Wetherall-Hardman

William Bascom Wetherall and Louida Orene Hardman

Table 1   William B. and L. Orene (Hardman) Wetherall family
Notes Name Birth Death Age Born Died Buried Vocation
T2 0 William Bascom Wetherall 25 Mar 1911 19 Jun 2013 102 Ames IA Nevada City CA Sierras Attorney
T3 0 Louida Orene Hardman 21 Nov 1913 9 Aug 2003 89 Peck ID Grass Valley CA Sierras Teacher
1 William Owen Wetherall 23 Mar 1941 San Francisco CA Writer
2 Jerry Alan Wetherall 11 Sep 1942 San Francisco CA Ichthyologist
3 Mary Ellen (Zweig) 24 Jan 1945 12 Mar 2017 72 San Francisco CA Grass Valley CA Sierras, Yuba Nurse
4 Clara (Cheung) Yang 5 Jul 1964 Shizuishan, Ningxia, PRC Attorney
  1. William Bascom (originally "Bascum") Wetherall was the son of William Riley Wetherall and Ida Mae Baldwin.
    See 2. Wetherall-Baldwin, 4. Wetherall-Beaman, 5. Baldwin-Steele, and related families for details about Bill's ancestors.
  2. Louida Orene Hardman was the daughter of Owen Monroe Hardman and Ullie May Hunter.
    See 3. Hardman-Hunter, 6. Hardman-Gallaher, 7. Hunter-Thomas, and related families for details about Orene's ancestors.
  3. Son Billy Wetherall. See 1.1 Wetherall-Sugiyama family page for details.
  4. Son Jerry Wetherall. See 1.2 Wetherall-Obispo family page for details.
  5. Daughter Mary Ellen (Melon) Zweig. See 1.3 Zweig-Wetherall family page for details.
  6. Adopted daughter Clara Yang. See 1.4 Yang-Cheung family page for details.

Top  

Bill and Orene in censuses

Wetherall-Hardman family in 1920 to 1940 censuses
1910 1920 1925 1930 1940 1955-2012
Wetherall
William B.

1911-2013
Born 1911
Ames, Iowa
Knoxville
Marion
Iowa
Des Moines
Polk
Iowa
Not yet found San Francisco
California
60
Central Ave.
Moved to Grass Valley, California in 1955. Lived in same home on Silver Way until 2012 when WBW moved to home of caregivers in Nevada City. Sold Silver Way home in 2013. Died 2013
Hardman
L. Orene

1913-2003
Born 1913
Peck, Idaho
Central Ridge
Clearwater
Idaho
Moved to
Peck, Idaho
mid 1920s
Peck
Nez Perce
Idaho
Died 2003

1920 census

1930 census

1940 census

Forthcoming.

Top  

Children and other descendants

Forthcoming

Top  

William Wetherall and Orene (Hardman) Wetherall Chronology

The following chronology spans the life of William B. Wetherall, who lived 102 years, during which he practiced law for over 70 years, and the life of his wife, Orene Hardman, who lived 89 years. It mentions also vital events in the lives of their parents and children, and world events that especially affected their lives. See sections below the chronology -- Progenitors, Beginnings, Childhoods, Schooldays, College, San Francisco, Grass Valley, Endings -- for details, stories, photographs, and other materials related to selected events in their lives. For details about the lives of their ancestors and descendants, see related pages on the Trailhead menu.

1911-1937 Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska

Infancy, childhood, grade school, high school

WBW -- Ames, St. Maries, Knoxville, Des Moines, Utica

LOH -- Central Ridge (Steele), Peck

  1. 25 March 1911   William Bascum (later Bascom) Wetherall (Bill, WBW) born in Ames, Storey County, Iowa, the first and only child of William Riley Wetherall and Ida Mae Baldwin (see Wetherall-Baldwin).
    1. When WBW was about 6 months old, his mother was committed to a state asylum (mental hospital), first in Clarinda, Iowa, then in Orofino, Idaho. At this time, WBW was raised by his maternal grandparents, Martha Ellen (Steele) Baldwin and Newton Bascum Baldwin in nearby St. Maries, Idaho, while his father worked at a St. Maries printshop (see Baldwin-Steele and Wetherall-Baldwin).
  2. 21 November 1913   Louida Orene Hardman (Orene, Bug, LOW) born in Peck, Nez Perce County (Steele, Lewis County), Idaho the 2nd daughter of Owen Monroe Hardman and Ullie May Hunter (see Hardman-Hunter).
  3. 1917-1924   WBW Elementary school: West Ward, Knoxville, Ia. / Knoxville Junior High
  4. 1924-1928   WBW High school: East High School, Des Moines, Iowa / High School diploma
  5. 1929 March-September   WBW Grocery store clerk, Sam B. Kersey, St. Maries, Idaho

Top  


College and work

WBW -- St. Maries, Moscow, Orofino, Pierce -- student, forest service, attorney

LOH -- Peck, Lewiston, Kendrick, Pierce -- student, teacher

  1. 1929-1931   WBW Begins college. University of Idaho, Moscow, Idaho
  2. 1930 June-September   WBW Dairy delivery, Herman Saxton, St. Maries, Idaho
  3. 1931 June-September   WBW Crew forman, blister rust control
    1. WBW worked in blister rust work every summer from 1931 to 1936. His employers were the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Plant Industy, Division of Blister Rust Control, and the U.S. Forest Services. He worked 3 summers as crew forman, 2 summers as assistant camp boss, and the last summer as camp boss. His wage began at 85 dollars/month plus board and increased to 90 dollars/month plus board. His pay as camp boss was based on a salary of 2,000 a year, which suggests about 166 dollars/month. At the end of all summers but one he left his job "To attend U. of Ida." In 1932 he left because "work ended" -- suggesting that he did not attend college the next academic year.
  4. 1932 June-September   WBW Crew forman, blister rust control
  5. 1933 July-September   WBW Crew forman, blister rust control
  6. 1933-1935   WBW B.A. degree
  7. 1934 June-September   WBW Assistant camp boss, blister rust control
  8. 1935 June-September   WBW Assistant camp boss, blister rust control
  9. 1935-1937   WBW LL.B. degree
  10. 1936 June-September   WBW Camp boss, blister rust control
  11. 1937   WBW Passed Idaho Bar exam.
  12. 1937   WBW Employed by Samuel F. Swayne, Clearwater County Prosecutor, officed in Orofino, the county seat, to serve as deputy prosecutor, partly officed in Pierce.

Top  

1937-1942 San Francisco

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

WBW, LOH -- Marriage, Piedmont, Kirkham, birth of Billy

WBW -- Law clerk for Judge Healy

LOW -- College, housewife, mother

  1. 16 September 1937   WBW Began appointment as law clerk to Judge William Healy at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Appointment continued for nearly 5 years. His starting salary was $2,300 and his final salary was $2,600 per year.
  2. 1 June 1938   William Bascom Wetherall and Louida Orene Hardman marry in San Francisco. They began residing at 60 Central Avenue in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.
  3. 1939   WBW Passed California Bar exam.
  4. 1 September 1939   Germany invades Poland, which marks the start of World War II in the European theater.
  5. 27 August 1940   WBW Letter from Everett E. Hunt, Attorney at Law, Sandpoint, Idaho, to William B. Wetherall, c/o William Healy, U.S. Circuit Judge, Boise, Idaho -- acknowledges WBW's letter of 24 August 1940, fondly remembers WBW, and looks forward to meeting him when he is "up this way" in September.
    1. Sandpoint sits on the northwest reach of Lake Pend Oreille [pon duh ray] in the upper reaches of the panhandle that characterizes northern Idaho. Lake Coeur d'Alene [core duh lane] sits south of Lake Pend Oreille. The city of Coeur d'Alene sits on the northern shores of Lake Coeur d'Alene and St. Maries sits on the Joe River near where it spills into the south of Lake Coeur d'Alene. The Coeur d'Alene area is immediately east of Spokane in Washington. WBW was partly raised in St. Maries and lived there while going to college in Moscow to the south. Relatives in St. Maries moved to Coeur d'Alene and Spokane and other parts of Washington. Boise sits in the southwest of Idaho, hence "up this way".
  6. 25 September 1940   WBW Letter to Judge Everett E. Hunt, William B. Wetherall, in Boise, thanks Hunt for the hospitality he extended "Bug and I", and expresses his feelings that perhaps there would not be enough legal business in the Sand Point area for him to uphold "my end of the bargain" -- alluding to a partnership apparently proposed by Hunt. WBW asks Hunt to allow him to put off his decision for a while, but that should he decide in favor of moving to Sand Point, he would be available from November. WBW says that he had been exploring opportunities in California, and did not know about the opening with Hunt until arriving in Boise.
    1. The letter in WBW's files is a draft, half typescript, half manuscript, with corrections. In the letter he actually sent Hunt, WBW very likely conveyed his decision not to join Hunt on account of not feeling that there was enough business.
    2. "Bug" is WBW's wife Orene, my mother. Since she was about 3 months pregnant with me at the time, I also made the trip to Boise and Sandpoint.
  7. 30 September 1940   WBW Letter to WBW from Hunt acknowledges WBW's letter of 25 September, regretting his decision, saying he felt "the business is here if one really hits the ball" but adding that "Naturally . . . one need not expect to get rich out of the practice of law in any small town. Hunt wished WBW the best of luck finding satisfactory work in California. "Like so many other things, we cannot know what the results will be until we have given the matter a trial."
  8. December 1940   WBW Salary as clerk at Ninth Circuit Court increased from $2,400 to $2,600 per year.
  9. 23 March 1941   LOW Gives birth to the 1st of 3 children, a boy (Billy).
  10. 4 December 1941   A letter from Bert Emory Haney (1879-1943), a judge on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Ninth Judicial Circuit, San Francisco, to Judge Ewin L. Davis, a member of the Federal Trade Commission in Washington, D.C., relates that William B. Wetherall, a clerk for one of Haney's associates, Judge William Healy, asked him (Haney) to forward his (WBW's) letter of application for a Federal Trade Commission position, as someone who knows his (WBW's) work at the Ninth Jucidial Circuit court. Haney recommended WBW, saying "He has a good background, a good education, he is reliable, trustworthy and ambitious."
    1. Haney was only a couple of years older than Healy but had been a judge at the circuit court a couple of years longer. Why WBW asked Haney rather than Healy to forward his letter to Davis is suggested at the end of the letter, where Haney writes as though he had personally known Davis in the past.
  11. 7 December 1941   Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, which marks the start of the Pacific War in the Pacific theater of World War II. WBW was living at 5 Piedmont in Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. This writer was 8 months and 2 weeks old.
  12. 19 December 1941   WBW In a letter from Commissioner Davis to Judge Haney, Davis says he had read the letter to his "colleagues in session" and all were agreeable to an appointment for WBW. However, present circumstances made an appointment impossible, because recently the Civil Service Commission had made it clear that the Trade Commission could not make further legal appointments. Davis said he has asked the Civil Service Commission to "mail Mr. Wetherall announcements of any legal examinations that are called, and suggest that he take the examination and get on the eligible register so that he would eligible for appointment."
    1. The letters dated 4 and 19 December 1941 straddle Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941 Hawaii and East Coast.
  13. 14 January 1942   WBW A letter to "William Wetherell" [sic], c/o Judge Healy, from Tom C. Clark, Chief, West Coast Office, Department of Justice, signed by James E. Harrington, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, acknowledges that he, Clark, has been advised by Charles Burdell, in charge of the Seattle office [of the West Coast Office], has he, Wetherall, is interested in securing a position in the Antitrust Division [of the Department of Justice]. Enclosed are 3 application forms.
  14. 17 January 1942   WBW The first of 2 similarly typed application forms found in WBW's files suggests that he immediately completed the forms sent with the 14 January 1942 letter. His address then was 5 Piedmont St., Apt. 4 in San Francisco. He is living there with his wife and son (me). His home phone number was UNderhill 6684.
    1. The application lists WBW's uncle-in-law "Clifford M. Ure, 335 9th St., St. Maries, mail carrier" as a relative then in government service. Ure's wife was Almeda Jane Baldwin, an older sister of WBW's mother, Ida Mae Baldwin. WBW was raised when a small boy by his Baldwin grandparents and aunts in St. Maries. And he stayed with the Ures while attending college in Moscow.
    2. WBW gives his father's name as "William R. Wetherall" birthplace "Knoxville, Iowa". His mother's maiden name is "Ida Mae Baldwin" but her place of birth is blank. Apparently he did not then know, or had forgotten, that the Baldwins were from Kentucky.
  15. 9 June 1942   WBW Letter (copy on file) with application and personal history statement (copies not found) to Office of Price Administration Regional Attorney Ben C. Duniway regarding an opening at OPA. He had met Duniway in an interview sometime in the past, when there were no openings, but had recently noted that OPA was expanding.
  16. 30 July 1942   WBW Letter from WBW to M. Mitchell Bourquin, Lands Division, Department of Justice, enclosing application for position of special attorney in the division.
  17. 27 August 1942 (Thursday)   WBW Plans to leave San Francisco for Portland on this date, arrive in Portland the following day (Friday, 28 August), and call at the office of George Black & Company on Saturday (29 August) -- according to a 21 August 1942 letter to Harvey N. Black of George Black & Company, Auditors and Counsellors, his news employers in Portland.
  18. 1 September 1942   WBW Officially leaves position as law clerk to Judge William Healy at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco, "to take a position in a private firm" -- according to a 16 August 1942 letter from Healy to Henry P. Chandler, Director, Administrative Office of the United States Courts, Supreme Court Building, Washington, requesting that, if possible, WBW be paid 26 days of accumulated unused annual leave in the form of salary.
    1. 9 October 1942   WBW Carried on payroll of Ninth Circuit Court through this date, which reflects 28 days of unused leave paid as salary, according to 1 September 1942 letter from Chandler to Healy, forwarded to WBW in Portland by Healy's secretary Edna with a memo. Chandler wrote that WBW should submit his letter of resignation effective on this date. Edna wrote that, if he intended to address the letter to the court, he should send it to the court's Seattle address.

