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| Walter Samuel Smith |
My second great-grandfather, Walter Samuel Smith, had three siblings. The children of Samuel G. Smith and Ellen Henrietta Partridge were as follows:
Mary Emma Leticia Smith (b. 1865)
Walter Samuel Smith (b. 1869)
George Smith (b. 1877)
Charles Edgar Smith (b. 1884)
Mary Emma Leticia Smith
Mary Emma was born on September 16, 1865 in Bunker Hill, Illinois. On December 15, 1897, at the age of 32, she married Oscar Clement Partridge, the son of Timothy Partridge and Frances Harbeson. Oscar was Mary Emma's second cousin. They shared the same great-grandparents: James Partridge and Rebecca Dean of High Wycombe, England. Oscar descended from James and Rebecca's son John Steven Partridge, while Mary Emma descended from their son James Partridge, Jr. Both families emigrated to Bunker Hill, Illinois in the early 1800s. Aside from their familial relationship, a curious item about this marriage is Mary Emma and Oscar's age difference. Oscar was born on September 19, 1876, and was 11 years younger than his bride.
According to the 1900 U.S. Census, three years after their marriage, Oscar and Mary Emma were settled in Witt Township, Montgomery County, Illinois, where Oscar worked as a farmer. They would have four children together:
Laura Louise Partridge (1898 - 1986)
Samuel Isaac Partridge (1900 - 1922)
Mary Marguerite Partridge (1903 - 1939)
Walter Ralph Partridge (1905 - 1985)
Oscar and and Mary Emma divorced sometime between 1905 and 1920, likely before 1910. The children continued to live with Mary Emma after the divorce. Oscar appears to have moved to Missouri, where he died on March 6, 1951, at the age of 74. It is believed that he remarried at least once, and possibly several times. I have not been able to determine a death date for Mary Emma, but she lived until at least 1940, when she appears in the U.S. Census at age 74, in Harter, Illinois. She did not remarry before her death.
Tragically, Mary Emma and Oscar's son Samuel died at the age of 21. He had been working as a laborer in Bunker Hill at the time of his death. It's not clear whether there was an accident or if he became ill. He was not married before the time of his death and left behind no children.
Mary also died young. At the age of seventeen, she married Virgil Edwin Halterman, son of John Wesley Halterman and Rebecca "Nellie" Riggle. They had two sons: Virgil Edwin Halterman, Jr. (b. 1921) and John Wesley Halterman (b. 1923). She died in 1939, at the age of 36.
Eldest daughter Laura was granted the longevity that Samuel and Mary were not. She lived to be 87. In about 1920, she married Gilbert E. Halterman. Gilbert was the brother of Virgil Halterman, who married her younger sister Mary that same year. Laura and Gilbert had two sons: Gilbert E. Halterman, Jr. (b. 1921) and Charles Wesley Halterman (b. 1923). Laura died in Flora, Illinois, in January 1986.
The youngest Partridge sibling, Walter, married Blanche Esther Thompson, daughter of John Ewing Thompson and Jessie Tate. Together, they had five children: Cleo M. Partridge (b. 1925), Dorothy Partridge (b. 1927), John W. Partridge (b. 1931), Esther Marie Partridge (b. 1934), and Donald E. Partridge (b. 1937). Walter's family settled in Flora, Illinois, and then Harter, Illinois. Walter worked in a shoe factory. He died at the age of 80, in 1985.
George Smith
George D. Smith was the third of Samuel and Ellen Partridge's children. After his elder brother, Walter, moved to Los Angeles, George followed him. He is found in the 1900 U.S. Census living with his brother in Los Angeles. He was 23 years old at that time. Walter had gotten George a job at as a driver at the Union Ice Company, where he worked. By 1904, George married Elizabeth Roberts, and their only child, Milo Robert Smith, was born on May 9, 1904 in Los Angeles. George worked his way up to foreman at the Union Ice Company, and later transitioned to a foreman role at a lumber company. George died on August 10, 1967 in Los Angeles. He was 89 years old.Unfortunately, I don't know much about George's wife, Elizabeth. She was born in Wales, but was living in Los Angeles by the time she met George. She died in 1962, at the age of 80.
George and Elizabeth's only child, Milo Smith moved from Los Angeles to Berkeley before 1930, where he is found in the U.S. Census. He worked for Pacific Telegraph & Telephone, which was a popular employer in my family. My great-grandparents, George Rutherfurd and Julia Barrett, met while working at Pacific Telegraph & Telephone in Los Angeles. By 1940, George had married a young woman named Capitola Smith, daughter of Frank Smith and Elizabeth Marie Rader. They settled into married life in Berkeley. Capitola died in 1968 in San Francisco, and was buried in her native Missouri. After Capitola's death, Milo moved back to Southern California. In 1972, he married Pauline Cassell in Orange, California. He was 68 at the time. Neither of Milo's marriages resulted in children. He died on June 19, 1987 in Santa Barbara, California. He is buried in Missouri, next to Capitola.
Charles Edgar Smith was the youngest of Samuel and Ellen Smith's children. He was born in September 1884, nineteen years after the eldest Smith sibling, Mary Emma. Like his brothers, Charles appears to have bolted for Los Angeles as soon as he finished high school. By 1909, he was living in Los Angeles, where he married Florence Belle Isaac, the daughter of Eli Egbert Isaac and Althea Jane Byers. Charles was 25 years old at the time of his marriage. They settled in Compton, where they would live for the rest of their lives. Charles got work as an electrician, and later became an electrical engineer. He spent 45 years working for the Pacific Electric Railway Co.Charles and Florence had two daughters: Mirl Florence Smith (b. 1911) and Bernice Esther Smith (b. 1920). Mirl married Walter O. Brown. They had no children. She died on January 11, 2006. Bernice married William D. Barnhart and they had four children. She died on December 23, 2016.
Charles died on June 6, 1962 in Compton. Florence died on February 8, 1978.
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