Mary Josephine
Harrington
Mary Josephine Harrington, second child and first daughter
of Nancy Anne Branson and Peter Harrington, was born 2 September 1879 in Merced, Merced County, CA. Her
first name was seldom used. Aside from the 1880 census and her California Death Index entry, almost all
public records refer to her simply as Josephine (the surname evolving, of course, to match those of her
husbands). She consistently used Josephine and many relatives assumed it was her actual first name.
Josephine was raised in Merced. After (or shortly before) her father died in 1890, she became one of the many residents of the boarding house operated jointly by her mother Nancy and her aunt Mary Jane Branson Johnson. As the eldest girl in a group of eight children (herself, her five siblings, and two of Mary Jane’s kids), a large amount of household responsibility no doubt fell on Josephine’s shoulders at a young age. She was well motivated to obtain a less crowded home of her own, and managed to do so at only eighteen years of age.
Josephine’s first husband was Charles Sweden McDonald. He was a son of Robert Seafield McDonald and Sarah Ellen (“Ella”) Corlett, and had been born during the month of October, 1871 in Buffalo, Erie County, NY. He had spent his early childhood in Buffalo, where his father worked as a blacksmith and subsequently went to medical school in order to follow in the footsteps of his own father. (Charles’s grandfather, Sweden McDonald, had been a surgeon who had immigrated from Scotland to Ontario Province, Canada. After his arrival in Canada, he had changed his name from the original Scots variation, MacDonald, to the Irish version in order to garner patients in his largely Irish neighborhood.) In the early 1880s, after Robert had obtained his degree, the family had relocated to Ella Corlett McDonald’s hometown of Oakfield, Genesee County, NY, not far east of Buffalo. Unfortunately, Robert had not enjoyed a long career. He had passed away in the mid-1880s. The absence of a father may have been the spur that caused Charles to venture far from his place of origin. He is believed to have come west because his uncle was William McDonald, the widower of Josephine’s aunt, Phoebe Ann Branson. (It has not been directly documented that William and Robert were uncle and nephew, but the circumstantial evidence is heavy.) William McDonald was a beloved paternal presence often at hand at the Merced boarding house, and when his nephew arrived, the man would immediately have made him acquainted with his many nieces-by-marriage, of whom Josephine was the closest to Charles’s age. Charles may even have been a lodger at the boarding house for a period. The couple did not take long to decide they were right for each other. The wedding took place 6 April 1898, probably in Merced. First son Robert Seafield McDonald -- his grandfather’s namesake -- was born seven months after the ceremony, the first great-grandchild of John Sevier Branson and Martha Jane Ousley to arrive in the world. Three years later daughter Ruth was born, only to perish at six months of age. The couple’s final child was Charles Elton McDonald, better known as Elton, born in 1903.
Like many men of Merced at the turn of the century, Charles
worked for Southern Pacific Railroad. His duties during the early years of the marriage took him afield.
He strived to arrange accommodations for Josephine and the kids near his workplaces, but it was not always
possible to keep the family together. Sometimes “home” was nothing more than a large tent out in empty
parts of California where new rail lines were being planned or were under construction. (Shown at right
on the job.) The full count
of moves and the places lived in can only be guessed at. A photograph of a baby of the family (probably
Robert, but possibly Ruth) refers to Visalia, which is in Tulare County, CA. The 1900 census shows Charles
living apart from Josephine and
Robert. He appears in County Supervisor’s District No. 1 in Contra Costa County, CA. His occupation is
described as clerk in railroad construction. He was in what appears to be a railway employee workers’
barracks shared with four other men. One of those men was John C. Harrington, Josephine’s brother, whose
occupation is given as railway timekeeper. (The other three were James Franklin, George Smith, and Charles
Thompson.) Charles is listed as single, but this was an enumerator’s error. A photograph of Robert as a
toddler outside a tent in a desolate area is identified as having been taken at Gosford in Kern County,
a bit south of Bakersfield.
The job situation evolved in the early years of the 1900s. Charles was among those railroad men who were part of the inception of Western Pacific. This company’s main line served the western United States from Salt Lake City to the San Francisco Bay Area, and its creation in the 1903 to 1910 time period (some forty years after the first attempts were made to launch it) broke the stranglehold the big companies of Southern Pacific and Union Pacific had maintained over rail service in the Far West. Charles was a -- perhaps the -- construction engineer responsible for the establishment of the line between Oakland and Sacramento. Later, in the 1910s, he would play a role in the constructing the masterpiece of the company’s infrastructure, the segment that ran through the Feather River Canyon. This route, well north of those used by other companies, crossed the Sierra Nevada range at a much gentler grade, permitting freight to be transported at lower cost, and the construction itself was affordable to the firm’s investors due to ingenious surveying of the ideal right of way. Eldest son Robert would work with the Feather River segment construction crews right after his graduation from high school in the mid-1910s.