Top  

1942 Portland, San Francisco

George Black & Company, Auditors and Counsellors

WBW-LOW -- Separated by WBW's work, birth of Jerry

WBW -- Portland, attorney

LOW -- San Francisco, Kirkham, housewife, mother

  1. 1 September 1942   WBW Begins employment in association with Harvey N. Black of George Black & Company, Auditors and Tax Counsellors, in Portland, Oregon. His salary is $3,000 per year.
  2. 11 September 1942   LOW Gives birth to the 2nd of 3 children, a boy (Jerry).
  3. 10 November 1942   LOW/WBW Telegram from "Bug" sent from Women's Athletic Club in San Francisco to "William Wetherall" at George Black and Co. in Portland reporting that she had RECEIVED APPLICATION CALL MRS CATHERINE GEHRELS AT REGIONAL OPA OFFICE CONCERNING OPENING IN ENFORCEMENT DIVISION 3200 PER ANNUM. The following message, in WBW's hand, is written on the back of the telegram.
    1. "Your Offer Position Enforcement Attorney $3200 San Francisco Accepted. Will Remain in Portland Until Notified When to Report for Duty."
  4. 17 November 1942   WBW Telegram from BEN C DUNIWAY REG ATY OPA SAN FRANCISCO to WBW c/o George Black & Co. in Portland offering POSITION ENFORCEMENT ATTORNEY, REGIONAL OFFICE, SAN FRANCISCO $3200 SUBJECT TO APPROVAL OF GENERAL COUNSEL AND BOARD OF LEGAL EXAMINERS.
  5. 18 November 1942   WBW A letter from Ben C. Duniway at Office of Price Administration aknowledges a wire of same date from WBW accepting the offered position. The letter states that his application is en route to Washington for review by the Board of Legal Examiners. This may take 10 days. In the meantime, WBW is to complete other forms required for employment, and be ready to begin work when the office is able to officially employ him.

Top  

1942-1947 San Francisco

Office of Price Administration (OPA)

WBW-LOW -- Kirkham, 24th Avenue, birth of Mary Ellen

WBW -- OPA enforcement attorney

LOW -- Housewife, mother, volunteer

The Office of Price Administration (OPA) regulated prices and rents during World War II (1939-1945) and for a couple of years after the war, in order to prevent inflation. On 29 May 1940, President Roosevelt established the Council of National Defense Advisory Commission to study the impact of the outbreak of the war in Europe on 1 September 1939. The commission included a Price Stabilization Division and a Consumer Protection Division to deal with issues like inflation and rent control. On 11 April 1941, these divisions were consolidated as the Office of Price Administration and Civilian Supply (OPACS) within the Office for Emergency Management. By 8 December 1941, when the United States declared war on Japan, Germany, and Italy, the civil supply functions of OPACS had been transferred to the Office of Production Management, leaving just the OPA. Under the Emergency Price Control Act of 30 January 1942, the OPA became an independent agency with the authority to impose ceilings on the prices of all commodities except agricultural products.

The OPA was controversial among profit seekers, and there were movements to limit its powers if not close the agency even before the war ended on 2 September 1945. But it was popular among consumers, and each year it was renewed. After the war, however, its popularity declined, and its authorization was allowed to expire in June 1946. Prices and rents immediately jumped, and inflation was so rampant that by late July the agency was partially reactivated for another fiscal year. By the end of 1946, though, most of its operations were transferred to other agencies and most of its offices had closed.

The OPA was formally abolished on 29 May 1947 under the General Liquidation Order of 14 March 1947. Unsettled matters were transitioned through the Office of Temporary Controls or directly taken over by other agencies. Effective 1 June 1947, on-going litigation concerning price violations had been transferred to the Department of Justice.

  1. 1 December 1942   WBW Date of "Oath of Office" according to an "Executive Office of the President, Office for Emergency Management, Advice of Personnel Action" form dated 30 November 1942. Position described as Office of Price Administration, S.F. Regional Office, Legal section, Enforcement unit, Headquarters San Francisco, California, Region VIII, Field.
  2. 15 May 1943   WBW Receives "Excellent" efficienty rating and "Satisfactory" conduct report for 1 August 1942 to 31 March 1943 period.
    1. Undated "Office for Emergency Mangagement Position Description" application form shows William B. Wetherall as an "Enforcement Attorney" in the "Apparel and Industrial Materials Unit" of the "Enforcement Section" o f the "Legal Division" of the "Office of Price Administration". His grade is "P-3" and his salary is "$3,200". In the description of his duties, he describes himself as the "Chief" of unit for the San Francisco regional office.
  3. 1 July 1943   WBW "Advice of Personnel Action" dated 1 July 1943, concerning "Reallocation / Transfer" of William B. Wetherall, shows grade and salary increase to P-4 $3800 per annum, and assignment to "Apparel & Industrial Material" unit.
  4. 9 December 1943   WBW "Advice of Personnel Action" dated 3 December 1943, concerning "Reallocation / Transfer" of William B. Wetherall, shows grade and salary increase to P-5 $4600 per annum.
  5. 24 April 1944   WBW "Advice of Personnel Action" dated 31 March 1944, concerning "Transfer and Promotion" of William B. Wetherall, shows grade and salary increase to P-6 $5600 per annum, and assignment to "Food" unit.
  6. 30 June 1944   WBW Receives "Excellent" efficiency rating for 1 April 1943 to 31 March 1944 period. He is described as an "Enforcement Attorney, P-5, $4600" in "OPA, Enforcement".
    1. 4 July 1944   WBW Memo to George Regan, Regional Personnel officer, from William B. Wetherall, Chief Food Enforcement Section, regarding his 1 April 1943 to 31 March 1944 efficiency rating, which was attached to the memo, in which WBW requests that "For personal reasons it is respectfully requested that the rating therein granted be reduced to the next lower Civil Service rating" and states that his immediate superior has consented to the request.
    2. 7 July 1944   Confidential memorandum to WBW acknowledged receipt of his 4 July memo requesting reduction in effeciency rating from "Excellent" to "Very Good", but said that the rating reports had already been submitted to the National office and the Civil Service Commission, and advised that "we are unable to comply with your request unless you wish to put it on a formal appeal basis." The efficient rating report which WBW had attached to his 4 July memo was returned to him for his records.
    3. The "personal reasons" are not known, and presumably WBW did not formally appeal.
  7. 24 April 1944   WBW Receives periodic pay increase to P-910-6 $6440 per annum according to 21 April 1947 ammendment to record.
  8. 24 January 1945   LOW Gives birth to the 3rd of 3 children, a girl (Mary Ellen).
  9. 5 July 1945   WBW Receives "Excellent" efficiency rating for 1 April 1944 to 31 March 1945 period. He is described as an "Enforcement Attorney P-6" in "OPA Enforcement Division Food".
  10. 2 September 1945 (Tokyo time)   Japan formally surrenders to the Allied Powers aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, ending the Pacific War and World War II. This writer was 4 years, 5 months, and 10 days old. The Pacific War (and America's participation in World War II) had lasted 3 years, 8 months, and 25 days.
  11. Circa November 1945   WBW Penciled the following poem on sheets of rulled note paper. The poem runs 10 stanzas in common "ballad metre" -- 4 lines per stanza, consisting of 2 rhyming sets of a line of iambic tetrameter with a line of iambic trimeter.
    1. WBW probably read the poem at a send-off party for its protagonist -- "Jane Sue" -- apparently a popular OPA colleague.
      Its playful lyrics are full of clues which aided this writer in establishing her identity.

Not long ago there came to us
A gal both bright and fair
To help us in our holy war
And save us from despair

With eager eye and boundless zeal
She rushed into the fray
A Joan of Arc with super spark
Her powers to display

Fresh as the fruit with which she dealt
and sweet as sugar, too (Note 1)
Her mind was sharp as any sword
Her heart was ever true

Full many a day (Note 2) she roamed the field
And held the battle line
Full many a day she stole away
To tend to her grapevine

Among the vanquished were such foes
As Flotill and Cal-Pak (Note 3)
And chiselers who came to scoff
Slunk home to pray and quake

And as we mix our metaphors
And kick around the Muse
Old Father Time is shuffling
And burning out his fuse

Fast comes the day when our fair lass' (sic)
Must leave this troubled scene
To seek another holy grail
To seek more pastures green

With silver lance and Phi Bet' key (Note 4)
She soon will leave the fold
She soon will leave the OPA
Yes, now it can be told

Our own Jane Sue (Note 5) is leaving us
For us it will be a trial
In old St. Louis will she dwell
In comfort, southern style (Note 6)

And as she goes, she takes with her
From us this fondest wish
May life's liquer (sic) (Note 6) to her insue
And all her days be blessed.

Jane Sue Laflin

Jane Sue Laflin was born Jane Sue Abernethy in Seattle in King County, Washington, on 16 May 1918. She graduated from the University of Washington School of Law, worked in the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, then for the Office of Price Administration, before establishing a private practice in Clayton in St. Louis County, Missouri.

Jane Sue married Oklahoma-born James Clarence Laflin on 23 October 1943 in Seattle. James, who had studied business and law in college, was an FBI agent at the time they married. According to his obituary, he resigned from the FBI in November 1945 to become the vice president of Southern Comfort, a famous liqueur, in St. Louis.

Jane Sue died in Clayton on 13 May 1956 of encephalitis, leaving 6 children. Two years later, James married Missouri-born Rita Ann Boland (1920–1992), who raised Jane Sue's younger children. After Rita's death, James married Missouri-born Mary Elizabeth (Hoffmeister) Kearns (1918-2015), who survived him by 7 years. James, Jane Sue, and Rita share a headstone at Calvary Cemetery and Mausoleum in Saint Louis.

Laflin headstone Laflin family headstone
Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, Missouri
Photograph by karen copped from
Find a Grave

Notes

  1. "the fruit with which she dealt" and "sugar" probably allude to OPA-regulated foods. Fruit was canned, and canneries used lots of sugar.
  2. "full many" and even "full many a day" sprinkle Engish literature from Chaucer (16 century) to Shakespeare (16th-17th centuries) and Emily Dickerson (19th century). To someone of my father's generation, whose 1920-1930 educations included large doses of older English literature, "full many a day" would have had a more familiar ring to him than it did to me. It would come to him spontaneously, and he wouldn't have thought twice about using it, knowing that his colleagues would recognize and appreciate his nod to bygone poets.
  3. Flotill and Cal-Pak were canneries, which fell under OPA's food unit. Cal-Pak (California Packing Corporation) became part of Del Monte.
  4. "Phi-Bet' key" refers to a "Phi Beta Kappa key", which is given members of ΦΒΚ, a collegiate Greek-letter honor society, in reconition of their academic achievement. ΦΒΚ means "Philosophia Biou Kybernētēs" or "Love of wisdom is the helmsman of life".
  5. "Jane Sue" refers to Jane Sue (Abernethy) Laflin (1918-1956), an OPA Regional Food Enforcement Attorney (see right).
  6. "live in comfort, southern style" and "life's liqueur" are allusions to the job awaiting Jane Sue's husband in St. Louis in late 1945 -- hence her leaving OPA (see right).
  1. Spring 1946   Cecil Poole (1913-1997), shortly after his release from the Army on 24 December 1945, joins the San Francisco Regional Office of OPA as the Chief of its Regional Appellate Division. See Cecil Poole (below for details.
  2. 15 May 1946   WBW Receives "Excellent" efficiency rating for 1 April 1945 to 31 March 1946 period. He is described as an "Chief, Reg. Food P-6" in OPA, Revion VIII, Regional Office, Enforcement Division, Sam [sic] Francisco, Calif."
  3. 28 July 1946   WBW "Advice of Personnel Action" dated 16 July 1946, concerning "Transfer and Reassignment" of William B. Wetherall, shows grade and salary increase to P-910-6 $7341.60 p.a., and reassignment from "Food" to "Litigation" unit.
  4. 24 April 1947   WBW Receives "Excellent" efficiency rating for 1 April 1946 to 31 March 1947 period. He is described as an "Regional Litigation Attorney, P-6", in "OTC-OPA, Regional, Enforcement, Litigation".
    1. "OTC" refers to "Office of Temporary Controls", an agency created to phase out the Office of Price Administration. OPA was authorized to exist until 30 June 1947, but by then most of its tasks and regulatory authority had been transfered to OTC. Judging from my father's position description on this rating report, some OPA officials doubled as OTC officials.
  5. 4 May 1947   WBW "Advice of Personnel Action" issued by "OEM Office of Temporary Controls" dated 21 April 1947, concerning "Periodic Pay Increase" of William B. Wetherall, shows grade and salary increase to P-910-6 $7681 per annum, and assignment to "Food" unit.
    1. The dates shown here reflect an ammendment of a similar OEM-OTC periodic pay increase memo dated 9 April 1947 effective 11 May 1947. The ammendment shows an earlier interrim pay increase granted on 24 April 1945, which apparently had not been reflected in earlier .
  6. 31 May 1947   WBA Separated from the OPA as of the end of May, pursuant to a notifiction form dated 1 May 1947 from the "Office of Temporary Controls / Office of Price Adminsitration / Regional Office / 47 Kearny Street / San Francisco 8, California", which began as follows.

Because of impending liquidation of OPA and the transfer of its remaining functions to other agencies, we are forced to curtail staff. We have ranked employees on the basis of the reduction of forces regulations of the Civil Service Commission and find that we must give you this notice of separation from OPA effective May 31, 1947.

Top  

1947-1955 San Francisco

Malone & Sullivan

WBW-LOW -- 24th Avenue, 33rd Avenue

WBW -- Attorney in San Francisco law firm

LOW -- Housewife, mother, volunteer

  1. 1947   WBW Employed by Malone & Sullivan, a San Francisco Law firm.

To be continued.

Top  

1955-1957 Grass Valley

Berliner & Wetherall

WBW-LOW -- Grass Valley, Silver Way

WBW -- Partner in Nevada City law firm

LOW -- Housewife, mother, volunteer

Grass Valley and Nevada City

  1. 1955   WBW Formed Berliner and Wetherall partnership with Harold Berliner in Nevada City, California. Moved family from San Francisco to neighboring Grass Valley.

To be continued.

Top  

1957-2013 Grass Valley

William B. Wetherall, Attorney at Law

WBW-LOW -- Grass Valley, Silver Way

WBW -- Private practice in Nevada City

LOW -- Housewife, mother, volunteer

  1. 1957   WBW Purchased Berliner's half of partnership and went solo as William B. Wetherall, Attorney at Law, when Berliner left partnership to assume full-time position as Nevada County District Attorney.
  2. 2000   WBW Left Nevada City office to practice out of Grass Valley home.
  3. 9 August 2003   Louida Orene Wetherall dies at her home in Grass Valley, Nevada county, California.
  4. 19 June 2013   William Bascom Wetherall dies in the home of Candace Hanson and Jerry Hodkins in Nevada City, Nevada County, California, where he had been residing in their care.

To be continued.

Top  

Progenitors

Big Bang   No signs of Wetheralls or Hardmans. They probably slept through it.

