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FLORENCE WINSTANLEY & HER FAMILY
Born in California sometime in/around May 1884 Florence was the oldest of five daughters raised by Clement and Ella (Nixon) Winstanley. Her younger sisters were Mabel, Edith, Ella and Grace Violet.
Their father, Clement was born in April 1846 in the town of Wandsworth Surrey England and arrived in the US in 1872. Their mother Ella Nixon was born in New York in/abt 1850.
An 1874 Census indicates Clement working as a draftsman for an architectural company called Wright and Sanders in San Francisco.
Wright and Sanders were two English architects who began their practice in San Francisco around 1868.In fact, “The Mark Hopkins Mansion” (later the San Francisco Art Institute) on Nob Hill was designed by John Wright!
“The Mark Hopkins Mansion”
With its turrets and over-the-top decoration, the mansion was not beloved by architectural critics---one of whom called it "the last and worst of the railroad barons' palaces!"
In/around 1880, Clement registered for the army draft. After participating in basic training/boot camp Clement became a civilian supply clerk in the Presidio of San Francisco.
He was then promoted to work as a Civil Engineer Chief of the quartermasters office for the department of CA along with doing work as a topographer (someone who studies the surfaces of a land area and makes maps).
Florence’s mother Ella Nixon, was a native of New York or possibly Rhode Island as indicated in the obituary below. Although exact date unknown, it appears that Ella and Clement were married just prior to 1874.
Sadly, Ella died at age 48 on May 12, 1898- possibly due to the outbreak of Typhoid fever happening in San Francisco at that time.
16 years later, in 1914 while walking on the streets of San Francisco, Clement dropped dead of a heart attack. Both Ella and Clement are buried in the San Francisco National Cemetery.
REV. W.W BOLTON
The Church as it looked then and as it looks now.
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