ALICE MAY (BRAZIER) BENTLEY RICHESON was born in Washington state. Her twice-married mother, ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART, was born in Arizona. Her father HARRY BRAZIER was from Thorpe, Surrey, England.
ALICE had three sisters, JENNIE LUCILLE S. BRAZIER WILMOT, ASHLEY BRAZIER BISSENER VIVIAN, ESTHER BRAZIER JOHNSON, and one half-sister, MYRTLE STUART REED.
ALICE was married twice:
1) Francis Earl BENTLEY on 18 May 1904. Divorced or abandoned; Clark County, WA marriage and divorce records for this time period disappeared during a move to a new location.
2) Austin Bresnen RICHESON on 2 March 1915 in San Francisco. The couple lived in Portland, OR where Austin went to work for The Oregonian newspaper, the Veterans Bureau, and finally Social Security.
Her first husband FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY was a painter and engraver from New York who lived in the New Columbia Hotel in Vancouver, WA, apparently between army enlistments. He had served in the Philippines and was discharged at Vancouver Barracks. ALICE worked at that time as a housekeeper and may possibly have met FRANCIS because she'd been hired to work at the hotel where he lived.
This marriage, which was probably not expected to last by those who knew them, ended in divorce or abandonment. In August 1907 FRANCIS stole $500 from his brother-in-law FRED BOWNE'S Maple Leaf Hotel saloon where he was employed.
He fled Vancouver and reappeared only in a news report from Batavia, NY in which an F. E. Bentley was accused of shooting a man to death in a saloon for not giving him another drink. According to the newspaper report (The Oregon Journal (Portland, OR), 17 Sept 1907. Pg. 13), FRANCIS left ALICE and their daughter "penniless".
On 23 January 1908 FRANCIS was acquitted of this crime. ALICE'S brief marriage to him produced a daughter, THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, born in Seattle, Wa in Dec 1904. FRANCIS ended up back east in NY state, where he remained for the rest of his life. He remarried to PAULINE J., lived in Batavia, NY where they had a namesake son, FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY, Jr., who served in WW II.
No further record of FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY has been found in WA. It is almost certain that THELMA and her half-brother FRANCIS JR. never met one another and may not have known they each had a half-sibling on opposite sides of the continent.
By 1910 ALICE and daughter THELMA were living with ALICE'S mother ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART in Vancouver, WA. ANNA owned a dress shop there and two of ALICE'S sisters, ASHLEY and MYRTLE, also lived in the same house.
At this time ALICE worked as a switchboard operator, as did her sister ASHLEY.
Marriage to Austin B. RICHESON:
ALICE'S mother ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART grew up around soldiers and their families, and her daughters' circle of friends and relatives may at some point have included AUSTIN RICHESON. It is not known exactly how ALICE met AUSTIN but she probably knew her way around the base, attended dances, or possibly just "met" him while working for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph on the switchboard in Vancouver, WA.
Also, he may have been a close friend of ALICE'S brother-in-law RAYMOND CLAIR VIVIAN, since AUSTIN signed as one of the witnesses for ASHLEY'S second marriage in Vancouver, WA to RAYMOND in 1911. This was just four years before AUSTIN and ALICE married in San Francisco.
They probably had a correspondence courtship, since AUSTIN was posted to the Philippine Islands and to Honolulu, HI for most of his three back-to-back terms of service (1905-1914). He was discharged in 1914 and went to work for the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper as their cable editor, but only worked at the job for about a year before sailing aboard the steamship Sierra to San Francisco, CA. How and when he proposed to ALICE is lost family lore. In San Francisco ALICE and AUSTIN were married on 2 March 1915 and they honeymooned for five days at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. With this marriage AUSTIN became stepfather to THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, who was about 9.
ALICE was left on her own with THELMA and her newborn daughter, ALICE MARY, in 1917 when AUSTIN was recruited for officers' training in Los Angeles, CA in preparation for WW I, leaving his job at the copy desk for the Portland Oregonian newspaper. It is not known how or where she lived until his return in the spring of 1919, but she probably moved in with her mother and stepfather, ANNIE and GEARY J. STUART.
In France AUSTIN led the 1st battalion of the 364th regiment, U.S. army in the Argonne offensive in WW I. Upon his return he and ALICE spent the rest of their lives in Portland, Multnomah Co., OR where AUSTIN worked as an administrator for the first Veterans Bureau office and later for the first Social Security office, from which he retired in 1949.
Their known children:
1) Thelma Claudia Bentley ALDEN b. 24 Dec 1904 d. 6 Oct 1981 in
Red Bluff, Tehama Co, CA.
Daughter with Francis E. Bentley.
2) Mary Alice Richeson ANDERSON b. 10 May 1918 d. 8 Aug 1997 in Multnomah Co, OR.
Daughter with Austin Bresnen Richeson.
3) John Austin RICHESON b. 12 Oct 1922 d. 15 July 2001 in Vancouver, Clark Co, WA.
Son with Austin Bresnen Richeson.
