spectacular job of setting up the affair.
The reunion was unforgettable and one of the highlights of my life. Many notes and photographs
were taken, and happy memories were shared by all. A representative of the Evans side, Betty Hunt
Hollingsworth, came in the afternoon. She told us, “You come from a blood line of good people.
They seem to be a hearty family. They lived long lives.” Betty Hunt Hollingsworth., 1998.

Towards dusk, Betty took Ramón and me on a cemetery tour to visit all the family graves. Debbie
and Gary Petty took us on a church yard trip, also.

I believe that Gary Petty was on time for the reunion dinner. He told me that he preferred to
arrive late. “You should always be late otherwise nobody will notice you. Be on time you just blend
in with the crowd. You come late, and everyone look up and know just who you are.”

Gary Petty, 1998.

The Alabama Trueloves shared their notes with me. I was told that Lafayette Elijah Truelove
married Viola Clementine. Their son, Preston Elijah Truelove married Katie Lee Moore. The children
of Preston and Katie were the following.
Pearl Elizabeth Truelove Teshey
Mildred Earl Truelove Terry (present at the reunion)
David Elijah Truelove
Oliver Lee Truelove
Grover Wilson Truelove (Father of Lee Truelove, Part Three, Chapter One of this book)
Myrtle Belle Truelove Collier (present at the reunion)
Preston Otto Truelove
Katie Vera Truelove Roycroft (present at the reunion)
Anna Ruth Truelove Terry
Roy Carl Truelove

Another branch of the Trueloves discussed at the reunion included the following.
Landon Truelove born 1782
1. Major Truelove born August 3, 1841
2. James Truelove born January 15, 1867
3. Adcus Truelove born December 6, 1896
4. Hoyt Truelove born October 18, 1919
5. Dwight Truelove born April 5, 1948
6. Matthew Truelove

Our host, Johnny Buck Truelove, stated that his great, great grandfather, William, was a son of
Landon Truelove, also. This claim is still on my genealogy research to do list.

Ramón and I left the next morning on our way to the Carolinas. Johnny helped pack our car during
a huge rainstorm. We were all thankful that the Georgia rain hadn’t ruined our Truelove reunion.

~ 203~

Chapter Seven

Gonzálbez Family

Gonzalo was a Twelfth Century Spanish saint. The name Gonzalo or Gonzalbo is a contraction
of the Goth name Gundislav. Latinized forms of the name are Gundesalvus, Gundisalvus,
Gunsalvus, Gundalvus, and Consalvus. The name Gonzalo is a German word that means battle,
combat, or fight. The Arabic patronymic ending ez means son of, so the surname Gonzálbez means
Son of Gonzalbo. The name González/Gonzálbez is the third most common surname in all of Spain
and the Hispanic world. (1) The name Gonzálbez comes to the family on the maternal side of
Ramón David Evans. Ramón’s second great grandparents were José Ramón Gonzálbez and
Dolores Sánchez born in the first quarter of the 1800s in Spain. Their son Severiano Gonzálbez
married Elena Aparicio García. They had nine children, including Luis, Eduardo, and José Ramón.
In a letter from José Ramón Gonzálbez Aparicio, January 18, 1971, Barcelona, Spain, he wrote: Yo
soy Pepe (José) el último de los nueve hermanos que fuimos. (I am Pepe, the last left of the nine
brothers and sisters.)

Ramón’s grandfather, Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio, was born August 19, 1887 in Enguera, Province
and Archdiocese of Valencia, Spain. He was baptized the same day. The maternal grandparents of
Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio were Miguel Aparicio and María Teresa García de Aparicio. The year Luis
was born, 1887, was the second year of the reign of King Alfonso XIII who ruled Spain from 1886
until 1931. (2). The following photo of the family was taken in Spain about 1915.

Top row: Concepción & Luis Gonzálbez, Ramón Sebastián, José Costa, Raymond Sebastián
Middle row: Henry Sebastián, Monserrat Sebastián, Angela Bufé Miranda, Magdelena Costa

Front row: Antonio Costa, Luis Ramón Gonzálbez, Dolores Costa, Alexander Costa.

~ 204~

Angela Bufé was married to José Miranda and
they had the following children. Mariano Miranda,
María Miranda (married Dominic Sala), Monserrat
Miranda (married Ramón Sebastián), Magdalena
Mirranda (married José Costa). and Concepción
Miranda (married Luis Gonzálbez).

Mariano Miranda is in this photo, circa 1915. He
was a bricklayer in Barcelona, Spain. His sisters,
Maria and Monserrat, had gone to New York and
sent word for him to come, too. When he arrived in
New York, he found it too cold, and moved to
Manzanillo, Cuba, where he met up with his brother
-in-law, Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio. Mariano married
Carmen Font. They had two daughters, Angela and
Josefa.

“Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio, my father, told me that his father did not want him to be a farmer.
The other sons were farmers. They had Valencia orange orchards there in Valencia, Spain. When
Luis was 12 or 14 years old, he was sent to Barcelona to learn to be a carpenter. He must have
lived with an aunt or uncle. My father met my mother (Concepción Miranda) there in Barcelona.
Every Sunday, as was the custom in Spain in those days, he and my mother would walk together in
the central plaza. My grandmother (Angela Bufé Miranda) was always there, too, watching her
daughter. Always watching, watching every minute like a chaperone.” Mary Gonzálbez Squire, April
2000.

Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio was 25 years
old when he married 24-year-old
Concepción Miranda. They married in the
parish of Santa María de Gracia in the city
of Barcelona, Spain, December 25, 1912.
The first child born to Luis and Concepción
was Luis Ramón Gonzálbez Miranda, born
on October 13, 1913 in Barcelona. Their
second child, born July 25, 1917 in
Barcelona was Concepción Elena
Gonzálbez Miranda, the mother of Ramón
David Evans.
Concepción Elena (Ann) and Luis Ramón
(Lou) are in the photo at right.

~ 205~

Spain was neutral during World War One (1914-1918) and was used as a supply base for the Allies. A
depression in Spain was looming. Jobs were scarce and Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio decided to go to Cuba to
seek employment. In 1919, right after the war, 32,157 Spaniards had immigrated to Cuba. (4) Luis’
countrymen were the majority of Cuba’s 80,488 immigrants that year. (3) His ultimate goal was New York,
where his wife’s Miranda family members had immigrated.

May 1, 1920, the inspector of immigration in Barcelona gave Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio permission to
travel. On May 20, 1920, the governor of Barcelona requested that the Spanish diplomatic corps in Cuba
accept and assist their Spanish subject, Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio. On May 31, Luis paid 421 pesetas for
passage to Santiago de Cuba in the Provincia del Oriente. On June 9, 1920, he sailed on the steamship
Conde Wilfredo for Cuba, arriving during the rainy season.

“My grandfather was a master carpenter or cabinet maker. He was sent from his native town of
Enguera north to Barcelona where he was an apprentice with an uncle. From Spain, he went to Cuba in
1920 to find work and to earn money for his wife and two children to join him there in Cuba. Everyone was
rich in Cuba. Grandpa worked with a furniture maker. The family joined him sometime before 1922.”
Ramón David Evans, 2000.

“Grandma (Angela Bufé Miranda) left Spain first. She lived in New York with family. Then my father
went to work in Cuba. So, Grandma went to Cuba to stay with him and to help him out. When my father
had earned enough money, he sent for my mother, my sister Ann, and me. We lived in the southern part of
Cuba, Antillas, I believe. At first, I had a private tutor to learn my alphabet in Spanish, but that didn’t last
long. Then I went to another school. We weren’t in Cuba long. Maybe fifteen months, then we went to
New York, my parents, Grandma Bufé, and my sister and I.” Luis Gonzálbez Bufé, June 2000.

“I remember Cuba,” said Ramón’s mother. “Our grandmother, Angela, would walk to town for
groceries and Lou and I would walk under her huge black skirts. No one could see us, and we walked all
the way hidden under Grandma.” Concepción Ann Gonzálbez Evans, 1990.

On July 5, 1922, twenty days before Concepción’s 5th birthday, the Spanish consulate in Santiago de
Cuba asked that Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio with his wife, Doña Concepción Miranda, and two children, Luis
and Concepción, be allowed to depart, without impediments, for the United States of America. The request
was signed by the honorary vice counsel of Spain in Cuba, Fernando Borges.

The grandmother, Angela, most likely already had official papers to re-enter New York from Cuba.
“Before leaving for Cuba, my parents sent Grandmother Angela to New York, for she would be the last one
left in Spain from her family and she didn’t want to be alone.” Mary Gonzálbez Squire.

The Gonzálbez family and Grandmother Angela Bufé sailed from Cuba on the SS Munargo and entered
New York on July 24, 1922. Luis and his family did not have to enter through Ellis Island processing, as
they were sponsored by an uncle, Dominic Sala. Being sponsored was proof that the entire family had
somewhere to live and that employment was available. The third child born to Luis and Concepción was
Mary Gonzálbez, born October 13, 1923 in the Borough of Manhattan. The last living child born to Luis and
Concepción was Carmen Gonzálbez, born September 14, 1925 in the Borough of Manhattan. Baby Angela
was born, according to Family Search, January 02,1931, but lived only two days, until January 04 and was
buried in Mt. Hope Cemetery. However, in a New York Birth Record file, a female Infant Gonzálves was
born and died on March 16, 1927. One of these infants was our Angela. According to family oral history,
Angela was buried with her grandmother, Angela Bufé Miranda, in the Sala Family Plot at Calvary Cemetery
in Long Island. We do see an Angelina buried there with Angela Bufé, but the baby’s surname is Sala.
Research continues!

~ 206~

Concepción Miranda Gonzálbez, Carmen, Ann, Mary, Luis, Sr., and Luis Ramón Gonzálbez 1929

Gonzálbez family at construction site The Gonzálbez family Finished home in the 1930s
in the late 1920s. lived first in the Borough of with Luis Gonzálbez on the
Manhattan, then settled in
the Bronx, New York City. porch.
There, Luis built a home for
his family at 2559 Fenton
Avenue. His sister-in-law,
Magdalena Miranda Costa,
and her husband, José
Costa, built a house right
next door.

“Luis came every night to
inspect. He had a
Portuguese carpenter there
to help him. He’d tell us,
‘You need to do this. You
need to do that.’ He always
wanted to be somebody or
be smarter than everyone
else.” Alex Costa, January
2001.

~ 207~

Mary Gonzálbez (Squire)>
was born June 8, 1923 in
Manhattan, New York. The
last name on her birth
certificate is spelled
Gonzalves.

<Carmen Gonzálbez
(Lunney) was born
September 14, 1925 at
home on Fenton Avenue.
Carmen’s last name was
Gonzales on her birth
certificate, but she had the
spelling legally corrected in
1957.

Carmen 1943 Mary 1943

“All I remember about the house was that it had a huge kitchen. I remember my grandmother Angela
there sitting in her rocking chair. It is so funny, but I hardly recall anything about my grandmother. All I
remember is that once she was sitting in her rocker and she said to me, in Spanish, of course, ‘Come here

and let me see you.’ I don’t know when she died. She was buried on Staten Island; but, strange, I can’t
remember more”. Mary Gonzálbez Squire, March 2000

About 1927, Concepción and Luis had a fifth child. “She was a Blue Baby. I was old enough to know
what was going on. My mother grew fat and then she went to the hospital to have a baby. She came home
without a baby. My sister, Ann, told me that the baby, named Angela, was a Blue Baby. Angela must have
been a change of life baby because my mother was about 40 then. I would imagine the baby hadn’t

received enough oxygen at birth. They put Angela in a little white box and buried her on Staten Island with
my grandmother. Years later I remember sitting on the couch with my sister Ann. It must have been in the
1940s. We found a box full of pretty baby clothes and Ann said that she could make use of the clothes. I
don’t know if the clothes were Angela’s. Maybe Ann wanted to use them for Ramón. I don’t know.” Mary
Gonzalbez Squire, 2000.

Yes, I too remember a stillborn baby. They are all buried in Calvary Cemetery in Long Island in the Sala
plot. Angela Bufé is there, Tia María, the baby, and Tia María’s daughter who strangled at age 8. All the
family is there who died early on. We always went on religious holidays to take fresh gladiolas to put on the
graves. One has an angel on top and the picture of a girl on it.

~ 208~

I remember when I went to Staten Island with Mom (Dolores Rita Costa) and Tony (Antonio Costa)

about ten years ago (1990). I told them right where Tia María’s (María Miranda Sala) coffin had

been in the living room and they were all surprised as they had renovated the place. I could even

remember the smell of the flowers. The cemetery stands out in my mind as we went so often. It was

hard as a kid not to step on the graves and I often got yelled at for doing that. An e-mail from

Dolores Lola Gruen Wiggins, January 2001.

