Maude Ethel Branson
Maude Ethel
Branson, eldest daughter and first child of Alvin Thorpe Branson and Mary Eliza Simmons, was
born 24 February 1884 at Quartzburg, Mariposa County, CA, where her father was working
as a miner. Maude grew up in Mariposa County in the communities of Quartzburg, El Portal, Mariposa,
Hornitos, and at a cabin along the Merced River where the Exchequer Dam would eventually be built. She
attended Quartzburg District School with many Branson and Simmons relatives of her generation.
At age seventeen, it was her dream to obtain higher education, but her mother unexpectedly became pregnant a fifth time, and the anticipated cost of the baby laid claim to the funds her parents had intended to devote to Maude’s school expenses. She remained in Mariposa County, helped bring her little brother Ivan into the world on 9 November 1901, and then stayed home to attend to a considerable number of domestic duties because her mother had suffered health complications as a result of the birth that required an operation and a total of more than a year of recuperation.
Eventually Maude was able to head off to the Bay Area and attend nursing school. She got her degree and worked as a psychiatric nurse for much of her life.
Maude was married five times. The first marriage, to Edward
James of England, then a resident of San Francisco, was a brief one. The time the couple spent
actually dwelling together may have been as short as six months. (The photo of
him at right was probably taken during that time period.) The wedding, which took place in San
Jose, CA 18 August 1905, appears to have been a somewhat rushed event at the home of a Mr. F.H. Eastey
(the best man), 200 S. Seventh Street. The ceremony was witnessed by only a few friends of the couple
and no family. Reverend Dr. Hudson presided. It gives the impression of a shotgun wedding, but no
child resulted. The divorce became final December, 1906.
With Maude single again, another beau, John Davidson Curtis, was able to press his case. John, a son of Thomas Westlake Curtis and Margaret F. Catherine Hall, had been born in Fannin County, GA. He had come west as a young man and had become a miner. He knew Maude, as well as her family, from time he had spent working in and near the town of Mariposa. The romance built up somewhat gradually, however. Maude left for Kennett, Shasta County, CA, while John went to Pueblo, Pueblo County, CO. The reason for Maude’s relocation is unknown, but it is worth noting her aunt Theresa Branson Moore and husband William Osborne Moore were also in Kennett in the 1907-08 time frame. John’s reason for going to Colorado is a little easier to decipher. He was no doubt already suffering from the tuberculosis that was to kill him, and went to a sanitarium in Pueblo for treatment. An affectionate post card, sent in the summer of 1907 from John in Pueblo to Maude in Kennett, survives within the genealogical collection of Ivan Branson. On that card, John mentioned having just left the hospital and that he was feeling good -- and in the hope of proving his point, included the photograph reproduced here at lower left, taken four days after he was discharged.
Perhaps it was John’s compromised health that kept
the pair from setting a wedding date early in their relationship. Perhaps Maude, having been burned
once, preferred to “be certain” before becoming a wife again. There was also the challenge of
how to get Maude’s parents and John’s father and stepmother to the same place at the same time.
John’s kinfolk were still based in Blue Ridge in Fannin County. The Bransons were in Mariposa
County. It’s unclear whether the bride and groom managed to deal with this dilemma at all in the
end. The wedding, which occurred 20 October 1908, was held in Salinas, Monterey County,
CA, after which the couple resided in the southeastern corner of the county at Stone Canyon in
the Cholame Hills. This was a coal mining outpost at the time, and logic dictates John had obtained
a job there as a coal miner. Stone Canyon is where, precisely
eight months after the wedding, Maude gave birth to daughter Doris Margaret Curtis -- fated to be an
only child.
The union with John (also known as Jack) Curtis appears to have been the most promising of Maude’s marriages, but it did not have the chance to thrive. However healthy John may have seemed in late 1908, he had not been cured. His condition deteriorated, and soon he was unable to work. An invalid, he sought the shelter of his birth home, where he was looked after by his sister Alice, among others. Maude was also on hand off and on, but she split her time between Georgia and California. She may have been worried about exposing Doris to TB. Doris did come with her mother at least once -- a surviving post card from Alice Curtis mentions how nice it was to see the baby -- but at other junctures, was left in the care of Alvin and Mary Branson in Mariposa County. Maude herself is shown as a member of her parents’ household in the 1910 census. Maude was, however, at her husband’s side when he perished at the home of his brother James Y. Curtis near Blue Ridge. The death date cited by Maude in family history notes was 6 November 1912. The local paper, the Blue Ridge Summit states one day earlier. John was buried on the seventh at Harmony, GA.
