Grace Mildred
Branson
Grace Mildred Branson was born 15 August 1885
at the home of her parents, Joseph Branson and Ellen Margaret (Ella) Geary Branson. She was
the second and last girl of the six children raised on the ranch a few miles north
of Hornitos, CA. As a child, she was able to observe as gold ore was removed from the mines only
a few hundred yards away from the household’s front door.
Grace went to the local Quartzburg District School, sharing her classes with a student body made up almost entirely of the grandchildren either of John and Martha Branson or John and Martha’s various in-laws, be they named Simmons or Peard or Northrup or Spagnoli.
Tall, heavy, and not blessed with an abundance of beauty, Grace did not wait for a suitor to appear and provide for her; she became a school teacher. After graduating from Stockton Normal School, she taught near home in Mariposa County at Bear Valley. (The photo reproduced to the right, lower down, is a recent photograph of the historic Bear Valley schoolhouse. It is undoubtedly the same building Grace taught in.) By 1908 she had taken a posting at Round Mountain School in Fresno County. This, too, was a one-room rural schoolhouse situation. The facility, nestled amid the rolling, wildflower-dotted hills along a small stream called Fancher Creek, had been erected to serve the children of the ranchers living in and near the tiny trading post of Academy. In this era before the area’s roads became paved and automobiles became common, the nearest towns -- the sawmill community of Tollhouse farther into the hills, and the town of Clovis out in the valley -- were too far off for the young pupils to commute to.
Accepting the job took Grace beyond the southern
limits of the Mother Lode, and whether she intended it or not, uprooted her from her childhood
milieu for good. In great part this was because she met her future husband while teaching at Round
Mountain. A family from the Wisconsin/Illinois border named Warner had relocated to California in
1906 so that one of the grown sons of the family, Cullen, could benefit from the arid climate of the
Great Central Valley, and hopefully stave off the tuberculosis he had been infected with, a disease
which had already killed his young wife. Cullen’s parents John and Nellie Warner (John Warner and the
former Eleanor Amelia Martin) had purchased a large
property along Fancher Creek, where Cullen would be away from a town environment and less likely
to infect others. Various family members lived at the ranch, including Cullen’s slightly younger
brother, Albert Frederick Warner (born 13 August 1884 in Willow Springs, Howell County, MO).
Grace caught Bert Warner’s eye. At first, he could only lightly pursue that interest because he was one of Cullen’s main companions and caretakers, but Cullen succumbed to his case of TB at the beginning of May, 1909. Over the next couple of years, Bert gave up his bachelor cattle-ranching lifestyle and took a job as assistant manager of the feed grain warehouse and hardware store, Warner & Warner, that his father and his older brother, John Martin Warner, had founded twenty miles south of Academy in the town of Sanger, Fresno County, CA. Bert replaced his father, who was retiring from active co-management of the business. Soon the younger John Warner stepped away, too, in order to better care for his wife Anna, who was also dying of TB; he was replaced by Alie Spece, the husband of Bert’s sister Cora Belle. In the meantime, as it became clear to all that Bert was serious about remaining in his new occupation, he was accorded the grand salary of sixty dollars a month. This was enough that Bert was confident of his ability to support a family, and he proposed to Grace.
Grace gave up teaching upon her marriage. Ironically, she was granted a lifetime certificate to teach at elementary school level in California that same year, 1911. The formal paper arrived after she had turned her back on the occupation forever. She spent the rest of her days as a homemaker.
(Albert Frederick Warner is profiled on this website in the sections devoted to the family of his grandparents, Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader, and the family of his other grandparents, John Warner and Marancy Alexander. To read his biography, click here).
The marriage took place 28 May 1911 in Fresno. After the
wedding, bride and groom set out in a covered wagon pulled by two horses, and six days later arrived
at their honeymoon location, Yosemite Valley. They camped for their two-week stay. Camping remained
one of their favorite forms of recreation throughout their active years. This was particularly true
of the period when they were raising their two daughters, Marian and Josephine, born during the World
War I years. (Shown left, Grace and Bert and their two girls. Marian is the older child, Josie the
tow-headed toddler confined to the makeshift playpen.) Both girls retained an affection for the
Sierra Nevada. Marian would marry a foothills cattleman and reside just outside Tollhouse. Josie and
her husband would camp and go on packtrips and, beginning in 1950, own a cabin at Huntington Lake.
Grace was a member of the Yeoman and Rebekah Lodges.
Grace and Bert enjoyed a long, easy span of senior-citizenhood in the middle decades of the 20th Century. In the 1950s and early 1960s, roads had become good enough that they travelled all the way across the country by automobile, allowing Bert to visit many relatives and observe the changes to the places he had known in his childhood. Grace was not an active person in her later years, but her health remained good well into her eighties (she outlived all her siblings) and she enjoyed seeing the sights. She never learned to drive. While she enjoyed the benefits progress had brought, she felt most comfortable keeping to traditional ways.
Finally, even her robust constitution failed her. In September, 1974, a severe stroke left her unable to communicate or care for herself, and Bert had no choice but to admit her to the Sanger Convalescent Hospital, where she lasted only a few weeks.
Grace died 4 November 1974. She was laid to rest in the Warner section of the rural Mendocino Avenue Cemetery south of Sanger, beside Bert’s parents. Bert would join her there, but this would not occur for some time, despite his having reached ninety years of age before Grace’s final deterioration of health began. Bert lived to be 104 years old, passing away 12 October 1988.
Children of Grace Mildred Branson with
Albert Frederick Warner
For genealogical details, click on
each of the names.
To go back one generation, click here. To return to Albert Frederick Warner’s page, click here. To return to the Branson/Ousley Family main page, click here.