The Gonzálbez children spoke Castellano (Spanish) with their father and Catalán with their

mother. In New York, Luis worked a while with Portuguese speakers. “All those years I was in New

York I thought the people I worked for were speaking English, but it was Portuguese. I thought how

lucky I was that English sounded so much like Spanish. Later, when the kids were older, I had to go

to night school to learn English. They would laugh at me at home after classes when I tried to

practice my sounds.” Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio, 1967.

Luis’ two oldest children, Luis Ramón and Concepción, had to learn English in school.

“When I went to first grade in New York, the teacher didn’t know how to say my name. She told
me that in English Concepción or Conchita was translated Anna. From then on, I was known as
Anna and later I just called myself Ann. I didn’t know how to speak English. In class whenever I
spoke Spanish, the teacher would hit my hands. Now, I can’t remember how to speak Spanish very
well. Recently, I even went back to school to Santa Ana College to try to re-learn.”

Ann Gonzálbez Evans, 1970.

Ann’s brother, Luis, attended Public School Number 78 in the Bronx. In 1929, Luis Ramón

Gonzálbez Miranda was 16 years old and in the eighth grade. He was honored for perfect punctuality
and attendance. Luis Ramón worked as an apprentice at Cartier’s starting out on the cleaning crew,

then working up to the position of jeweler or watchmaker.

Ann attended Public School Number 78, also. In 1930, she was almost 13 years old and in the
seventh grade. Ann Gonzálbez graduated from eighth grade at Public School Number 97 on

February 2, 1932. She was class vice-president.

Among those who signed her graduation autograph book were her father, mother, brother, sisters
and from a cousin, A. (Alex) Costa: New York February 2, 1932:

Que por muchos años en que recuerdes de este tu padre.

Luis Gonzálbez

Viva mil y mil años deseándote mucha suerte en todo lo que tu deseas te lo dedica esta tu madre.

Concepción

Uncle Sebastián wrote in Catalán congratulating her from the bottom of his heart on her scholastic
accomplishments:

Felicitacio: De tot cort et felicito que l’escola has acabat. Donant l’alegria als Pares que per tusen
desverblat. Hara tens un altre tasca pera fornar comensar; y estic segur, Nabodeta, que tambe la
venseras que siguis bona y feliza, y els teus Pares ajudar; es lo quet desitja sempre:

El teu oncle Sebastián. Febrer de 1932

~ 209~

Ann attended Evander
Childs High School, 800 East
Gun Hill Road, Bronx, New
York, from 1932 until
graduation, January 31, 1936.
During each year of high school,
Ann earned a place on the Merit
Roll in Scholarship for
maintaining a 75-84% average.

In November 1936, when Ann was 19 years old, she applied for a Social Security card. She used
the name Conchita Ellen Gonzálbez, but signed the application Anne Gonzálbez. Her first job was
at the Ever-Ready Label Corporation, 141 East 25th Street, New York City.

Ann’s brother, Luis

Ramón, joined the US

Army when World

War Two began. His

serial number was

32534340. He was a

Technician Fourth

Grade in the 34th

Medical Depot

Company.

Luis (Lou) married
Jessie Pettigrew in
Austin, Texas, in
1944, and then he
was sent to Leyte in
the Philippine Islands.

~ 210~

Ann lived with her family in the Bronx after high school. She had begun seeing Ray O. Evans in
New Jersey, just across the Washington Bridge from the Bronx. When Ann and Ray planned to

marry, she was given a bridal-shower. Amongst the ladies present at the party were Dolly, Eleanor

and Marion, Ruth, Jean, Marie Nardelli, and her sisters Mary and Carmen Gonzálbez. Ann
Gonzálbez married USMC Corporal Ray Otis Evans on February 7, 1942 in Lakehurst, New Jersey.

They had two children, Ramón (1944) and Connie (1945).

In January 1947, Ann received news from her sisters in New York that their mother, Concepción,
had died on January 27.

“It was a traumatic time for all of us. I had to quit my job to take care of things. Brother Lou was

still in the Philippines doing dental work. He had stayed on after the war and had planned to live

there in the Philippines. The Red Cross helped him with re-entry papers to come to the funeral. We

had to hold up the funeral until he arrived. I can’t remember if he came in time or not. I think Jessie

was there, looking for Lou.” Mary Gonzálbez Squire, April 2000.

Concecpión was buried in Saint Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx. Ann’s father, Luis,
purchased a grave for himself next to his wife.

“Luis, my father, was a family man. He loved to have everyone together for Sunday dinners. We
would always have some kind of a rice dish. Since Ann was living in California and Lou wanted to

move there with his wife, Jessie, my father began planning for the rest of us to move to California.”
Mary Gonzálbez Squire.

In 1949, Luis and daughters, Mary and Carmen, moved to 7738 Gentry Avenue, North Hollywood,
California. North Hollywood is in eastern San Fernando Valley, ten miles northwest of downtown
Los Angeles.

September 16, 1948, Ray O. Evans purchased a 1949 Ford for $1,775.95 from the Ford Motor
Company International Division, Wayne County, Michigan. The family lived in quonset huts at El
Toro Marine Base right after they returned to California from China and before they bought the house
at 1050 Camden Street in Santa Ana.

“The house we bought on Camden was out in the middle of nowhere. There were just a few
houses there next to the bean field. I think ours was the third house. My father could have bought

up an acre of land on the Segerstrom bean property, but my mother didn’t want to live on a farm.

Today that area is South Coast Plaza.” Ramón Evans, 2000.

Over at 1524 Tenth Street in Santa Ana was the Baehr family. I was 2 years old and living in half
of a one-car garage with my parents, Robert and Mary Baehr, and my mother’s mother, Bessie
Maher Kelly Caler. My father sold Ware-Ever Aluminum pots and pans. Often, he would give Santa
Ana housewives demonstrations on cooking with his product. Ann Gonzálbez Evans recalled that
once she, too, had gone to a Ware-Ever party to see a cookware presentation. Ann didn’t buy from
the Ware-Ever Company; but instead, chose the Lo-Heet Stainless Steel Company and paid $109.64
for a set of cookware. Was my father the Ware-Ever salesman? We will never know for sure, but I
would bet he was.

Whenever Ray was sent to Cherry Point Marine Base, North Carolina, his family would always

accompany him. They lived at the MOQ (Married Officers Quarters) and then stayed in military
housing in Havelock, North Carolina, #72 Fike Drive. “We were in California for my Kindergarten,

then back and forth to North Carolina. First and second grades were probably at St. Anne’s in Santa

Ana, California. I made my First Communion at St. Anne’s Catholic Church, (Santa Ana, on May 13,
1951). About 1952-54, I was at St. Paul’s Catholic School in North Carolina. Funny how you forget.”

Ramón Evans.

~ 211~

In 1954, Ray was sent to Japan for fourteen months. During that time, Ramón and Connie
attended Saint Anne’s Catholic School in Santa Ana, California. Ann had a sales clerk job downtown
at Sears Roebuck. When Ray returned to the United States, the family moved to North Carolina
again. Ramón attended seventh and eighth grades at Annunciation School in the Diocese of
Raleigh, Havelock, North Carolina. His teacher both years was Sister M. Elizabeth Ann, C.R.S.M.
The first half of ninth grade was at Havelock High School in the Craven County School system.

“Our last Marine Corps paid trip across country began February 7, 1959. We drove from North
Carolina to Georgia and stayed with Ray’s relatives. Grandma (Truelove-Evans-Spiva) stayed in
Georgia while we continued west and settled in California. Everyone had a congenial trip. No
fussing!” Ann Gonzálbez Evans.

“My father retired in 1959 and for a while ran a Phillips 66 gas station on Main Street at Saint
Gertrude in Santa Ana. I used to help him there sometimes after school. I was attending my second
half of ninth grade then at Mater Dei High School. Connie was over at Smedley Junior High on
Edinger Avenue. Mother worked at Penney’s and Grandma stayed home.” …Ramón Evans.

According to Marine Corps records, Ray died seventeen months later at the United States Naval
Hospital at Camp Pendleton, San Diego, California, on July 20, 1960 of brain hemorrhage resulting
from an automobile accident in Santa Ana. Ray, a pedestrian, had been hit by a car and was not
strong enough to recover from the injuries. He was buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery at
Point Loma, San Diego, on Ann’s 43rd birthday, July 25.

Ann’s mother-in-law, Beulah, returned to Georgia and Ann continued as a salesclerk for J.C.
Penney’s Company. Ann worked in the baby department in the Santa Ana store on Fourth Street.
I remember seeing her there whenever my mother and I were shopping at Penney’s. She always
wore a white uniform and looked so professional. Later she became a sales supervisor, and my
mother-in-law.

Ann’s father, Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio, returned to Spain to visit his family in 1957. I met
grandfather Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio when I was dating Ramón. We would make special trips to
North Hollywood to visit him and at first were received with the question, “What do you want? You
aren’t just coming to visit me. You must want something.” After a few visits, Luis discovered that
we simply were there to visit with him. He would prepare us light Spanish dinners including olive oil,
salad, bits of chicken, and finally, oranges for dessert. He lived until 1970 and was able to meet
and hold his first great-grandchild, Charlotte Evans (Dobyns).

Ann’s daughter, Conchita (Connie) Louise Evans, graduated from Mater Dei Class of 1963 with
me. Through her, I met her brother, Ramón, in December of 1962. In 1969, Connie earned an RN
degree from Queens Hospital School of Nursing in New York. Connie was a staff nurse at Elmhurst
City Hospital in Elmhurst, New York, a staff nurse at the New York University Medical Center, and
then returned to California. She worked in St. Joseph’s Hospital Children’s Ward, then in January
1971, Connie joined the United States Air Force, entering as an officer.

Connie was sent to Hanoi, North Vietnam, in 1972 as part of the prisoner of war exchange
program. She had two foreign service tours, from June 25, 1972 to December 20, 1972 and from
January 21, 1973 to July 1, 1973. Her military record is impeccable and a joy to read.

This young officer combines the qualities of enthusiasm for excellence in her work with an optimal
level of mature professionalism in her approach to all of her duties. She typifies those qualities most
desired in an Air Force officer and professional nurse. She merits close monitoring to ensure that
her potential for responsibility and very early advancement are recognized. Edward S. Nugent,
Colonel, 10th Aeromed Evac Sq Commander, November 16, 1973.

~ 212~

“Lt. Evans is presently enrolled full time in the baccalaureate nursing program at California State
University, Hayward, California. She has attended Water Survival, Tropic Survival and Survival
schools to increase her professional knowledge in her position as Flight Nurse. Lt. Evans devotes
much of her personal time to organizing the Ground Training Program of our squadron.” …Mary C.
Knapp, Captain, USAF, September 1, 1975.

Captain Evans is a highly qualified Flight Nurse Instructor and an asset to the squadron…This
officer has demonstrated exceptional organization and leadership skills. Captain Mary C.
KnappTravis Air Force Base, October 31, 1976.

Ann Gonzálbez Evans’ son, Ramón, was drafted into the United States Army, September 27,
1966. He was in boot camp for infantry training at Fort Ord, (4) California, then sent to Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas, where he was supposed to be an army cook.

In letters to his mother he wrote the
following.
Somehow or another luck was with me
and I was not made a cook. When I
arrived (in Kansas) and told them I didn’t
want to be a cook, they gave me two
choices: being a clerk or an M.P., so I
took the latter and am now in job training
(to be a) military policeman with the
205th Military Police Company. What a
change from cook to M.P. Well, that’s
army. Ramón Evans.

Fort Leavenworth is nothing like Fort Ord. About the nearest I can come to describing it to you is
that it resembles the MOQ in Cherry Point. In fact, this is what Fort Leavenworth is—an MOQ for
officers since there is a college for officers here. Of course, there is the prison, but that takes up a
small portion of the fort. A number of the buildings and residences used by officers are over a
hundred years old and look almost new. The post is actually small with 1,500 officers, around 1,000
enlisted men and twice as many civilians as military personnel; so, you can see, Fort Leavenworth
is a strange military post all around. Private Ramón Evans, January 1967

In October 1967, Ramón was promoted to Specialist Four and in December 1967, he left for
Vietnam. He arrived in Saigon in December 1967. During the Vietnam Counter Offensive Phase III,
he was attached the 18th Military Police Brigade, 16th Military Group, 504th MP Battalion, Co. A in
Nha Trang in 1968 as the TET offensive began. He was later stationed in Quin Nnon, Camp Evans,
and Hue. His duty was convoy escort up and down Highway One from Camp Evans to Dong Ha
near the 19th Parallel DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) on the North-South Vietnam border. He returned
to the United States in September of 1968.

~ 213~

Anne and Ramón’s 1968 family wedding photograph
Carmen and John Lunney, Jessie, Steven, Luis R. Gonzálbez, and Luis Gonzálbez Sr,

Ann Evans, Ramón and Anne Evans, Robert, Mary, Kathleen, and Margaret Baehr,
Connie Evans, David Gonzálbez, Mary, Wayne, Sr. & Lillian Squire
Children: Erica Lunney, Linda Squire, Barry Lunney, Wayne Squire, Jr.

