Margaret Alice Branson

This seventh child of Reuben Branson and Eliza Louisa Armstrong was given the name Theresa Margaret Branson as a baby. Thereafter she was usually referred to as Margaret except in formal circumstances -- for example, in the 1900 Federal Census she is listed as Theresa. During childhood the name Margaret was in turn sometimes reduced to Maggie. This was in keeping with Reuben and Louisa’s style. They had given all three of their older girls “M” names -- Mary Jane, Martha, and Mabel -- and referred to the first two as Mamie and Mattie. Margaret, however, hated the name Theresa and didn’t think much of being called Maggie. As soon as she was old enough, which means probably even before she was out of her teens, she discouraged the use of the nickname and completely threw out her first name. Margaret became her first name, she added Alice as a middle name, and from the first few years of the 20th Century onward she was known as Margaret Alice Branson. She appears as such (with the last name changing to match those of her husbands) in most surviving public documents. The rejection of the nickname may have had to do with its origins. “Maggie” may have been inspired by Reuben’s “Little Maggie Mine” claim of the mid-1880s. Reuben ceased to be part of Margaret’s life by about 1902 and she may have wished to erase his influence upon her identity.

Margaret was born 30 January 1887 in the foothills of Mariposa County. She had a tendency to lie about her age, therefore sources that give a different birth year should be ignored. (An example is the 1920 census, which lists her as born in 1891. She was married to Jack Cowsert by then, and as he was five and half years younger than she, she no doubt “reduced” her age when giving information to the enumerator.) Margaret spent her early childhood mostly in the mountains of Madera County, including Sugar Pine and Fresno Flats (now known as Oakhurst). The longest-lasting of her homes was the community of Raymond, a quarry town in the mountains. As one of the younger members of the family, she was then part of the relocation to Randsburg in the Mojave Desert in eastern Kern County in 1900.

Margaret was a spirited child. She became an adolescent rich with what might be described as “hormonal energy.” This was an unfortunate aspect of her nature given that the marriage of her parents collapsed just as she was entering puberty, depriving her of the extra authority structure and supervision she needed just then. Reuben had often spent long intervals away from the family hearth; now he had even less involvement in the lives of his children. Margaret’s eldest brother William Henry Branson, who had played the role of surrogate father during the 1890s, had passed away of pneumonia well before the move to Randsburg. To support herself, Louisa opened a boarding house. This may have been in Randsburg, but this development probably occurred (or reoccurred) after a move to the San Francisco Bay Area, either to San Francisco itself, or more likely to San Jose. The environment compounded the chances for Margaret to slip down a wayward path. She was young, attractive, libidinous, unsupervised, and was surrounded by young bachelors within the walls of the very building she lived in. Trouble found her in her teens. There is even the possibility her indiscretions began as early as age fifteen. Her younger brother Herbert Raymond Branson was born just after Margaret’s sixteenth birthday. He was, so the story goes, the child of Reuben and Louisa, but Reuben and Louisa are thought to have split up a year or two or more before Herbert’s conception, and Louisa was forty-five years old -- an unlikely age to be fertile. It stands to reason that if Herbert was actually Margaret’s child, he might have been adopted by his grandmother rather than raised by an altogether unready and too-young mother. If this happened, it was kept secret. If Louisa was indeed operating the boarding house in the Bay Area, away from most of the family, the only individuals who have needed to be part of the deception would have been those who had witnessed the pregnancy. These would have included Louisa, Margaret, and Margaret’s twelve-year-old sister Gertrude, but perhaps no others. Reuben was known in his old age to mutter about how he hadn’t been involved with the conception of a ninth child, and a list of his children composed by his sister-in-law Mary Simmons Branson in 1930 does not include Herbert.

If Margaret did manage to stay out of trouble at age fifteen, she was not so lucky at seventeen. She “ran off” with Charles Edward Heitkemper, who was barely older than she. Charles had been born 27 April 1886 in Nebraska of parents Gerhard Heitkemper of Westphalia, Germany and Mary A. Boerge of Ohio, and had been raised in Portland, OR. The marriage is likely to have been an elopement, and it took place without the knowledge or cooperation of Gerhard, Mary, Reuben, or Louisa. Once the parents became involved, the union was annulled. The relationship lasted long enough, however, that pregnancy resulted. Margaret gave birth to son Oliver Charles Heitkemper in early January, 1905, just before turning eighteen.