ALICE in records:
1904 - marries Francis Bentley in Vancouver, Clark Co, WA.
1907 - Francis Bentley flees Vancouver, never returns.
1910 - ALICE is 24. She is living in Vancouver, Clark Co., WA with her 5 year old daughter, THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, by first husband FRANCIS BENTLEY. They live in the home of her mother ANNA STUART (mistakenly listed as WOODS on this census), and her two sisters, ASHLEY BRAZIER BISSENER (by then divorced) age 23 and MYRTLE BRAZIER age 14. ANNA was the proprietor of a dress shop or home business, ALICE worked as a telephone operator.
1915 - marries AUSTIN RICHESON.
1920 - ALICE is 34. She and AUSTIN are living in Portland, Multnomah Co., OR. AUSTIN works for The Oregonian newspaper. THELMA is 15, her half-sister MARY ALICE is 2 1/2.
1930 - ALICE is 43. AUSTIN is an assistant manager for the Veterans Bureau in Portland, OR. THELMA is 25 and married, MARY ALICE is 12, their son JOHN AUSTIN RICHESON is 7.
In the late 1950s AUSTIN suffered from a form of dementia and was hospitalized for the last 2 yrs. of his life at Barnes VA Hospital at Vancouver Barracks, Vancouver, WA. ALICE remained in the apartment on N.E. Irving in Portland, OR where they had been living since AUSTIN'S retirement. She died 13 months before him in a hospital in Renton, WA shortly after having suffered a heart attack while visiting her sister JENNIE BRAZIER WILMOT in Maple Valley, WA.
Note: ALICE'S mother, ANNA, is listed on the 1910 census as ANNA WOODS. There is no other record of a husband with the last name of WOODS, and in fact ANNA was married to GEARY J. STUART from 1895 until her death in 1940.
On this same census her older daughters ALICE and ASHLEY have their maiden name of BRAZIER, even though both had married names. No explanation for this discrepancy has been found. Possibly the family was not at home when the census enumerator stopped by and a neighbor provided what information he or she thought was correct, thus introducing error into the record.
Sources from Ancestry.com: Federal censuses for 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940.
OR death index.
CA death index.
WA death index.
Burial records.
WA territorial census records.
Civil Service personnel records (for Austin Richeson).
Other sources: San Francisco County, CA marriage certificate.
Family lore.
From Newspapers.com: Oregonian newspaper writeup of the wedding reception thrown by Alice's parents upon their arrival in Portland from San Francisco.
ALICE MAY (BRAZIER) BENTLEY RICHESON was born in Washington state. Her twice-married mother, ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART, was born in Arizona. Her father HARRY BRAZIER was from Thorpe, Surrey, England.
ALICE had three sisters, JENNIE LUCILLE S. BRAZIER WILMOT, ASHLEY BRAZIER BISSENER VIVIAN, ESTHER BRAZIER JOHNSON, and one half-sister, MYRTLE STUART REED.
ALICE was married twice:
1) Francis Earl BENTLEY on 18 May 1904. Divorced or abandoned; Clark County, WA marriage and divorce records for this time period disappeared during a move to a new location.
2) Austin Bresnen RICHESON on 2 March 1915 in San Francisco. The couple lived in Portland, OR where Austin went to work for The Oregonian newspaper, the Veterans Bureau, and finally Social Security.
Her first husband FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY was a painter and engraver from New York who lived in the New Columbia Hotel in Vancouver, WA, apparently between army enlistments. He had served in the Philippines and was discharged at Vancouver Barracks. ALICE worked at that time as a housekeeper and may possibly have met FRANCIS because she'd been hired to work at the hotel where he lived.
This marriage, which was probably not expected to last by those who knew them, ended in divorce or abandonment. In August 1907 FRANCIS stole $500 from his brother-in-law FRED BOWNE'S Maple Leaf Hotel saloon where he was employed.
He fled Vancouver and reappeared only in a news report from Batavia, NY in which an F. E. Bentley was accused of shooting a man to death in a saloon for not giving him another drink. According to the newspaper report (The Oregon Journal (Portland, OR), 17 Sept 1907. Pg. 13), FRANCIS left ALICE and their daughter "penniless".
On 23 January 1908 FRANCIS was acquitted of this crime. ALICE'S brief marriage to him produced a daughter, THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, born in Seattle, Wa in Dec 1904. FRANCIS ended up back east in NY state, where he remained for the rest of his life. He remarried to PAULINE J., lived in Batavia, NY where they had a namesake son, FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY, Jr., who served in WW II.
No further record of FRANCIS EARL BENTLEY has been found in WA. It is almost certain that THELMA and her half-brother FRANCIS JR. never met one another and may not have known they each had a half-sibling on opposite sides of the continent.
By 1910 ALICE and daughter THELMA were living with ALICE'S mother ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART in Vancouver, WA. ANNA owned a dress shop there and two of ALICE'S sisters, ASHLEY and MYRTLE, also lived in the same house.
At this time ALICE worked as a switchboard operator, as did her sister ASHLEY.
