Part 2 of Eugene Steele & The Greenwades

Eugene Steele
&
The Greenwade Family
PART 2

It is the summer of 1901 in San Francisco and Myrtle is pregnant with her first child. The new home on 20 Camp Street is a spacious five-bedroom Edwardian flat offering ample room for the growing Steele/Greenwade family. Both Eugene's younger brother Alexander (now 18) and Myrtle's father Henry still live them.

A 1901 Census describes employment for the three male members as follows:

Alexander Steele is working as a button maker in his grandfather Eugene Moore Steele's store.

Eugene Charles Steele is still working as a bottler/chauffeur

Henry Greenwade is a day laborer (In 1901, a "day laborer" was essentially a worker hired on a daily basis to perform manual labor, often without a specific job or employer. They were employed for physical jobs they could find, sometimes for just days or weeks at a time. This often meant doing a variety of tasks, including agricultural work, construction, loading, and unloading. The work was typically manual and not necessarily skilled)

20 Camp St home in San Francisco

Living in San Francisco also led to a new romance for Henry. The new lady was Margaret Shields Murdock.

Margaret was born on October 20, 1865 in Plumas, California. She was one of six children in the family of Samuel and Anna (Shields) Murdock. Both parents came from Ireland. Her father Samuel (Born September 8 1819) came from Killinchy, Down, and her mother Anna (Born November 1st 1831) was born in County Down.

Samuel raised livestock in the area of Monroeville, Princeton, Colusa, Ca. According to wikipedia

Monroeville, Princeton, and Colusa are three locations in California. Monroeville is a historical town, once the county seat of Colusa County, located near the Sacramento River.

A census from June 1900 shows Margaret (now known as Maggie) working as a cook at a private home in Chico. The census indicates she is a cousin to one of the other staff members.

How Margaret and Henry met is unknown, but on September 26, 1900 the couple were wed by a Rev. Frank S Ford. Below is the news announcement from from the SF Examiner.

Some of the top news stories in 1901, that Eugene and Myrtle would have read about were these:

- Queen Victoria has passed away on Jan 22. Her eldest son, Edward VII, will succeed her on the throne.

-President William McKinley would start his second term. Tragically he was assassinated with the subsequent presidency going to Vice President Theodore Roosevelt.

-U.S. Steel was established by John Pierpont Morgan

On January 8th, Myrtle gave birth to a baby boy they named Eugene Clinton.

For the first few years, her father Henry and his new bride, Maggie lived in the house on Camp Street. One year later Maggie gave birth to their first child, a daughter they named Neva born on December 27 1901.

It must’ve been quite the busy household at 20 Camp St. There were the five adults, Eugene, Myrtle, Alexander, Henry, and Maggie with two little children Eugene and Neva. For Myrtle, the advantage to having her new step mother in the home was having an extra pair of hands to assist with the children and other household duties.

Margaret Shields Murdock

Annie Edson Taylor (photo on the left) became the first person to survive going over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

From 1902 to 1910, these were some of the major events and/or news headlines the Steele/Greenwade family would have read about and experienced!

In 1902 The first electric air conditioning unit was invented.
1904 Construction of the Panama Canal began.
1906 In their fair city by the bay, they would experience a 7.9 earthquake. Although the quake itself lasted 45 to 60 seconds, the majority of the worst shaking happened during first 30 second causing widespread destruction and the deaths of around 3,000 people. Both the earthquake and fire destroyed a significant portion of the city.
1908 Henry Ford invented the Model T Motor Car
1909 William Howard Taft becomes President

MORE EVENTS WITHIN THE

STEELE-GREENWADE FAMILY

On March 5, 1903, a second child was born to Myrtle and Eugene, a boy they named Luther Samuel in honor of Myrtle's Uncle Luther.

Also in 1903, Myrtle's father Henry took on a job as a yard foreman for the United States Railroad.

Another baby girl for Henry and Maggie was born on March 17 1905 and she was named Grace.

1905 was also the year that Eugene's younger brother Alexander would meet and marry Mabel Victoria Corden.

Mabel was born on July 20, 1885, in San Francisco CA. She was one of three children in the family of Thomas James and Annie T (O'Keefe) Cordon. Her siblings were Edwin and Esther.

Their father Thomas was born in 1859 in Richmond, Virginia. He worked as a Day Laborer doing whatever odd jobs came his way. Mother Annie was born on April 12 1854 in New Brunswick Canada and came to America with her family in/around 1860.

Their first home was located on 580 Charter Oak in San Francisco. Alexander is now the top salesman in his grandfather Eugene's Buttons and Pleating shop while Mabel worked as a psychologist at the Alameda County Guidance Clinic. Below is a photo from the Oakland Daily Magazine publication, Mabel is on the far left.

The title of the photo was, "Honor Roll, Students Rewarded For Doing Their Part":

"Twenty five honor roll students at the Child Guidance Clinic of the Alameda Health Center assembled at a party given in their behalf as a reward for their attendance at sessions, their good deportment and progress they made."

MORE ON ALEX AND MABEL TO COME IN A FUTURE BLOG

The year is 1908, Myrtle is pregnant with her third child. Her parents and step sisters along with all the members of Alex's family have thankfully survived the big 1906 earthquake.

In/around 1909-1910, Myrtle's father Henry traveled south of San Francisco to an area called Gilroy*-an area we know as the Garlic Capital of the World. A census shows him living as boarder in a rooming house belonging to Harry and Edith Hall.

FROM THE CITY OF GILROY WEBSITE:

The first inhabitants of the greater Gilroy area are often referred to as the Ohlone Indians. They were part of the Mutsun Nation, which at one time was comprised of some 22 Central Coast tribes; this region was home to the Amah Mutsun, officially titled the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Ohlone/Costanoan Indians. They lived primarily by hunting and gathering, and some gained extensive knowledge of the healing powers of the flora and fauna that surrounded them. Their lives were tragically altered by the late-1700s arrival of the Spanish missionaries and their military units.

Henry's periodic trips to the Gilroy/Santa Cruz areas was to look for new land to operate a ranch on. In 1910, Henry found a property located on Murphy Ave in Gilroy. Below is a current photo of the property as it looks now. Henry, Maggie with their two daughters Grace and Neva moved here in Spring of 1910. Neva was eight and Grace five. Henry's crops each year were mostly focused on fruit.

On September 11th, 1908 Myrtle gave birth to a baby girl they named Justine Eleanor. Now with three children, it was time to relocate the family to a larger home. The new house was located at 334 Arleta Ave.

Although the new home on Arleta was somewhat bigger for Eugene and his family, things changed in 1912 when Myrtle learned she was pregnant again. Their new home was at 824 York St and on June 22, Myrtle gave birth to a baby boy they named Charles E Steele. Sadly, the child only lived to age 2 passing away exactly two years later on June 22 1914.

With the sadness of losing a child, the Steele family relocated again at 980 Hampshire. A voter census shows that Eugene now worked as a hose man for the

Mabel Victoria Corden

John Cameron Gilroy (The First English-Speaking Settler in CA) was born in a southern district of Inverness-shire, Scotland in 1794. At 19, he left home, hiring aboard a British trading ship which arrived, in 1814, at what was then the Spanish harbor of Monterey. It’s unclear when the young sailor changed his surname to Gilroy, his mother’s maiden name, but he was baptized Juan Bautista Gilroy at the Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo, and before long was conversant with Spanish. On his portion of the rancho, Gilroy raised cattle, wheat and also ran a soap-making business.