Charles Heitkemper was kept in the dark about having sired a child. He went back to, or was forced to go back to, Portland, where he became a jeweller like his father. On 18 June 1906, barely more than eighteen months after Oliver had been born, Charles married Clara Olive Moore, a native of Washington born 17 May 1885, and they lived out their lives together in Portland and possibly other parts of the Pacific Northwest. They had one child together, M. Alice Heitkemper, born about 1910. According to the Social Security Death Index, Charles and Clara passed away in Washington the same month -- November, 1964 -- perhaps indicating a car accident.

Meanwhile Margaret was soon a mother again. This child, whose entry in the California Birth Index is rendered with no given name and the surname Garvin (born in Santa Clara County, and other sources narrow this to San Jose), grew up as Edgar Robert Gaver. The man who received the credit -- or blame -- for siring him was Edgar Leroy Gaver, a young tailor also employed as a minor-league professional baseball player. Edgar was at that time a member of the San Francisco Seals. However, one family rumor says Edgar Leroy Gaver was not a part of Margaret’s life until the pregnancy was underway. If so, then the identity of the father is a mystery. Perhaps the rumor was nothing more than idle talk; however, Edgar and Margaret’s marriage certificate does bear a date eighteen months after the birth of Edgar Robert Gaver, and well into the pregnancy that resulted in the birth of the couple’s “second” child, Margaret Brandy Gaver, soon to be known as “Little Margaret.” This 1909 date does not agree with the 1910 census, but the latter source cannot be trusted. It states the couple had been married six years -- putting the wedding in late 1903 or early 1904, well before Ed and Margaret ever met.

Regardless of the unusual steps along the way, by 1909 Margaret was officially Mrs. Ed Gaver. Within a year or so, Ed would change baseball teams, and the household (which included Oliver Heitkemper) was reestablished in Los Angeles County. They were still there in 1912 when the couple’s final child was born. That child was Samuel D. Gaver, usually called Sammy. Unfortunately, Sammy survived less than two months.

Ed’s baseball career lasted nearly twenty years. However, it was an era when ballplayers were not paid the exorbitant wages they command now. Ed continued to work as a tailor during the winters of his years with Margaret, and would go on in later life to work as a baker and as an automobile factory repairman. A son of Samuel D. Gaver (for whom Sammy was named) and Anna Mary Esther Toms, born 20 June 1886 in Middletown, Frederick County, MD, Ed appears to have come to the west coast specifically because of the baseball opportunity. He would return to the East and spent the rest of his life there. But not with Margaret. They separated some time after Sammy’s death. Divorce followed. Ed established a new life in Altoona, Blair County, PA and its suburbs with second wife named Mary Arnetta Paul and sired two more sons, Paul Edgar Gaver and Harry Arthur Gaver. He eventually retired to Florida, perishing 22 March 1977 in Tampa, Hillsborough County. (Shown at left, Ed and Margaret in approximately 1912-1914.)

With the need to provide for herself and her three surviving children, Margaret showed no more patience selecting a spouse the third time than she had demonstrated earlier. She must have spent some time with her brother Robert and his wife Mary Etta Cowsert, who were also residents of Los Angeles County in the early 1910s before returning to Randsburg. Margaret got to know Etta’s brother John Patton Cowsert, known as Jack Cowsert, who soon became her husband. The wedding occurred in approximately 1915. Jack was a son of John William 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.

Jack was a miner. The early part of his career had been spent in Indian Wells Valley. For example, at age nineteen, his job had been to drive a twenty-mule team and wagons from Death Valley to the borax mine in Boron. He and men like him were the living inspiration for the mule driver in the old Borax commercials and advertisements back in the 1950s and 1960s. However, during the beginning 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 lived in a tent in the desert. The arid terrain was not entirely suitable for vegetable gardening, but Margaret accepted the challenge anyway. She planted beans all around the tent, which she nurtured by carrying water in a pail. The bean plants prospered and grew tall, and were her special pride. One morning she heard a commotion outside and found several wild burros feasting on her beans. She yelled at them and hit them with a stick but found it very difficult to run them off. A few days later an old prospector came by and she mentioned the problem to him. He chuckled and informed her that all she had to do was swear at them. The next time the burros appeared, she tested the theory with the most blistering language she could manage. Though known as a prim woman when it came to language, she was determined to defend her crop. The burros tucked back their ears and took off running over the nearest hill.

This rustic phase of Margaret and Jack’s life was not entirely suitable for the children. It isn’t clear they were there at all. If they were, it was not a full-time thing. Margaret is known to have spent a meaningful interval -- at least a year, perhaps two or three years -- apart from her young ones during the late 1910s. She was a drinker and not the most stable of mothers at the best of times, so it is possible she “went through a bad patch” and temporary custody arrangements were made for the children. However, it is more likely she was simply looking out for their best interests, and sent them off for their own good, to places where they would have proper beds and chances for social interaction and a nearby school to attend, which was not true of the camp near Oatman.