Marriage to Austin B. RICHESON:
ALICE'S mother ANNA CONLIN BRAZIER STUART grew up around soldiers and their families, and her daughters' circle of friends and relatives may at some point have included AUSTIN RICHESON. It is not known exactly how ALICE met AUSTIN but she probably knew her way around the base, attended dances, or possibly just "met" him while working for Pacific Telephone and Telegraph on the switchboard in Vancouver, WA.
Also, he may have been a close friend of ALICE'S brother-in-law RAYMOND CLAIR VIVIAN, since AUSTIN signed as one of the witnesses for ASHLEY'S second marriage in Vancouver, WA to RAYMOND in 1911. This was just four years before AUSTIN and ALICE married in San Francisco.
They probably had a correspondence courtship, since AUSTIN was posted to the Philippine Islands and to Honolulu, HI for most of his three back-to-back terms of service (1905-1914). He was discharged in 1914 and went to work for the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper as their cable editor, but only worked at the job for about a year before sailing aboard the steamship Sierra to San Francisco, CA. How and when he proposed to ALICE is lost family lore. In San Francisco ALICE and AUSTIN were married on 2 March 1915 and they honeymooned for five days at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. With this marriage AUSTIN became stepfather to THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, who was about 9.
ALICE was left on her own with THELMA and her newborn daughter, ALICE MARY, in 1917 when AUSTIN was recruited for officers' training in Los Angeles, CA in preparation for WW I, leaving his job at the copy desk for the Portland Oregonian newspaper. It is not known how or where she lived until his return in the spring of 1919, but she probably moved in with her mother and stepfather, ANNIE and GEARY J. STUART.
In France AUSTIN led the 1st battalion of the 364th regiment, U.S. army in the Argonne offensive in WW I. Upon his return he and ALICE spent the rest of their lives in Portland, Multnomah Co., OR where AUSTIN worked as an administrator for the first Veterans Bureau office and later for the first Social Security office, from which he retired in 1949.
Their known children:
1) Thelma Claudia Bentley ALDEN b. 24 Dec 1904 d. 6 Oct 1981 in
Red Bluff, Tehama Co, CA.
Daughter with Francis E. Bentley.
2) Mary Alice Richeson ANDERSON b. 10 May 1918 d. 8 Aug 1997 in Multnomah Co, OR.
Daughter with Austin Bresnen Richeson.
3) John Austin RICHESON b. 12 Oct 1922 d. 15 July 2001 in Vancouver, Clark Co, WA.
Son with Austin Bresnen Richeson.
ALICE in records:
1904 - marries Francis Bentley in Vancouver, Clark Co, WA.
1907 - Francis Bentley flees Vancouver, never returns.
1910 - ALICE is 24. She is living in Vancouver, Clark Co., WA with her 5 year old daughter, THELMA CLAUDIA BENTLEY, by first husband FRANCIS BENTLEY. They live in the home of her mother ANNA STUART (mistakenly listed as WOODS on this census), and her two sisters, ASHLEY BRAZIER BISSENER (by then divorced) age 23 and MYRTLE BRAZIER age 14. ANNA was the proprietor of a dress shop or home business, ALICE worked as a telephone operator.
1915 - marries AUSTIN RICHESON.
1920 - ALICE is 34. She and AUSTIN are living in Portland, Multnomah Co., OR. AUSTIN works for The Oregonian newspaper. THELMA is 15, her half-sister MARY ALICE is 2 1/2.
1930 - ALICE is 43. AUSTIN is an assistant manager for the Veterans Bureau in Portland, OR. THELMA is 25 and married, MARY ALICE is 12, their son JOHN AUSTIN RICHESON is 7.
In the late 1950s AUSTIN suffered from a form of dementia and was hospitalized for the last 2 yrs. of his life at Barnes VA Hospital at Vancouver Barracks, Vancouver, WA. ALICE remained in the apartment on N.E. Irving in Portland, OR where they had been living since AUSTIN'S retirement. She died 13 months before him in a hospital in Renton, WA shortly after having suffered a heart attack while visiting her sister JENNIE BRAZIER WILMOT in Maple Valley, WA.
Note: ALICE'S mother, ANNA, is listed on the 1910 census as ANNA WOODS. There is no other record of a husband with the last name of WOODS, and in fact ANNA was married to GEARY J. STUART from 1895 until her death in 1940.
On this same census her older daughters ALICE and ASHLEY have their maiden name of BRAZIER, even though both had married names. No explanation for this discrepancy has been found. Possibly the family was not at home when the census enumerator stopped by and a neighbor provided what information he or she thought was correct, thus introducing error into the record.
Sources from Ancestry.com: Federal censuses for 1910, 1920, 1930, and 1940.
OR death index.
CA death index.
WA death index.
Burial records.
WA territorial census records.
Civil Service personnel records (for Austin Richeson).
Other sources: San Francisco County, CA marriage certificate.
Family lore.
From Newspapers.com: Oregonian newspaper writeup of the wedding reception thrown by Alice's parents upon their arrival in Portland from San Francisco.
