Remembering TUOLUMNE...

By Joseph Celentano

TCMM Historical Research Committee

September/October 2006

While researching the archives of the TCMM, we located the following schoolwork from a Summerville Elementary School fourth grade class assignment regarding family history. (No error corrections were made.) Part one, two and three are be posted on the museum website under Webpage Archives.

Conclusion, part three of three.

My Family

Pauline Marie Grazioli

My father’s father was born June 5, 1881 in Tremosini, Italy. He was raised there until he was married to my grandmother in a Catholic Church in Tremosini, Italy. There my grandmother had her first chile (sic). She was named Marie Grazioli.

My grandmother’s name was Dominica Pauline Pittori. My grandfather’s name was James Grazioli.

My grandmother came to California in 1906 from Tremosini. His first home was in Angels Camp. Then he came to Tuolumne where he worked as a gold miner. He did that for a long time. When he had enough money he sent back to for my grandmother and my aunt.

They came by ship to New York and then by train to Tuolumne. (The passenger train used to come to Tuolumne every day, even Sundays.)

They lived in Tuolumne several years and then they moved to Cherokee. My father was born and raised there. He is the youngest in his family. He went to school in Cherokee, the Arastraville School, and to Summerville High School in Tuolumne.

Then he met my mother and they were married.

My mother’s father was born June 24, 1891 in Italy. He came to the United States of America when he was sixteen years old with his other and sisters and brothers.

Grandfather Ponzi served in World War I and after the war he met my grandmother. They were married on February 8, 1919. They came to Tuolumne to live in 1929. My mother was their youngest child. The family lived in one of the houses that used to be across the mill pond. That is where my mother was born, January 5, 1930.

She went to both grammar school and high school in Tuolumne. She and my father were married in Reno, Nevada in October 1950.

My mother’s mother was Jessie Million Loomis. She was born in Crescent City, Iowa on November 15, 1898. Grandmother came to California at the age of nineteen. Then she met my grandfather. I am the oldest in the family. I was born in Sonora, California on January 7, 1961. I was named Pauline Marie Grazioli. I have two brothers, Andy and Gary. We hope we shall always live in California.

The White Family

(Another unsigned family history)

My father came to Tuolumne when he was seven years old. He works at the sawmill.

My mother was fifteen when she married my father.

My grandmother came to California in a covered wagon. She lives in Redding, California. My grandpa White died in 1947, before I was born.

My grandpa Rogers lives in Los Angeles, California. My grandma Anderson lives in Cohassett, California. I have a great-grandmother living in Santa Cruz.

I was born in Oakland. I was only two weeks old when my grandfather first saw me. I lived in Redding before I moved to Tuolumne. I like it hear very much. (Unsigned-who am I?)

The Tate-Carmack Family

(Another unsigned family history)

My father’s family. --- My great grandfather Tate was born in South Carolina. He is Irish. My great grandmother Tate was born in Texas. She is German Irish. They were married in Sherman, Texas.

Grandma Tate’s family. --- My great grandmother Easley was born in Oklahoma Territory before it became a state. Great grandfather Easley was born in Gainesville, Texas. My grandmother Tate (Easley) was born in Arkansas. My grandparents were married across the state line from Texas (in Oklahoma).

My father was born in Iowa Park, Texas in 1933. He came to Tuolumne on July 5, 1942.

My great grandfather Carmack is Scotch. He was born in High Point, Virginia in 1879. When the family was grown he came to California in 1937.

My great-grandmother Carmack’s maiden name was Carmany. She was born in Bristol, Virginia. She is Irish and Choctaw Indian. She died three days after my grandfather was born, in March 1906.

My grandfather Carmack was born in Bristol, Virginia. He is Scotch, Irish, and Choctaw Indian. He went to Montana as a small child. He left there on his own, when he was thirteen. He went to Kansas City, Kansas and lived with a minister and his family. He worked his way through college. He is an Electrical Engineer. He came to Oakland to fisit (sic) his sister. He met my grandmother and they were married there.

My mother was born in Oakland, California in 1935 and came to Tuolumne in October 1945. She is French, German, Scotch, Irish, and Choctaw Indian.

My great grandfather Marquette is a direct descendant from the brother of Farther Marquette. His nationality is French. He was born in Santa Rosa, California in 1876. He went to Vancouver Island in Canada when he was still a young child. He married my grandmother there. Later they moved to Oakland, California where he died in 1957.

My great grandmother Marquette’s maiden name was Tiber. She was born in North Dakota Territory. When her mother died, she went to Vancouver, B.C. to live with her sister. The (sic) was eleven years old then. She is German.

My grandmother Carmack, nee Marquette was born in Vancouver in 1914. She went to Washington in 1925 and then to Oakland in 1927. She married my grandfather there.

