Donald Everett Riddell

Donald Everett Riddell, son of Nina Frances Harrington and John Everett Riddell, was born 22 February 1909 in California. There are two reasonable candidates for his precise birthplace: 1) Cupertino, Santa Clara County, CA, where his parents’ household was known to be located when his sister Mildred was born eighteen months earlier, or 2) Stockton, San Joaquin County, CA. If the family was not already in Stockton by the time of Donald’s birth, they arrived soon after, and for the most part would stay there until Donald reached adulthood, the exception being that they spent an interval in Oakland during World War I, when Everett took advantage of the plentiful jobs available at the Liberty Shipyards in Alameda. Donald attended El Dorado Elementary School and then Stockton High School.

While in San Joaquin County, the family was within close proximity to many other members of the extended Branson clan, particularly the descendants of Nancy Anne Branson Harrington Napier, Donald’s grandmother. Nina and her siblings, after having been raised in their mother’s boarding house in Merced, CA, had first come to the county between 1900 and 1904, establishing households in Stockton, Manteca, or points between. The Riddells were among those who did not linger lifelong. They moved to San Francisco, then to San Mateo, and then in late 1939 or early 1940, on to Santa Cruz.

Unfortunately, only a small amount of information about Donald’s adult life is available thus far from inter-family sources. Therefore much of the detail about the course of his life you will find below comes from public records. For that reason, there are gaps in the picture, and this biography should not be taken as definitive.

The 1930 Federal Census shows Donald living as a single lodger at 3423 Fifth Avenue in Sacramento. His occupation is described as “car helper W P Shops.” This is a reference to Western Pacific Railroad, an entity for which some of his Branson-clan relatives also worked. His voter registration of 1930 repeats the description of his occupation and the address. The voter registration list of 1932 shows him living at 3917 Fifth Avenue and working as a pipe fitter. In the 1934 voter register, he is probably the Donald E. Riddell who appears as a farmer near Butte City, Glenn County, CA -- perhaps trying to develop land his father had some connection to as a result of his Farmer’s Association activities.

By 1935, Donald was in San Francisco. At first he lived with his parents at 1086 Bush Street in the downtown area. He appears at that address on that year’s voter registration list, occupation mechanic. Soon his parents moved to San Mateo, doing so in tandem with Donald’s sister Mildred, her twelve-year-old son Everett, and her new husband, Stan Hillard. Donald became part of this whole-family migration. He worked as a truck driver while his parents established the first of their service stations. However, by 1940, as all of the afore-mentioned family members went on to Santa Cruz, Donald headed back to San Francisco, where he appears in the 1940 voter register. He was still a resident of San Francisco when he enlisted in the military 24 February 1942. His induction record shows he had continued through the late 1930s and into the early 1940s to earn his livelihood as a truck driver. It also shows he was by that point a married man. Unfortunately there is no clear indication how long that had been the case. No wife appears in tandem with him in voter registers through 1940. This may mean she was present but didn’t bother to vote, but the most likely explanation is that she and Donald had not yet become spouses. If that assumption is correct, the wedding must have taken place in 1941 or early 1942. That wife was Josephine Melero, daughter of Frank Melero and Mary Basqua, born 14 August 1911 in California shortly after her parents, natives of Spain, had moved to the state from the Hawaiian Islands. Josephine was two-and-a-half years younger than Donald, a classic spousal-age differential.

Donald went on to serve as a soldier for the duration of the war. He reached the rank of spec sergeant. Because he was already in his thirties and had developed a wide skill set, he was valuable stateside and never did go overseas. His mid-war posting appears to have been in San Luis Obispo County inasmuch as that is the county in which his first child was born, though perhaps the birth-index entry is misleading. It could be Donald was out-of-state and Josephine went to San Luis Obispo County to stay with relatives as her pregnancy approached its culmination. During the latter part of the war, Donald is known to have been posted at Fort Sill, Comanche County, OK as an auto mechanic with D battery, 33rd battalion.

In the spring of 1945, with Hitler hiding in his bunker and the war in Europe under control, Donald was able to move his family from Oklahoma to Santa Cruz. During the transition phase they stayed with Mildred and Stan Hillard at 22 Melrose Avenue. Donald’s actual discharge from the Army took place on the eighth of October, at which point he and Josephine could finally settle into a “normal” existence. Given his experience as a mechanic, it was only logical that he become involved with a service station, so he went into partnership with his father and his brother-in-law. In May, 1946, Donald, Stan, and Everett filed a fictitious business name statement as Union Service Station. The business address was 261 Pacific Avenue. Donald and Josephine’s home by then was at 118 Almena.

The Riddell clan was back together, as they had not been since the days in San Mateo in the late 1930s. In the short term this remained true despite the coming-of-age of Donald’s nephew Everett (originally named Ehrhart, now named Hillard), who married Beverly Byrne in approximately 1948 and then proceeded to dwell for good in the Monterey Bay area. But the togetherness soon became a thing of the past. In July, 1949, Donald filed for divorce. While the specific details are not available, the clear inference from public documents is that Josephine had committed adultery. The couple themselves got through this and reunited. The divorce does not appear to have made it all the way to a final decree. However, though Donald found himself able to forgive his wife, his relatives did not want her around anymore. Donald and Josephine returned to San Francisco. The rift between him and his parents and sister would go on to be permanent. When interviewed for the first version of this biography in 2006, Everett Hillard’s younger son, who was born in 1954, said he could not recall ever meeting his great uncle Donald Riddell, and had barely ever heard of him.

The second and last of Donald and Josephine’s children was born in San Francisco a few years after the reconciliation. The couple were in their forties by then and could not have waited much longer to produce more offspring. As far as can be determined, Donald and Josephine remained in San Francisco for the rest of their long lives. No indications have turned up that they lived elsewhere over those decades. The wedding of their eldest child occurred in the city in 1963, and city directories from the early to mid-1990s confirm their presence at an address on Lincoln Way.

The Social Security Death Index and the California Death Index show that Donald died in San Francisco 21 December 1995. As a veteran, he was given the honor of being buried with his fellow servicemen. He was laid to rest in Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, CA 16 January 1996. Josephine survived him. She passed away 23 April 2003 and her remains were interred with those of Donald on the 29th of that month. Their grave lot is Section R, Site 3203.

Children of Donald Everett Riddell and Josephine Melero

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