Oliver Charles Heitkemper

Oliver Charles Heitkemper, son of Margaret Alice Branson and Charles Edward Heitkemper, was born 8 January 1905. His birthplace is assumed to be the city of San Francisco, but no birth documentation recorded in that era has surfaced. This lack of a paper trail can be accounted for by the loss of city and county records in the great fire that resulted from the 1906 earthquake. However, his mother is known to have been living in San Jose in 1903, and again in San Jose later in the decade, so the possibility cannot yet be ruled out that Oliver was born in San Jose -- a place that qualifies as part of the greater San Francisco Bay Area and may be what older relatives meant when they referred to Oliver’s birthplace.

Oliver was known by his first name in his childhood and appears as such in the 1910, 1920, and 1930 censuses; however, he objected to his first wife calling him “Ollie” and took to using his middle name. He eventually came to be known so thoroughly as Charles that his California Death Index entry reads Charles Oliver Heitkemper.

Oliver was the product of an elopement by a pair of teenagers. Margaret’s parents Reuben and Louisa Branson were recently divorced and she had less oversight than was good for her. Also, Louisa was running a boarding house as a means of financial support, and this put Margaret in proximity to far too many young bachelors. Charles Edward Heitkemper, who had been born 27 April 1886 in Nebraska and raised in Portland, OR, was probably one of the boarders at the establishment. Once both sets of parents discovered that Margaret and Charles had run off together, they stepped in and put through an annulment. Their action occurred too late to prevent the pregnancy. However, the young father was not informed of the conception. By the time Margaret knew she was pregnant, Charles was back in Portland, where his parents -- Gerhard Heitkemper and Mary A. Boerge -- could keep a closer eye on him. Gerhard and Mary probably urged their son to consider his fling with Margaret an indiscretion best forgotten. It was not long before Charles moved on and founded a new family. On 18 June 1906, barely over eighteen months after Oliver had been born, he married Clara Olive Moore, who had been born 17 May 1885 in Washington. They became parents of a child, M. Alice Heitkemper, in 1910. Charles and Clara lived out their lives in Portand and/or nearby parts of the Pacific Northwest. The Social Security Death Index shows death dates of November 1964 in Washington for both of them. Perhaps they were killed simultaneously in a car accident.

Margaret soon caught the attention of a young tailor, Edgar Leroy Gaver. Edgar was also a minor-league professional baseball player, at that time playing for the San Francisco Seals. Ed and Margaret became husband and wife. Oliver therefore had a stepfather, and within a few short years also had two half-siblings, Edgar Robert Gaver and Margaret Brandy Gaver. The family lived in San Jose during those infancies, but a change of baseball teams uprooted the household. The family arrived in the Los Angeles area some time between mid-1910 and May, 1912, the latter date being when Ed and Margaret’s third and last child, Samuel D. Gaver, was born.

Little Sammy survived only a matter of weeks, dying in early July, 1912. No more than two years later Margaret and Ed called a halt to their marriage. Ed, who had been born 20 June 1886 in Maryland, went back East. He continued to play baseball into the 1920s. He married again and had two more sons while living in Pennsylvania. He died 22 March 1977 in Tampa, FL.

With the need to provide for herself and three surviving children, Margaret wasted no time finding a third spouse. She must have come home to her mother -- who was probably in Los Angeles County at that point, though she may by then have moved back to Randsburg -- and undoubtedly spent more time with her brother Robert Branson and his wife Mary Etta Cowsert. Etta’s brother John Patton Cowsert, better known as Jack Cowsert, became Margaret’s husband. The wedding occurred in approximately 1915. Jack was a son of John W. Cowsert and Margaret Ann Taylor. He had been born 9 August 1892 in California shortly after the family had moved into the state from Idaho. Jack was therefore notably younger than Margaret, but given that he was already family, he was apparently someone with whom she could have a future, and the marriage was lasting. Oliver would continue to maintain contact with his Cowsert-side step-relatives well into his later years.

Jack was a miner. The first part of this career was probably spent in Indian Wells Valley, but during the early years of the marriage he was employed at a mine in Oatman, AZ. Margaret later described the locale as not much more than sagebrush and greasewood. With little money to their name, Margaret and Jack and the kids lived in a tent in the desert. For Oliver, this rustic phase coincided with his pre-adolescent years and must have lent his existence both a sense of adventure and a sense of isolation. It may have represented a little too much isolation and lack of opportunities for formal education. Perhaps for that reason, Margaret finally informed Charles Edward Heitkemper of the existence of his son, and told Oliver of his birth father’s identity. Oliver was about thirteen when this occurred. Thereafter he spent a portion of his time with Charles and Clara in Portland. Both Charles Edward Heitkemper and his father Gerhard were jewellers. During the Portland visits, Oliver picked up the family trade, and this would draw Oliver into his chosen career in the jewelry business.

Before the end of the decade Jack Cowsert took a job working in the oil fields of western Kern County. The family moved into a house near Taft. The job and the house meant a new level of stability had been reached, so Margaret and Jack chose this point to have a child, their only one with each other. The new baby, born 24 December 1920, was named Gertrude Louise Cowsert, though she came to be known as Louise. Louise would later be a doting aunt to Oliver’s offspring, the eldest of whom were her near contemporaries despite literally being members of a different generation.

Coming of age in the 1920s, Oliver struck out on his own. This phase may have included a further interval in Portland as an apprentice jeweller, but if he indeed chose this course, he came back to California within a short time and settled in Los Angeles. In 1926, he married Ruth Ellen Dyer. Ruth, daughter of William A. Dyer of Missouri and Orena Haralson of Georgia, had been born 12 August 1910 in Stanislaus County, CA and therefore came into the marriage at no more than sixteen years of age. Oliver and Ruth had three children over the next half-dozen years, then another, Patricia Ruth Helen Heitkemper, in 1939. At about the time of Patricia’s infancy the marriage of Oliver and Ruth dissolved. Oliver was soon married to his second wife. She was Donna Beryl Redick, who had been born 3 April 1907 in Muskegon, MI. Donna gave birth to two children by Oliver in the early 1940s.

(Having produced six children, Oliver was one of the major contributors to the count of the grandchildren of Margaret Branson. He was surpassed only by his half-sister Louise, who had eight. This fecundity was counter-balanced by the Gaver step-siblings, who had only two offspring among them, including a baby who died at six months of age.)

Oliver and Donna went on to spend many decades together, residing in the eastern portions of Los Angeles County, such as the communities of Wilmar, West Covina, and Monterey Park. Oliver died 21 November 1993 in Alhambra.

Donna survived Oliver, spending some of her final years in Rogue River, Jackson County, OR. She passed away 22 November 1999 in Los Angeles County. Ruth Ellen Dyer Heitkemper married Spurgeon Monroe Kirby (5 March 1884 TN - 12 December 1952 CA, son of Elisha W. Kirby and Maggie Mitchell) in the mid-1940s and had two sons with him. She passed away as Ruth Ellen Kirby 7 December 1967.

Children of Charles Oliver Heitkemper