Ann’s sister Mary Gonzálbez married Wayne Stanley Squire November 1, 1958. They had two
children, Linda born in 1961 and Wayne born in 1963.

Ann’s sister Carmen Gonzálbez had a pen pal in Australia, John Lunney. They exchanged letters
for years then John came to California to meet Carmen. They married on July 4, 1959. They had
two children, Erica Ann Lunney born 1960 in New Guinea and Barry Lunney born 1961 in Australia.
Barry died in 1993 in Camarillo, California.

Ann’s brother Luis Ramón Gonzálbez Miranda married Jessie Pettigrew. They had two sons,
David born in 1955 and Stephen born in 1957. Luis changed his surname to Bufé on February 26,
1972. (5)
. Ann Gonzalbez Evans died of cancer of the esophagus on March 1, 1993. Two of her
grandchildren, Charlotte and Lorraine, moved into the Camden Street house and cared for the
property until it was sold in 1995.

~ 214~

CONCEPCIÓN “ANN” GONZÁLBEZ MIRANDA EVANS (1917-1993)

By: Lorraine J. Evans

“Wake up, Lorraine. It is time to go,” my grandmother said, while gently shaking my shoulder. “If
we don’t leave now, we won’t be able to do our six miles before the sun burns off this beautiful
morning.”

Groggily I replied, “I don’t want to. It’s still dark outside! I won’t be able to make it the whole way.”

In a stern voice, she uttered, “I am 76 years old, and I get up at 5:30 every morning to walk six
miles. Then, I think you can do it once!”

“Fine,” I grumbled. “I’ll get up.”

Reluctantly, I kicked off the toasty, hand-sewn blanket and got out of the warm bed. I cringed
when my bare feet hit the cold, hardwood floor. As I walked across the room to dress, the familiar
creaking noises of the floor boards at my grandmother’s old house echoed off the white walls which
were laced with ancient photographs and dilapidated knickknacks. Suddenly, a gust of frigid wind
burst through the window and caused the drapes to flutter in the air like two banshees. I ran to the
window and shut it. Everything around me was silent. I could not hear or see anything. All I could
sense was the sweet smell of my grandmother’s favorite perfume, Wind Song. The delicate scent
lingered everywhere, like a ghost slipping through the night.

That was about three years ago and probably the last time I really got a chance to know and talk
with my grandmother. In August of this past year, she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. When I
heard the news, I thought that this can’t be true. She is the healthiest woman I know. She exercises
every day, she has never smoked, and she eats healthful food. How can this be?

But, sure enough, it was actually happening. The doctors said that the cancer had rapidly
metastasized and she didn’t have long. I couldn’t bear to see her helpless in the hospital bed,
delirious from the drugs and tangled in the feeding tubes and heart monitors. It was a devastating
sight. Her condition became progressively worse and six months later she passed away.

The last thing she said to me was, “This isn’t the Mimi you know, who used to walk six miles every
morning.” She was right; she wasn’t the same person I had walked with that morning, but I would
always remember her that way. I can still see the look she had on her face when she said this to
me, but I can’t figure out if it was a look of fear or one of relief. She had lived a full and complete life,
so I don’t think she was afraid to die. In fact, she told me she could not wait to see her husband
again.

Now when I return to her little house, cluttered with boxes and swarming with real estate people
pawing through everything, I can still sense her presence. Amidst the confusion and disarray, the
essence of Wind Song still persists. It is an omnipresence in my life and a constant reminder of my
grandmother. I found a bottle of this perfume that she had in her house, so I kept it. Whenever I
remove the lid, the fragrance floats around the room like it did years ago. Sometimes, I think that it
is her spirit keeping me company and watching over me.

~ 215~

LUIS RAMÓN GONZÁLBEZ MIRANDA (BUFÉ)

Interview: August 2000

Interviewer: Anne E. Evans

My father, Luis, was born in Enguerra, Spain. His father sold “paños” or material for making
clothes. He would load a donkey with paños and go from village to village selling the yardage. He
did not want his sons to grow up to do such work. He wanted the sons to have professions. One
son became a butcher and my father became an “ebanista,” or a cabinet maker. When he was only
about 10 years old, my father was sent to Barcelona to work as an apprentice cabinet maker. There
he met my mother, Concepción.

Concepción’s mother, my grandmother, was Angela Miranda Bufé. (Angela’s mother had married
a Frenchman, named Bufé, from Marseille, France.) Besides Concepción, there were three other
daughters and one son, Mario. The daughters married into Sala, Sebastián, and Costa families.

In 1919, the family had no money to speak of, so one of the uncles, Mario Bufé, went from Spain
to Cuba. He married there and had two daughters. He was well known in Cuba and lived there the
rest of his life. My father, Luis Gonzálbez Aparicio, had worked his way from Spain over to Cuba on
a boat. He was a carpenter and since he could fix the cattle boats, he didn't need any money for
passage. My mother was the "pusher" to go to America. The Salas and the Costas were already
there in America. My uncle, Domingo Sala, had worked at Cartiers of Paris. The bosses liked him,
so they helped him to go to New York to work in their New York store. Anyway, my grandmother
Angela wrote and pleaded for work for her son-in-law, Luis (my father).

Luis arrived in Cuba and met up with Mario there in Havana. Mario introduced him to the rich
people in Cuba and that's where my father did wood crafting for the wealthy. Meanwhile, my mother
was still pushing to leave Spain. My father worked in Cuba until about 1921 or 1922. My
grandmother had gone to New York to be with her sisters. She lived with the Salas, but was not
happy there with her oldest daughter, so she went to Cuba to help out her son-in-law, my father.

Soon my father had enough money to send for my mother, my sister (Concepción), and me. My
mother didn't like Cuba at all and besides, she couldn't speak Castillian. She spoke only Catalán.
Finally, we went to New York. We didn't have to go through Ellis Island because my uncle was our
sponsor. I guess my uncle, or my father, wrote on the application that my sister was born in Cuba
which was under US protection at that time. The Costas found an apartment for us on 28th Street
between First and Second or Third Avenue. Anyway, it was next to a fire station where I played as
a kid. I went to Public School # 28. I learned English there at PS 28. I knew more French than
English because of my uncles and my work at Cartiers.

About that time, the Brooklyn Bridge was being built and the city needed masons. Mario was
recommended for the job of a mason by one of his sisters, so he went from Manzanillo, Cuba, to
New York to help build the bridge. Uncle Sala made money because he was educated in Paris and
worked there for Cartiers. Marie Sala was born there in Paris. When I had my job at Cartiers on Fifth
Avenue in New York, I recall that Marie worked there, too. It was a European company and very
strict. I could not look at Marie or say anything to her. Mr. Durant, our foreman, would have given
us hell if either one of us had as much as looked up. When I was an apprentice, I had to use French
to communicate with the bosses.

My uncle Costa went into real estate loans, but he didn't know anything about property. His
trade was with design, putting dye on material. Costa built his house piecemeal and that's why there
was animosity between the families. My father worked on his house on weekends and did it all
nicely. The Costa and Gonzálbez lots were twenty-five feet apart. We had open porches on the
front and back. My mother's sister, Magdalena Costa, could just shout from her window whenever
she wanted to talk to us.

~ 216~

My grandmother couldn't speak English, so I had to go places with her. I remember on the ferry
when we wanted to get off, I had to call out "Huegenot Park!" Huegenot Park was the town where
the Salas lived on Staten Island. I believe they lived on Arbutus Street.

My father didn't build a garage for the house because we didn't even own a car. I asked my father
if he could build a garage, so I could buy a car. I always had to take my mother shopping and carry
all the groceries home on a bicycle. I remember that on Gunhill Road. Finally, I found a car, a 1927
Pontiac for $30. I didn't have no $30 and didn't even know how to drive. Mario taught me how to
drive; my father gave me $10 and my mother gave me the rest. You couldn't have a license in those
days in New York until you were 21 years old.

I did a four-year apprenticeship at Cartiers and earned $18 a week. I gave my mother $15 and
had $3 left to eat for the week. One day my father said, "Show me your shoes!" He looked, and
they had holes in the bottom. He told my mother, "Resole those shoes. He's walking around
barefoot." I needed $3 to buy a new pair at Tom Mc An.

My father was lucky to earn $35 per week. He worked for Tomich repairing furniture and
restoring. He had two or three other jobs, too, but he worked a long time for Tomich. We all lived
downstairs and rented out the upstairs. I remember three tenents, but there was animosity. We had
no oil to heat the house. Finally, my father received a raise, so he put in an oil heater.

My father wasn't paid for his last job, so he kept the piece of furniture, a breakfront or secretary,
and brought it out to California with him. Connie (my niece) always wanted to buy it from grandpa.
He said she could have it for $200, but she didn't have the money at the time. She went away to
school in New York and when she came back to California she saw the breakfront in Anne and Ray
Evans' house. She said, "Hey, Grandpa promised me I could have that!" Ray answered that he had
come up with the money first and Grandpa sold it to him, fair and square.

You have to understand that we were a poor family trying to get the hell out of Spain. There
was this parameter of thinking. The Costas had good jobs in Spain and then the Salas did very well
in New York. All my parents wanted was to compete with the Salas. My grandmother, that's my
mother's mother, wanted to control all the kids. Animosity grew between my father and my
grandmother. Grandma primarily lived with us, but when we had animosity, Grandma would go and
live with her sister. Most of the time she lived with us.

My mother wasn't much of a cook so my father cooked paella quite a bit. He ate well and was
healthy all his life. When he did go to the doctor and was asked what was wrong, he'd say, "I don't
know. You're the doctor. You tell me."

I joined the Army in 1942 and did basic in Virginia. We were trained to survive in the cold, then
later we were sent to the tropics. After basic we didn't know where we were going. None of us
thought we were good enough to go overseas. I'd been assigned to the medical corps. We were
put on a troop train and a few days later, someone looked out the window and said it looked like
Arizona. Then we saw lots of water and thought we were on the West Coast, in California. I guess
what we saw was the Mississippi. By time we reached Springfield, Missouri, a friend, Iverson, and I
were tired of the food on the troop train, so we got off and searched for a restaurant. We were hungry
for real food. We found a little place and Iverson and I went in. I saw this cute little blonde and well
one thing led to another. I remember the place. Some of the tables were round, some square. I
made a boat out of a napkin and told her we were being shipped overseas.

Lou Gonzálbez Bufé, August 2000.

~ 217~

Jessie added to the interview. "I was about 19 then, and 95 pounds. Just a little thing, but I ran

the whole restaurant. I was manager, cook, waitress, bus-boy, cashier. This soldier came in and

flirted with me. I told him that I was just a student and if he wanted to see me, he'd have to come to

the restaurant where I worked at night, seven nights a week. I had worked since I was 11 years old

to help out my parents and the other seven kids. I was 11 and only weighed 80 pounds and did

babysitting and housework. Lou and I were married in Austin, Texas, then when he was shipped out

to California, I went, too. I had my own place in Santa Ana and I worked as a car-hop. For a while

I lived with Lou's sister, Ann (Gonzálbez Evans), in Silverado Canyon, then I went back to Missouri

to my parents. Lou was sent to Leyte and the Philippines and we moved out to California when he

came back after the war." Jessie Pettigrew Gonzálbez Bufé, August 2000.

Electronic messages from Lola (Dolores) Gruen Wiggins:

I never knew anything about the (Gonzálbez) family after they moved to Los Angeles and really did
not know much about them in New York, as the sisters never spoke, and I was forbidden to even
say hello to them even tho’ when Carmen came home from work (I guess) I would say hello to her.

My maternal grandmother (Magdalena Miranda Costa) had a horrific temper, too, even tho’ she was
always kind to me. I do remember her throwing an iron at her son (my Uncle Tony) about something;
and she and my Mother were always screaming, but no hitting. Magdalena was a very strong woman
and my grandfather, José Costa, was a what you call a wimp; he did what she said but was a loving
man.

My sister, Madeline Gruen Nappen, inherited the temper and never let go of things and then pushed
all the right buttons to get into a screaming match. I guess about twenty years ago, I finally told her

we were too old to do battle over long-ago things and most of the time she had them wrong, so I
hugged her and said, “No more.” She struggles with it, but it has ended with me and if she starts I
just walk away.

We are on the short end of life and it should be peaceful and we have nothing to prove. Especially

now when we finally found my father’s other family and heard how terrible they had it, so we are

blessed to have a close loving family and I think she now understands but I really think they enjoy

all that anger. So far, none in my family have that trait. E-mail: 2013

My father, Kurt Karl Gruen, was born 25 February 1912 in
Germany. He died 15 October 1987 in Bedford, Virginia, from a
self-inflicted gunshot to the head. He married my mother,
Dolores Rita Costa, and had my sister and me. He was a
bigamist and had 3 other children with another wife. The
children were Janice Calvert, Cheryl Stephens, and Carl Kurt
Gruen, Jr., who lives in Upland, California. My father changed
his name to Carl Kurt Gruen as I guess he was afraid my mother
would look for him, even though she knew he was in Culver City.
His other kids hated him, and his second wife divorced him, so
he was a lonely old man. He was mean; beat the heck out of
me. Carl Kurt Gruen, Jr. told me he was cruel to them and
cheated many times on his mother. E-mail: May 2013.