As Charles’s position with Western Pacific evolved, the household was reestablished in Stockton, San Joaquin County, CA. Stockton was a locale convenient to Charles’s responsibilities in the delta. The family moved to the town no later than 1906, and by 1907 were occupying a house at 16 N. Union Street. The residence was ample enough that the McDonalds took in relatives on at least two occasions. Josephine’s teenaged first cousin Inez Branson, daughter of Thomas Branson, needed a place to stay in Stockton during the 1906-07 school term in order to obtain a teaching credential. Inez is the woman on the left in the photo below, an image preserved in Josephine’s mementoes. A couple of years later the house was shared with Clarence Johnson and his wife Lillian and their baby daughter Ruth. With Charles having to be gone from the house so much, Josephine probably appreciated having other adults around.
This photograph was taken 19 May 1907 in front of the McDonald residence at 16 N. Union Street, Stockton, CA. Apparently it commemorates a visit by friends. Josephine wrote everyone’s first names on the back; unfortunately that means the family name of the visiting couple and their son is unknown at this time. From left to right, the adults are: Inez Branson, Mary Josephine Harrington McDonald, Mirt (?), King (?), Charles Sweden McDonald. From left to right, the boys are: Charles Elton McDonald, Robert Seafield McDonald, and William (?). Another good impression of Josephine and Charles from the 1906-1910 time period can be seen in the midst of the biography of Clarence Johnson. Click here to go straight to that page.
By mid-1910, the Johnsons moved on to Manteca. Their home would remain there, though Clarence was sometimes absent from it later in the 1910s, inasmuch as he was part of the work crew living in the construction camps while the Feather River project was underway. Precisely how long the McDonalds may have lingered in Stockton is not clear. They may have left at the same time as the Johnsons. If so, the possibility remains that they may have moved north to, say, Sacramento or some other community close to Charles’s work sites. However, any such relocation was temporary. After all, the boys were of school age and a mobile lifestyle was inconvenient. The McDonalds relocated to Oakland, Alameda County, CA by no later than 1914 -- or that is to say, Oakland became their official place of residence, where Charles could be found when not required elsewhere, and where Josephine and the boys remained during school terms. A photo album that belonged to Robert includes images of freshman orientation at Oakland Polytechnic High School in 1914 -- presumably, these are photos of Robert’s own school.
If Josephine ever felt any reticence to say good-by to her Merced roots, she dealt with it. It wasn’t as if the option existed to truly go back home. The boarding house had become a thing of the past years earlier, and by the 1910s only a tiny number of kinfolk were still dwelling in the town. A kind of mass exodus had occurred. Nearly all of Josephine’s siblings had set up households in and around Manteca in San Joaquin County, and mother Nancy with her second husband John “Babe” Napier had followed suit. For many decades from the mid-1910s onward, the McDonald story was very much tied to the Bay Area. Given the railroad connections, this was entirely appropriate. In particular, the eastern side of the bay was a popular home base for railroad men whether they worked for Western Pacific or Southern Pacific. Furthermore the area’s economy was booming, meaning Robert and Elton would be well positioned to select from a number of career choices, or find decent interim positions while deciding what they wanted to do long-term -- for example, when Robert took a job at the Alameda shipyards as part of the war effort.
Robert’s draft card shows the family residing on Valdez Street in Oakland. This may have been their home from the time they arrived in the city years earlier. By that point -- late 1918 -- things were settling down. The big push to complete the Feather River segment of the Western Pacific line had taken place in 1917, with Robert helping out in the construction camps as an errand runner and general assistant to his father. Robert now had a steady and serious girl friend, Vera Douglas. Josephine and Charles were finally well positioned to obtain a “legacy” sort of home, and set themselves up for the latter third of their lives. Thus, in June, 1919, the couple purchased a house at 1442 Morton Street in Alameda. This home would remain in the family for decades. The 1 January 1920 census shows the family in their new residence. Charles is listed as a payroll clerk for Western Pacific -- finally a desk job to reward him for his many years of work out in the boonies. Robert, though an adult, was still there, though he might by then have spent a brief period as a bachelor on his own. In addition to the four family members the household also included Vera Douglas, whom Robert was soon to marry.
Just when the prospects for domestic stability seemed at
their all-time high, fate introduced a change of direction. Charles never got to enjoy the sweet “prime
of life” phase. He died 22 February 1920. This seems to have dimmed Josephine’s affection for the Morton
Street house. While her name remained on the deed to the property for the rest of her life, she let Robert and
Vera use it as their home. She no doubt stayed there off-and-on over the next five years, but it is apparent
she was often gone on extended visits to her sisters and mother in Manteca. One lasting bit of evidence of
her Manteca sojourns is that the latter locale must have been where she met and got to know the man who
became her second husband. He was Daniel Webster Baysinger, a carpenter and contractor who had long lived in
Manteca and who was associated with Joshua and Emily Cowell, who were the parents-in-law of Josephine’s
sister Elsie Harrington Cowell. Joshua Cowell would ultimately be known as the “Father of Manteca” for his
role in establishing the community. Daniel Baysinger, by the end of his career there, was said to have built
nearly every commerical structure in town, along with many houses.