Genesis   Present-day Wetherall-Hardman descendants bear some resemblance to early anthropoid primates, but physical anthropologists have given up hope of finding missing links.

The Flood   Two apes who didn't make the cut sneak aboard the Ark under Noah's nose just as the rising waters lift it off the chock blocks and wash away the gangplanks. Years of practice passing as humans begin to bear forbidden fruit.

Columbus   A lot of people had been living in the Americas, descendants of people who migrated from other continents long before the Americas came to be known as such among European explorers and adventurers. The geographical roots of most of those in the north go back to ancient migrations across land bridges that once connected present-day Siberia and Alaska. Some of those in the south originated from early Pacific migrations. A few Africans and East Asians also appear to have drifted to the Americas before Norseman, Iberians, and other Europeans stumbled upon its shores.

Colonialists   After Columbus and others like him, waves of Europeans came, saw, and conquered -- and colonialized and settled in -- what was to them the "New World". There is no evidence that any Wetherall-Hardman ancestors arrived aboard the Mayflower or another renowned ship. But arrive they did, and most likely they didn't swim or fly, or just pop out of the bushes. Conspiracists contend that at least one of the seemingly witless among the ancestors of the Wetherall-Hardman family not unwittingly carried the simian genes of post-diluvium Wetherall or Hardman progenitors to what became North America by stowing away on a pirate ship that wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland.

Slaves   Chattel slaves, bought and sold and otherwise treated as personal possessions, were brought in substantial numbers to most of the colonies, mainly from Africa. Long before the founding of the United States in 1776, slaves had become an integral part of the plantation economies of most of the colonies that became the original 13 Union states. There is no evidence, yet, of slavers among Wetherall-Hardman ancestors. But in the direct Wetherall ancestral line, the Baldwin-Howard family of Virginia had social and economic relationships with local slave-owning families during the years leading up to the Civil War and the early years of the war (see Slavery in Lee County on Baldwin-Steele page). And William E. Wetherall may have been related to slave-holding Wetherall families in Maryland (see Slaveholding We(a)theral(l)s in Harford County, Maryland).

Indians   There is no documentary or DNA evidence of nominally "Native Amerian" (indigenous, before-Columbus) blood in the Wetherall-Hardman family. And to the best of my knowledge, stories of Native American ancestors in close collateral lines are refutable for lack of objective evidence. However, my mother and her closest relatives grew up in families that had homesteaded on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho after it was opened to settlers in 1895. Her parents and relatives, and she herself, had economic and social relationships with Nez Perce people during the early 20th century when survivors of the Nez Perce War of 1876 were still alive. And my maternal grandmother, Ullie Hardman, was active in historical society activities with Nez Perce representatives at the time of Idaho's centennial in 1963. See the Hardman-Gallaher, Hunter-Thomas, and Hardman-Hunter family pages. See also the Nez Perce page, and Cherokee blood on the Baldwin-Steele page.

The origins of the many ancestors of William Bascom Wetherall (WBW) and Louida Orene Hardman (LOH) of the "Wetherall-Hardman" family remain obscure. The names Wetherall and Hardman have English and German roots, but they represent only two of the myriad families that form just one of the myriad pyramids of families that link all humankind.

The top 4 generations alone of the Wetherall-Hardman pyramid involves 15 families resulting from unions between 16 lines.

  1. Wetherall-Hardman (1 family, 2 lines)
  2. Wetherall-Baldwin, Hardman-Hunter (2 families, 4 lines)
  3. Wetherall-Beaman, Baldwin-Steele, Hardman-Gallaher, Hunter-Thomas (4 families, 8 lines)
  4. Wetherall-Hall, Beaman-Shoemaker, Baldwin-Howard, Steele-Grubb, Hardman-Calvert, Gallaher-Kees, Hunter-Ellis, Thomas-Forbes (8 families, 16 lines)

Every generation back doubles the number of families on whose shoulders later generations stand.

Top  

Beginnings

1911-03-23   Ida Mae (Baldwin) Wetherall -- expecting her first child any day -- sends a postcard from Ames, Iowa to her oldest sister, Sadie (Baldwin) Williams, who is working at a hospital -- probably the local insane asylum -- in Medical Lake, Washington.

Card from Ida to Sadie Card from Ida to Sadie

The card is signed "Wm. & Ida" but appears to be in Ida's hand, which falls off to the right. "Mother is here" seems to mean that Martha Ellen (Steele) Baldwin, Ida's and Sadie's mother, has come to Ames from St. Maries, Idaho to assist in the birth of Ida's first child.

1911-03-25   "William Bascum Wetherall is born in Ames, Iowa, the first son and only child of William Riley Wetherall (1890-1936) and Ida Mae (Baldwin) Wetherall (1890-1923). His father may have printed his birth announcement cards.

Ames   Bill told this writer (his son WOW) in April 2010 that he thought he might actually have been born in Des Moines but a number of documents suggest otherwise. Correspondence from his mother to her sister two days before his birth was postmarked "Ames, Iowa". His birth certificate, birth announcement card, and his children's birth certificates also state "Ames, Iowa".

Birth announcement Birth announcement Birth announcement

Ames   In 2010, Bill had in his possession several copies of the above birth announcement card and envolope. Curiously, the face of one of the envelopes, though unstamped, was addressed in Ida's hand to "Mr. and Mrs. N. B. Baldwin / St Maries / Idaho / Box #52".

Bascum   Bill's birth certificate, like his birth announcement card, states that his middle name was "Bascum" and not "Bascom" -- which crept into use later in life. He was unable to explain when or how the change in spelling came about. His "Bascum" namesake was his maternal grandfather, N. B. Baldwin, aka as N. Bascum Baldwin, or just B. Baldwin, but more fully Newton Bascum Baldwin. In 2010, Bill gave N. B. Baldwin's first name as "Nathanial" rather than Newton.

1911   When Bill is 6 months old, his parents move from Ames to St. Maries, Idaho, where Ida's parents at least one of her older sisters are living. All three sisters would play a part in his upbringing, and Sadie and her children, who were about his age, would remain his closest relative from the Baldwin family.

Bill's parents Bill and parents Bill in easy chair

William Riley Wetherall (1890-1836) and Ida Mae Baldwin (1890-1923) marry in Seward, Nebraska on 1 June 1910
WBW (1911-2013) around 6-months old, in the of fall 1911, in arms of parents
WBW about 6-months old in easy chair

1911 Fall   Sometime during the fall of 1911 Bill's mother is admitted to an asylum for the insane in Clarinda, Iowa (testimony in an interview on 8 March 2011 recorded at his Grass Valley home by Gregg Schiffner).

1911-1912   When Bill was around 8 months, his father took him to St. Maries to live with his maternal grandparents, and his mother was transferred to an asylum at Orofino, Idaho. She would remain there until her death in 1923.

Bill said in 2010 that his father took them to St. Maries when he was about 6 months old and that she was committed to the Orofino Asylum when he was about 8 months old. The recollection of detail like "Clarinda" in 2011 makes it the more likely place where she was first hospitalized.

Bill said, in a story he told his family for the first time around 2000, that his mother was committed to an asylum in Orofino not long after he was born. In 2010, he said his parents had moved to St. Maries from Ames when he was 6 months old, probably because of her mental condition, and that she was commited when he was about 8 months old, at the end of 1911 or the beginning of 1912. However, the 1914-15 public directory for St. Maries shows Wetherall William R (Ida M), printer St Maries Gazette, St Maries, while the 1916-1917 directory shows Wetherell [sic = Wetherall] William R (Ida M), printer St Maries Gazette, St Maries. These directory entries imply Ida M. was William R.'s wife, and suggest that either she was living with him then, or he was socially posturing as though she was living there.

North Idaho Asylum   What Bill called the "Orofino Asylum" appears to have been the popular name of what was more formally the North Idaho Asylum. The asylum was built in 1905 on the outskirts of Orofino because the state's asylum at Blackfoot was full.

John W. Givens   North Idaho Asylum was set up and operated by Dr. John W. Givens, who had previously worked at an asylum in Oregon and at the Blackfoot asylum in Idaho. Givens was Idaho's 73rd licensed doctor and its 1st licensed "alienest" -- as psychiatrists were then called. He ran the Orofino institution for 20 years, which included the entire period that Bill's mother was a patient there. He was born in 1854 in Placerville, California, where his parents had migrated from Illinois during the earliest years of the Gold Rush, though he would be raised in Oregon.

Placerville   Bill would settle in Grass Valley north of Placerville in the heart of California's Mother Lode. Eleanor Theodasia "Theo" (Thomas) Vincent, Orene's slightly younger 1st cousin once removed (her mother's 1st cousin) and her closest relative outside her immediate family, would live with her husband, Hubert Wilton Vincent (1916-2002), in the Mother Lode towns of Auburn and Placerville. And Clara Yang, Bill and Orene's "adopted" daughter, would settle in Placerville and practice law in an office called Motherlode Law -- a name conceived for her by this writer.

Orofino is a 1895 reincarnation of Oro Fino ("fine gold"), a small gold mining camp built in 1861. The town was established on parts of the Nez Perce Reservation that were opened for homesteading in 1895, and remains a very small town today -- about 3,000 people.

Orofino and Peck   Orofino is situated along Orofino Creek at its confluence with the Clearwater river about 10 miles upstream from Peck -- a truly tiny hamlet (about 200 people) just off the river on Big Canyon Road.

Orofino and Bill   Bill's first job as an attorney, after being admitted to the Idaho Bar in 1937, was as an assistant to the public prosecutor in Orofino.

Peck and Orene   Peck was the birthplace in 1913, and later the home, of Orene Hardman, Bill's future wife, who spent the earlier years of her life on a homestead farm on Central Ridge, which is reached from Peck by a steep, rocky, and windy grade. Peck, in Nez Perce County, is about 30 miles upstream from Lewiston, the county seat, oppostie Clarkston in Washingon. at the confluence of the Clearwater and Snake rivers. Orofino is the county seat of Clearwater County. Central Ridge, including Central Ridge Cemetery, where a number of Orene's paternal and maternal ancestors are buried, was originally in Nez Perce County, but since 1915 it has been in Lewis County, the county seat of which is Nezperce.

Place names   The place names come into sharper relief when illuminated by the darker history of the consequences of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of May 1804 to September 1806 on the Nez Perce people. Captain Meriwether Lewis and Second Lieutenant William Clark -- the first Americans of European-descent to trek across the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase (1803) and beyond the continental divide to the northwest coast of the Pacific Ocean -- cut right through the areas where they and the Nez Perce people would be memorialized in numerous local placenames. The explorers were inevitably followed by waves of settlers, who drove the Nez Perce off their original lands, all but destroyed their nation under the leadership of Chief Joseph in the Nez Perce Wars of the 1870s, then proceeded to homestead most of their reservation land.

1912   The earliest surviving pictures of Bill after he was brought to St. Maries, Idaho are the following three snapshots taken on a cold but sunny day on the boardwalk along buildings fronting what is presumed to be the main street of St. Maries. The time of year would have been the winter of early 1912, shortly after Bill arrived at his new home, before he is able to walk.

WBW St. Maries boardwalk

● Four women, one of them pushing William B. Wetherall in a 3-wheeled stroller, are standing on the boardwalk near the entrance of a restaurant and boarding house.
● The large sign spanning the boardwalk behind the women reads IDAHO RESTAURANT / MEALS AT ALL HOURS. The board on the post supporting the sign appears to be a list of BILL FEES for the eatery's offerings.
● The short sign cantilevering over the three women closest to the restaurant reads ROOM / AND BOARD.

The 1910 census shows "Newton B. Baldwin" as a "restaurant keeper" living on First Avenue in St. Maries with his wife and family, and 12 boarders, including an naturalized German immigrant working as a dishwasher at a restaurant. Could "Idaho Restaurant" and the associated boarding house have been his?

WBW St. Maries boardwalk WBW St. Maries boardwalk

The woman holding William B. Wetherall in the vestibule of the general goods store next to the restaurant and boarding house is the woman who was pushing him in the stroller. Who was she? And who were the other three woman?

The Baldwin family in the 1910 census included Ida's parents Newton B. Baldwin (47) and Martha E. Baldwin (46), Baldwin, her 3rd older sister Meda J. Baldwin (21), her 1st older (eldist) sister Sadie E. Williams (26), and Sadies children, Ida's niece Faye M. Williams (3) and nephew Claude J. Williams (2).

To be continued.

PHOTO GALLERY
PORTRAITS
Bill_1913c_2y_150_crop_c.jpg
Bill_1915c_4yr_150_crop_c.jpg
SNAPSHOTS
WBW_1912_1y_potty_980.jpg
WBW_1913c_2y_snow_839.jpg
WBW_1915c_4y_left_dog_girl_1050.jpg

1913-11-21   Louida Orene ("Bug") Hardman is born in Peck, Idaho, the second daughter of Owen Monroe Hardman (1890-1949) and Ullie May Hunter (1891-1980).

"Dear Bro [Owen] & Sister [Ullie] -- Re'cd your card [about Orene's birth] O.K. How is that baby any how? I am just crazy to see her. What color is her eyes & hair? Write & tell me all about her. It wouldn't surprise me if I should happen to land in Peck on the next train. How are you & baby feeling? What does little Ullie [Orene's older sister] think of her? Is Papa [Eva and Ullie's father Albert Douglas Hunter] able to be up and around? Kiss the kids for me. We went to the turkey shoot in Kendrick & Leland Wade [Eva's husband] got 14 turkeys & Uncle Ben 7 I suppose you went to the dedication. did they have a nice time? / Write soon your sis Eva."

Card from Eva to Ullie Card from Ida to Sadie

Eva (Hunter) Keene was living in Kendrick, Idaho when she received a card from Ullie (Hunter) Hardman, her older sister, in nearby Peck. Ullie had announced the birth of a girl, her second child and daughter, on 21 November 1913. Eva's reply is postmarked 28 November.


1913-style instant messaging

The town of Kendrick is up the Potlatch river from its mouth on the north bank of the Clearwater river at Arrow, which is up the Clearwater from Lewiston. Peck village is near the south bank of the Clearwater, upstream from Arrow thus further east of Lewiston.

Kendrick and Peck are about 56 kilometers (35 miles) apart by road, and today you can drive the distance in less than an hour. In 1913, however, the trip was a bit more difficult. Under the best of conditions -- with cooperative weather and horses, a decent buggy, wagon or stage, or perhaps a Model T in good repair, and on-time trains -- it would take two or three hours. Roads were narrow, crooked and rocky, at places treacherous, at times impassible.