< Dolores and Kurt shown on their wedding day, May 30, 1935.

~ 218~

COSTA FAMILY

By: Alex Costa, Jr.

My mother, Ofelia López, and her two brothers were born in Cuba to two Spanish citizens who
had immigrated there about 1920. The children returned home to Spain with their mother, Soledad
Leirado, sometime in the early 1930s when my mom was between 8 and10 years old. Her father,
Alejo López, had left Cuba to make a life in the U.S. and would call for them when he was settled.
They never heard from him. Meanwhile, they lived a hardscrabble existence in the cold, snowy,
poverty-stricken area of northwestern Spain known as Galicia. Shunned by both sides of the family
due to her mother’s abandoned status in this very conservative, deeply Catholic province, they lived
hand to mouth in the midst of the Depression and the Spanish Civil War. Indifference on the López
side in particular was galling since they were quite well to do in land holdings and included an
archbishop and a philosophy professor among Alejo’s brothers. Very little help came from anyone
although they all lived in the same area and knew of Soledad’s plight. Part of it was Alejo’s being
the black sheep of the family and probably marrying someone of a lesser family. Most of it was
simply an attempt to distance themselves from the whole shameful situation and not become tainted
by it. I know my mother always reserved special bitterness for the hypocritical archbishop. He lived
the relatively plush life of Church royalty while not lifting a finger to help his sister-in-law, niece, and
nephews

Survivor that my mother was, she eventually emigrated to New York when she was about 25
years old. There she frequently went without food. She met my father, Alex Costa, through his
sister, Dolores, whom she worked with at the telephone company, and subsequently brought her
younger brothers over by 1950. She also tracked down her wayward father who was now a very
successful owner of a heavy construction company in the Washington D.C. area, had married again,
and had four other children. Initially welcomed by him, and relieved and happy to see him, she had
an amicable if strained relationship with her father for a while. Sometime around 1951 or 1952, she
became estranged from him due to court proceedings brought against him for bigamy by my mother
and brothers in behalf of their mother. She never saw or spoke to him again after that but did go
to his funeral in 1960 or 1961.

Her brothers were at first helped by their father, who employed them in his business. That also
ended with the legal action. Separately they each started their own heavy construction businesses
in the D.C. area and both became quite successful over time. They were certainly close to, if not
actually, being millionaires by the early 1970s. That’s starting with no money, no English, and no
knowledge of that business. All six of my cousins on that side are graduates of or are going to
college (in contrast with only one out of four cousins on my father’s side.) The arch-typical
immigrant’s American Dream realized.

My mother was very complex. A childhood of desperate circumstances had instilled in her and
her two brothers a tremendous drive to do well, in stark contrast to the complacent attitude of my
father and his two siblings. She remains the hardest worker I have every known, man or woman,
and I say that objectively without any reservation. Absolutely dedicated to my sister and me, she
basically lived her life vicariously through us, taking pleasure in almost nothing else for herself.
Strong, determined, apolitical, frugal, demanding, strict, particular, almost humorless (except around
her children), she could be quite intimidating. She virtually willed both of us to do well in school, did
not just want it to happen, expected it to.

Yet, she wanted us to play, have friends, and generally enjoy life in the same way as our
contemporaries, which we did. My sister and I both agree, she loved us more than anything and
was overwhelmingly the greatest influence in our lives.

~ 219~

Do my sister and I now emulate my mother’s attitudes? No, though I'd like to think we love our
children as she loved us. I just don't think my mother enjoyed life enough. She saw life's experiences
as an unending sequence of adversarial events she had to cope with. It's not a pleasant view. Still,
she was more social and had more friends than my father and, except for the consistent paycheck
my father brought home, carried the entire weight of the household while working for a wage herself.

Alexander Costa, Jr., January 2001.

Alex Costa, Jr., his step-mother Alicia Checa, Ramón Evans, Alex Costa, Sr. in 2001.

Endnotes: Part Three: Chapter Seven

1. Spanish Surnames in the South Western United States: A Dictionary: Richard D. Woods
and. Grace Alvarez-Altman; G.K. Hall and Co., Boston, MA 1978. Library Taos, New
Mexico.

2. From 1923-1930 Spain was ruled by General Primo de Rivera as dictator under King
Alfonso XIII.

3. Censo de Cuba, 1919: Film # 1162470; L.D.S. Library, Salt Lake City, Utah. 30% of the
immigrants went through the Province of Oriente at the Port of Santiago de Cuba.

4. Fort Ord, on Monterey Peninsula, was named for Major General Edward Cresap Ord, who
served as a lieutenant in Fremont’s Army in early Californina.

5. Luis Ramón Gonzálbez Bufé died in 2004.

~ 220~

Chapter Eight

The Squire Family

By Mary Gonzálbez Squire

Reflection on My Life - 1937

June 8, 1923, I was born on the fifth floor in a small, old-fashioned building on Twenty Eighth
Street and Third Avenue in New York City. Just at that time my father was building a house in the
Bronx. (The house) is situated one block in from Eastchester Road on Fenton Avenue. Here was
where we used to spend happy times with our father every Sunday. When the house was completed
about a year and a half later, we moved into it. Everyone was glad to get away from the city, except
me, for I was now accustomed to the city. I was then three years old. Not long after we had been
living here, my younger sister was born. I became very angry because now all the attention was
given to my sister instead of me.

One day my mother was very busy in the house, so she instructed my older sister, who was then
nine years old, to keep an eye on me. She seemed very discontented in her task as she would have
much rather played with her friends. Therefore, she was not very attentive to my actions. Thus, I
thought this would be my first opportunity to show my discontentment in my new surroundings. The
minute she turned around, I strolled quietly off. My destination was my old city dwelling which of
course was an impossible task. After walking for some time on the main road, a truck stopped. An
ice man stepped out. He picked me up and brought me to the police station. At home everybody,
including the neighbors, were out searching the neighborhood for me. Finally, my father decided to
come to the police station and report about a missing girl. When he arrived, there much to his
surprise, he found me sitting on a stool and happily sucking a lollipop. After my father had taken me
home, my mother promised that she would never let me out of her sight again. No sooner had this
happened, when everything changed at home. Anna, my sister who took care of me and my brother,
Lou, who was always so independent, now found more things than ever to amuse me with. Instead
of keeping me locked up in the backyard, they took me to the park and played with me until dark.
My childhood days were full of mischief and from what I’ve heard at home, it seems as though I
inherited it from my father. He was born in a small town in Spain, two or three miles from Valencia.
In those days bullfighting was an enjoyment. When my father was a boy, he and his friends used to
go to the public square and get the bulls mad. One day he tried it once too often and almost got
badly injured by one of the bulls.

My mother was born in Barcelona. With her it was just the opposite from my father. She was
and still is a homelike and loving mother.

When I was of age, my mother sent me to a Catholic school. I only stayed here for two years.
Of all the things that happened during that short period, only one incident stands out clearly in my
mind. It occurred one summer afternoon when I was on my way to school. After I had called for my
friends, we started off to school in great haste for it was already quite late. We had just reached the
corner, when I felt an awful sting on my back. I told my friends that I’d better go home again and see
what was bothering me. As it was late, they continued on their way. I came running into the house
all out of breath. My mother put her hand down my back after I had told her of the awful sting, and
she only found a dead wasp. I was just at the verge of crying, when my older brother volunteered to
take me to school on his bicycle.

~ 221~

It was the custom of this school to close the doors at a certain time. I knew if I had walked I would
never be able to get inside the building. I entered the school way before any of the other girls. When
I opened my classroom door, the sister in charge gave me a scolding, but when the other children
entered, they got more than a mere scolding.

When the new public school was built only a few blocks away from my home, I was transferred
into it. Although it was larger than the small wooden structured school which I had been transferred
from, it was a very small building compared with the other public schools I had seen. Here I spent
the rest of my elementary school days. I remember that in the Grade 4A I had a teacher, Mrs.
Bigbee, who all the children loved. She was a teacher who liked children. She tried her best to have
them enjoy school hours and still learn their work thoroughly. It was very fortunate that we all liked
her because we had this same teacher up to the Grade 5B.

Near the end of the term in our last grade of elementary school, we did very little work in our
classes. I played a joke on the girl who sat in front of me as I had nothing else to do. I wrote on a
piece of paper something to this affect. My goodness! Am I stupid and pinned it on to the girl’s dress.
I asked the teacher to send her on an errand as she herself was full of fun. She did so and when
the girl returned, she was so angry that she tried to do the same thing on others in the class. But
there wasn’t so much fun in it as there was in the first time.

Graduation time was close at hand. Those awful examinations and the constant practicing for
graduation exercises were the only things that all of us detested. Aside from the disagreeable tasks,
we also had moments of pleasure, such as helping the teachers making costumes and checking
papers. Another thing I especially enjoyed was assisting the lower grade teachers in keeping their
children in order while they helped the graduation teachers. Before we knew it the graduation came.
All the girls were very excited over the problem of having their hair attractively arranged for the great
event. I was one of the unfortunates who had another problem. Besides having my hair set, I had
to finish my dress. As you know, in public schools the girls are required to make their graduation
dresses. I brought my sash to the beauty parlor with me in order to complete the sewing on it. That
night I went to bed very late. It taught me a lesson that I should never leave things to be completed
at the last minute.

Graduation day finally came with great excitement throughout the school. The boys and girls of
the graduation classes felt much superior to the children in the lower grades. When the music was
heard the children marched boldly into the auditorium and seated themselves. After the play called
The Happy Prince was over, we were given our diplomas. I believe that every mother who sat in the
auditorium that day must have felt proud of her child. I know that mine did and I am very thankful to
the teachers who helped me gain that honor. When the exercises were over, we took pictures. Then
I went upstairs to my former teachers to have some last few words with them. I also introduced my
mother and sister to them. I have graduated from Public School 97 on June 30, 1937.

Now the long summer vacation was ahead of us. I don’t think anybody could have such a
misfortune as a boy who lives in my neighborhood. Everyone calls him Sonny instead of John. He
is now in the third term in Evander Childs High School. Not very long ago, houses were being built
in the neighborhood. When one of them was almost finished, the boys and girls used to play tag in
it. One night when the boys were playing there, Sonny fell out of a door on the first floor. Of course,
the stairs weren’t put up yet. When the others heard his moans of agony, they rushed to his house
for his father. His excited father carried him home and got a doctor immediately. The doctor said
that he had a broken leg. We certainly never went near anymore houses that were being built.

~ 222~

Just after his leg had healed, he again had to go to the doctor to get his tonsils out. About a year
later he had another operation. He had his appendix taken out. It seems that this would have been

enough, but not long afterwards, he hurts his wrist and put a bone out of place.

After a long summer vacation, I entered a new world called high school. It was so different from
the small country school which I had come from. Here it was like living in a great populated city with

traffic regulations, clubs and squads of many kinds and above all, a General Organization. The first

few days I was there, I had great confusion in finding my way around the building. I was practically
late for every class. The school I had just recently left was as though I was leaving one home and

going into another. It was so cozy and homelike compared to Evander Childs High School. It had

only three floors counting the basement. Part of the third floor was occupied by the departmental
classes only. Most of the teachers here were always happy and friendly. As the classes were small,

the teacher had time to help each individual with problems while the rest were working.

Not long ago I had a hobby of collecting movie stars. The minute my brother came home from
work every night, I used to look through the paper for all the movie stars I could find and cut them
out. Then I separated the ones I especially wanted and saved the ones I didn’t have. I waited to
see if I could get better pictures of them later. I already have a whole scrapbook full of movie stars.
I decided to change my hobby as this one was getting awful tiresome. I have one now which you
really couldn’t call a hobby. Every time I go to the movies, I write in a small loose-leaf book the
picture I saw and who played in it. I also put down what the picture was about and my opinion of it.

I do the same with all the books I read. I think this hobby is much more fun than my last one.

My ambition is to graduate from high school with good marks. I also want to be a stenographer
and be a success in my work. I have already taken a step to reach my goal. I have started high
school with a commercial course and I intend to complete it. I think that this course will help me in
later years.

After I have graduated from Evander Childs High School, my father has promised to send me to

business school so that I may take an extra step towards making a success in the business world. I
am preparing so that I may be able to do whatever the future may hold for me. Mary Gonzálbez,

1937

Evander Childs High School is where my sister, Ann Gonzálbez, graduated. I went there for a
year only since Christopher Columbus High School was built in my district. I graduated in June 1941.
(Mary Gonzálbez Squire, March 2000) Christopher Columbus High School is located at 925 Astor
Avenue, Bronx, New York, 10469. [email protected]

***************************************************************************************************************

Mary met her future husband, Wayne Squire, at the Town House, 639 Commonwealth Avenue in

the Wilshire District of Los Angeles, California. The Town House consisted of the Zebra Room, with

cocktails and dancing, and the more conservative Garden Room for luncheon, dinner, and dancing.

