Eunice Lucille Harrington

Eunice Lucille Harrington, daughter of Nancy Anne Branson and Peter Harrington, was born 11 November 1884 Merced, Merced County, CA. Her father died not long after her fifth birthday, leaving her mother a widow with six children to support. Nancy dealt with the challenge by combining forces with her sister Mary Jane Branson Johnson, who had also lost her husband. The two women ran a boarding house in Merced. Eunice’s mother was the housekeeper and cook, while aunt Mary Jane handled laundry after working shifts as a clerk at a drygoods store. Eunice and her siblings, along with Mary Jane’s youngest two children, lived at that boarding house until they came of age.

In the latter half of the 1890s Nancy married John James Napier, known as “Babe” Napier. He would remain Eunice’s stepfather thereafter, though it does not appear he was heavily involved with the raising of the Harrington children, and was often gone on mining expeditions, including at least one trip to the gold fields of Alaska.

The boarding house was a crowded venue lacking in privacy, as well as filled with an abundance of prospective husbands in the form of its lodgers. Eunice was the second of Nancy’s daughters to escape this situation by marrying at a young age. Eunice married Winfred Delorane Converse 15 December 1900, not long after her sixteenth birthday. The couple established a household on a farm just outside Manteca in San Joaquin County. Winfred, the son of Frederic Delorane Converse and Effie Mae Blodgett, had been born 4 August 1876 in Cataract, Monroe County, WI. He was often known as Win. Within the first ten years of marriage Eunice and Win would have three sons and a daughter.

Eunice’s relocation set a precedent and became the initial instance of a migration of family members from Merced to Manteca. By 1902 or shortly thereafter her mother and stepfather closed down or sold the Merced boarding house and bought a ranch on Castle Road near Manteca, and within a brief span Eunice’s sisters became the object of Manteca-area suitors. Key among these courtships was that of Elsie Harrington and Otis Cowell. Like Win Converse, Otis was the son of parents who had come to the the place during its pioneer period. The parents were in turn offspring of the very earliest white settlers to southwest Wisconsin. Otis was the only son of Joshua Cowell, known to history as the “Father of Manteca.” In the early 20th Century, Joshua was the major property owner in the vicinity. Elsie and Otis were wed in late 1904. With two sisters securely established in households of prominent men of the community and Nancy and Babe on property nearby, a nucleus of stability had been created that kept Branson/Harrington kin centered there to this day. Among those who came were Eunice’s first cousin Clarence Johnson (Mary Jane’s eldest chld, raised next door to the boarding house as a ward and adopted son of Theresa Branson Moore) and first cousin Alice Branson Williams, daughter of Eunice’s uncle Thomas Branson, who settled on a farm very close to that of Eunice and Win.

Eunice and Win stayed put on their acreage while their children were growing up. Eldest sons Eugene and Clyde both entered the Navy and in general were usually gone from the Manteca area after reaching adulthood -- often very far away, as Clyde sailed overseas, and Gene established himself in Butte, MT. Younger children Milton and Josephine remained in San Joaquin County all their lives. But the parcel was not to become a legacy estate. Farming was a tough way to make a living from the 1910s up into the World War II era. Win supplemented the family income by working as a clerk. Also, at least twice, as the children reached an age where they were becoming independent, he and Eunice tried to keep afloat by living away from Manteca. A voter registry from the mid-1920s shows him and Eunice residing in Butte City, Glenn County, CA.

The struggle for prosperity may have become especially challenging after a health crisis. An article published in the Modesto News-Herald indicates that Win fell severely ill one Sunday in late August, 1929, and was hospitalized in San Mateo, CA. His stay lasted several days, and at the time the article was published on the thirtieth of the month, was still weak enough that he was not yet home. Instead, he and Eunice had taken shelter at the home of Eunice’s sister Josephine and brother-in-law Daniel Baysinger in Palo Alto. His physicians probably felt he should stay within easy reach of the hospital.

Win recovered from his ordeal. He would go on to survive more than three additional decades. But the hospital bill must have been an unwelcome burden, coming as it did at the beginning of the Great Depression. To make ends meet, Win went to work as a ranch foreman for Spreckels Sugar Company, even though accepting the job meant he had to temporarily live away from home. He boarded with Eunice’s sister Irene and brother-in-law Claude Salmon at their home in Woodland, Yolo County, CA, amid the main Spreckels sugar beet plantations of the Sacramento River delta. Meanwhile Eunice remained at home in Manteca, kept company by children Milton and Josephine, who had not quite yet married and moved away. She was working as a saleslady at a department store, so she could not be with Win. Happily, the economic challenges were eventually dealt with and Win was able to come home.

Eunice and Elsie and several of their female relatives were actively involved with the Native Daughters of the Golden West, otherwise known as the Rebekahs, throughout the early and middle decades of the 20th Century. They were key members of the Manteca lodge, which was formally known as Phoebe A. Hearst Parlor #214. (Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst, was a renowed philanthropist and champion of education.) Often, the women served as officers of Parlor #214, -- for example, Eunice was elected treasurer in 1930.

Eunice and Win finished their lives in Manteca, but did reside at least temporarily in Santa Cruz, which put them near her sister Nina and family. The 1948 Santa Cruz city directory shows the couple at 219 Laurel Street. Eunice died in San Joaquin County 27 July 1962. Win survived her for a brief period, passing away 11 January 1965.

Eunice is center in back in this photo of her mother, Nancy Anne Branson Harrington Napier, and her five daughters, taken at a big family gathering in the summer of 1936, an event probably held at the home of Irene Salmon in Woodland. This shot is distressingly blurry, but it is offered here because it is a rare surviving image of all the sisters together. The five “Harrington girls” are, left to right: Elsie Margaret Harrington Cowell, Mary Josephine Harrington McDonald Baysinger, Eunice Lucille Harrington Converse, Irene Anne Harrington Salmon, and Nina Frances Harrington Riddell. A better impression of Eunice at this point in her life -- taken just three years earlier -- can be seen at the bottom of the pages devoted to her children Milton and Josephine.

Children of Eunice Lucille Harrington with Winfred Delorane Converse

Eugene Harrington Converse

Clyde Chesley Converse

Milton Delorane Converse

Josephine Agnes Converse

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