Eva would probably have taken a horse-drawn or motorized stage from Kendrick to Arrow, boarded the upriver train from Lewiston, gotten off at Peck Station, and ferried across the Clearwater to the road that led to the village. Later there was a bridge.

Camas Prairie Railroad   In 1899, Northern Pacific Railroad began laying track up the north bank of the Clearwater from Arrow Junction at the mouth of the Potlatch river to Orofino, upstream from Peck, and beyond. By 1909, NP's Clearwater branch line out of Lewiston, and branches off this line, had become part of the Camas Prairie Railroad, which it jointly operated with Union Pacific Railroad. Passenger service on CPRR's Clearwater lines ended in 1955. The lines themselves were discontinued when railroads lost even their freight business to trucking. The Peck station and bridge are now gone.

In 1913, you wouldn't have known the sex of an expected baby until it popped out and its anatomy was visually confirmed. Only then did "it" become a boy or a girl. Today you might also know all manner of genetic traits, and get a forecast of the child's medical history, from prenatal DNA tests.

Today, in the age of instant mobile communication, people now call or text, or snap a high-resolution color photo at fire it off at the speed of light. Or they stream live video of their precious baby to YouTube. Ullie and Eva lived at a time when telephones were still a novelty. A camera was not yet a standard family (much less personal) possession. Even if one was available it took several days to get film developed and printed -- and the monochrome snapshots would probably be a bit fuzzy.

But in 1913, even a tiny village like Peck had a post office, if only part of the local general store. You didn't need a street address or Zip code. And a green 1-cent Franklin would get a postcard to a friend or relative in a nearby town in just a day or two.

Picture postcards   The first decade of the 20th century was the golden age of picture postcards in the United States. The 1-cent postage rate began in 1898. Cards with photographs began in 1899. Photo postcards became especially popular after the introduction of photo paper with a pre-printed postcard back in 1902. The United States permitted the divided-back card with the message and address on the same side, already popular in Europe, in 1907. The start of the World War in 1914 accelerated the decline in the postcard market that had begun in 1909, when the United States imposed tariffs on German and other foreign-printed cards. But in Idaho in 1913, picture postcards were still tantamount to mobile phones, Facebook, and Twitter today.

1914-1915   Orene makes her debut as a professional model.

Orene and Babe Orene in chair Orene in tub

(L) Orene ("Bug") at 10 months old sitting bug-eyed on pelts beside her big sister Ullie ("Babe") at 3 years 6 months old. (M) Orene a bit older practicing yoga on a chair and (R) displaying an early awareness of modesty in a tub.

Top  

Childhoods

1914-05-21   Bill's paternal great-grandfather, William Edwin Wetherall (1834-1914), dies at age 79 in Knoxville, at the home of his son, Bill's paternal grandfather, William Franklin Wetherall.

WEW's walking stick   William E. Wetherall once served in the Iowa state legislature as a representive of Marion County. Among the few mementos of his Iowa family that Bill in his possession in 2010 was a walking stick with the initals WEW carved on the knob. When and how he received what he called a "cane" -- whether from his father or from an Iowa relative -- remains a mystery -- as does its whereabouts now. It was a true heirloom, which Bill had kept in the closet of his Grass Valley home, among his clothes and shoes and ties and other such things that would have thrown out when he empited the house in 2012 in preparation for its sale. "It's just a stick" he (or someone helping him) might have thought at the time.

1915   When Bill is 4 years old, his father, still living in St. Maries, takes him to Knoxville, Iowa to visit his paternal grandparents, William Franklin Wetherall (1858-1929) and Laura Belle (Beaman) Wetherall (b1866, dc1941).

1915-03-25   Bill celebrates his 4th birthday with a party hosted at the Baldwin home in St. Maries, Idaho.

4th birthday celebration 4th birthday celebration

19 children of various ages are gathered here, including Master William Wetherall, standing front and center. He and a number of other children are looking to their right at an adult who is standing in what may be the entrance to the Baldwin home. If a woman she would probably be Bill's maternal Grandma Ellen Baldwin. If a man he could be Bill's father William Riley Wetherall, or his maternal Grandpa N.B. Baldwin, who is "N. Bascum Baldwin" on his tombstone.

The home would appear to be a large one. The 15 April 1910 census shows the Baldwins living on First Avenue in St. Maries, Idaho. Residing there at the time were Bill's paternal grandparents Newton B. Baldwin (head) and Martha E. Baldwin (wife), his aunts Meda J. Baldwin (daughter) and Sadie E. Williams (daughter), his cousins Faye M. Williams (granddaughter) and Claud [sic = Claude] J. Williams (grandson), and 12 boarders, all but one of them men. At the time, N.B. Baldwin was running a restaurant, and one of the boarders was working there as a cook.

The 1916-1917 St. Maries city directory shows N. Bascum and Ellen Baldwin living at 2004 Idaho Avenue.

To be continued.

PHOTO GALLERY
WBW AS CHILD IN ST. MARIES
WBW_1912_1y_potty_980.jpg
WBW_1913c_2y_portrait_1107.jpg
WBW_1913c_2y_snow_839.jpg
WBW_1915c_4y_left_dog_girl_1050.jpg
WBW_1915c_4y_portrait_995.jpg
WBW AS CHILD IN KNOXVILLE
WBW_1917c_6y_Knoxville_left_576.jpg
WBW_1918-1920_Knoxville_cousin_1312.jpg
WBW_1918c_7y_Knoxville_front_797.jpg
WBW_1920s_Knoxville_knickers_cap_819.jpg
WBW_1922-1923_Knoxville_LR_Nellie_Bill_Laura_1212.jpg

Top  

Schooldays

1917-06-05   Bill's father, WRW, registers for the first draft in St. Maries during World War I.

1917 Summer   When Bill is 6 years old, his father takes him to Knoxville and leaves him in care of WFW and Laura Wetherall, his parents and Bill's grandparents, while working as a printer at The Carroll Times in Carroll, Iowa. Bill would live with his Knoxville grandparents for the next 7 years, and complete his education through the 8th grade in Knoxville in 1924.

1917-09-06The Pella Chronicle, published in a town near Knoxville and serving the same Marion county readership, reports that WRW had returned to Knoxville from Carroll, as he had been "called to the colors" and would be leaving for St. Maries, where the article said he had "enlisted" on 5 June. However, Bill said in 2010 that his father had been drafted. And WRW's registration card clearly shows that he was hoping for an exemption on grounds of having a 6-year-old son who was dependent on him for support. He stated on the card that he was married but did not list his wife as a dependant.

1917-10-12 to 1919-03-18   William R. Wetherall serves a 17-month stint in the U.S Army.

WRW served in France but arrived in the war zone in time to witness the start of the armistice in November 1918. According to a headstone application made to the War Department by Nellie in 1938, following his death in 1936, WRW had been a Corporal in Battery "D" of 336 Field Artillery, which was the heavy artillery component of the 162d Field Artillery Brigade of the 87th Infantry Division of the National Army.

1919-03-22   Bill's maternal grandfather Nathanial Bascum Baldwin dies in St. Maries, Idaho. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in St Maries.

1910s-1920s   Orene wore her hair long and curled until she was around 10 years old. Around 1920 the family took her to Lewiston to have her tonsils removed. The January 1920 censuses for St. Maries, Orofino, and Central Ridge in Idaho, and for Knoxville and Des Moines in Iowa, reveal the whereabouts and statuses of Bill, Orene, and their parents.

Orene before and after losing curls

Orene growing curls Orene with curls and tonsils Orene with Fleet

(L) Orene growing curls on Central Ridge ranch (circa mid 1910s). (M) Orene dressed up with her trademark curls (circa 1920). The photo was taken in Lewiston, where the family spent a night so she could have her tonsils removed. (R) Orene on Central Ridge after her curls were cut (circa 1923). The photo is one of several of her and Babe with Fleet, a deer they domesticated on Central Ridge.

Orene getting her hair cut

Orene with curls Orene with curls Orene with curls

Orene around 10 years old with curls at ranch on Central Ridge (circa 1923)
These photos were taken to document the cutting of her hair. The picture on the right shows the curls combed out just before her hair was cut. The girl with bobbed hair sitting on a chair behind her is probably her "Big Sister" Babe. The anthropologist in me should have asked her if the timing of the ritual was related to the onset of menstruation.

1920   The January 1920 censuses for St. Maries, Orofino, and Central Ridge in Idaho, and for Knoxville and Des Moines in Iowa, reveal the whereabouts and statuses of Bill, Orene, and their parents.

Bill and Orene and their parents in 1920 census

William Bascom Wetherall   The 1920 census for Knoxville, Iowa shows "William" [B. Wetherall] (M, W, 8, S) living at 2116 Pleasant St. He is identified as the "grand son" of the head of household "Wm. Wetherel" (sic = Wetherall), referring to William Franklin Wetherall (M, W, 60, M), and his wife Laura (Beaman) Wetherall (F, W, 54, M). The other members of the household are Alice Wetherall (F, W, 17, S), William F.'s and Laura's youngest child and daughter, who William B. called "Aunt Alice", and G. W. [George Washington] Beaman (M, W, 81, Wd), William F.'s father-in-law and Laura's father. William F.'s occupation is "Solictor" (sic = silicitor) of "News Paper Sub" [newspaper subscriptions]. Alice's occupation is "Operator" at "Telephone Of" [office].

William Riley Wetherall   The 1920 census for Des Moines, Iowa shows Wm. R. Wetherall as a roomer living at 1611 13th St. -- male, white, 30, married, born in Iowa to parents born in Iowa, a printer by occupation working in a shop.

Ida Mae Wetherall   The 1920 census for North Idaho Asylum in Orofino, Idaho shows Ida Wetherall as a patient described as female, white, 36 [sic = 30 or 32], single, born in Kentucky of parents born in the United States, a stenographer by occupation. Practically all other female patients are housewives by occupation. The first-listed resident staff member is John W. Givens, male, white, 65, widowed, born in California of parents born in Indiana, a medical superintendent working at a sanitorium.

Divorced?   Bill reported in 2010 that his father had divorced his mother, presumably because she had been declared incompetent for reasons of insanity. He was not sure when or where the divorce was effected. Ida Mae's 1920 census lists her as single, not divorced, while William Riley's 1920 census lists him as married, not divorced.

First marriage?   The 1930 census shows WRW married to Nellie M. (Van Houton). By then they have three of their four children, the first born in 1922, the fourth in 1934. The figures recorded for their respective "Age at first marriage" suggest that they were married around 1921, and that the marriage was both his and her first.

Martha Ellen Baldwin   The 1920 census for St. Maries, Idaho shows Ellen M. (sic = M. Ellen) Baldwin (F, W, 56, Wd) residing with Clifford M. Yre (sic = Ure), head of the household (M, W, 32, M), and his wife, Meda (F, W, 31, M), Ellen's third daughter, and their duaghter, Greta A. (F, W, 7-6/12, S). Clifford was a mail carrier for the post office.

Louida Orene Hardman   The 1920 census for Central Ridge in Idaho shows Orine (sic = Orene) as a daughter (F, W, 6, S) of Owen Hardeman (sic = Hardman) the head of household (M, W, 30, M) and Ollie (sic = Ullie May) his wife (F, W, 29, M). Other members of the household include Ollie (sic = Ullie Adeline), a daughter (F, W, 8, S), and brothers-in-law Louie Hunter (M, W, 17, S) and Orville Hunter (sic = Orval) (M, W, 14, S).

Hunter children   Louie and Orval Hunter were two of Ullie May (Hunter) Hardman's younger brothers in a family of eight surviving children. They, and two other siblings, had been left in the care of older married siblings while their father and mother, Albert Douglas and Ida Frances Hunter, were visiting Missouri, from which they had come to Idaho in 1900. Ida Frances would die from influenza in February, on her way back from Missouri, reportedly in Spokane, the northeast hub of the Northern Pacific Railroad that connected midwest and northwest -- a victim of the second wave of the 1918-1920 flu epidemic which claimed millions of lives worldwide.

1921   Bill's father, William Riley Wetherall, marries Nellie (Van Houton).

Whether and when William R. divorced Ida Mae is unclear. 1920 censuses (see above) show him to be married, her to be single, and Nellie to be single. William R. is a "printer" working at a "shop" and Nellie is a "file clerk" working for a "magazine publisher". Their daughter, Mary Arleen (Wetherall) (Van Ryswyk) Wells, born in 1922, said in 2013 that they had met at the People's Popular Monthly in Des Moines, where he was a typesetter and she was a proofreader. The 1930 census shows them to have been 39 and 31 as of April 1930, but gives 31 and 22 at their ages at first marriage. William B. Wetherall reported only that his father had divorced his mother but was unable to say when.

2 April 1923   Bill's mother, Ida Mae (Baldwin) Wetherall, dies in Orofino, Idaho.

Ida Mae's death certificate states that she was born in 1888. The cause of death was "Arteriosclerosis" (one year) and a contributory cause was "Insanity" (five years). The certificate gives "St. Maries, Idaho" as her "Former or usual residence" and "St. Maries, Ida" as the "Place of burial or removal". In 2010, Bill said he didn't know the particulars of his mother's death and took the position that it didn't matter. As an attorney who did considerable work in probate and inheritance matters, he was totally familiar with the procedures for obtaining copies of vital records, and could easily have done so. He was simply not motivated to know more.

Woodlawn Cemetery   Ida was Buried as "Ida Baldwin Wetherall" in the Baldwin plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in St. Maries, Idaho. Bill resided and at times worked in St. Maries between 1928 and 1937. Whether he visited his mother's grave at the Baldwin plot is unclear. The provenance of the color photograph he had of the plot, which clearly showed his mother's grave, is also unclear.

Memories of mother   Bill said in 2000, and repeated in 2010, that he had only two memories of his mother. One was of seeing her sitting on a swing on the grounds of the asylum. Another was of himself walking ahead of her and Grandma Baldwin on the board walk between the asylum and the town of Orofino. He remembers hearing his mother call "Wait, Willie, I want to walk with you." He told this story at the table after dinner one night in Grass Valley a year or so before Orene's death. He broke down in tears such as we had never seen before.

1924   Bill completes grade school through the 8th grade in Knoxville.

Skips grades   Bill said in 2010 that he had skipped the second half of kindergarten into 1st grade, then skipped part of another grade. By the time he was in the 3rd grade, he had skipped a total of about a year, but because he was a year behind when he started, he was about par for his age, perhaps a little ahead, because he thought he had actually skipped around two grades. Born in March 1911, he would have turned 13 a couple of months before his graduation in the spring of 1924, which would make him among the younger graduates of his class. He seemed to be doing the math in his head while talking.