“Carmen and I used to go out. The Town House had a bar and dancing to records. It was nice, but

Carmen didn’t want to go to bars anymore, so I went there with my girl friends and that’s where I met

Wayne.” Mary Gonzálbez Squire, April 2000.

~ 223~

The Squires

Compiled by Mary Gonzálbez Squire

The Squires entered the Gonzálbez family when Mary Gonzálbez married Wayne Squire in
1958. The following account was prepared by Wayne Squire, Sr, February 3, 1998, Quartz Hill,
California.

Augusta B. Scott married George H. Squire and they had one child, a son, Stanley Alfred Squire,
born December 13, 1888 at Hulberton, Orleans County, New York State. George H. Squire died of
typhoid fever in upper New York State. Augusta Gussie Squire re-married and moved to Seattle,
Washington and became Augusta B. Samuel. Stanley Alfred Squire married Lillian Olive Garvey
June 29, 1926 in Ellensburg, Washington. Lillian Garvey was the daughter of Peter Garvey. His
parents were from County Galaway, Ireland. Peter Garvey was born in 1858 near St. Paul,
Minnesota. He married Marien Wurth who was born in 1865. Her ancestral family was from Baden-
Baden, Germany. Peter Garvey was a brick-layer, building contractor, and in 1902 was appointed
Fire Chief of Ellensburg, Washington.

Peter and Marien had four children. Frank Garvey was born 1888, William Garvey, 1888, Lillian
Olive Garvey, 1892 and Mabel Garvey, born 1894. Mabel Garvey earned a teaching credential from
Ellensburg Normal School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Southern California.
She lived in Los Angeles many years and was employed as a grade school teacher in the Lennox
school district. Mabel Garvey died in Los Angeles in 1952. Frank Garvey resided in Los Angeles
most of his life and was employed in the entertainment business at Earl Carrol’s Night Club in
Hollywood and throughout the United States. He was a stage and set manager/electrician. He died
in Santa Barbara in 1965 and is interred in the Ellensburg, Washington, cemetery along with his
father, Peter Garvey, who died at Los Angeles in 1927. William Garvey died of whopping cough at
3 months of age. William’s grave is next to Peter Garvey and Frank Garvey in the Ellensburg
Cemetery and is identified as Baby Garvey on his grave marker. Marien Garvey, Peter’s wife, died
at Los Angeles in 1952 and is interred in the Squire/Garvey family plot Ingelwood Park Cemetery,
Ingelwood, California.

Lillian Olive Garvey married Stanley Alfred Squire. Their
son, Wayne Stanley Squire, was born October 11, 1927 in
Seattle, Washington, Alki Point. Stanley Alfred Squire was
employed by the Coleman Company in Seattle. He died as a
result of an industrial accident January 12, 1944 and is
interred in the Squire/Garvey family plot Ingelwood Park
Cemetery. Lillian Garvey Squire earned a teaching
credential from the Ellensburg Normal School and a
Bachelor of Arts degree from California State University, Los
Angeles. She was employed for many years as a grade
school teacher in the Seattle and Los Angeles public school
systems. She died in Lancaster, California at the age of 91
on December 3, 1983 and is interred in the Squire/Garvey
family plot along with her mother, Marien; sister, Mabel; and
husband, Stanley Alfred Squire.

< Lillian Squire with son Wayne in 1932.

~ 224~

Wayne Stanley Squire joined the United
States Navy in World War Two and saw
sea duty at Okinawa and the Asia/North
China theaters. This photo was taken in
1943 in North China.

He obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University in 1953. He was employed by
Richfield Oil Corporation/ARCO Atlantic Richfield Company in Los Angeles for twenty-nine years.
He married Mary Gonzálbez at the Santa Barbara Mission, November 1, 1958. They had two
children, Linda Marie Squire, born May 28, 1961 in Los Angeles; and Wayne Stanley Squire, Jr.,
born January 26, 1963 in Los Angeles. Linda Marie Squire earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in
Communications from Loyola University, Los Angeles, August 31, 1983, and a Master of Arts Degree
in Social Work from the University of Southern California, May 6, 1988. Wayne Stanley Squire, Jr.
worked as an electrician in Los Angeles and Southern California. Linda Squire was licensed by the
State of California as a clinical social worker and worked in hospitals throughout Los Angeles and
Southern California. Wayne Stanley Squire, Sr. was a Republican. Wayne Stanley Squire, Jr. and
Judith Lynne Mendoza had a daughter, Mary Jane Squire, born May 28, 1994 in Bakersfield,
California and a son, Wayne Stanley Squire III, born in Oroville, California, October 12, 1995. Wayne
Stanley Squire, Sr. retired in December 1985 and resides with his wife, Mary Squire, in Quartz Hill,
California where they raise almonds. They are Catholics.
Wayne Stanley Squire 1998

~ 225~

Squire Family Sketches

From Landmarks of Orleans County, New York: edited by the Hon. Isaac S. Signor of Albion New
York; Syracuse, New York, 1894; page 95.

George Squire was the first of the family to settle in Orleans County, New York. He was a native
of Hillsdale, Columbia County, and the son of Jesse Squire, being one of twelve children. His father
was a soldier in the Revolutionary War; was engaged in the battle with the Indians at Canajoharie,
took part in the Battle of Saratoga, and was present at the surrender of Burgoyne. He was the son
of Asa Squire, who came from Scotland and settled in Ontario. Jesse Squire married Amy Cole.
George Squire was born October 15, 1788. He served in the War of 1812, where he received the
title of major. He came to Murray in 1825, settled at what is now Hulburton, and built the first frame
house of the town where the store of J. Moore & Son now stands. Mr. George Squire has always
been a farmer. In politics he is a Democrat, and has held office as justice of the peace, justice of
sessions and supervisor. He married Betsy Williams, and they were the parents of the following
children: George H., James E., Alfred J., Orsamus J., Antoinette, Esther J., Eunice A. and Almira,
who died young. George H. Squire married Louisa Armstrong and resided at Hulburton the early
part of his life and died on his way to California in 1852. James E. is a lawyer. He went to California
in 1849 and settled at San Francisco. Orsamus J. settled at Bergen. Antoinette married H.N. Ellison
of Murray. Esther J. married Stephen P. Wood, of Murray, who went to California, where he died.
Eunice A. married E.N. Felton, of Bergen. Mr. George Squire died at Hulburton, March 1, 1867.
Alfred J. Squire was born at Hulburton in 1834 and spent his life in the town of Murray until 1871.
His occupation is farming, though for a number of years he was associated with John Moon in the
mercantile trade. He is the pioneer in the quarry business in the town of Murray, having opened
quarries in 1870, which he has since operated. Mr. Alfred Squire is a Democrat and has served as
town clerk and justice of the peace. He is a member of the Holley Lodge, I.O.O.F., and Murray
Lodge, No. 380, F.& A.M. In 1855 he married Emily Ripley, daughter of Rev. Horatio M. Ripley, and
they have four children: George H., Alfred R., Jesse E. and Minnie E. The sons are engaged in the
stone business with their father. George H. married Augusta B. Scott, daughter of John B. Scott, of
Columbia County. Alfred R. married Jessie Hargrove, daughter of Williara Hargrove, of Hulburton.
Minnie E. married Christopher Otto, of Gasport, N.Y. Alfred J. Squire rnoved to Rochester in 1891.

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

Lillian Garvey Squire, 1968

A letter from Cousin Maristella Garvey Korba about our Garvey Grandparents

Because of the Potato Famine in Ireland, Anthony & Margaret Garvey went to Canada. This
must have been around 1850.

They almost decided to homestead near Winnepeg but because of stories then making the
rounds, about the good land in Minnisota, they came to St. Paul from Winnepeg.

About 20 miles south of St. Paul was an area of fertile land called the Rosemount prairie. It
must have looked like Eden to them but there was one flaw--no wood, not a tree for miles, and little
water.

Their finances were not in the condition to buy wood for building & fuel and dig wells for
needed water, so they went to the hills in Credit River. Many have said that they are much like the
scenery of Ireland. The woods were so abundant in wood and water was between any two hills.

~ 226~

They built a log cabin in a natural clearing deep in the heart of the forest. By then there were 3
children -- Peter, Mary & Martin (an infant). One cold winter night the cabin burned. In the excitement
Grandma laid her baby on a log & his hand got out of the blanket. His little finger was frozen & was
deformed for the rest of his life.

Then they built a new cabin closer to the lovely lake. This is where the present house now stands.

It is now about 1862 and the Sioux Indians went on the warpath. Volunteers were quickly whipped
into the semblance of an Army. Grandpa served under Colonel Sibley as a wagon driver. I have
heard my father often talk of different men who went across the plains with Father. When he got
back on a furlough, Grandpa walked back to his log cabin & carried a sack of flour for his family. I
don't know how much the flour weighed but it is about 25 miles from the Fort to Credit River & that
is as the crow flies!

Grandma had been having her troubles too. One day she looked out the window and saw 3 Sioux
braves coming up the path. She was sure they would all be killed. The door was barricaded with all
the furniture she could move and when she looked again they were sharpening their knives &
hatchets at the grindstone! Her only protection was a little dog who kept barking. This tribe was
fearful of dogs so after leisurely fixing their weapons they disappeared into the forest.

In Ireland, Grandpa's neighbors had been the Faricys. They left Ireland before he did. As
Grandpa was building his cabin one morning he heard a rooster crowing. He thought there must be
neighbors around, so he went to see where & who they were. Believe it or not, it was the Faricy
family from Ireland!

Grandma was so proud of her sons. The old timers used to tell how she would walk to church in
the evenings during May with her 6 sons & line them up in the front pew -- six little tow-heads.

When I was a little girl the musket, uniform coat, canteen & other army items of Grandpa's, hung
in the granary. But I suppose they have been disposed of by now.

One day Grandma & a neighbor lady walked to Lakeville as she needed some thread. It was six
miles each way through heavy forest. Grandma put the thread in her packet & they started home.
When she got there, the spool was in her pocket but no thread on it. So, she sent the boys back &
they found it, strung from bush to bush all the way through the woods.

When she went through the brush after leaving Lakeville, it got caught on a twig & kept unrolling.

I can just vaguely remember Grandma. She stayed in her room at the top of the stairs (in the
girl's part of the house) and would rock & rock. That room still has the dent in the floor made by her
in her rocking chair.

Grandpa was from Galway. He was so fond of fresh fish and any sea food. But in those days, it
was impossible to get any fresh fish from the sea. My Dad used to tell how they tried to interest
Grandpa in the the "new" cereals. He would say, "You can eat grass too, if you put cream and sugar
on it.”

Grandpa had a varicose ulcer on his leg before he died. Dad & John used to take care of it for
him. He was 90 years old when he died & Grandma was 96. All their children are gone now but
none of them reached those ages. Whenever I hear "Galway Bay" I think of Grandpa.

Grandma was from County Mayo. Her maiden name was Gerharty. She was a slight build &
short. Now whether they were married in Ireland or in Canada is an unsolved mystery. I can find no
one who knows. She was quite superstitious as is seen in the following story.

~ 227~

There was a teacher who boarded with them one winter while he taught the district school. My
Dad was home that winter too and he & the teacher rigged up a code. Dad would go into another
room & the teacher would choose a card. Then he would call on Dad to tell what card he had chosen.
He would give Dad the clue by starting his question according to code. If it was the Ace of Spades
he might say, " Aha-sure’n you can & tell this one". As Aha starts with the letter “A” and sure’n has
five letters, Dad could get the card. The family was astounded. There was a peddler who arrived &
wanted to stay for the night so after supper, they got the card act on. Everything went fine. The
peddler was amazed & when he got up next morning, he ran to his pack & started checking to see if
all was still there. Grandma was shook-up, too. She said, "There's black art in that. I will have
Father Quinn down here in the morning".

One of the neighbors was a very expressive oral reader so during the winter, they would meet at
various houses to have him read stories. One night the story was Huckleberry Finn. The story went
that Huck had some limburger cheese & the reader read, "Phew. What is smelling so?" The old lady
of the house said, “I smell that too. Get out, Rover".

They lay in the churchyard, side by side, with a brief notation on the headstone. The church is
gone but the lake glimmers at the foot of the hill. I am sure the fairies gather there to dance on
moonlit nights as surely a part of the Auld sod is enclosed in the fence that circles the cemetery.

Buried beside them are Catherine (who never married), Anthony, John (his baby son), and
Edward, my beloved Dad.

Maybe you have heard of Anthony. Every family seems to have one "live wire" & I guess Anthony
was it in the Garvey family.

