My maternal great-grandmother Bessie "Monnie" Evelyn Dean b. 11 AUG 1884 Alameda Co., CA; d. 21 JUL 1973 Soquel, Santa Cruz Co., CA; buried: Harmony Grove Cemetery, Block 9, Lot 7, Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA; m.#1 George Leon Price; m.#2 Enos "Pop" Marion Higginbotham.

m.#1 08 FEB 1903 CA; George Leon Price b. 01 JUL 1880 Ann Arbor, Washtenaw Co., MI; d. 28 SEP 1928 Costa Rica, Central America; buried: 03 OCT 1928 San Jose, Costa Rica, Central America; divorced: Bef. SEP 1911.

ONLY CHILD:

1) Dorothy "Dodo" Evelyn Price b. 28 DEC 1903 Alameda Co., CA; d. 30 APR 2000 Verdugo Hills Hospital, Glendale, Los Angeles Co., CA; buried: Harmony Grove Church and Cemetery, Block 9, Lot 7, Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA.

m.#2 08 NOV 1911 Stockton, San Joaquin Co., CA; Enos "Pop" Marion Higginbotham b. 31 JAN 1881 Jenny Lind, Calaveras, Co., CA; d. 03 JUN 1978 Soquel, Santa Cruz Co., CA; buried: Harmony Grove Cemetery, Block 9, Lot 7, Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA; divorced: prior to Monnie's death per her Last Will & Testament.

CHILDREN:

1) Marion Helene Higginbotham b. 01 SEP 1912 Winton, Merced Co., CA; d. Saturday, 6:37 p.m., 21 MAR 2009, at home, Soquel, Santa Cruz County, CA; buried: Oakwood Cemetery, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz Co., CA.

2) James Marvin Higginbotham Sr. b. 01 NOV 1913 Atwater, Kern Co., CA; d. 11 OCT 2005 Delano, Kern Co., CA; buried: North Kern Cemetery, Delano, Kern Co., CA; buried: North Kern Cemetery, Delano, Kern Co., CA.

3) Earl Raymond Higginbotham Earl Raymond Higginbotham b. 05 SEP 1916 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., CA; d. Sunday, 29 OCT 1967 San Francisco, San Francisco Co., CA; buried: Harmony Grove Cemetery, Block 9, Lot 7, Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA.

PARENTS: Olive Orpha Tallmadge b. 19 JUN 1864 Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA; d. 03 JAN 1927 Burson, Calaveras Co., CA; buried: Harmony Grove Church & Cemetery, Tallmadge Family Plot: Block 9, Lot 8, Lockeford, San Joaquin Co., CA; m. 22 OCT 1882 Lodi, San Joaquin Co., CA; Thomas Riley Dean b. 1857 MO; d. 1890 Delano, Kern Co., CA; buried: (place unknown).

SIBLINGS:

1) Lee Earl Dean b. 1883 d. 1955
2) Bessie "Monnie" Evelyn Dean [SELF]
3) Caroline "Carrie" Ethel Dean b. 1886 d. 1972
4) James Everett Dean b. 1887 d. 1978

MATERNAL GRANDPARENTS: Mary Angeline Smith-Hauskins m. James Tallmadge.

PATERNAL GRANDPARENTS: Amelia Simpson m. Powell Dean.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
MONNIE'S 1964 MEMOIRS

MY FAMILY

My Grandfather, James Tallmadge was born in New York State, April 8th, 1822. He left New York at the age of nineteen for Chicago. He later joined the emigrant train for California where he crossed the Sierras over the Donner Pass and landed in Placerville in 1849. Here he married Mary Angeline Hoskins who also crossed the plains by covered wagon. Mary was born in Ohio, December 16th, 1834. [I have Mary Angeline Hauskins-Smith in my records. Mary was legally adopted by her stepfather when her mother remarried-km]

Not being interested in mining, Grandfather Tallmadge left Placerville with my grandmother to look for a place to live further south. They traveled as far as Stockton, San Joaquin County, were he decided to stay and manufacture brick.

Grandfather made the brick and built the Yosemite Theatre which is still standing. While manufacturing brick, he decided to look for some land to farm ___ [near?-km] the Mokelumne River. A few settlers were starting a small town 15 miles north of Stockton named Lodi which was close to the river. At this time, the Methodist Church in Lodi contacted him to build a brick church at Harmony Grove Cemetery, seven miles east of Lodi. This brick church still stands as a monument to his memory; here they are both buried in the Tallmadge plot, having died the same year.