1924-1928   Bill works on Uncle Charley's farm in Nebraska for 5 summers (6 summers if from 1923), the first following the 8th (7th) grade in Knoxville, the last following his senior year in high school in Des Moines.

Uncle Charley   Uncle Charley was Charley Anstine, the husband of his Aunt Lydie, Ida Mae's second older sister Lydia. The farm was in Utica, Nebraska, a few miles from Seward, where the Anstines lived, in the eastern part of the state close to Iowa. According to Bill's account in his interview with Gregg Schiffner on 8 March 2011, the first summer Uncle Charley came to Knoxville to pick him up, and camped out at the fairgrounds overnight -- "That's what people did in those days." From the next summer Bill went to Nebraska by himself. His uncle always gave him a little money when he went home, and the last three summers he was paid a full 30 dollars a month plus found -- the standard wage for a hired farm hand.

1924-1928   Bill attends East High School in Des Moines and graduates circa 6 June 1928.

Life in Des Moines   During his high school years, Bill lived with his father's new family in Des Moines, where his father was working for People's Popular Monthly.

1925 census   The 1925 Iowa state census shows Wm. R. Wetherall, 36, his wife Nellie, 26, a daughter Mary A., 2, and a son Wm. Wetherall, 13, living at 1308 E 25 Court in Des Moines, in a home valued $2,500 with $2,100 mortgage. The datumm for the census was 1 January, so Warren, who was born on 2 January, isn't listed.

To be coninued.

PHOTO GALLERY OF PIX OF ORENE WETHERALL
Orene_19131128_pc_Ullie_Eva_1_150.jpg
Orene_19131128_pc_Ullie_Eva_1_150.jpg
Orene_192n_por_Bug_300c.jpg
Orene_1931_por_hs_grad_150.jpg
Orene_193n_por_coll_300.jpg
Orene_1934_por_150.jpg
Orene_1938_por_marriage_pro_072.jpg
Orene_1938_por_marriage_sml_072.jpg
Orene_1935c_Yellow_Rose_School_nl.jpg
Orene_Bill_1930s_Moscow_150.jpg

1925   The Wetheralls are almost outed during the Scopes Monkey Trial in Tennessee. Young Bill, reading about the trial in The Des Moines Register, and beginning to dream of becoming a lawyer, writes Clarence Darrow a letter offering himself as living evidence that Darwin was not wrong. Darrow puts Bill on the stand, but no one believes his explanation of the origin of the bananas on the Wetherall family crest, and Scopes is found guilty as charged of violating a Tennessee law proscribing the teaching of human evolution in a state-funded school. No one today believes this story, either.

1928   Bill wins first place in East High's Lincoln Essay Contest for an essay titled "Our Debt to Lincoln". He receives a large bronze Lincoln medal, which later he would used in his office as a paperweight.

The essay was published in the March 1928 issue of The Quill (page 5). A report headlined "Lincoln Esssay [sic] Medal Awarded to William Wetherall" noted that "The Lincoln-Washington Assembly was held on Wednesday, February 22. The Lincoln Essay medal was awarded to William Wetherall, who is Editor-in-Chief of the Quill. His theme was "Our Dept to Lincoln." It also named a number of students who gave speeches, one titled "Crown Our Washington", or related anecdotes about Lincoln. One student gave "A Toast to the Flag" and another sang "Land of Mine" and "on the Sea". All in all, the assembly exemplified the efficiency of patriotic education in the days when American heroes were untarnished by rumors of their human failings.

The Quill was East High's quarterly literary journal. The March 1928 issue of the journal (Volume XXIV, No. 3) states that it was "Published four times a year by the students of East High School, Thirteenth and Maple Sts., Des Moines, Iowa." It was not a cheap mimeograph knockoff, but was printed on glossy paper that accommodated black-and-white photographs and bound in a proper cover. And it was not cheap. "Subscription price, $1.00 a year." William Wetherall had become a member of its editorial staff, and by then had become the Editor-in-Chief.

Top  

College

1928 Summer   Bill works on Uncle Charley's farm after graduation from high school. Bill said in the 8 March 2011 interview that the farm was 360 acres -- "half a section" he added, a section being 640 acres. He said that Charley offered him "a quarter" of the farm or "produce" -- apparently meaning a quarter of the income from the farm, since Charley didn't own the land -- if he would join him on the farm. However, he told his uncle he planned to go to college.

1928 Penn College   After finishing his summer work (or when school was out?) Bill moves into an apartment with a high school friend who had gotten a job maintaining an apartment building for his room rent at Penn College, a Quaker school in Oskaloosa, Iowa (later William Penn College, now William Penn University). Oskaloosa is about 25 miles east of Knoxville.

I worked a week or two, cleaning floors and so on.
"And then I get restless," he said.
Penn College was a nice place, a beautiful building, a good school, and it had lots of advantages. It was close enough to Knoxville that I could get my grandmother, Laura Wetherall, to do my laundry and what not.
"But I didn't want to to school there, I wanted to go back to St. Maries, Idaho. Because I was closer to my mother's folks [than to my father's]."
Even though you'd spent all those years in Iowa, you still felt closer bonds to Idaho?
"[I had] close bonds with my grandmother, Grandma Baldwin."
Did he see her during those years?
"Yes, she came to visit me."

Just as he was about to enroll in Penn College, Bill decides to go west -- "follow the advice of Horace Greely" in his words. Grandma Baldwin was still alive in St. Maries. His Aunt Meda, the yougest of his mother's three older sisters, born two years before her, also lived in St. Maries, where she had married Clifford Ure, a postman, as Bill remarked without hesitation in 2010 when telling this writer about his St. Maries family. His aunt Sadie Williams also still lived in the larger Spokane, Coeur d'Alene, and St. Maries area of eastern Washington and western Idaho, as did Sadie's children, his slightly older cousins Faye and Claude Williams. All would continue to be Bill's closest relatives.

1929   Bill enrolls in the University of Idaho after its proctor visited St. Maries to recruit students and offered Bill a job cleaning his home.

1930   Bill receives a fresh-off-the-press copy of Roget's Thesaurus from his step-mother Nellie in Des Moines.

Enclosed was a note in which Nellie said she knew Bill didn't need it because he already knew all the "nyms" but it might come in handy anyway. The envelop was addressed "William B. Wetherall" and dated "1930" but the note began "Bill" and was signed just "Mom". He would treasure it the rest of his life and give it to his good friend Gregg Schiffner of Nevada City with other favorite books.

c1930s   Orene completes two-year normal school program at University of Idaho and begins teaching at Yellow Rose School, Little Bear Ridge, between Kendrick and Troy in Latah County, Idaho, where she was residing in 1935 (according to 1940 census).

1935   Bill graduates from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, where he met Orene Hardman (1913-2003), his wife to be, and the mother to be of his three children.

1935-1937   Bill attends and graduates from College of Law, University of Idaho.

1935-1936 Summers   Bill works in blister rust control out of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camps in Montana.

Blister rust refers to a fungal disease that damages or kills several varieties of western white (five-needle) pines. The fungus, called Cronartium ribicola, spreads from tree to tree through an intermediate host, mainly currants and gooseberries, or "ribes". Eradication programs involved removal of ribes from around stands of pines, and cutting away infected parts of trees before the fungus could girdle and kill them. The work amounted to a mixture of brush removal and logging.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was created in 1933 as a public work program for unemployed unmarried men of families on relief during the Great Depression. The men, aged 18-25, received food, clothing, and shelter, plus 30 dollars a month, 25 dollars of which they had to send to their families. One of the ten general work categories in the program was "Forest protection: fire prevention, fire pre-suppression, firefighting, insect and disease control". William Wetherall was 25 in 1936. This writer recalls him saying that he sent the money to his Aunt Sadie in St. Maries, who put it aside for his college expenses.

1936-07-04   Bill's father, William Riley Wetherall (born 2 May 1890), dies on Independence Day at age 46.

Bill was working in blister rust control in Montana, out of a camp that was 25 miles from the nearest town, when he heard of his father's death. He didn't go to the funeral, because he didn't have enough money and couldn't afford to miss work, and said he never visited his father's grave. He assumed the grave was in Knoxville but said the family didn't have a family plot. However, a Works Progress Administration (WPA) Graves Registration Survey conducted in the late 1930s records that a William R. Wetherall (1890-1936) was buried at Graceland Cemetery in Knoxville, Marion County, Iowa, and that he had served in the World War. W.R. Wetherall's father, William E. Wetherall (1835-1914), is also buried at Graceland Cemetery. This writer has no recollection of visiting the cemetery when the Wetheralls visited Knoxville in 1957.

Bill's father was survived by Bill's step-mother, Nellie (Van Houton) Wetherall, who his father had married around 1920 or 1921, and four half-siblings -- Mary (13), Warren (11), Helen (8), and Marjorie (2). Nellie would continue to raise the four children in Knoxville. She remarried in 1943 and was widowed again in 1945, by which time Mary had married and had a son, Warren was serving as a Private First Class in Germany, and Helen and Marge were still living with her at their Knoxville home.

1937-08-16   Bill is admitted to the Idaho State Bar on or about 16 August 1937.

Bill received a letter from the Clerk's Office of the Supreme Court of the State of Idaho, postmarked and dated 6 August, to the effect that the court had that day ordered his "admission to the practice of law in the State of Idaho upon the payment of the required fees and taking the oath" -- which was scheduled for 16 August at the Supreme Court in Boise. According to clippings of newspaper reports in Knoxville, Iowa, initated by his paternal grandmother Laura Wetherall, he was among the 4 who passed the exam out of 12 who took it. The envelope containing the notification was addressed to "Mr. William Bascom Wetherall, / ST. MARIES, IDAHO." It was forwarded from St. Maries to "Orofino, Idaho. / c/o Samuel F. Swayne" on 9 August. Swayne was the Prosecuting Attorney of Clearwater County in Orofino, and Bill had been clerking for him.

Admission to Idaho Bar Admission to Idaho Bar

Letter from Clerk's Office at Idaho Supreme Court informing Bill that he had passed the bar exam and could report to the court for official confirmation of his admission to the Idaho Bar. Note his address in St. Maries -- his address of record throughout his college years -- and his new address in Orofino, c/o Samuel Swayne, then the town's (and possibly Clearwater County's) public prosecutor.

1937   Bill's first job as a licensed attorney seems to have been as a clerk to Sam Swayne, then the prosecuting attorney of Clearwater County in Orofino, Idaho. It is not clear the prosecuting attorney's position was full time. Nor is it clear that Bill was officially the "deputy" prosecuting attorney. His own testimony suggests that he was looking forward to being Swayne's junior partner in private practice. In any event, his sojourn in Orofino was very short.

Idaho Bar clipping Idaho Bar clipping

News of Bill's admission to the Idaho Bar, and his job in Orofino, is reported in two Knoxville newspapers in "local boy makes good" briefs. He appears to have informed his grandmother Laura Wetherall of his admission and job, and she informed the local papers. The "late William Wetherall" refers to Bill's father, Laura's son, William Riley Wetherall, who had passed away in 1936, just a year before Bill's graduation from law school and his passing of the bar exam. Someone in Knoxville, perhaps Laura, or possibly Bill's step-mother Nellie, sent him the above clippings, one of them pinned together as shown.

Swayne nationality The Post Register, Idaho Falls
Monday, 16 May 1938, page 1
Copped from www.newspapers.com

Samuel Swayne's nationality problem

By the time this story broke, my father had accepted an appointment as a clerk for William Healy (1881–1962), a federal judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. My mother followed my father to San Francisco in 1938 and they married, thus beginning the California era of their lives, and sealing the fate of their three children, all born in San Francisco, and raised first there and then in Grass Valley, California.

If my father was aware of Swayne's nationality issue, he did not mention it to me, even though he was aware of my interest in the subject. I ran across the article to the right when trying to gather information about Swayne for this history. It delighted me, because nationality issues rank high among my interests.

Swayne's case exemplified the way most nationality laws in the world worked at the time, and the way many nationality laws still operate today. More importantly, though, it dramatized the manner in which educated adults -- even people who are supposed to be familiar with law -- may be unaware of their own nationality, presuming they have a nationality which in fact they don't possess (such as Swayne in Orofino in 1938), or assuming they have lost a nationality which in fact they still hold (such as Renho, a Parliamentarian in Japan in 2016).

As of August 1936, Swayne was the assistant prosecuting attorney at Orofino. I assume he was elected the prosecuting attorney by the time my father was working as his assistant a year later.

Top  

Love letters

1935-1952   Correspondence from my mother to my father, which began during their courtship about the time she began teaching at Yellow Rose School. Nearly 100 of the letters, which span 1935 to 1952, are dated 1935-1937, and many of them touch upon adventures at Yellow Rose School. Here I will introduce a few of the letters that reveal Orene's life at the school, under the title "The confessions of a country school marm" (as she described herself). Some of the situations are hilarious. One her pupils was Mary Thomas, a younger 2nd cousin. Eight decades later, I would share family history data with Niki Thomas, the wife of Mary's son Tom Thomas, who is thus my 3rd cousin. Some of incidents at the school were minor scandals that involved conflicts with students, parents, and even the superintendent's office.

The confessions of a country school marm

Forthcoming.

Top  

San Francisco

1937 Fall   Bill is appointed law clerk to Judge William Healy (1881–1962) of the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth District in San Francisco.

The US Circuit Court of Appeals for the 9th District was established in 1891 with a complement of 2 judges. The number of authorized judges grew to 3, 4, and then in 1935 to 5. Judge Healy was added in 1937 when the complement was increased to 7. Its original jurisdiction was California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and Nevada. The territories of Hawaii and Alaska were added in 1900, and Arizona when it became a state in 1912. The judicial district of Guam was formally added in 1951, after Bill had left the court for private practice.

Judge Healy, born and educated in Iowa, had been practicing law in Boise, Idaho in the early 1930s. As this writer understands the story, Bill, on the recommendation of the dean of the law school, had done some clerking for Healy while a law student, and the dean informed of the opportunity to serve as Healy's clerk when Healy was appointed to the federal court judgeship in San Francisco in 1937. The judge and his young clerk undoubtedly had a lot of stories to swap about both Iowa and Idaho.

1938-06-01Bill and Orene are married at the Trinity [Episcopal] Church in San Francisco.

1939   Bill is admitted to the California Bar

1941-03-23   Bill and Orene's first son, William Owen Wetherall, born at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco.

The family was living at 5 Piedmont Street in the Ashbury Heights neighborhood of San Francisco at time, and was living there when Pearl Harbor was attacked on 7 December 1947.