I wish I knew more of the past. This is about all I can gather as all are dead who knew.
Maristella Garvey Korba, 1968.

THIS IS A TRUE STORY. IT REALLY HAPPENED
TO GRANDMA HICKEY, MY GRANDMOTHER

By: Lillian Garvey Squire - 1988

The young widow stood at the window as the March wind howled dolefully around the eves of the
tiny homesteader's cabin and watched her two older children struggle against the gale on their way
to the crude schoolhouse nearly two miles away. The wind whipped the girls’ long skirts about her
legs and seemed about to tear the tin lard bucket lunch pail from the boy’s hands.

Elizabeth wondered, as she had done so often in the previous months, if she had done what was
best for her children when she moved from San Francisco and brought her young family to this lonely
territory.

The idea had been her brother's. He had homesteaded in the fertile Kittitas Valley in central
Washington several years before and the rich land was already producing fine crops of alfalfa, grain
and fruit and his herd of cattle and horses was fast multiplying. He had written to his widowed sister
in San Francisco of the opportunities this new country offered and had advised her to come and
settle on land near his homestead.

~ 228~

So, bringing only the barest necessities the little family had boarded a ship in San Francisco and
sailed up the coast and up the Columbia River to The Dalles, Oregon. Here Elizabeth's brother met
them with his team and wagon. They soon discovered that riding in the wagon was not the mode of
travel to be enjoyed by any except two-year-old Olive. The rest of the family walked most of the way
on the long trek to their new home. There was no railroad in the valley and the nearest place to buy
provisions was The Dalles, over one hundred fifty miles from Kittitas, so when a settler made the trip
he had a list of supplies to bring to his neighbors. Now the brother was bringing staples, tobacco,
and repairs for farm implements for a number of settlers and these along with the family's belongings
were all the horses could pull, so Elizabeth and the three older children walked, except on occasional
downgrades when they gratefully piled on top of the load.

Elizabeth thought of the long, hard trip as she turned from the window to little Olive and five-year-
old Ann, playing on the bare wood floor with dolls she had made for them.

She continued musing as she went about her household tasks. Her back was to the door, so she
did not see it open nor did she hear any sound, but a blast of cold air caused her to turn as three
blanketed Indians, long braids of black hair hanging over each shoulder, filed across the floor, their
moccasined feet making no sound.

Indians were no novelty to Elizabeth as they often stopped for food on their way from the Columbia
River to the salmon-fishing grounds on Puget Sound. In fact, not long before, an old Indian, leading
a string of seven or eight cayuses had solemnly offered her all the ponies in trade for her oldest
daughter, fifteen-year-old Marien (my mother). He had shown no resentment when she smilingly
shook her head and left after finishing the bread and coffee she had put before him.

However, these three Indians showed in every way that they were unfriendly. They gazed at her
darkly as they took chairs around the stove and every now and then one or another would crash his
raw-hide quirt across the little cast-iron stove, causing the lids to rattle and almost knocking down
the chimney, then all would laugh uproariously and cast malignant glances at the young widow.

Elizabeth could not understand what they were saying to one another, but she could sense their
antipathy and she was frightened. Crash! Another Indian struck the little stove and his long braids
danced with the exertion.

She thought of edging to the door and running outside but she knew escape was impossible,
especially with the two little girls to care for, and anyway there was no place to go for safety and no
use screaming as there was no one to hear her.

How she wished for a weapon but there was no gun in the house. Just then her eye fell on the
woodbox and in panic the slender woman snatched up a stick of stove-wood and shaking it at the
intruders, managed to shout, "Now you get out of my house. Get Out!". She brandished the stick in
the direction of the door, shouting all the time, "Get out! Get out!".

For a long moment there was silence at the stove. Not an Indian moved. Then at last one young
brave rose to his feet and stalked out the door, the others following in single file. They went to their
horses which they had left with reins dragging on the ground. Each lithely sprang on his unsaddled
mount and without once looking back they galloped away. Trembling and almost unable to stand,
Elizabeth watched them until they were out of sight as she breathed a prayer of gratitude.

~ 229~

HISTORY OF THE GARVEY FAMILY

By: Lillian Garvey Squire, Nov. 1965

We'll start with my father's side of the family. Dad's father was born in County Galway, Ireland,
and his mother in County Mayo, Ireland. Both came to America when they were in their teens. My
grandfather worked for a short time in New York state and I think that is where he met and married
my grandmother. Soon after their marriage, they moved to Minnesota where Grandfather took up a
homestead in dense forest about 16 miles from the then small town of St. Paul, Minnesota.

Grandfather set to work clearing some of the land with the help of a team of oxen, and he built a
log cabin for their home. There was a pretty lake on the land, but he built the dwelling on a rise of
land about a mile from the lake and about one-half mile from the spring, which provided them with
water, so Grandmother had a long walk for water when Grandfather was away fighting Indians.

Unfriendly Indians harassed the settlers and made life exciting at times. (When I visited the farm
in 1956 my Uncle John showed me the old log barn several miles away where those who were left
at home took shelter during Indian raids)

Grandfather Garvey was a member of Col. Sibley's troops. It must have been a lonely time for
Grandmother Garvey, left alone in the little cabin with a young baby (my father); never knowing when
hostile Indians would invade her home.

Nine children were born to Grandfather and Grandmother Garvey. My father, Peter Garvey was
the oldest. The others were Anthony and Catherine, both of whom died at an early age, William,
who became a successful builder and left his wife several apartment buildings, at least one of which
was built of native pink stone and one or two houses, when he died in El Paso, Texas. Martin
became a book-keeper and was employed for years until his retirement from that large lumber
company in Minneapolis. Edward went to college and became a teacher, later taking a position as
Postmaster of Savage, Minnesota, and at the time of his death he was also Vice President of the
Bank of Savage. John remained with his parents and ran the farm which had started with 160 acres
but had grown considerably. Mary and Margaret married local boys.

As the family grew, small additions were added to the little dwelling, but when all the children
were grown and married, an imposing new house was built on the farm. My father visited his parents
when his father was about 90 years old and found him out in the field digging post holes. He died at
the age of 91 and my grandmother at 96.

When my dad was about 14 he had saved up enough money to buy a shot-gun, so he walked the
16 miles to St. Paul, bought the gun, and walked back home that same day, and Uncle John said
Dad was so anxious to try out his gun that he scouted the farm that evening. Uncle John said Dad
was also an expert swimmer.

My father and his brothers and sisters attended the little country school some distance from the
farm. The man teacher was very strict and one day something happened for which Dad was blamed,
although he said he had had nothing to do with the prank. The teacher informed him he was to
receive a whaling the next morning.

That news was unpleasant enough, but Grandfather Garvey's rule was -- a whaling at school
called for another at home. The prospect of a double reward for something he did not do did not
appeal to Dad, so the next morning, without letting anyone know, he set out to make his way in the
world at the age of 14. He did not write home for many years. I have often thought, when his own
son did not get in touch with him for many years, if he thought how his parents must have felt.

~ 230~

Dad made his way to Ames, Iowa, where he found work with a very fine family who let him work
and go to school and treated him like a son. His education was about the equivalent of first year
high school, but years later Normal School students used to come to him for help in solving problems
in higher mathematics. At one time in his life, he worked with a surveying gang and became proficient
enough in mathematics that he had his own surveying instruments and used them.

When my father was about 21, he went to Pendleton, Oregon, and took up what was known as a
tree claim. In order to prove up on his claim, he had to plant a certain number of acres with trees.
When he was about 27 years old he sold his claim, and he moved to Ellensburg, where he met my
mother, and they were married in 1887. My brother Frank was born in 1888 and William, their second
child was born in 1890, but he died at the age of three months, of whooping cough. I came along in
1892 and my sister Mabel in 1894.

Before I was born, my father bought a two-story house with eight large rooms on two lots in a nice
location on Craig's Hill in Ellensburg. It was surrounded by trees that Dad had planted. He painted
the house white and for many years, whenever anyone spoke of The White House I thought they
were referring to our house on the hill.

The family was living here during the Depression of the Cleveland Administration, which Mother
always said was far worse than that later Depression. For several years there was almost no work
for anyone and Dad, a bricklayer, had to struggle to "keep his head above water". His credit was
good, and he and Mother had to run up a bill at the grocery store in winter when their garden could
not supply their needs. It sometimes took them up to the 4th of July to get the grocery bill paid. In
the spring of 1897, they had laid aside money to pay the fire insurance premium which was soon
due, but they still owed the grocery bill. One day Dad came home and said, "John Shoudy's store is
failing. He has not been able to collect enough to pay his creditors". They talked it over and decided
they would have to use the insurance premium money to pay the grocer now that he needed help.
They did this and let the insurance lapse until they could pay it.

That June a friend of the family was taking a load of freight across the mountains to Cashmere.
Dad arranged for Mother and us 3 children to ride with him to visit our Grandmother on her
homestead near Cashmere. While we were away, a lamp exploded and set our house on fire. There
was a high wind and only well-water with which to fight the fire. Dad and the neighbors worked hard
but the big white house and all its contents burned to the ground.

We moved into a little three-room house, which Dad later bought, and added 2 more rooms.
About this time, he was chosen chief of the volunteer fire department, a position he held for years,
until the town established a regular fire department. He was offered the position of Fire Chief but
declined.

About 1902 Dad bought the 2 corner lots and house, and this was our home as long as we lived
in Ellensburg. I can remember when a delegation of business men came to our home and asked
Dad if he would permit them to enter his name on the ballot for City Councilman. He was elected
and held this position for many years. He was acting Mayor for almost two years, as the Mayor was
ill.

My father was always well respected. Everyone who knew him spoke of his honesty and
dependability. Whenever I hear the word, integrity I think of Dad. He died in 1927.

They were living in Los Angeles at the time of my father's death and Mother remained there, as
Mabel had a position as teacher in the Lennox schools, near Los Angeles. Mabel was a graduate of
University of Southern California and had almost enough credits for her Master of Arts Degree when
she suffered a stroke. She lived for eight years and passed away in 1952. Mother followed her by
just five weeks.

~ 231~

For many years we did not hear from my brother Frank, but when Earl Carroll built his big building
in Hollywood and prepared to open Earl Carroll's Follies, he sent to New York for Frank to take
charge of the scenery crew.

I later learned that my brother had been on the scenery staff of The Marx Brothers, of Fred Allen,
who was a personal friend of Frank's, of the dancer Ruth St. Dennis, and of many other prominent
stage personalities. He died in 1965.

THIS IS A STORY OF MY MOTHER'S SIDE OF THE FAMILY - NESSEL VON HOFF

By: Lillian Garvey Squire

My mother's mother was one of ten children, all born in Baden Baden, Germany. Their father
was a minor government official there. Their home was a large stone dwelling over-looking a river,
and once a year, workers came from across the river and wove the cloth for their clothes while others
made shoes for the family.

The family name was Nessel Von Hoff or Neselhavre. One cousin informed me that there was a
prefix "Von" in front of the name in Germany, but in America the father had the name changed to
Nesselhaus.

In 1849 my great-grandfather sold their home and the surrounding land and came by sailboat to
America. The weather was stormy, and the passengers were required to remain below decks most
of the time, in extremely cramped quarters. After 40 days at sea, the boat landed at New Orleans.
There the family took a river-boat and went to St. Louis where the father bought a farm just outside
the city. About that time, St. Louis experienced a severe epidemic of cholera. Burials were permitted
only at night and my grandmother said wagons carrying the dead went by their place all night long
on many nights, so the parents sold and took another river-boat. Their destination was Davenport,
Iowa, but their boat caught fire and passengers were put off near Burlington, Iowa, and near there
they bought wilderness land, and started clearing a place for a home. Grandma said tall trees and
shrubs and vines covered the ground and she and her younger sister Emma had swings formed by
grapevines hanging from the trees. Grandma said in the autumn her brothers would take the family
wagon across the river and all the children would gather wild chestnuts, hickory and other nuts and
fill the deep bed of the wagon. These nuts were stored in the attic and on winter evenings were
cracked and eaten about the fire. Their father planted grape vines and when the grapes were ripe,
Grandma and her sister Emma washed their feet carefully, then their father carried them one at a
time to a large barrel where they tramped the juice from the grapes for wine.

When the Civil war broke out, all five of Grandma's brothers volunteered on the side of the North.
All were accepted, except one boy. He had a back injury that he had suffered when he was small.
Three boys were wounded. One or two were prisoners in a notorious southern prison. Grandma
told me the name, but I am not sure. I think it was Libby.

Great Uncle Gus walked with a decided limp the rest of his life due to a bullet wound in his hip.
However, he made the trip to the west coast by going down the Mississippi River, through the Gulf
of Mexico, into the Caribbean Sea to the Isthmus of Panama. There the passengers disembarked
and walked across the Isthmus of Panama through the jungle, carrying their supplies and belongings
on their backs. He told my mother and Grandma that there were cocoanut palms on the way and if
they could not reach the nuts they threw sticks etc. at monkeys in the trees and the monkeys returned
the fire with cocoanuts.

