Marguerite Ellen
Branson
Marguerite Ellen Branson, eldest daughter and second child of Joseph Branson and Ellen Margaret “Ella” Geary, was born 31 December 1881 on her parents’ ranch north of Hornitos (near Quartzburg), Mariposa County, CA. Her home throughout her childhood was on that property, which the family sometimes called Grasshopper Ranch. She attended the Quartzburg District School in a class composed largely of relatives, future in-laws, and children of her parents’ in-laws.
All the children of Joe and Ella turned out tall and robust. This was a blessing for the four boys, who were uniformly handsome and manly in their young adulthood. For Marguerite and her sister Grace, the legacy was more problematic, particularly as it included a propensity to grow stout. In an era when women typically married no later than their early twenties, the sisters remained single past their 25th birthdays, and each put in a few years as “old maid” schoolteachers in the years prior to their weddings. It did not help, of course, that they reached their prime courting years just as nearly every young man they knew was leaving the county in order to find a means to make a living.
Marguerite married a man nearly ten years older than she. He was LeBaron Guy Thistle, an immigrant born in Victoria Corners, New Brunswick, Canada 14 October 1872. The wedding took place 16 January 1907 at Grasshopper Ranch. Marguerite’s sister Grace served as bridesmaid, and brother John Joseph Branson as best man. Reverend C.W. Long presided. Guy was eldest of many children of Oscar William Thistle and Elizabeth Euphemia Bedell. His youngest sister Alice Elizabeth Thistle would come to Mariposa County as well. In 1920 Alice and Marguerite’s brother Ernest would marry each other, further connecting Guy and Marguerite as siblings-in-law.
During the early years of the marriage Guy continued to work as a miner at Mt. Bullion, but even Mt. Bullion, long a productive site of hard-rock mining, petered out. Guy and Marguerite spent further years in Mariposa County, at first in or near the town of Mariposa, and then in or near Hornitos. The economy of the region was faltering and Guy found it a challenge to make enough money to support Marguerite and their three daughters. He was briefly a stage driver, then became a real estate agent -- alas at a time when few buyers were interested in acquiring acreage. During World War I, he earned a bit of additional income serving as a draft registrar.
Due to the young age of the girls, Marguerite preferred during this interval to remain a housewife, but inevitably she found it necessary to accept temporary teaching gigs. At such times, the girls were cared for by grandmother Ella at the ranch. Eldest daughter Alice would later in life mention that she and her sisters wanted to retain their late mother’s twenty percent interest in the ranch because it had been the place they considered to be their childhood home. Later, when Marguerite suffered health problems, the girls spent quite a bit of time there.
In 1918, as had so many others before them, Marguerite and Guy left the Mother Lode region. They settled in the city of Fresno. Guy became an insurance agent. Marguerite went back to teaching on a regular basis. The girls came of age attending Fresno County schools and would reside in the county lifelong.
Marguerite went through an extended period of frailty resulting from leukemia, an affliction that ultimately took her life. She died 9 May 1933 in a Fresno hospital at the all-too-young age of fifty-one. Her remains were interred four days later at Belmont Memorial Park. Her children were only just reaching adulthood at the time of her demise. Alas, Guy did not survive her long. He passed away 8 March 1934.
Child of Marguerite Ellen Branson with
LeBaron Guy Thistle
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