1942   Bill works for George Black and Company, a Portland accounting firm, for about 6 months during the middle months of the year.

1942-09-11   Bill and Orene's second son, Jerry Alan Wetherall, born at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco.

The family was living at 2244 Kirkham Street in the Sunset District at the time. Bill was still in Portland at the time of Jerry's birth.

1942-10   Bill begins working for the Office of Price Administration (OPA) as a West Coast Regional Litigation Attorney.

While working for the OPA, a federal agency within the Office for Emergency Management, he learned that OPA had mediated with the local draft board to exempt him from military service on the grounds that contribution to OPA's wartime price control mission was vital to the economic war on the domestic front. He continued to work for OPA until its abolishment in 1947.

During this period, Wetherall had an opportunity to work and travel with Cecil F. Poole (1914-1997), who after his discharge from military service in 1946 moved to San Francisco and took a job as an OPA research attorney. During their travels by train, which required overnight stays, Wetherall witnessed how they were treated at hotels which refused Cecil a room because he was black. This aspect of America -- land of the free, home of the brave -- was new to Wetherall, but not Poole, who had grown up with Jim Crowism, and witnessed it during his military service in segregated units. Poole soon became an assistant district attorney in San Francisco, and would later become a U.S. attorney and then a federal judge at the Ninth Circuit U.S. District Court in San Francisco.

The two men kept in touch, and the Poole family visited the Wetheralls at their Grass Valley home. In the living room was a dark brown palm-sized wooden box with a clipping of a newspaper article reporting an incident that occurred in 1958. Some had burned a cross on the lawn of the Poole's home in Ingleside Terraces in San Francisco. Poole had bought the home directly from its owner, though the CC&Rs (covenants, conditions, and restrictions) of the residential park, first developed in the 1910s, forbid colored people. The article quoted Poole as having told his young daughter, who discovered the cross, that "Some Christian has lost his way." Some boys later admitted they had burned the cross as a prank. Years later, while reading the fine print of the CC&Rs of his own home, Wetherall was dismayed to read that Grandview Terrace, when subdivided in the late 1940s, had also disallowed non-white people. The Civil Rights Movement would begin to change such things -- a century after the Civil War.

1945-01-24   Bill and Orene's daughter, Mary Ellen Wetherall, born at St. Mary's Hospital in San Francisco.

The family was living at 1922 24th Avenue in the Sunset District at the time. Their wish for a daughter this time came true.

1947   Bill joins Malone and Sullivan, a San Francisco law firm in the Mills Tower building in downtown San Francisco. The senior partners were William M. Malone and Raymond L. Sullivan. Other attorneys in the firm included Contrad T. Hubner and William J. Dowling, Jr.

William M. Malone (1900–1981), born and educated in San Francisco, was the senior partner in the Malone and Sullivan law firm at Suite 1005 Mills Building, 220 Montgomery Street, which broke up when Sullivan left the firm in 1961 to become a judge. Malone was also an influential local, state, and national Democratic Party leader during the Roosevelt and Truman years, and spent more time as a political boss than as a personal-injury litigator. He participated in the Democratic National Convention in 1940 (Chicago), 1944 (Chicago), 1948 (Philadelphia), 1956 (Chicago), and 1960 (Los Angeles), at which John F. Kennedy became the party nominee for the presidential election. His absense from the 1952 convention (Chicago) came at a time when he resigned his leadership posts in the thick of a scandal that that implicated his own brother and other political (mostly San Francisco Irish) associates, some of them Truman appointees to federal posts, in alleged misdeeds. Their accuser was the congressional Kefauver Committee, led by Tennessee representative Estes Kefauver, who was investigating organized crime. Kefauver would become the Democratic Party's nominee for Adlai Stevenson's running mate in both the 1952 and 1956 presidental elections. Malone's partner, Sullivan, was also a staunch Democrat, and undoubtedly the partners took William B. Wetherall's Democratic pedigree into account when hiring him in 1947.

Raymond L. Sullivan (1907-1999) became an Associate Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division One (1961-1964), the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division One (1964–1966), and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the State of California (1966–1977). His appointment to the California Supreme Court in 1966 was Democratic governor Pat Brown's last (and, for political reasons, somewhat secretive) judicial appointment. After retiring from the bench, Sullivan taught at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco, his birth place and the home of the Malone and Sullivan law firm since the 1930s.

William J. Dowling, Jr., a graduate (like Malone and Sullivan) of the University of San Francisco Law School, left Malone and Sullivan in 1956 for Cooper, White & Cooper, another San Francisco law firm. The Dowlings were Sunset District neighbors and remained friends of the Wetherall family after its move to Grass Valley in 1955. Two Dowling children would settle in Nevada City, Brian Dowling as a middle school teacher, and Sean Dowling as an attorney who would later become a State of California Superior Court, Nevada County judge.

1949   The family moves to 1558 33rd Avenue in the Sunset district, and the children attend nearby Lawton Elementary School.

Until then, Billy and Jerry had been commuting to Notre Dame des Victoires, a French Catholic school in downtown San Francisco, though the family was neither French nor Catholic. They attended NDV because the woman in the bed next to Orene's, in the maternity ward at St. Mary's Hospital, who gave birth to a daughter a couple of days before Billy was born, turned out to live in the same neighborhood on 22nd Avenue, and she was Catholic. It made sense for their children, who grew up as cradlemates and playmates, would go to school together.

Top  

Grass Valley

1955   Bill moves moves the family from San Francisco to Grass Valley in order to join Nevada City attorney Harold Berliner in a partnership -- "Law Offices, Berliner & Wetherall, 232 Broad Street, Nevada City".

Bill saw the move as an opportunity to leave the city he loved for the rural life he loved more. Until then, he always took his family camping during the summers. After the move to Grass Valley, family summer vacations ended.

1958   In the summer of 1958, for the first time since his marriage to Orene, Bill visits Iowa, driving his family there from Grass Valley.

The five members of the Wetherall family stayed with Bill's paternal Aunt Alice and her husband, Wilbert "Bill" Dainty" and their three children, Willard "Will" Duane Dainty (1933-2010), Thayne Dainty (b1940), and David Shiree Dainty (1942-1996). Alice was his father's youngest sister, and she helped raise him when he was living with his grandparents in Knoxville in the late 1910s and early 1920s. Bill met for the first time in perhaps thirty years two of his three half-sisters: Mary Arleen Wells of Carlisle, Iowa, and Helen Ann Morrison (c1928-2002) of Waterloo, Iowa. A half-brother, Warren H. Wetherall (1925-1999), a third half-sister, Marge Thomas, and their mother Nellie, Bill's stepmother, lived in Banning, California. Warren's daughter, Kathleen Anne Wetherall, may still live in California.

1959-1979   Bill serves as City Attorney for Nevada City, a part-time position.

During his tenure, he oversaw the drafting of local historical preservation ordinances -- including Ordiance 338, adopted by the City Countil in 1968 and known as the "Nevada City Historical Ordinance" -- which defined "the Mother Lode type of archiecture" that characterizes Nevada City's "Historical District". Nevada City's ordinances became models for other foothill communities.

1962   The shingle of the 232 Broad Street law offices of Berliner & Wetherall becomes just William B. Wetherall, Attorney at Law.

Bill later moved to the 222 Church Street office (J. F. Siegfried building) immediately across from the Nevada County Courthouse. The sign canterlievering from the building by the entrance read "Wm. B. Wetherall / Attorney at Law". A small sign on the door said "Law Offices". Beyond the front door was a hall with first a door to the secretary's office (which had several chairs for clients), then a door to his office (used as an exit from his office), then a broom closet, and finally a toilet. He would stay in this office until 2000.

Harold Berliner (1923-2010), who had become Nevada County's District Attorney in 1957, left the partnership to assume full-time duties and engage in other activities. During his service as District Attorney, which continued until 1973, Berliner would co-author the famous "Miranda warning" or "Miranda rights" (1968). As the DA and as a private citizen, he would make significant contributions to the improvement of not only county land-use laws, but also to environmental and consumer protection statewide.

1962-1974   Bill serves as a director of the Nevada County Fair Board.

1975-12-03   Bill has the first of two hernia operations he would have in his lifetime.

1983-1988   Bill serves as a director of Music in the Mountains during its formative years.

1985-04-27   Bill receives a letter from the Director of the Selective Service System.

"As a result of a computer check of government files, you have been identified as someone who should be registering with Selective Service. Men born on or after January 1, 1960, must register within 30 days of their 18th birthday. Because of a similarity in names we sometimes send letters like this to men who have already registered. To assist us in correcting our records, please complete the enclosed form as follows."

1994-10   At 11 o'clock in the evening of Saturday, 15 October 1994 Bill agrees to go to the emergency room at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital to find out what was causing a very severe stomach pain with a tender and distended abdomen. Within a few days he would undergo abdominal surgery to remove a cancerous section of his sygmoid colon and direct the descending colon to an ostomy. The staples were removed on Monday, 24 October, and both he and Orene began learning how to live with a colostomy. In a few months he began to feel pain again, but this time it was attributed to attachments. Six months later, half a year ahead of schedule, he underwent a second abdominal operation to reconnect his plumbing, and he would never show signs of metastatis.

1997-01-18   Bill receives the 1996 Elza Kilroy Award from Nevada City Chamber of Commerce for efforts to make Nevada City a better community. The aware recognized in particular his service from 1959 to 1979 as city attorney, during which time the city's historical ordinance was adopted by the city council.

1998-06-24   Black bear sighted on Gold Hill Drive near Wetherall home -- one of many bears sighted Grass Valley and Nevada City that spring and summer.

1998-10-19   Bill receives the Maestro Award from Music in the Mountains in recognition of his support since its formative years.

2000-09   Bill receives a Certificate of Appreciation from Judges of the Nevada County Superior Court for his years of service to the legal community, including his years as Nevada City Attorney. The award was made after he had announced his tentative retirement, though, he would continue to practice law in the city for another two or three years. "I thought we got rid of this guy!"

2000   Bill closes his Church Street office immediately across from the Nevada County Courthouse, but continues practicing law, which by then consisted almost entirely in writing trusts, from the back room of his home in Grass Valley -- "the boys' room" which Billy and Jerry had shared with relatively little territorial feuding and a bunk bed. (His obituary, based on other sources, reported 2003, but he had moved his office to his home around the year 2000.)

2001-04-22   Surprise buffet held for Bill at Christopher's Catering on Colfax Avenue in Grass Valley in celebration of his "first ninety years", which he had reached on 25 March. The party was organized by Mary Ellen and Orene and cards were printed by Judith Berliner. The party was attended by all three Wetherall children and most other family members and some relatives, and by many neighbors and friends. Bill was lured out of the house by an invitation to another event. Orene, a co-conspirator in the surprise for Bill, was the object of another surprise. Standing with Bill in the reception line, she nearly had a heart attack when she spotted Saori and Tsuyoshi walking through the entrance. Clara and Ben had picked them up at the Sacramento International Airport the day before. She later said she thought something was going on, but Bill appeared to have been totally surprised.

Top  

Endings

2003-06-01   Bill and Orene celebrate their 65th wedding anniversary.

2003-07   Orene, who had osteoporosis, and whose general condition had notably weakened in recent years, suffers a stress fracture in her spine when attempting to rise from a chair in the living room.

After a couple of weeks in the hospital -- weary of the treatment, and aware that she was experiencing the sort of slippage she had witnessed in her own mother and others she had nursed after they had suffered geriatric fractures -- Orene resolved to go home and face a more dignified ending. A few days later, as she began to eat less and sleep more, at her request, arrangements were made for Hospice care.

2003-08-09   Orene dies at age 89 in the presence of Bill, and their son Jerry and daughter-in-law Purita, who had come from Honolulu the day before. Mary Ellen, who lived a few minutes away, came shortly later. Billy, in Japan, arrived four days later.

2003-08-21   A simple secular memorial service is held at Hooper and Weaver Morturary in Nevada City. Close neighbors and many local friends, and a couple of relatives from other localities, attend.

Orene Wetherall memorial service

Orene with her family at her memorial service on 21 August 2003. Standing left to right, her first-cousin-once-removed Theo (Thomas) Vincent, daughter-in-law Purita Obispo, son Jerry Alan Wetherall, husband William Bascom Wetherall, daughter Mary Ellen Zweig, son William Owen Wetherall, adopted daughter Clara Yang, and niece Waki (Emerson) Forgey and nephew-in-law Mike Forgey.

Orene Wetherall ashes on altar Orene Wetherall Kahil Gibron poem

Orene's ashes repose in a box covered with her favorite furoshiki, with her wedding portrait and a teacher's hand bell, on a table by the piano in the dinning room of the Wetherall home on Grandview Terrace in Grass Valley. Her eye glasses and a few small things she liked, including a favorite novel, a fountain pen she had used since college, and a Snickers bar, were later placed on the shrine. The African violets were later replaced by a vase that Bill kept full of flowers he picked in the garden or during his walks in the woods.

From "Giving" in Kahil Gibron's The Prophet (1923)

2007-03-25   On his 96th birthday, Bill writes a sonnet titled "Ode to Orene" -- "In every rose I see her radiant face".

2007-11   Bill completes the third and "final" draft of "The Parable of the Little Feather", a short story about an encounter with an oracle while hiking in the woods.

2009-10-20   Bill completes a draft of "The Struggle to Save Ott's Assay Office". The 23-page single-spaced report begins "Ott's Assay Office and the South Yuba Canal Building in downtown Nevada City, California, are widely revered as historical and architectural icons of the epochal mining era in the West." The report ends with the declaration that Nevada City is now "world-class mecca . . . beautifully cradled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, in the "other Eden" -- not of England, as Shakespeare would have it, but Nevada County, California."

2009-11-05   Bill is profiled in an article in The Union as "Weathering it all: Attorney still practicing law at 98".

2010   Bill collapses in late Autumn from a minor stroke, which all but ended his driving and practice of law at the age of 99.

Bill had to stop driving his car but continued driving himself. He finished a couple of trusts he had been working on but accepted no new work -- except on his own behalf. His last act as an attorney at law was to draft the third and final ammendent to his own revocable trust, which he signed in January 2013. In the ammendent, he resigned as the acting trustee, and appointed his second son and adopted daughter as co-trustees. He reserved his power to revoke the trust but consigned all his financial affairs to his co-trustees, essentially declaring himself incompetent.

2011-03-25   Bill celebrates his 100th birthday with family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues at a party held on 27 March at the Miners Foundry in Nevada City.