~ 232~

Grandma's brother Robert moved to Minnesota and settled on a farm there. He had his name
legally changed to Nessel (which seems sensible to me). He was a Minnesota Senator for several
terms.

The oldest of the sisters married a jeweler, the youngest married an architect. I do not know
anything about the rest of the family, except August (Gus). After he reached the Pacific coast, he
stayed in California a short time, then went to The Dalles, Oregon. From there he went to the Kittitas
Valley in what is now central Washington, but at that time was Oregon Territory. He took up a
homestead eleven-miles northeast of the present town of Ellensburg. He married a girl from his
home town, Burlington, and raised 5 children, the oldest of whom is Sister Ambrosia who is now in
Tacoma, Washington.

When my grandmother was 19 she met and married a young German named Wurth or Wurst.
(My birth certificate gives my mother's maiden name as Marien Wurth, but I had thought it was
Wurst.) He was lost at sea shortly before my mother was born. When Mother was about 6 years old,
Grandma, who suffered every winter with bronchitis, decided to move to a milder climate so she and
Mother traveled by the new railroad to Laramie, Wyoming. Mother said she could remember seeing
a great heard of wild buffalo.

Grandma worked as a seamstress in Laramie. She married John Hickey there and they moved
to San Francisco, where their 3 children were born, Matt, Anna, and Olive. He drank heavily so it
was necessary for her to continue working. Grandma said he was very abusive and dangerous when
drunk so she hid part of her earnings until she had enough money saved for the trip to The Dalles,
where her brother would meet her. She and the four children took a boat up the coast and across
the Columbia River bar to Albany. There they got on a river boat that took them up the Columbia to
The Dalles, and there her brother Gus met them with his team and wagon. The family did not get to
ride on the wagon, as the brother had to load it, not only with provisions to last them all winter, but
he had to bring supplies for neighbors, who had done as much for him on their trips for supplies.

So, Grandma, my mother who was not quite 15, Matt, 9, Anna, 5 or 6, walked (except where there
was a long down grade) all the way from The Dalles to Uncle Gus’s homestead, over 150 miles.
Mother said she and Grandma took turns carrying two-year-old Olive most of the way as she was ill
and did not like riding in the wagon. It took them two weeks to make the trip from The Dalles to the
homestead.

The family spent the winter with her brother, and in the spring, she took up a pre-emption claim
on land which her brother thought was the best place to settle. She did not then know that her claim
was right across a trail which the Indians used to go from the Columbia to the fishing grounds on
Puget Sound. The Indians were unfriendly towards the family and made life unpleasant at times. To
add to their troubles, Grandma at 35 or 36 was thrown from her horse and struck her shoulder against
a large rock shattering her shoulder bone. A sort of veterinary doctor treated her as there was no
M.D. in the valley, but it took 4 years for all the pieces of the shattered bone to fester and work their
painful way to the surface in the form of boils which left deep pits on her shoulder. Grandma, only
39 or 40 years old, was never again able to raise her right arm to her head.

Shortly after her accident, she sold the claim and the family moved to the tiny town of Ellensburg,
Washington. There she bought two lots and had a house built on them. This property is the present
site of the Antlers Hotel. Mother had been attending the country school and had finished the highest
of the McGuffey’s readers. She was always good in spelling and arithmetic and her teacher had told
her he thought she would be ready to make the teacher’s examination in the spring, but when
Grandma was hurt, Mother dropped out of school and took care of her mother and the family.

~ 233~

When she was 22, she and my dad were married. Grandma decided would like to homestead so
she and Matt, then 16, and the two little girls went to Cashmere, which was then called Mission and
filed on a claim in Na-Ha-Hum Canyon just above the town. The land was mostly dry land but there
was a fine spring on the place and the hills offered good grazing for herds.

She and Matt cut and trimmed the pine fir trees and built their log cabin all by themselves. She
was the first white woman in the canyon, but she got along well with the Indians and was able to help
many of them through the years.

Anna died when she was about 20. Olive married and moved to Spokane. Matt took up a
homestead on adjoining land when he was 21 and married several years later.

Matt and Grandma raised beef cattle and prospered. Later Matt planted about fifteen acres of
orchard which did well. Then a long drought set in and gradually the orchard ceased bearing, much
of the land would no longer feed stock and when Uncle Matt died in 1950, the ranch was no longer
the prosperous place it had been.

Matt was Chelan County Commissioner for eight years and was instrumental in developing the
Blewett Pass highway. When he took office, there was only a narrow dirt road, not wide enough in
some places for teams or cars to pass and with extremely steep grades. Under his guidance, a
graded, paved highway was built.

In 1936, Grandma came to Seattle to make her home with my family and me. She was a
remarkable old lady with an unusually keen sense of humor and a remarkable memory. She could
remember happenings of her early days, and also the events of weeks before, when we would take
her on trips.

She told many, many interesting stories of her life and I regret that I did not make note of them.
She often said she had helped to carve a home from the wilderness three times in her life. She died
in 1941, three weeks before her 95th birthday.

Lillian Squire 1982

~ 234~

Chapter Nine

The Spitz Family

The Spitz Family came into the Baehr-
Evans Family when Michael Gordon Spitz
married our daughter Rachel Katherine
Evans. Mike’s grandmother Helene, his
father Erwin, and his aunt Lilly were born in
Austria. Helene Wawrein (Spitz), age 16,
is shown at left in 1941.

Interview of Helene Spitz
Laguna Woods, California 92637

15 August 2006

Interviewer: John Haug, 714-633-7947
[email protected]

Transcriber: Anne Baehr Evans. Note: Items in parenthesis ( ) are clarifications made by Helene
Spitz by telephone on 16 August 2006. Items within boxes [ ] are words placed by transcriber for the
ease of reading.

My name is Helene Spitz. I don’t care how you say my name. Helene or Helen. Most people in
America just call me Helen. I don’t mind. Just as long as you call me! I was born in Vienna, Austria,
July 26, 1925. My mother was born in Czechoslovakia (in 1892. She spoke Czech and German).
She had an aunt here in Vienna and so she came to work here. My father (was about 5 years older
than my mother and he) was born on the Austrian Czech border—Kramau. In those days it was all
just the Königsreich. (All Austria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia were combined. Since Father was
from the border area, German was mandatory for him to speak.) My father’s parents wanted him to
be an architect, so he studied to be an architect in Vienna. Then, he met my mother and quit school,
so they could be married in 1919 or 1918. He did not serve in World War One. I was born six years
after their marriage.

~ 235~

[My mother had to make ends meet] and she always had to cook lentil soup. Later [when things
were better], my mother said, “I will never make lentil soup again!” A revolution took us from a
monarchy to a republic after World War One. Jobs were scarce and so my father collected
unemployment.

A typical day in school was class in Kindergarten from 8 until 12. Later in first grade, we would
add hours and go from 8 until 12 and then from 2 until 5, plus half a day on Saturday. I liked school.
They were very, very strict. Gaslights were still in use in the classrooms. At recess, the teachers
had to open the windows, so fresh air could enter. In those days, girls went to separate schools and
boys went to boys’ schools. (Our Schulnachricht, school reports, or as you call them, report cards,
were Austrian documents until they changed after 1938 to German documents.) After school, I didn’t
do any housework. That was strictly “women’s work” for my mother to do. My father would watch
me, and I did my homework. If a new building went up in Vienna, he would take me walking to see
it. Once he showed me a new radio building. I was amazed [that sound would be able to travel so
far].

I was nine when we lost my father. My mother did not have much education, but she managed.
No, he did not die. I told everyone he died. You see, the country was Catholic then and divorce was
unknown. My father was a Communist. He was very active in the revolution and didn’t get along
with my mother. She decided to be a tailor and she moved on. I’ve always been hurt by the divorce.

Since we were a 95% Catholic country, all our schools were Catholic. Prayers were said at the
beginning of each class. When Hitler came in 1938, the first thing he did was take down the class
crucifixes and have his picture put up instead. I was Protestant. Before Hitler, everyone got along
in daily life. Every day the children had religion classes; unfortunately, the Catholic priest would call
me over and say, “Tell your parents to make you a convert.” I would go home and say, “Mama, I
don’t want to go to Hell. I want to go to Heaven like the other kids.” That’s what I like about the
United States where everyone can [worship as he pleases]. There was no hatred for the Jews before
the Nazis came. First thing, the Nazis indoctrinated the youth. Instead of saying “Grϋss Gott” in the
morning we had to say, “Heil Hitler.” We just had to do it and if we didn’t, we were looked upon as
terrible. Before 1938, some people were already Nazis, so when Hitler came, these people sort of
ruled everything.

I remember the first time I heard of Hitler. There was a vote. We were asked if we wanted
Anschlass mit Deutschland, Unity with Germany. On the ballot were two boxes. One huge box was
for “yes” and a small box was for “no.” 95% voted for yes. In the beginning, people really wanted
this, as we were promised jobs, work, and good life. I don’t know about the percentage, but that’s
what I was told. I remember the first time we were given ocean fish. Austria has no coast, so we
weren’t used to that. It smelled so horrible, we had to throw it away, which was bad because we
never had thrown food away before.

My mother said to a Jewish lady, “Don’t worry. They are not going to do anything to you. [You are
Austrian.] They’ll just get rid of the foreign [Jews], Poles and such.”. My husband [to-be] was a
chauffeur then, and one time driving his boss, they came upon a sign when they stopped at a gas
station. There was the word “Juden” and picture of a man with a big nose. He asked the man at
the station, “Have you ever seen a Jewish person?” He answered, “No, but that’s how they look.”
My husband said, “But I am Jewish, and I don’t look like that.” His boss said, “Quiet! We will have
trouble!” and they drove away in a hurry.

~ 236~

Emil, my husband, was one of seven born in Vienna. His mother owned a poultry shop and his
father was a mechanic. The children got to swim and play soccer and never moved from Vienna.
After the war, his brothers got the apartment back. I worked as a baby-nurse in a household and
knew his brother first. There was a girl who was half Jewish working in the house. It was sort of a
ghetto. That’s how I knew my husband. We met in September 1945. Mr. Bittman [my boss] made
Emil a chauffeur. I told Mr. Bittman his baby should have some fresh air, making sure that Emil took
us driving in Vienna. One day I was playing music of a Jewish mother. Emil came to the window
and was crying while listening to the music. I thought, this man is a good man who can cry; he has
a good heart. Some people like to be sneaky; Emil said some people even stole food in the camps,
but Emil never did.

Emil was 20 years older than I was. My
mother was hesitant. She was not against
Jewish people, but she just didn’t want
trouble. Since I was Protestant and my
husband was Jewish [I was considered
Jewish] so my mother gave me documents
to prove [I had no Jewish blood]. She said,
“In case this ever happens again, you can
prove you are not Jewish.” I have kept
these documents in my safety deposit box
in my bank. Emil and I married June 04,
1946.

Helene and Emil Spitz are shown at left
in 1967.

Emil’s older brother Fred was married to a Christian woman. He had to wear a star and move to
the 2nd District. One day a friend came to the door and said he was going to take Emil to the police
station. Emil asked, “You are my friend. Why are you taking me to the police station?” The person
said, “Things are different now,” and he took Emil to the police station. Fred and Emil went to
Dachau. Brother Hansi went to Israel. Since Fred had been in the Army in World War One, my
mother was able to get him a ticket to go to Shanghai. She got Emil a ticket, too, but he didn’t want
to go to Shanghai and told her to give away the ticket. He went to Italy instead. (There he worked
as a luggage or baggage-handler. He was treated badly by the Italians who said he and the other
immigrants were taking away work from them. Then, Emil went to France. He had a French friend
there he had played soccer with. The friend said he could get Emil a job in an auto factory in Paris.
But then, Hitler came to Paris and put the Jews into a camp on the border—Cont de Guerrz, or
something, but I can’t spell that.)

Being a mechanic helped Emil. Also, he loved, loved animals, and in the camp in France, he
befriended one of the guard dogs. One day he decided to escape, so when the guards called out
the prisoners to line up out front in the morning, Emil hid under a bed. A soldier with a watch dog
came in looking for him.

~ 237~

Well, it was the same guard dog Emil had befriended and the dog did not give Emil away. The
soldier finally saw him and just said, “Come on out. Don’t cause trouble.” (Another time, Emil tried
to escape by climbing over a fence. A French guard stopped him and said, “Don’t you know I could
shoot you? If you go over, I’ll have to shoot you.” The guard grabbed him and pulled him back into
the camp.

