Eunice Lucille Harrington

Eunice Lucille Harrington, daughter of Nancy Anna Branson and Peter Harrington, was born 11 November 1884 in Merced, Merced County, CA. Her father died not long after her fifth birthday, leaving her mother a widow with six children to support. Nancy dealt with the challenge by combining forces with her sister Mary Jane Branson Johnson, who had also lost her husband. The two women ran a boarding house in Merced. Eunice’s mother was the housekeeper and cook, while aunt Mary Jane handled laundry after working shifts as a clerk at a drygoods store. Eunice and her siblings, along with Mary Jane’s youngest two children, lived at that boarding house until they came of age. (Shown slightly below at right is Eunice with her sister Elsie in the late 1880s. This was one of many formal family photographs taken during the 1880s at the studio of Merced-based photographer William Edwards. It was scanned from a print preserved in the collection of Eunice’s first cousin Ivan Thorpe Branson. The print was brand new when Nancy Branson Harrington gave it to her brother Alvin Thorpe Branson. The dog is a stuffed prop, not the family pet.)

In the latter half of the 1890s Nancy married John James Napier, known as “Babe” Napier. He would remain Eunice’s stepfather thereafter, though it does not appear he was heavily involved with the raising of the Harrington children, and was often gone on mining expeditions, including at least one trip to the gold fields of Alaska.

The boarding house was a crowded venue lacking in privacy, as well as filled with an abundance of prospective husbands in the form of its lodgers. Eunice was the second of Nancy’s daughters to escape this situation by becoming a wife at a young age. Eunice married Winfred Delorane Converse 15 December 1900 in Merced, not long after her sixteenth birthday. The newlyweds settled in the easternmost fringe of Merced County in the Snelling District, where the groom’s widower father and brothers were based. This immediate area was to be home to the couple for the first five years of the marriage, though it is possible they dwelled in more than one residence over the course of that span inasmuch as they did not own land of their own. Winfred -- often known as Win -- was a farm hand rather than a farm owner. One of his roles was to serve as a farrier, i.e. a person who attaches horseshoes to horses’ hooves. To a modern-day audience, that sort of activity doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that was important, but it did require expertise and was not viewed as trivial. The job had to be done right or a horse’s foot could become infected and the animal would have to be put down. The death of a plow horse represented a financial hit no farmer would appreciate having to withstand.

Winfred was a son of Frederick Delorane Convers and Effie Mae Blodgett. One of six children, he was a native of Cataract, Monroe County, WI. Born 4 August 1876, he was eight years Eunice’s senior. He had only spent the first few years of his life in Wisconsin. In 1879 or early 1880, his parents had come west to Stanislaus County, CA, where Win’s maternal grandfather Josiah Hudson Blodgett had settled in 1870. Win was one of the three boys born before the move. His three younger sisters were natives of California. Most of Win’s childhood had been spent in Stanislaus County, the move to Snelling happening as the 19th Century wound down. His mother had died in 1899, a little too soon for Eunice to get to know her as a mother-in-law.

The family name was Convers, not Converse. The change to the Converse spelling appears to have been a result of Eunice’s influence. Apparently she felt the name should have an “e” on the end. This may have been because her perspective was Irish, whereas Convers is the Scots version of the name. Win’s father and brothers continued to use Convers throughout their lives, but Eunice and Win’s children seem to have gone by Converse from birth onward. Win himself appears in most public records through the mid-1910s with the Convers variation, but by the end of the 1910s seems to have been persuaded to endorse the change. The specific no-turning-back point may have been the filing of his draft registration card 12 September 1918. He is listed there as Winfred Delorane Converse and is consistently shown as Converse in later sources.

On the Blodgett side, Win was a descendant of a husband and wife whose clan was the subject of the 1908 genealogy McMillan Genealogy & History, A Record of the Descendants of John McMillan and Mary Arnott, His Wife, Who Were Born and Married in Scotland, Removed to the North of Ireland and Thence to Washington County, New York, About the Middle of the Eighteenth Century, by W.F. McMillan and C.E. McMillan. Details about Win and his immediate family can be found on pages 293-294, data current to March, 1908.)

Within the first ten years of marriage Eunice and Win produced three sons and a daughter: Eugene, Clyde, Milton, and Josephine. This was twice the average number of births among the Harrington siblings. A generation earlier huge families had been the rule, but now four was a lot. It could be the number of mouths to feed was a factor in keeping Win and Eunice from acquiring a farm of their own. In the early years he probably worked in the Snelling District for his father or a brother. In 1906 or so, he probably started finding work with some of Eunice’s new in-laws. In the latter part of that year, Elsie Harrington married Otis Cowell and Irene Harrington married Claude Salmon. Both Otis and Claude were members of pioneering clans of the Manteca area of San Joaquin County, where Eunice’s mother and stepfather had settled in 1902. With kinfolk in place and jobs to be had, Eunice and Win relocated to Manteca. This would be a watershed moment in their lives. Manteca would continue to be their home for the rest of their lives except for brief intervals elsewhere. In many ways it became the “new Merced” for Nancy Branson Harrington Napier’s clan. In addition to Nancy herself and daughters Eunice, Elsie, and Irene, it would soon lure Nancy’s big brother Thomas Branson and several of his children, her sister Theresa Branson Moore, and her nephew Clarence Johnson. Given this support-group of relatives, even without owning a farm of their own, Win and Eunice managed to provide a rooted environment for their kids as they grew up.