2013-06-19   Bill dies in Nevada City, in the city he loved, at the home of his caregivers -- close to Orene, whose ashes were in his room -- close in minutes, miles, or spirit to his children and their families -- close to his local friends and neighbors -- and close to the Orene Wetherall Trail.

William B. Wetherall's favorite poem began with this line.

"Whose woods these are I think I know . . ."  
-- Robert Frost     

Orene Wetherall Trail memorial bench

Wetherall clan at Orene Wetherall and William B. Wetherall memorial bench on Orene Wetherall Trail
18 October 2017

Standing   Gurditta Singh Khalsa, Jerry Alan Wetherall, Tsuyoshi Owen Wetherall Sugiyama
Sitting   Clara Yang, Saori Orene Wetherall Sugiyama, Anri Sugiyama, Amrita Elizabeth Khalsa
There in spirit   Siri Parmeshar Khalsa, Alessandra Elizabeth Dobrin Khalsa, Anoushka Fae Khalsa, Purita Leon Obispo
Reunited near bench on 18 October 2015   William Bascom Wetherall, Louida Orine Wetherall
Reunited near bench on 18 October 2017   Mary Ellen Zweig, Peter Owen Vodonick
Photographer   William Owen Wetherall

Orene Wetherall Trail and Orene Wetherall and William B. Wetherall memorial bench
On 2015-10-18, a memorial bench was dedicated to Orene Wetherall and William B. Wetherall, by his family and representatives of the Bear Yuba Land Trust. BYLT built the Orene Wetherall Trail in the Woodpecker Preserve off the Cascade Canal Trail on Banner Mountain in the Sierras just east of Nevada City, California. The trail was formally dedicated in June 2010, at which time William B. Wetherall, then 99, walked the entire length of the trail, including the sometimes steep and precipitous loop that drops down the side of the mountain from the bench, along one side of a ravine, then returns up the other side to the bench. On 2017-10-18, contingents of the extended family from Placerville, Santa Fe, Honolulu, and Japan revisited the bench.

The plaque on the memorial bench has the following inscription.

Orene Wetherall (1913-2003)
William B. Wetherall (1911-2013)

"Whose woods these are we think we know"
Bear Yuba Land Trust

Orene Trail memorial bench back

Top  


Top  

Orene's treasures

My mother left several boxes of personal belongings consisting of things she kept from her childhood and youth, as well as photographs and other detritus related to her Hardman-Hunter family. Of the five large plastic boxes and two file drawers that constitute the Wetherall Family Collection, about 3/4ths comes from her side of the family.

Other than the photographs, most of which are identified or identifiable, the most important personal effects are her diary, autograph book, and an very interesting hardcover scrapbook-cum-album full of clippings and photographs and jottings from her highschool days.

Orene's treasures also include two items which qualify as heirlooms -- Matilda, a porcleain doll that has been handed down from her mother's family -- and a Nez Perce bag she received from a woman she befriended on the occasion of the 1932 Cherry Blossom Fesival.

Top  

Orene's autographs Orene Hardman's high school autograph book
Wetherall Family Collection

Orene's autographs (1927-1930)

Orene Hardman's autograph book includes 47 leaves plus one back free fly paper. The front free fly paper appears to be pasted down to the front end paper, and what would have the 48th leaf appears to have been torn out.

All but two entry's in the autograph book are dated 1927 and 1928.

Orene and Burton Hunter (1914-1973), her slightly younger maternal uncle, who was raised as her brother from age 5, graduated together with Peck High School Class of 1931. Orene made an entry on the back end paper of autograph book. Burton made an entry on . . . TO BE CONTINUED.

 0. 1927-05-25  Norla Callison [maternal 1st cousin] (Front free fly pasted down)
 1. 1927-01-27  Delina W. -- Peck
 2. 1928-03-09  Donald Black
 3. 1927-06-03  Osie
 4. 1928-08-07  Viola -- Peck [maternal aunt]
 5. 1927-06-04  Jennie Hardman [paternal step-grandmother]
 6. 1929-01-02  Mrs. Dan Lyle -- Peck
 7. 1927-11-23  Homes "Fred" -- P.H.S.
 8. Blank
 9. 1927-06-24  Jewell Choate
10.             Harry D. Earls -- Peck
11. 1927-06-22  Maxine Keene [1st cousin]
12.             Bieby (?)
13. 1927-06-24  Nedra E. Swain
14. 1928-11-28  Louise Choate "29" -- Peck
15. 1927-06-24  Audna Powell
16. 1928-10-29  Walter Lacey -- P.H.S.
17. 1927-06-24  Aubra Horne -- Peck
18. 1928-07-06  Your "Skinny" Aunt -- Kendrick [Eva, maternal aunt]
19. 1927-06-02  Ina (Peck)
20.            Loren B. (Peck)
21. 1927-10-12  Roy Ray Luffman -- Peck
    [Born Orofino 1910, Peck 1920, Camus 1930, died Orofino 1990]
22. Blank
23.             Gorden Fairly (29)
24. 1928-10-23  Dick
25.             Emmett Leeper ('27)
26. 1928-08-07  Almeda (Peck) [maternal aunt]
27. 1927-10-13  Josephine Gordon
28. 1928-11-28  George Devlins ("Senior")
29.-30. 1927-11-23  Edna Moe (?) = E.M.B.
31. 1927-11-09  James Gillespie -- Peck
32. Blank
33. 1927        M?? (?) [appears to be 2 or 3 initials]
34. Blank
35.      10-11  Beth -- P.H.S. ("28")
36. 1928-02-09  Mabel Murray -- Orofino (OHS '29)
    [Born Idaho 1911, Teakean 1920, Teakean 1930, Cavendish 1935,
     Orofino 1940, died Orofino 2007, buried Lenore]
37. 1927-02-02  Mary Chapman alias "Midget" -- Orofino (O.H.S. '28)
38. 1928-12-02  Dan Lyle -- Peck
39. 1927-10-13  Lucille Roberts -- Peck (classmate)
40.             "Curly"
41. 1927-11-15  Albert Black
42. 1928-07-06  V.B.H.
43. 1927-10-11  Elaine Hersey [SPK gang member "Lee"]
44. 1928-07-06  Elma J.
45. 1927-07-25  Mildred Coon -- Peck
46. 1928-01-02  Bill Lyle -- Peck
47. 1928-10-13  Ralph Everett Gilberstrom (?) -- Peck
48. Blank
49.             Burton Hunter [maternal uncle, brother, classmate]
50. 1928-12-31  Edna -- Peck
51. 1927-10-12  Donald C. Holmes -- Peck ('27 classmate)
52.             William Coon
53. 1927        John Lyle -- Peck
54.             John Tweedy
55.             Arol Powell -- Peck ('27)
56. 1928-11     Raymond Luper -- Peck
57.             Ralph Lacey -- Peck
58. Blank
59.             Edward Knowlton (?) -- Peck ('27 classmate)
60. Blank
61.             Bertle L. Melcum (P.H.S. 27-28)
62. 1928-05-26  Lester -- Peck
63. 1927-10-11  Millard -- Peck (A fresh guy of '27)
64. Blank
65. 1927-12-05  R. Thomas Berry -- Peck ('27)
66.             Babe Hardman [sister]
67. 1927-11-15  Robert Lay -- Peck
68. 1927-10-26  Donald Smith -- Peck (C.R. School, P.H. School)
69. 1928-02-02  Viola Ogden -- Orofino [1920 Leland, 1930 Gilbert]
70. 1928-11     Arthur Balen (?) (P.H.S.)
71. 1927-12-21  Thomas C. Tumelson (?) -- Peck (P.H.S. "28")
72. 1930-12-14  Dady OMH -- Peck [father Owen Monroe Hardman]
73. 1928-01-30  Mama [mother]
74. 1928-10-25  Ethel Whitman -- Peck (classmate)
75.             Norma Smith  (P.H.S. 1927-'28, teasing freshie) [SPK gang member]
76. 1932-09-19  Mrs. E. T. Brooks [teacher]
77. 1928-01-27  Ronald Hersey [boyfriend]
78. 1928-12-31  Vern H. Pearson [Minnie France's brother-in-law]
79. 1927-11-17  Ray H. Berry -- Peck (P.H.S.)
80. 1928-08-02  Agnes Jones
81. 1927-12-20  Fred Warren (P.H.S. 28) [boyfriend]
82. 1928-08-01  Opal L. Jones -- Kendrick
83. 1928-01-27  Rowena Parks -- Peck
84. 1929-04-06  Bill GWW (?)
85. 1928-01-15  Irene M. Gurnsey -- Orofino
    [formerly Peck neighbor, Born Peck 1912,
     Peck 1920, Lewiston 1930, died Oregon 1994]
86. 1927-12-21  Harold Springston -- Peck ('29)
87. 1928-01-27  Ethel S. (?)
88. 1928-07-31  Walt, Ben -- Kendrick
89.-90. 1928-01-27  Opal Gillespie -- Peck [SPK gang member "Pal"]
91. 1927-11-08  M. L. Corum -- Peck [teacher]
92. 1928-07-31  Ernestine -- Kendrick
93. 1927-11-23  Elisabeth Smith -- Peck (P.H.S. classmate 1st year)
94. 1928-11-26  Essie -- Peck ("30") [played together on Central Ridge]
95.-96. Leaf torn out
97. 1927        Wolf R. Johnston [end free fly]
98.             Elev T. Brooks [end free fly]
99.             Orene Hardman (back end paper)

Mo

till brick bats til horse flys until mistakes become hay stacks till Eskimoes wear B.V.D's. til pillow slips until hell freezes over and becomes a skating rink til Brussels Sprouts until the bed springs and the pillow slips until butter flies till Hell freezes over and the devil learns to skate until window panes until Eskimoes wear B.V.D's and Elphants rossts in trees [sic] til the dish rags til the kitchen sinks til the bed springs until Eskimoes wear B.V.D's and Elephants roost in trees until Hell freezes over and the angels come skating home
Memphis Letha Corum headstone Headstone of Memphis Letha Corum (1904-1987)
Vineland Cemetery, Clarkston, Asotin County, Washington
Photograph by jcking copped from Find a Grave (www.findagrave.com)

Memphis Letha Corum

The following entry came from M. L. [Memphis Letha] Corum (1904-1987). She is "Memphis" (6) in the 1910 census for Filer precinct of Twin Falls, Idaho. The 1930 census for Clarkston, in Washington, shows her as "Memphis L."" (26), single, Idaho-born, living with her mother, as a school teacher in a public school. It's not impossible that she was commuting to Peck. The 1940 census for Peck village shows her as Memphis L. (36), single, with 3 years of college education, living with her mother, as a school teacher by occupation and grader by industry. Apprently she never married, and is buried in Vineland Cemetery in Clarktson.

Peck, Idaho.
Nov. 8 - 1927.

Dear friend Orine,   Will write a little poem which reminds of the typical high school student's life.

    A data, a danaca,
    Perchanca out lata,
  Next daya, a quizza,
  No passa, gee Whizza!

      Sincerely,
        M.L. Corum

Top  

Orene's Peck school book

Orene's Peck school book (1929-1933)

Top  

SPK

SPK club

Forthcoming.

Top  

Louida Orene Hardman

"Orene" 1913-2003 Wetherall

Forthcoming.

Top  

Opal Marie Gillespie

"Pal" 1914-1997 Houston, O'Connor

Forthcoming.

Top  

Elaine Hersey

"Elaine" 1913-2006 Laird

Forthcoming.

Top  

Minnie A. France

"Min" 1912-1995 Ford, Lacey

Forthcoming.

Top  

Norma Francis Smith

"Norma" 1914-2010

Forthcoming.

Top  

Kathryn Jean Graham

"Jean" 1915-2006 Holmes

Forthcoming.

Top  

Salutatory address Mary Ellen's sticky note
This appears to be
an introductory speech
Mama saved from her
High School (?) grad-
uation. Barely legible
pencil notation on
the back -- who
was she "protecting"?
Mama had high
ideals!
Salutatory address
Salutatory address Orene's typed speech and note penciled in her hand on back
I was coming down the street the other day & saw [ NAME ] coming. "[ WORDS ]".
It sounded funny for it wasn't very appropriate.
Peck High School, 16 May 1931

Orene Hardman's high school salutatory address

In the 8 April 1931 entry of her Diary (see below), Orene Hardman wrote this.

Worked on Biology. Had 6 weeks test. Got book from U. of I. [University of Idaho] Was offered "salutatorian" position. Refused.

The 13 May entry begins "Started decorating the Hall."

The 14 May entry begins "Did some more decorating."

The 15 May entry fully reads as follows.

Commencement
Typed programs. Got grades. Straight A's. Flowers beautiful for to-nite. Feel sort of blue when thinking of it.

And the 16 May entry follows up like this.

All over with! Big crowd. Good program. Hall beautiful. Helped with work to-day. Stayed all nite with Jean [Graham, later Holmes].

Mary Ellen's sticky note

My sister Mary Ellen, when preparing some of the family documents being stored at her home, for shipment to me in Japan, attached a yellow sticky note to the typed sheet shown to the right. In the note, ME speculated that it might be a speech my mother prepared for her high school graduation.

ME drew attention to the penciled note on the back of the speech, which was in my mother's hand. The speech had been twice folded vertically (lateral folds), then twice folded laterally (vertical folds), hence down to 1/16th the size of the unfolded sheet of letter-sized paper -- small enough to fit into a wallet.

The note had been written across one of the exposed quarters, which suggests that it was written after the paper was vertically folded, and before it was laterally folded. The speech has to have been written before it was presented on 15 May 1931. But when the note was written, and how much time elapsed between the vertical and lateral folds, is not known.

Nor is it known how much time elapsed between the writing of the note and the pencilling out of the name and words. Possibly my mother immediately had second thoughts. But the penciled note appears to have faded more than the penciled marks made to cross out cross out the name and words. So she -- or possibly someone else -- may have crossed them out later.

Even using a magnifying glass and varying the light, I am unable to make out the crossed-out name or words -- except the first letter of the words -- "I". Perhaps a forensic document examiner could determine the expunged name and words, and whether the pencil used to cross out them out was the same as the pencil used to write the note.

    AND LAST --- A HEARTY WELCOME.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Before I come to the real object of my making bold to address you, as William Gladstone once remarked, but not exactly in the same words, there are certain subjects which I wish to clear out of the way.