As I said, being an auto mechanic is what saved Emil. That is what sent him to Bergen-Belsen.
His sister-in-law’s brothers were there. One had the job of cutting down bodies that had been
hanged. The other had to build the gas-ovens. Once when Emil was at this camp, he was standing
in line and he had to use the bathroom. He said to a soldier, “I have to go to the bathroom.” The
soldier told him no so Emil just went right there. The soldier said, “Smelly Jew” and beat him up.
The story went through the camp to the brothers; Berti came at night and got Emil fresh underwear
so he could wear clean clothes. After I came to America, I remembered hearing all this and wondered
how people could be that way. I was hesitant here to join a German singing club; but then I thought,
not everyone is bad. Certain ones used a situation to enrich themselves, but not all are bad. We
have to remember that.

(Emil was in Dachau twice. He would sabotage the trucks that were carrying people to the gas
chambers. The trucks would get part way, then would have to be towed back as they couldn’t make
it all the way to the chambers. One time, Emil dropped his glasses and a soldier stepped on them,
grinding them up. Long after the war, one of Emil’s sisters came to visit. She wanted to go to see
Dachau. Emil said, “No way!” He never wanted to see Dachau again.)

Kristalnacht was very frightening…to do that to people who didn’t do nothing to you was scary. I
lived in the 17th District and later in the 19th. There weren’t many Jewish people there; but I think
back, and it was scary. People didn’t have much money, so Mother would go to the seconds places
for her shopping. One day a man stopped her and said, “What are you doing shopping in Jewish
stores?” He got a big [cardboard sign] painted: Ich bin ein christen Schwein; ich kaufe en eine
Judengeschaft ein. Or “I am a Christian pig; I shop in Jewish stores. She had to walk around town
for an hour wearing that sign.

Now, why didn’t people speak up? Well, we were frightened. If Mother helped in any way, she
would say to me, “Don’t you tell nobody I did that!”

One day, they burned a synagogue and put all the books, caps, and shawls in front and told the
people to go by and laugh and spit. My mother said, “This is a house of God and [such action] will
bring no one luck.” Mother told me: “Don’t tell nothing what I said at school.” At school we were
encouraged to tell what happened at home. We even had to fly a Nazi flag at the beginning. There
was no picture of Hitler in my house; but if we flew a flag outside our building, I don’t remember.

There was an old gentleman who had been an officer in the army. After Kristalnacht, he went in
front of his house and said, “Oh, my God! Those Nazis are true killers! True killers!” My neighbor
was a Nazi, so they took the old gentleman to an asylum. Mother went to see him, but he was not
there.

I never went to any community get-togethers. My mother felt like second class as she was Czech
and not of the Master Race. I was from Vienna and never felt I was treated any differently. Hitler
was born in Austria but called himself Germaine. He would never have made it in Austria and so
had to go to Germany. He wanted to create the Master Race. Today, Germany and tomorrow, all
the world! Just think if he had created the atom bomb! He tried to.

~ 238~

I had a friend, a Jewish girl named Toni. I don’t remember her last name. Her father was Jewish,
and her mother was Christian. Her father was taken away to a camp. Because she was Jewish,
Toni was not allowed to go to movies, sit on park benches, or ride the streetcar; plus, she had to
wear a star [on her clothing.] She worked for a family who owned a watch repair company and she
lived in my apartment building. I would look at her star and would say, “Take that thing off!” She
would remove it and we would go to the movies. I’d always walk home with her as she was not
permitted to go on the streetcar. One day there were police on the street checking people. We saw
policemen on both sides of the street. They asked for our identification. I stepped forward and held
Toni back, pushing her hand down. Since hers had a Jewish mark, I showed my identification card.
At the very same time, across the street some policemen had stopped a foreigner. They needed
help and called to the police who were checking my card. They forgot about us and hurried away
across the street. We were lucky. We would have been taken to the police station where something
worse would have happened. At home, my mother said, “Do you have to go out with Toni?” I said,
“Mama!” When you are young, you just don’t think. You do what you want and don’t think.

Much later, after the war, Mother said, “Let’s go over and see how Toni is doing.” Now in those
days, to be seen with a foreign soldier was terrible. We walked over and saw Toni with an English
soldier. It turns out, he was Jewish! So that was fine. Toni’s father had been killed in a camp. They
sent his bloody clothes home to the family. Toni was never killed nor sent to a camp because they
needed menial laborers at that time. Menial labor—like Emil’s brother who was given a street
sweeping job. Toni’s brother had been a waiter on a railroad and was killed in an air raid.

In 1944 [the Allies] started to bomb Vienna. (The rich people went out of the city.) In the
beginning, they just bombed the 21st District, the trains, and bridges so the city couldn’t function.
When the planes came, we had to put on gas masks and go down into the cellar. Later on, we just
assumed the planes would go to the 21st District so when we heard the sirens, we just stayed where
we were. One day, Mother was canning tomato sauce into glass jars. We knew the planes were
close because we could feel the terrible air pressure before the bombs came. The windows and
glass would break when the planes flew low. My mother prayed. I cried, “Mama. Mama!” When the
[shaking stopped], I saw tomato sauce all over my mother’s face and we went down into the cellar.
The bombing was really terrible to the civilians. We thought, this can’t last long! I was lucky that I
worked close to home and could run home to be with Mother every time the bombs came. The worst
part was when the bombs landed on the street. One apartment nearby had central heating. There
was a boiler in the cellar that made hot water to go through the pipes to heat the apartments. When
the bombs came, the boiler exploded and the people in the cellar were boiled to death.

Hitler wanted the city destroyed. You can still see some of the bunkers in Vienna that couldn’t be
destroyed. In Vienna there was an Underground Movement working with the Russians. [A relation
on my husband’s side], Ulich Werner, wanted to get rid of the Nazis. His job was to disarm the
explosives the Nazis had put under the bridges. The Underground wanted to save the bridges so
the [Allies] could get over the Danube faster and save the city. Ulich saved Vienna and became
somewhat of a national hero. Now, Ulich had been married; but during the work in the Underground,
he fell in love with a woman he worked with. Even though he ended up a town hero, his family had
disowned him because he had left his wife.

~ 239~

(Emil’s oldest brother was married to Mitsy. She was a very strong-willed person. When her
husband was put in jail, she prostituted herself in exchange for his freedom. She was determined to
get him out, and she did. Her son Herbert was killed in a bombing. After the war, they went back
and got their apartment back.)

There was no jubilation as you would think when the war ended. There were two weeks of
ransacking, recklessness, and raping and we didn’t know what was going to happen next. Oh, there
was a lot of raping going on. The soldiers would come in saying they were looking for weapons and
then they would rape the young and the old. When the Russian came to our apartment, my mother
had to let him in. Now, it is said that Russians don’t like to climb, so since our apartment building
was five stories, Mother told me to go [hide] upstairs. First, he looked for weapons, but my mother
said there weren’t any. Next, he asked for food; then he wanted to sleep. My mother told him he
could sleep in the bedroom and she would stay [in another room.] He told her to sleep there with
him. My mother tried a lie and screamed, “No! Don’t touch me! I have syphilis.” The Russian said,
“Good! I do, too!” Then she knelt and started to pray. The soldier stopped. Maybe he was thinking
of the past when he had his family and was good. Anyway, he kicked her hard and left her alone.
Mother told me later, “See! A lie could not save me, but a prayer did!”

The worst part was the frustration of not knowing what was going to happen next. One man in
our building shot himself in frustration. Mother had to bury him in our backyard. (There were so
many bodies everywhere. We had to bury the bodies quickly to prevent disease. Since the streets
were all cobblestone, we had to find soft places like parks and backyards to dig graves to bury
bodies. Later, when the recklessness stopped, the city had the bodies dug up and buried together.)
The Russians came in with horses. The people would cut up the horses, eat the meat, and leave
the carcasses in the street. The lawlessness went on and on. Water was very important. After the
bombings, we had to go out looking for water in old wells or pumps. But the water pipes were
repaired quickly and so was the electricity. When the lawlessness stopped, the Americans, French,
British came and joined the Russians. When all four forces were there, I felt safer. I was in the
American district when I was single; then after marriage, I was in a district occupied by all four at the
same time. Every week, they would switch [areas].

When Emil and I married after the war, it was still bad over there. His brother lived in Santa
Monica, California, and said, “Come to America!” I was pregnant with Erwin when we had to start
our paperwork and wait for our quota number. We had to wait until 1949 and by then I had two
children. Erwin was 2 ½. and Lilly was 1 ½. We sailed [west] on a troop ship, General Howe, and
ended up in New Orleans, [Louisiana]. We arrived on Labor Day and could not be unloaded until
the next day. What amazed me was all the food at the Jewish Center there. What scared me was
the Black-White situation. Again, people feeling they were second class citizens. Then, we came
to California and everything was wonderful, wonderful! First thing, I went shopping with my sister-
in-law at Safeway and saw all the counters filled with meat. I said, “And you can buy all you want
to?”

Anyway, we had had to travel from New Orleans to Santa Monica by train. Emil didn’t know that
passengers had to walk out [to a receiving area to be picked up by family members]. We didn’t see
my brother-in-law when we stepped off the train, so Emil said we’d have to walk to a streetcar. He
picked up the bags and started walking. [When we reached the lobby] Emil shouted, “There’s
Freddy!” He just dropped his suitcases right there and started running.

~ 240~

In America, Emil never talked about the concentration camps unless he met someone who had
been in a camp, too. He lost his mother, brother, sister and a nephew in Auschwitz. He knew they
had taken the young ones first and put the old ones together in a building. Since he had left his
mother in a building where she had been put with older people, he thought she would be there when
he went back. He found out about his family when he went back home.

All things impress you when you are young. I loved music and books. They took all our radios
away during the war and we could listen to German propaganda only. I loved Mozart. Some of the
composers were outlawed. Since I grew up in the Depression, books were very important to me. A
luxury. One Christmas I received a book, Onkel Toms Hϋtte, or Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

I lent my book to a Jewish orphan friend who lived in an orphanage. One day she didn’t come to
class. Mother found out that all the Jewish children had been taken away. I said, “How could she
do that to me? Why didn’t she bring my book back before she left?” I spoke not knowing that she
was never coming back. They took the children to Auschwitz and used the orphange to quarter
soldiers.

Then, sixty years later, one day here in Leisure World where I live now, a German neighbor lady
died. Her daughter came to me and asked if I wanted anything from her mother’s things. I told her
I liked books and went over and found a copy of Onkel Toms Hϋtte. I can only hope that my friend
was able to read my book before she was taken. I hope so.

As I said, everything impresses you. When I was working in a factory in America, a man whose
family had had slaves told me Black people were not human. “Look! They have wool on their heads
instead of hair!” I said, “How can you say that!? Look at the Irish people and their fuzzy hair and
you say they are human."

***************************************************************************************************************
Then our interview ended as a wind blew Helene’s front door open. She smiled and sighed: “Der

Wind, der Wind, das himmlische Kind.” The wind, the wind, the heavenly Child.

~ 241~

AFTERWARD

Congratulations, Anne! What a masterful
job of genealogical research. It is far

beyond anything I could produce at this
time—an immensely valuable contribution

to the family history, tradition, and
genealogical lines.

(Wayne Stanley Squire, Sr., 2000)

~ 242~

APPENDIX

~ 243~

~ 244~

Geno 2.0 Next Generation Helix Genographic Ancestry DNA Analysis
Results for Ramon Evans

Each segment on the maternal and paternal maps below represents the migratory path of successive groups
that eventually coalesced to form my branch of the tree.

My maternal ancestors’ migration begins
with marker (L3) for my oldest maternal
ancestor, and continues forward (markers
N, R, T) to more recent times, showing at
each step the line of my ancestors who lived
up to that point.

My Maternal Branch is T2e, and my
maternal lineage began about 150,000 years
ago.

My mother’s ancestors eventually migrated over 500 years ago to Iberia, the peninsula of Spain and Portugal.
My maternal ancestors carried farming culture from the region of the Fertile Crescent into Europe. My mother
was born in Spain in 1917, and her family immigrated to America to New York City in 1920.

My paternal ancestors’ migration begins with
marker (P305) for my oldest paternal ancestor,
and continues forward (markers: M42, M168,
P143, M89, M578, P128, M526, M45, M207,
P231, M343, M269, P310, P312) to more recent
times, showing at each step the line of my
ancestors who lived up to that point.

My Paternal Branch is R-Z211, and my
paternal lineage began at least 180,000 years ago.

My paternal ancestors left Africa and moved north through Western and Central Asia. They then turned west
and crossed the grasslands of southern Russia into Europe. There, they eventually drove the Neanderthals to
extinction, though they did interbreed with them. Living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, my early ancestors set the stage
for European history. My father’s ancestors eventually migrated to Wales, from where we believe they immigrated
to the New England colonies in the 18th Century. Then, in the early 19th Century, they moved to the state of
Georgia, where my father was born.

Ever since my ancestors first left Africa some 65,000 years ago and began to spread and settle across the globe,
they evolved genetic signatures in relative isolation, which in turn became unique to each continental region.
My DNA traces back to each of the world’s major continents (Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania).
Thus, my DNA continental average lineage is 99% Europe.

~ 245~