Grandfather Tallmadge sold his brick yard in Stockton and built a small home in Lodi. This house was still standing when I went to school in Lodi. While building the church at Harmony Grove, he found the land he wanted, a three hundred and twenty acre Homestead located two miles east of Lodi on the Lockeford Road. This piece of land was bound on the south by Lockeford Road and the Mokelumne River on north, one half of a mile wide and one mile long. He staked his government claim he and his wife were patenting and built an adobe house near the river, one half mile from the Lockeford Road.

Here my grandparents raised a family of seven children (with two sets of twins dying in infancy): Henry, Charles, Walter, Ida, Olive (my mother), Ada, and Frank. As they grew older a new home was built near Lockeford Road. This later burned thus losing all of my grandmother's beautiful china, her art work and pictures. The children grew up in this home. After going to school in Lodi, all attended college in Stockton except Ida who studied music in San Francisco and Ada who studied art.

Henry married and two boys were born, William and Henry. Charles had one son, Fred. Walter never married. Ida married John Fugitt; Ada, Roy, Ila, Hertel, and Granville were born from this union. Ada married J. Huppman in San Francisco and Mildred, Esther, and Marion were born. Frank married in Dunsmuir and from this union came Roy, Aileen, Lucille, Frank, and the twins, Hazel and Helen.

My mother, Olive Tallmadge, was married to Thomas Lee Dean in my grandparents' new home. To this union were born, Lee, Bessie, Carrie, and James Everett. I was born August 11th, 1884 in the same home in which my mother and father married. My grandmother told me I was in a hurry to be born, and she caught me in her apron before my mother could get to the bed. (I have been in a hurry ever since...or so everyone tells me!) No wonder I was my grandmother's favorite. I lived with her most of my childhood. We were half orphans when I was six years old, my father being killed in 1890. My grandparents made a home for us. It was a happy home. My grandfather was jovial and full of fun; my grandmother was a fine housekeeper, manager and cook. We had a Chinese cook who played cards with us and taught us Chinese. My grandfather had a Chinese Camp on the river where the Chinese raised potatoes in the bottom land. We would visit the camp and the Chinese would give us home made candy, and we would eat rice with them. It was fun. We had a lake where we could row our boat and fish. We also fished in the river. My uncles trapped wild beavers along the river.

My grandfather Tallmadge was a colorful man with great determination. This is illustrated by the following story. In 1876, the Southern Pacific railroad was being surveyed along Lockeford Road from Loki [Lodi?-km] to the Mother Lode. A route was surveyed across the frontage of the homestead, leaving the Lockeford Road. My grandfather Tallmadge protested the route and sent to Chicago for Clarence Darrow, the famous lawyer, to defend him. He won the suit against the railroad. Today, going east on Lockeford Road, one can see where the railroad made the curve going into the town of Lockeford about four miles east.

My grandfather was always interested in getting more land. In 1879, he bought out a claim of 160 acres in the foothills of Calaveras County, twenty five miles east of Lodi. It was a beautiful piece of land with many Oak trees and running springs. Here Grandfather Tallmadge cleared the land and built a cabin. I have the picture of the cabin in my possession. He cut stone from the ranch and built a big fireplace. Here we had great fun going with him at Christmas time to pick Hollyberries and Manzanita. He would build big fires in the fireplace and sometimes we would make candy in the iron skillet on the coals. My grandmother refused to go to the new ranch, preferring to stay in Lodi. My grandfather divided his time between the two places.

In the year 1890, my grandfather sent his son, Walter and my father to Kern County to take up land. Walter filed a claim in Tulare County, and my father filed on 160 acres in Kern County near the towns of Delano and what is now McFarland. Before final proof was made, my father was killed. (My mother later married John L. Snyder) It was necessary for my mother, the young widow and her children, to live on the claim until the claim was finished. Uncle Frank moved us from Lodi to the claim in Kern County. Here we had a one room cabin and a tent in which we lived for one and a half years. Here my brothers and sister and I drove a horse and buggy to Delano each day to school. I can remember killing rattlesnakes with my buggywhip along the way.