    Perhaps it will not be amiss to begin with a word in explanation of our having invited you to our gym tonight. We, my classmates and I, have completed the course of study prescribed for graduation from Peck High School. We have laid the greater part of our youthful years upon the altar of learning. A great deal of thought, a great deal of enthusiasm, a great deal of application, something of sacrifice, something of joy. Gaining an education has been the most important factor of our lives thus far, our most absorbing intrest [sic = interest]. Through nine months out of the twelve, school has put the yea and nay on all our comings and goings. It seems to us, then,that the successful conclusion of something that so long has engaged our closest attention, that so long has been knit into the every fabric of our lives should be fittingly celebrated. How better to celebrate this event than by gathering our friends together to listen to this recital, of our achievements in school and our aspirations in the life that is to follow graduation?

    You have heard extracts from our archives, for so excellent a class must needs have a history worth the telling and it should be -- and has "been -- related from this platform to inform you of our gradual but glorious rise to power and to inspire oncoming classes with a consuming zeal to make as [sic = a?] signal history themselves. You have heard our poem, our prophecy, our will, our farewell. Some one has said, in a more graceful phrasing than I have at my command, that the man who has no song in his heart is humdrum, indeed. So with a class. It It would never do then to have no poem to tell. And our prophecy! You have been interested in our deeds in school. I am sure you are anxious to know how we are going to turn out. And our will! But calm your impatience. All in its good time you will learn what our effects are and who is to have them when we are gpne.

    Though we have spent many hours in preparation for tonight still in the excitement and agitation of the moment we may hesitate or blunder. We ask you not to expect too much of us, for we are young yet in years and in experience. Do not compare our offerings with your own public appearances, for, as Alexander Pope said, "Few sons attain the praise of their great sires." Besides, as David Everett later reminded,

    "Large streams from little fountains flow,
    Tall oaks from little acorns grow."

    And last ----- this is my real reason for making bold to focus your attention on my unimportant self [Note 1] -- a hearty welcome!

Note 1   The X which over strikes the un in unimportant self on the typescript of the speech appears to have been made in black ink -- most likely, I think, the same black ink in which ME wrote the sticky note memo -- her way of declaring that the mother she dearly missed was important. Again, perhaps a forensic specialist could confirm or reject this hypothesis.

Top  

Orene's schoolgirl diary

See Orene Hardman's schoolgirl diary (1930-1933, 1934, 1937)

Top  

Orene's Sunday school

Orene's Sunday school

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's boyfriends

Orene's boyfriends

Ronald Bruce Hersey (1914-1990)

Forthcoming.

Top  

Russell Alonson Betts (1911-1942)

Forthcoming.

Top  

Charles Fredrick "Fred" Warren (1909-1992)

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's Nez Perce bags

Orene's Nez Perce bags

Forthcoming.

Top  

Biggers 1st edition of Earl Derr Biggers, Behind that Curtain, New York: Bobbs Merrill, 1928
Copped from Murder In Print (Arlington, TX, U.S.A.) at AbeBooks.com

Orene's reading

Orene was a voracious reader. When growing up, I remember her reading stories in subscription magazines like Saturday Evening Post and Lady's Home Journal. She also read a lot of novels, and later in her life, long after Saturday Evening Post ceased, and she stopped subscribing to women's magainzes, she read mostly fiction borrowed from the Grass Valley library.

She didn't buy many books, and only a few of the volumes shelved in our living room, or back room, were hers. But during my many visits from Japan, which averaged 3-4 weeks, she would read a little every day, sometimes in the afternoon, sometimes before going to bed, and finish a couple of books during my stay.

For a while she was a member of a local readers club, in which members read the same novel, then talked about it over tea at someone's home.

In her high school diary, she mentions and grades several titles.

9 December 1930
Read "Cloi Malone." Lovely book.

23 January 1931 Read "So Big." Good book.

21 March 1931 Read "Behind that Curtain." Good.

Apparently the Charlie Chan novel by Earl Derr Biggers first published in 1928 by Bobbs-Merrill Company (Indianapolis) and Grosset & Dunlap (New York).

1 December 1931
Read "Prodigal Girl." Wonderful book.

5 December 1931
Read "Bad Girl." Rotten book.

27 January 1932
I read "December Dear." Pretty good.

Top  

Orene's travels

Orene's travels

Interest and action are different. I am a bit of a travel-phobe, a stay-at-home type, a bear that prefers not to wander outside his own niche. I go places only if I have to. Which is not to say I am not interested. I travel vicariously all over the world, around the solar system, throughout the galaxy, to the limits of the universe, and beyond as I wonder how there could possibly be a boundary with nothing on the other side.

My parents did not appear to be a good mix when it came to travel. My mother seemed more interested in traveling and I got the impression that she socialized better. By the time my father got around to wanting to travel -- meaning he got the point in his life that he obsessed less about work and was willing to go places and see things -- my mother's health had declined to the point that she didn't want to go anywhere -- especially if he would be driving.

My father traveled overseas only twice that I know of -- both times with my mother -- the first to attend my wedding in Japan in 1971, the second to tour Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in 1989. But my mother traveled with her close friend Marguerite Manion and her parents to California, Mexico, and Yellowstone National Park in 1936, and many photographs and postcards from this trip have survived. She also came to Japan by herself in 1979 a few months after the birth of her granddaughter in 1978, and she stayed several weeks. She even took a course in elementary Japanese to prepare for the trip.

That my mother travelled more and better does not mean my father wasn't interested in travel. Interest and action are not the same thing. But whatever his interest, other matters -- especially work -- came first -- especially after we moved to Grass Valley in 1955.

Before we moved, my father took us on camping vacations every summer. We also went on a number of day trips to picnic. After moving to Grass Valley, though, and became his own boss, he declined to take time off for family vacations. Perhaps he thought that, because we were now living in the country, we didn't need to go camping. Our home was surrounded by woods. There were large ponderosas and cedars in our own backyard.

He could have, of course, taken time for family vacations -- scheduled a week or so for a family trip somewhere. Apparently he preferred not to.

Travels with Marguerite Manion (1936)

Marguerite Ellen Manion (1915-) was born on 4 March 1915 in Blackfoot, in Bingham County, Idaho, to William Edward Manion and Elvira Irene Welsh. She married first Adams, who she later divorced, and then in 1976 married Douglas Lawrence Anderson (b1920). Their marriage license application, filed on 25 February 1976, void after 28 March 1976, in Thurston County, Washington, states that Anderson was 56, a baker, widowed, his 3rd marriage, while Adams (Manion) was 60, a travel agent, divorced, er 2nd marriage.

Itinerary
 1. Crater Lake -- Oregon
 2. General Sherman -- Giant sequoia in Sequoia National Park, Tulare County, California
 3. Mt. Shasta -- California
 4. Sacramento -- California
 5. San Francisco -- California
      Fleishhacker Zoo
 6. Los Angeles, California
      Ferndell (aka Fern Dell), Western Canyon, Griffith Park
        A trail toward Griffith Observatory through a woodsy glen
        now called Ferndell Natural Museum)
      Griffith Observatory -- Los Angeles
 7. San Diego, California
      San Diego Exposition -- San Diego, California
        "San Diego fair" on backs of pictures
        "Bugville" picture taken on account of Bug's name
 8. Tiajuana -- Mexico
 9. Boulder Dam -- Nevada and Arizona border
      "Hoover Dam" since 1947
10. Bryce Canyon National Park (National Monument) -- Utah
11. Zion Canyon, Zion National Park -- Utah
12. Yellowstone National Park -- Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho

Top  

Japan (1971, 1979)

Forthcoming.

Top  

Europe (1989)

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's report cards

Orene's report cards

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's college papers

Orene's college papers

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's awards and certificates

Orene's awards and certificates

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's pets

Orene's pets

When growing up on the Hardman ranch on Central Ridge in the 1910s and 1920s, the Hardman family pets appear to have been mainly dogs, and at times a coupld of deer. In San Francisco, the Wetherall-Hardman family had at least one canarie and possibly a budgie. The birds didn't last very long, as I recall. We also had a cat, which "fell apart" (as Dennis the Menace famously put it) a couple of times. The cat moved with us to Grass Valley in 1955, and after she died, there were a succession of cats and two dogs.

My mother, however, was mostly a cat lover. Within a few of losing a cat, she would find a kitten somewhere. She, not my father, fed the pets, and when she died, though my father had by then been "trained" to put out water and food, the cat my mother left began to wander, apparently finding better food if not more attention elsewhere.

The scrapbook Orene Hardman kept while attending Peck HIgh School in 1927-1941 includes a photo of 3 kittens. Another print was found in her collection of unmounted prints.

Her preference for cats may have begun after the Hardman-Hunter family moved to Peck from Central Ridge in the late 1920s so that the Hardman girls and their younger uncle, who had been raised with them, could go to high school.

To be continued.

Top  

Orene's recipes

Orene's recipes

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's wallet

Orene's wallet

Forthcoming.

Top  

Cherry Blossom Queen

Cherry Blossom Queen

Forthcoming.

Top  

Orene's love letters

The confessions of the schoolmarm of Yellow Rose School

See Orene's schoomschoolgirl diary (1930-1933, 1934, 1937).

Top  

Orene Wetherall Trail

Orene Wetherall Trail

Forthcoming.

Top  

Bill's treasures

Bill's treasures

Forthcoming.

Top  

Babe Ruth's autograph

Babe Ruth's autograph

Forthcoming.

Top  

Lincoln essay

Lincoln essay

Forthcoming.

Top  

College papers

College papers

Forthcoming.

Top  

Awards and certificates

Awards and certificates

Forthcoming.

Top  

Indian head pennies

Indian head pennies

Forthcoming.

Top  

Classical music records

Classical music records

Forthcoming.

Top  

Heritage Press

Heritage Press limited editions

Forthcoming.

Top  

Art glass

Art glass

Forthcoming.

Top  

River rocks

River rocks

Forthcoming.

Top  

William B. Wetherall's law career

Law school and people he worked with

William B. Wetherall (1911-2013) practiced law for about 75 years from 1937 to shortly before his death in 2013 at age 102. His last client was himself when dictating the last amendments to his trust to Clara Yang, his adopted daughter, who he appointed the executor of the William B. and L. Orene Wetherall Family Trust. Clara, his de facto protege, now specializes in estate planning, wills, trusts, special needs trusts, probates, conservatorships, and related matters.

Top  

William B. Wetherall

Law school

Forthcoming.

Top  

Samuel Swayne

Samuel Swayne

Forthcoming.

Top  

William Healy

William Healy

William B. Wetherall clerked for William Healy (1881-1962) when Healy was serving as a United States Circuit Judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco. Healy served as as a judge of the Ninth Circuit Court from 21 June 1937 to 30 November 1958, as as senior judge from 30 November 1958 to his death on 15 March 1962.

My father served as Healy's 1st clerk from about 16 September 1937 to 1 September 1932 (but on payroll through 9 October 1942 on account of annual leave taken as salary after physically leaving).

Healy was born and educated in Iowa, where he graduated from the University of Iowa Law School in 1908. from 1909 to 1913, he privately practiced in Silver City, then the seat of Owyhee County, Idaho, from 1911-1912. He served as the county prosecutor 1911 to 1912. From 1913 to 1914 he was a member of the Idaho house of representatives, and from 1914 to 1934 he privately practiced in Boise. From 1934 to 1937 he served as general counsel to the Farm Credit Administration in Spokane, Washington. And on 8 June 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to a seat on the Ninth Circuit Court in San Francisco.

William Healy was a friend of the dean of law school at the University of Idaho, who was acquainted with my father's achievements as a law student, and recommended my father. Like Healy, my father was born in Iowa. Though raised until 6 in Idaho, he was educated through high school in Iowa, before returning to Idaho for college and law school.

In a letter dated 2 December 1941, describing his career to that point, WBW wrote as follows.

I am a member of the Idaho bar, and since coming to California with Judge Healy, I have passed the California bar examination and am now qualified to practice in this state.

To be continued.

Top  

Harvey Black

Harvey N. Black

Forthcoming.

Top  

Cecil Poole

Cecil F. Poole

William B. Wetherall worked with Cecil Francis Poole (1913-1997) as attorneys with the San Francisco Regional Office of the Office of Price Administration (OPA). WBW began began working as an enforcement attorney for the OPA on 1 December 1942 (see the Office of Price Administration section of the Chronology above). On 28 July 1946, he was transferred and reassigned from the Food to the Litigation unit. Poole, who had served in the Army from 24 July 1942 to 24 December 1945, joined the San Francisco Regional Office of OPA in 1946 and served as Chief of its Regional Appellate Division until OPA operations ended in 1947. WBW worked in the same office, under Poole, and on a number of occasions he accompanied Poole on stayover trips to deal with litigation in localities within the catchment of the San Francisco office.

When the office closed in 1947, they went their separate ways -- WBW with Malone & Sullivan, Cecil Poole in private practice until his appointment as Assistant District Attorney for the City and County of San Francisco. But they kept in touch, and the Poole family -- Cecil and his wife, and 2 daughters -- once visited our home in Grass Valley after my father left San Francisco in 1955 to work with Harold Berliner and then for himself.

Cecil Poole later became a federal judge at the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where WBW had once clerked for William Healy. Poole then became the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California, among other prominent posts.

To be continued.

Top  

Malone and Sullivan

Malone & Sullivan

In 1947, William B. Wetherall joined the San Francisco law firm of Malone & Sullivan, officed in the Mills Tower building in downtown San Francisco. The senior partners were William M. Malone and Raymond L. Sullivan. Other attorneys in the firm included Contrad T. Hubner and William J. Dowling, Jr.

To be continued.

William M. Malone

Forthcoming.

Raymond L. Sullivan

Forthcoming.

Top  

Bill Dowling

Bill Dowling

While working at Malone & Sullivan, William B. Wetherall became close friends with William J. Dowling. And after my father left the firm and moved to Grass Valley in 1955, the two men kept in touch, and Dowling and his family visited our home in Grass Valley.

Two of Dowling's 6 sons later moved to Nevada County. One of them, Sean P. Dowling, practiced law in Nevada City, and he served as a Superior Court Judge in Nevada County from August 2005 until his retirement in January 2015.

Sean was present at my father's 100th birthday party in Nevada City in 2011. When announcing his retirement, he made the following remarks, according to a report in the 18 January 2014 edition of The Union, a Nevada County newspaper published in Grass Valley, the largest town in the county near Nevada City, the county seat.

I've been blessed with so many wonderful personal and professional relationships that have helped me along, starting with attorney Bill Wetherall, who referred cases to me as a rookie lawyer in 1975. I've had the privilege of being mentored by and working with a host of exceptional judges and staff.

To be continued.

Top  

Harold Berliner

Harold Berliner

Forthcoming.

Top  

Clara Yang

Clara Yang

Forthcoming.

Top