By this point, Edgar Leroy Gaver was in Pennsylvania and beginning his new family with Mary Arnetta Paul. It was a perfect time to send younger Ed, who was reaching the stage in life where a father’s oversight was important, back to be with his biological dad. As for Little Margaret, she probably spent some time there, too, but a different opportunity opened up for her. Margaret’s sister Mabel moved to Pennsylvania -- her husband George Elisha Latham was from there. Mabel agreed to raise her niece for a while. The timing of the relocation may even have been such that Mabel escorted both young Gavers back east on the train.

That left Oliver Heitkemper. He was reaching puberty and, like his brother, was poised to benefit from a dad’s active presence. So Margaret wrote to Charles Heitkemper and finally revealed to him that he had sired a child with her. Charles and Clara took this revelation in stride, and agreed to have Oliver stay with them for a spell. Charles ultimately had such an influence on Oliver that Oliver would go on to become a jeweller in the Heitkemper tradition.

Jack Cowsert gave up mining before 1920 and took a job working in the oil fields of western Kern County. The family -- once more including all Margaret’s surviving kids, though they probably continued to spend parts of summer vacations with their fathers -- moved into a house near Taft. With four walls around them and a steady means of livelihood secured, the time had come for another child. The new baby, born 24 December 1920, came to be known as Louise. Her formal name was Gertrude Louise Cowsert -- the first name probably was chosen in honor of Margaret’s sister, the other for Margaret’s mother, who by that point in her life was usually called Louise rather than Louisa.

Margaret had now given birth to five children, or six if she was the real mother of Herbert. This was far more fecund than the majority of her siblings, half a dozen of whom had no children at all. Only her brother Robert’s family was comparable. Robert had already fathered two offspring with Etta Cowsert, and the couple had early on lost another baby, either at birth or as a fetus. Robert would have three more children during the 1920s with his second wife, Nellie Reed.

(At right, Jack and Margaret.) The 1930 census shows Margaret and Jack’s household still in the unincorporated area south of Taft. Jack’s occupation is described as driller. By that point, Oliver and Ed had spread their wings, but Margaret Brandy Gaver was still at home. Then twenty years old, Little Margaret was working as an operator in a beauty shop. Living next door was Etta Cowsert Branson, divorced from Robert. Etta’s household included her children Donald, Marjorie, and James.

In approximately 1936, Margaret and Jack moved to Bakersfield, Kern County’s largest community, in that era rapidly swelling with the influx of refugees fleeing the Great Depression and Dust Bowl conditions in Oklahoma. Jack built a house at 1216 Webster Street which would be the family residence until both he and Margaret had died. After daughter Louise graduated from Kern County High School and married first husband James Harold Walker, she would chose to live in Bakersfield for most of her childbearing years. Jack spent his middle-age years continuing to work in the oil fields and as a miner. In the mid-1940s he formed a brief partnership in an Inyo County talc mine -- the “Cookie Talc Mine,” its name derived from the nickname of Jack and Margaret’s young granddaughter Jacqueline -- with his nephew (also Margaret’s nephew) Donald Huntington Branson. The picture above left was taken in a trailer park and could be where they stayed during those occasions when they were away from home tending to that business venture.

Jack died 4 February 1955. The subsequent period of widowhood was hard for Margaret. Her life had been rigorous and full of challenges until she and Jack created a stable home in Taft, and she had the habit of bitterness. Her drinking did not help. Though she was amiable when sober, her blistering temper would emerge when she was drunk. As a consequence, she was more isolated as an elderly lady than was good for her, even though family members lived in the same town.

In her mid-seventies, already suffering from emphysema, Margaret developed a duodenal ulcer that caused a stomach blockage. Deprived of proper nourishment, she wasted away until, in her weakened condition, she tripped over a throw rug in her home and broke her hip. She was taken to Kern General Hospital in Bakersfield, but her health was too compromised to allow her to survive her stay. She passed away there 14 December 1963. Her remains were laid to rest in Bakersfield at Oak Hill Green Lawn Memorial Park.

Child of Margaret Alice Branson with Charles Edward Heitkemper

Oliver Charles Heitkemper

Children with Edgar Leroy Gaver

Edgar Robert Gaver

Margaret Brandy Gaver

Samuel D. Gaver

Child with John Patton Cowsert

Gertrude Louise Cowsert

For genealogical details, click on each of the names.

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