My brother, Lee, was married in Arizona and had a daughter, Patty. He was killed in the year 1953 by a car that hit him in a crosswalk in Tucson. My sister Carrie was married to a medical student, Irwin March who attended Cooper Medical School in San Francisco. From this union are: Muriel, Ruth, William, Dean and Paul. My brother, James Everett married Mary Taylor. From this union are James, Thomas, Marion Lee, and Olive. We have with us today Muriel and her husband Robert (Bob) Edwards, Ruth and her son, Jack Libeu, Paul and his wife and son, Marie and Rick, and Thomas and his wife and daughter, Beverly and Lorna Dean.

On February 9, 1903 I was married to George Price. Dorothy was born December 28th, 1903. George was a photographer and writer for Sunset magazine. Later he was sent to Mexico by the National Geographic where Dorothy and I lived for two years. He was sent to South America to take pictures where he was killed by a hand-car meeting another hand-car head-on. [My Great-Grandfather, George Leon Price, died in Costa Rica in Central America-km]

In 1911, Father and I were married. (Enos M. Higginbotham). I had first met him several years previous at a May Day picnic at Clements. His family lived near Jenny Lind where he was born. Later when I visited Carrie and Irwin in San Andreas, Enos was teaching school there. We met once again. We married and moved to Winton, Merced County on a small farm of 20 acres. Here Marion was born Sept. 1, 1912, James November 1, 1913. Earl was born in Los Angeles, Sept. 5th, 1916. We moved to Westmoreland, Imperial Valley in 1915 where Enos decided to go back to teaching and accepted the position of principal of Westmoreland Elementery School District. We lived in Imperial Valley until 1925 where we moved to McFarland in July 1925. Here Enos was superintendent of McFarland School District.

In 1927, my mother died at the age of 63. I inherited the homestead in McFarland of 80 acres along with a $5000 mortgage. This I still own, having built an adobe home there in 1935.

My daughter, Dorothy, met and married in 1922 Logan B. Lampton while she was attending University of California in Los Angeles. From this union are Doris and Ruth, twins, Robert and Loretta. They are all here today with their husbands, wives, and children: Doris and Douglas McSweeney, Kathleen, Karen, Kristine, Katherine [Kathryn-km], Larry, and Michael; Ruth and Gene Howell, Kenneth, Glenda, and Donald; Robert and Shirley Lampton and Jerry, Steve, and Melinda; Loretta and George Crabtree and their son, Tommy [Dorothy Louise and Patricia Ann born later-destc].

Logan died in July 1958 [1960-destc]. In March 1963 Dorothy married Walter Lawson who is here today. [Walter died Aug 1978. Dorothy married Irving St. Charles Jan 24, 1979-destc]

My daughter Marion [Higginbotham-km] met and married Max W. Caldwell while both were teaching school in Max's home town, Fowler, Fresno County. They were married in August 15th, 1937 in the garden of my adobe home on the old homestead. From this union are Kenneth and Carolyn who are present today with Ken's bride, the former Candance (Candy) Smith whom he married June 27th of this year. [1964- destc]

James Marvin [Higginbotham-km] married May McCool Wise in Marion and Max's home in Fowler February 1938. From this union are James (Skipper) the only grandchild who could not be present today; (Skip married Barbara Hale in McFarland in September 1961) Robert (Bob) and Jean who are present today.

Earl Raymond [Higginbotham-km] married Alice Chambers in 1940. From this marriage are Norman who is here today with his wife Pattie and their son Michael; Nancy who is present today with her husband Charles Longcrier and their son Charles. (Nancy and Charles were also married in McFarland 1962). In 1963, Earl married Harriet Smith from Delano. Earl and Harriet are present today with three of Harriett's children: Pam and her husband, Harrison Mondy, Peter and Robin.

I am proud to say the desire to own land is in my blood. McFarland and Delano, the area of the old homestead, have played an important part in the lives of my children and their children. I have encouraged and helped my four children to acquire land even though taxes are growing highte each year. They all own land today: Dorothy in Los Angeles County, Marion in Santa Cruz County, James in Kern County, and Earl in Tulare County.

All of you made me very happy to join with Marion and Max in giving me this wonderful party to celebrate my 80th birthday. I can't realize that I am this old. I have been very busy all of these years trying to help others in any way I can. May God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

I have a plot in Harmony Grove Cemetery near my Grandparents, who did so much for me, where when the time comes, I can rest in Peace.