Win may have leased acreage in Castoria Township (rural Manteca) for a few years when the kids were little. However, the 1910s were a terrible time throughout the nation for small farmers to earn a living. It was even worse for those growers who had to pay rent for the dirt itself. By the middle of the 1910s, if not earlier, Win stopped risking the family’s well-being on the return from crops and livestock. The security that came from being a wage-earner represented too great a prize to ignore. After a brief period working on a farm in Tracy, farther west in San Joaquin County, and a similarly brief interval as a clerk, Win was hired by Castoria Township rancher Edward Powers. He stayed on board until the late 1920s, spending much of that stretch as a foreman.

One way or another Eunice and Win kept things together until the kids were grown. Eldest sons Eugene and Clyde both entered the Navy and in general were usually gone from the Manteca area after reaching adulthood -- often very far away, as Clyde sailed overseas, and Gene established himself in Butte, MT. Younger children Milton and Josephine remained in San Joaquin County all of their lives. However, no sooner had Josephine made it to adulthood than Eunice and Win fell into a struggle for prosperity -- in spite of Eunice taking on a job in the late 1920s as a sales clerk at Crocker Company Department Store. The challenging phase began with a health crisis. An article published in the Modesto News-Herald reveals that Win fell severely ill one Sunday in late August, 1929, and was hospitalized in San Mateo, CA. His stay lasted several days, and at the time the article was published on the thirtieth of the month, he was still weak enough that he was not yet home. Instead, he and Eunice had taken shelter at the home of her sister Josephine and brother-in-law Daniel Baysinger in Palo Alto. His physicians probably felt he should stay within easy reach of the hospital.

(In the image at right, Eunice stands -- or leans -- between her sisters Elsie and Nina, with Win reclining on the left. This was obviously taken on the same day as the photo above, but note that Eunice is now wearing a locket and Win has donned a corsage.)

Win recovered from his ordeal. He would go on to survive more than three additional decades. But the hospital bill must have been an unwelcome burden, and he no longer had his secure position with Edward Powers. To make ends meet, Win went to work as a ranch foreman for Spreckels Sugar Company, even though accepting the job meant he had to temporarily live away from home. He boarded with Eunice’s sister Irene and brother-in-law Claude Salmon at their home in Woodland, Yolo County, CA, amid the main Spreckels sugar beet plantations of the Sacramento River delta. Meanwhile Eunice remained at home in Manteca, kept company by children Milton and Josephine, who had not quite yet married and moved away. She couldn’t be with Win because she could not afford to give up her job as a saleslady, though she did shift in 1930 or early 1931 from her job at Crocker to one at Jacob’s Department Store. Happily, the economic challenges were eventually dealt with and Win was able to come back to the family home (which was located at 315 S. Locust Avenue in Manteca).

Eunice and Elsie and several of their female relatives were actively involved with the Native Daughters of the Golden West, otherwise known as the Rebekahs, throughout the early and middle decades of the 20th Century. They were key members of the Manteca lodge, which was formally known as Phoebe A. Hearst Parlor #214. (Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst, was a renowed philanthropist and champion of education.) Often, the women served as officers of Parlor #214, -- for example, Eunice was elected treasurer in 1930. This was only one example the social connections Eunice maintained. Another was her involvement in the Manteca Friendship Club, of which she served as president according to an article in the 26 May 1936 edition of the Modesto Bee about one of the club’s picnics.

In 1931 or in early 1932, Eunice and Win moved to Butte City, a tiny community right on the Sacramento River in Glenn County, CA. What brought them there is unclear. Perhaps Win’s Spreckels position required his temporary presence there, but he is described in the 1932 voter register as a farmer. Another relative who was mysteriously based in Glenn County at that point -- but at no other point -- was Eunice’s nephew Donald Riddell, then a young bachelor. Donald’s father Everett Riddell, husband of Nina Harrington, was at times associated with farm-development projects in the Sacramento Valley, particularly if they involved improvement of irrigation infrastructure. Perhaps Everett was involved in a project in Butte City, and was able to provide both his son and his brother-in-law with some good-paying temporary employment during the dregs of the Great Depression.

Eunice missed Manteca and made many visits back during the Butte City years, typically staying with her daughter Josephine and son-in-law Plinio Bianchi on their dairy farm near Ripon. Finally, after coming to stay with them in the late summer of 1934, she did not return to Butte City. Due to his obligations, Win lingered in Glenn County for at least one more year. Once he was back, the couple for the most part remained in Manteca and would go on to finish their lives there. However, they did reside temporarily in Santa Cruz in the late 1940s, which put them near Nina and Everett Riddell. The 1948 Santa Cruz city directory shows the couple at 219 Laurel Street.

Eunice died 27 July 1962. Win survived her for a brief period, passing away 11 January 1965.

Eunice is center in back in this photo of her mother, Nancy Anne Branson Harrington Napier, and her five daughters, taken at a big family gathering in the summer of 1936, an event probably held at the home of Eunice’s nephew Jack Wesley Salmon in Woodland. This shot is distressingly blurry, but it is offered here because it is a rare surviving image of all the sisters together. The five “Harrington girls” are, left to right: Elsie Margaret Harrington Cowell, Mary Josephine Harrington McDonald Baysinger, Eunice Lucille Harrington Converse, Irene Anne Harrington Salmon, and Nina Frances Harrington Riddell. A better impression of Eunice at this point in her life -- taken just three years earlier -- can be seen at the bottom of the pages devoted to her children Milton and Josephine.

Children of Eunice Lucille Harrington with Winfred Delorane Converse

Eugene Harrington Converse

Clyde Chesley Converse

Milton Delorane Converse

Josephine Agnes Converse

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