I was born in Sonora, California on July 30, 1951. I am Irish, Scotch, French, German, and Choctaw Indian. I have one sister who was also born in Sonora. Her birthday is July 8, 1954. Some of my family came many miles to make it possible for me to live in California. (Unsigned, who am I?)

My Family

Mercedes Tinkle

My Grandfather, Robert Tinkle, was worn (sic) in Georgetown, Maryland. His Family moved to Stone County, Arkansas when he was three years of age. He grew up and met my Grandmother Tinkle, Laura Jimmerson, who he later married on February 13, 1910 in Caney, Oklahoma.

My Father, John, was the first-born of their ten children. It was very hard to make a living and rear a family of ten in those days.

My father’s second marriage was to my mother, Opal Grayson, on December 4, 1946 in Fort Smith Arkansas.

My mother was half Scotch. She was born in a small Indian town called Sasakwa in Oklahoma.

My father did miscellaneous jobs for a living. My father and mother came to Tuolumne, California in 1946. He was emplayed (sic) at the West Side Lumber Company for sixteen years.

I was born on March 24, 1952 at the Columbia Way Hospital in Sonora.

My other Grandfather, Joe E. Grayson, now deceased, was born in Arkansas and died in Oklahoma on January 13, 1959 with cancer of the brain. He was a Scotsman. His wife, Rosie Landreth, was born in Indian Territory which later became the state of Oklahoma. My grandparents met and married there. They had two children.

Grandfather Grayson’s occupation was a coal miner. He worked in Kentucky and Oklahoma, always in the coal mines. He and my grandmother lived inj a frugal manner, yet at the time of his death he left an estate of #20,000. But he and my grandmother had been divorced and had married a Belgian lady.

In 1933, my grandmother married another Scotsman named Charles Wilkie. With two little girls to raise, she was fortunate indeed. He died in may 1959 and was laid to rest here in Carter Cemetery. I have a sister Teresa and a brother Duane.

We are happy living in Tuolumne and in California.

My Story

Karen Dombek

My father’s name is John Stanley Dombek, Sr. My mothers maiden name was Doris Spaanem. My parents were married on July 12, 1950.

When I was a year old, my brother, John Stanley Dombeck, Jr. was born. When I was four we were living in North Las Vegas. When I was five, my sister, Jayne Dorie Dombek, was born.

My father came to Tuolumne County to be a cook in a restaurant. He and my mother and all of us children like Tuolune, so we have stayed here. This is my Family History

My Family’s Story

Bonnie McKay

My father’s parents were Grover and Mora McKay. My dad was born on a farm in Sullivan County, Missouri on May 18, 1911.

Several years later he came west on a trip with two other fellows who had friends and folks Here in California. They learned of employment here in Tuolumne. So, during the winter of 1937, which was milder than any other winter of northern Missouri, he decided to stay here in Tuolumne.

My mother’s parents were Claude and Ethel Pogue. My mom was born in Fredericktown In Madison County near Cape Giradeau in southern Missouri on June 13, 1925.

Many years later, in 1948, my mother came to Tuolumne to visit her brother and his family. During her visit, she met so many nice people that she decided to make this town her home.

Sometime later she met my father and they were married.

In 1952, I arrived at the Columbia Way Hospital in Sonora on the 25^th of July, to be presented to my mother and father. I have lived with them ever since.

The Story of the Givens Family

By Clara Givens

My great grandparents, Mary and Elizar Givens came to California by covered wagon over one hundred years ago. They settled for a time in Hornitos, Mariposa County, where they engaged in farming for awhile. They often found gold nuggets in the craws of their chickens when they killed them.

There wasn’t much market for their produce, so they moved to San Jose where Grandfather Frank Givens was born in 1868. He finished his formal schooling at the age of 12, and began learning the carpentry trade.

In the early 1900’s, when it was legal to sell wild game, he hunted deer for market around Hopland, Mendocino County. He also was a motorman on the electric trains which ran between Oakland and Hayward.

About 1903 he became a railway mail clerk. In that work he had to sort all the mail on the train and get it ready for delivery at the various stops. He worked first on the Southern Pacific Lines, and later on the Sierra Railway between Tuolumne and Stockton. In those days the train, (mail, and passenger train) left here early each morning and, with Hartwig Tambs of Tambs Station, and later James Cooper of Tuolumne, guarded and sorted the mail daily and Sundays.

He married Miss Clara Beckwith, who was born in New York State, but had come to Tuolumne to teach at Summersville High School. They had one son, my father, Francis Givens.

The mountains provided the hunting, fishing, and camping that my grandfather enjoyed, so he never moved again. My father stayed here too, and that is why I happen to be living in Tuolumne. ( rt0906)

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