(At right, Maude and daughter Doris in the late 1920s
or early 1930s.) Maude married Fred Leo Murray in May, 1914. The following month Alvin and Mary
Branson abandoned
Mariposa County, where the mining industry had crashed and where there were no secondary schools for
Ivan to attend, and reestablished themselves in Stockton, San Joaquin County, CA. Maude and
Fred also lived in Stockton. Fred’s draft registration card, filled out 12 September 1918, shows the
couple, with Doris, boarding
with Alvin and Mary and Walter Branson at 420 E. Monterey Avenue, a home Alvin and Mary had bought in
late 1914 or early 1915. Perhaps Maude and Fred had never managed to obtain a house of their own. More
likely they were simply having financial reverses. The draft card shows that Fred, normally a clerk,
was at that point unemployed. Perhaps he was unemployed as a result of ill health, because he died only
six days after he filed the draft card -- a death date of 18 September 1918. He was only thirty-seven
years old at that point, having been born 20 May 1881.
Maude married Clyde Leroy Miller in 1919. His 1918 draft card describes him as a chrome miner living in Stockton but working in Newcastle, CA. From that document comes his birthdate, 9 August 1881, and the detail that his father was Curtis Miller, a man then living in Morrison, OK. (The California Death Index states Clyde’s birth year is 1882, but Clyde filled out his draft card personally and it is regarded as a superior source.) His mother’s maiden name was Cummings. The 1920 census shows Clyde living with Maude and Doris in Stockton -- in their own home and not with Alvin, Mary, Walter, and Ivan Branson at 420 Monterey. By 1920 Clyde was working as a “contractors mechanic.” Alas, the couple separated in 1925 and their divorce was finalized a few years later. Clyde passed away 29 November 1941 in San Joaquin County, probably in Stockton.
Some time during the 1920s, probably while still married to Clyde, Maude came to own the house at 410 Monterey, next door to her parents. Here she would remain during her fifth marriage. Maude’s final husband was Roy Albert Chamberlin. Roy was another resident of Stockton. He had been born 4 June 1889 in Reedley, Fresno County, CA, and in his early adulthood had lived in Bakersfield, Kern County, CA, where he worked as a messenger for Wells Fargo while supporting his first wife and his mother. Maude and Roy were married 12 October 1931 in Carson City, NV. This marriage would also end in divorce. The decree was issued 30 September 1938, but the couple had separated 21 September 1935. Roy died 16 July 1966 in Sonora, Tuolomne County, CA.
Apparently five attempts at matrimony were enough. Maude remained content to be single. When her mother died in 1940, she moved in at 420 Monterey, joining her bachelor brother Walter, who had inherited the property. (Inasmuch as Walter had no offspring, Maude would eventually inherit the house from him. It would then pass on to Doris, who would sell it to Ivan in the 1970s.) At the very end of her life, Maude moved into a care facility. She died of cancer in Stockton 8 January 1972.
A Note of Appreciation: The creation of this website might
not have been possible without the initial genealogical efforts of Maude Branson Chamberlin. Maude was at
the right place at the right time to keep up her connection to the greater Branson clan, and she did not
ignore the opportunity. Many of the children and grandchildren
of John and Martha Branson lived in San Joaquin County during the first half of the 20th Century, either in
Stockton like Maude, or in and around Manteca, or at points inbetween. This group included Alvin Thorpe
Branson, Nancy Anne Branson Harrington Napier, Thomas Henry Ousley Branson, and some or all of these
three siblings’ offspring, as well
as Theresa Branson and her foster son, Clarence Johnson, son of Mary Jane Branson Johnson. Maude also
kept in regular touch with members of the lines of Phoebe (in Merced and Oakland), Joseph (in Mariposa
and Fresno Counties), and John, Jr. (in Madera and Fresno). Judging by the correspondence, photos, memoirs,
and genealogical lists that have survived in her brother Ivan’s collection, Maude took it upon herself to
try to assemble a current and complete record of the Branson clan as of the late 1940s. By that time, Maude
was reaching her mid-sixties, and her parents’ generation was dying off. The only two of her uncles and
aunts who still survived were Mary Jane Branson Johnson, who died in 1949, and John Sevier Branson, Jr., who
passed away in 1951. Had Maude been like her cousins and ignored the chance to ask relatives for their
birthdates, marriage dates, etc. while the bonds of shared descent were still knotted, there would have
been no convenient foundation for later research. As it was, she got a very good start and eventually
passed along a thick cache of notes to Ivan as he began his family-history endeavors in the early 1950s.
Maude continued to help her brother until her final months. Her contributions ultimately
proved critical, because Ivan concentrated upon the male lineage -- those relatives with the surname
Branson -- which meant that the lines of John and Martha’s daughters and granddaughters received short
shrift from him. (The only two children of Ivan’s aunts to be mentioned by name in his book, Bones
of the Bransons, are Eunice and Elsie Harrington, and only in the caption of a photograph, because
the two girls, then in their childhood, had been standing next to Martha when a picture was taken of
the elderly matriarch sitting in her rocking chair on the porch of the house at Grasshopper Ranch.) Because
Maude’s work lay waiting among Ivan’s papers, enough names and dates and places surfaced to put
together the structure of the whole clan in 2005 and then update it, resulting in this website and the
larger, privately-kept archive. Well done, Maude.
Child of Maude Ethel Branson with
John Davidson Curtis
For genealogical details, click on
Doris’s name.
To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Branson/Ousley Family main page, click here.