My Trails into the Past

My 2x-granduncle, Reginold Lancaster, married Eda Pearl Ralston on 30 July 1920 in Los Angeles when he was thirty-two years old. She was thirty-five. [1] This was her second marriage, having been divorced from Eugene De Lartigue. Eda Pearl Ralston was born in December 1880 in Wyoming to Ellis Ralston and Flora Sackett. In 1880, her parents were living in Cheyenne, Laramie County, so it is possible that this was where she was born. Her father was a railroad engineer. [2] By 1900, her mother was a widow living in Los Angeles County, California, with three children: Eda, aged 19, Ruby F., aged 17, and Earl E., aged 15. [3] Actress Sometime before 1902, Eda began working as an actress while living with her mother and brother at 3680 South Grand Avenue. [4] In the earliest news found in October 1901, she was a whistling, song and dance soubrette at the Unique Theater on South Spring Street in Los Angeles. [5] Variety was a weekly newspaper that covered actors and actresses. Eda R...

Last week I wrote about the tragic death of Joseph McFall (1836-1908) . At the end of the newspaper article was a paragraph about his two daughters, both who were actresses: Sue McFall, known as Julia Gray, and May McFall, known as May Noble. These ladies were my husband’s first cousin twice removed. Their mother was my husband’s great-grandfather, Frederick H. Davey’s sister. May McFall, was born about 1869 in Indiana, likely Jeffersonville. I have not found much about her, but did find a connection with her birth name and her stage name. “The Dramatic News says that Miss May Noble, of the John Dillon comedy Company, now playing in the Northwest, has made a great hit and has won justly deserved promotion. “May Noble” is known in Indianapolis, which is her home, as May McFall.” [1] I found a few articles of her with the Dillon company, and then no more. There are articles about a May Noble with the Leonard Grover Company, starting in Los Angeles in 1894. [2] From there, the compan...

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways. Many of my ancestors’ siblings were either unmarried or had no children. I don’t want their lives to be forgotten when they had no descendants. Raymond Joseph Hork, my grandfather, William Cyril Hork’s brother, is one such person. Raymond Joseph Hork, the eighth child of Johan Anton Hork and Julia Ann Sievert, was born 11 November 1889 in Stuart, Guthrie County, Iowa. [1] His father was a tailor and moved every two years or so until they finally settled in Hamilton, Montana. [2] Raymond at a young age of twenty-eight years old, died on 1 December 1917 at the Montana State Hospital. Cause of death was exhaustion of dementia and precox. [3] According to Wikipedia , “this is a chronic, deteriorating psyc...