In chosing Daniel, Josephine had once again elected to enter a bond with a man significantly older than herself. Daniel, a son of Jacob Harrison Baysinger and Amanda Miller, had been born in 25 November 1864 in Kansas, probably in Labette County. The family had arrived in Labette County no more than a year or two before Daniel’s birth, having left Breckenridge County, KY, where not only Daniel’s older siblings, but both parents, had been born. (The move had perhaps been a case of avoiding being in the crosshairs of the campaigns of the Civil War.) In Daniel’s early boyhood, Jacob Baysinger had been a farmer in Osage Township in Labette County, then had become a carpenter in the small town of Parsons. It was no doubt his father who taught Daniel the job skills he had made such thorough use of during the decades before he and Josephine became an item.
Inasmuch as Daniel was nearly sixty and Josephine about forty-five when they were wed, no children resulted from their union. The wedding took place in 1924. (The source is Josephine herself -- and the date is supported by 1930 census data -- but as you can see, the date is imprecise. In 1948, in response to a request for genealogy stats from her first cousin Maude Branson Chamberlin, Josephine wrote down the names, birthdates, and wedding dates of herself and her descendants, but apparently she could not recall the month and day she and Daniel had wed.)
Josephine in the mid-to-late 1920s with her immediate family. From left to right, Charles Elton McDonald, Robert Seafield McDonald, Vera K. Douglas, Mary Josephine Harrington McDonald Baysinger, and Daniel Webster Baysinger.
By the time the wedding occurred, Daniel had found work as a contractor in Palo Alto, and had established a home there on Hawthorne Street. This would be the couple’s place of residence for a brief period after the wedding. By no later than 1926, however, they made a new home at 949 Addision, where they would remain into the mid-1930s. In 1934, family developments prompted a change. Tonia Utkin McDonald passed away, leaving Josephine’s young granddaughter without a mother. Elton, according to the dictates of his era, was expected to maintain a full-time job. This position was across the bay in San Francisco, so he was not able to look in on his daughter during the main part of each weekday. Despite Elton’s deeply parental nature, another caregiver was needed. Josephine filled that role. It was best for all concerned that Josephine be a resident of Alameda, so she and Daniel relocated to a fine house at 1535 St. Charles Street, back in the neighborhood Josephine had once called home -- the place was only a short walk from 1442 Morton Street. For most of the remainder of the 1930s, the house was shared with Elton and his little one, who endearingly called her grandmother “Gongie.”
The remainder of the 1930s and the early 1940s were later regarded by family members with great nostalgia. They were good years. Josephine was able to be a help to her boys and was on hand not only to look after her live-in grandchild, but also her other grandchildren -- Robert’s children with his second wife Loretta Verschelden. Being in Alameda also put Josephine near her first cousin George Bertrand Johnson. Like Clarence Johnson, George was almost a brother to Josephine -- perhaps even more so, in the sense that George had been raised right in the boarding house with Josepine, whereas Clarence had become the adopted son of his aunt Theresa Branson Moore and had resided in a separate home. George’s presence and his almost-daily involvement in the life of the McDonald clan was a comfort to Josephine, particularly because Clarence Johnson had died in 1932 and her biological brother John C. Harrington would pass away somewhat early as well. In the summer of 1936, her sister Elsie, who had become a widow two years earlier, moved in with Josephine and Daniel. This made the house a little crowded until Elton and his daughter moved on to their own place, but Josephine treasured having her sister there.
“Good years” refers to the perspective of the younger generations. For Josephine, the goodness was marred by a number of emotionally wrenching losses. Elsie died in August, 1940. John C. Harrington died two months later. That same year, Daniel Baysinger’s health entered its final decline. He hung on for two years, passing away at home 4 November 1942. Josephine chose not to marry a third time. She finished doing her part to raise her granddaughter, who left later in the decade to attend UCLA. Now on her own, Josephine had no need to go to the trouble of maintaining an entire house, so she moved into an apartment in Oakland. This was her final change of residence.
Throughout her life Josephine cherished her family bonds. Often she played the role of the big sister, lending her support. She opened up her home time and again when her kinfolk were in need. Already mentioned above are the occasions when Inez Branson, Clarence Johnson and family, Elton and his daughter, and then widowed Elsie were sheltered by Josephine. This was on top of other, briefer instances of hospitality such as when her sister Eunice’s husband Winfred Converse had to be hospitalized in San Mateo in 1929. Josephine and Daniel opened up their Palo Alto home to Winfred and Eunice while he recuperated. Finally at the end of her life, Josephine welcomed one last relative into her home -- her youngest sister, Nina, who showed up to handle the cooking and housekeeping while Josephine was succumbing to colon cancer. The disease claimed Josephine’s life 28 June 1955.
Children of Josephine
Harrington with Charles Sweden McDonald
To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Branson/Ousley Family main page, click here.