Evalena Branson

Evalena Branson, first daughter and third of the eight children of Thomas Henry Ousley Branson and Frances Bauer, was born 23 May 1877 Hornitos, Mariposa County, CA. She grew up in a home along Burns Creek at the north end of the town that her parents had established in the early 1870s and remained in until after all the children were grown. The family was extremely tight-knit and most of the brood lingered with Thomas and Frances into adulthood. Evalena was the first to leave, but not until she was in her twenties and then only because her uncle Frank Bauer had died and his widow, Elizabeth Powers Bauer, needed a nanny to move into her home in Oroville, CA to help care for her young children. Evalena is shown in that household in the 1900 census.

Evalena’s somewhat unusual name was often mis-recorded. Census enumerators and newspaper reporters rendered it as Evelyn, Evalina, or Evelyn A. On a list compiled by a family member who seemed to know the “real” spelling, it was rendered Evelyna, and this was the version used on this website from its inception in the autumn of 2005 until early 2009, when the question was revisited. Now Evalena is regarded as the true spelling. Not only is Evalena the version shown on the 1930 census and on her California Death Index entry -- documents which depended on informants other than Evalena herself -- but also in voter registers. She was surely the person who filled out her voter registration application, so it would appear she used, or at least preferred, the Evalena spelling. It may be that her parents considered her to be an Evelyna, but she had other ideas. In deference to her choice, this website now refers to her as Evalena. One thing all sources agree on is that in childhood she was known by the nickname Lena, and people who knew her during that part of her life tended to continue to address her that way.

After Oroville, Evalena seems to have either returned to Hornitos or to have gone to Merced, where she had many Branson relatives. At some point, she met Charles Orlando Diffin. A son of James Orlando Diffin and Frances Darby, born 14 September 1873, Charles was a native of Antioch in the delta region of Contra Costa County. As a young man Charles and his widower father had lived in Madera. (The 1900 census and the 1900-1906 voter registers confirm their presence there.) Just how Charles and Evalena came to know one another is undetermined, i.e. it is an open question whether Evalena came to be based in Madera or whether Charles came to where Evalena was residing.

Evalena and Charles were wed April, 1910 at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Merced, Reverend James Miles Webb presiding. The event was reported in the April 23rd issue of the Mariposa Gazette, a Saturday newspaper, as having occurred “Thursday morning at ten o’clock.” If that refers to the Thursday immediately prior to publication, it means the ceremony took place on April 21st. But the Gazette obtained the news from the Merced Express, and the reference to Thursday may have come from an issue of that newspaper published before the 21st. Therefore it is possible the wedding occurred on the 14th.

Curiously, the wedding article mentions that the ceremony was witnessed by the bride’s mother, brothers, and a sister. If this is literally accurate, it prompts one to wonder where Thomas Branson and Evalena’s other sisters were. The article also mentions that the couple had departed for their honeymoon in San Francisco, and were to then reside in Antioch. And so they did. Once settled in, the pair do not appear to have ever made their home anywhere other than in Antioch. That community continued to be home to Charles’s relatives as well. The latter fact may have helped separate Evalena from her roots. She seems to have cleaved to her husband’s family rather than her own. That is not to say there was a rift, but just that her in-laws were close at hand while her blood kin required more effort to keep in touch with. For that reason, information about Evalena is somewhat skimpy in family correspondence, and as a consequence, this biography is limited in scope.

Charles worked at a variety of jobs. Among them, he was a salesman at a department store, a hardware salesman, a watchman at a chemical plant, and more. Evalena was a homemaker. This was somewhat easier a lifestyle than it might have been because unlike her parents, she had a very small family. In this, she was like her four sisters, who averaged two children each. Her three brothers had no children at all. Evalena was in the middle in that respect. She gave birth to one child. He was Cyril Gibson Diffin, born in 1916. By then, Evalena was reaching the trailing edge of her childbearing years. It may be that she had planned not to become a mother at all, but had changed her mind when faced with the prospect of having to live with that decision in old age.

Evalena and Charles completed the raising of their son and Charles reached retirement age before he passed away 9 March 1941 of heart disease. Evalena survived him by over six years, passing away 31 December 1947 of pneumonia brought on by terminal cancer. Old sources say both husband and wife were buried in Antioch at M & O Cemetery, but this would appear to be an obsolete name for that site. The shared gravemarker is currently to be found at Oak View Memorial Park.

Child of Evalena Branson with Charles Orlando Diffin

Cyril Gibson Diffin

For genealogical details, click on Cy’s name.

To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Branson/Ousley Family main page, click here.