James Lawrence Hastings

James Lawrence Hastings, fourth of the eight children of Mary Lena Brown and Frank Opal Hastings, was born 23 November 1902 in Martintown, Green County, WI, the village founded by his great-grandparents Nathaniel Martin and Hannah Strader. Jim was born in the easternmost of a row of three legacy houses of the Martin estate. The house, situated on the north bank of the Pecatonica River opposite the main part of the community, had been built for his grandmother Emma Ann Martin and grandfather Cullen Penny Brown during the early years of their marriage. By the time of Jim’s birth, Emma and Cullen were seldom there, having established another home in DeQueen, Sevier County, AR. For the vast majority of each year the house was the exclusive domain of Jim, his parents, and his siblings.

Jim’s father worked for Illinois Central Railroad as a section foreman responsible for track maintenance. His job postings sometimes took him some distance from home, and in 1907, the whole family moved with him. They rented quarters in Dilly, Vernon County, WI, about a hundred miles north of Martintown, but after a year or so they came back to Martintown -- not to the same house, however, because it had been sold when they moved away. Instead they occupied a different house in the main part of the village near the church. Jim was young enough by the time of this return that virtually all of his schooling took place in the one-room Martin School and then a mile south at the high school in Winslow, Stephenson County, IL.

Jim entered the U.S. Army in April, 1919. This was extraordinarily young -- not quite sixteen and a half, so he obviously fibbed about his age in order to be inducted. He would go on to make a career of it, serving for thirty years. Having not bothered with college, he naturally began as an enlisted man. His first major posting after boot camp was at Coblenz, Germany.

Jim’s decision to leave was unusual in his immediate family. All seven of his siblings began their adult, married lives in either southern Wisconsin or northern Illinois, not far from their roots. The only sibling who eventually emulated Jim was his slightly older sister Ruth, but Ruth -- along with her husband Rolland Parsons and their family -- did not depart until the mid-1940s (first to Boston, later to central Washington state). Jim’s connection with Martintown and Winslow was therefore more a matter of nostalgia, whereas the bond was active and on-going for his siblings. However, given that so much of his family was concentrated in one locale, Jim made a habit of visits back home and he kept up his membership in the Winslow chapter of the Masons (Winslow Lodge No. 564, Free and Accepted Masons), though in terms of gatherings his brothers had to speak for him, as he was rarely there in person. (Images of Jim on trips back home are shown at right and lower down this page. The one at right is a close-up of a group shot of his generation taken at a big Hastings family gathering held during the summer of 1928 at the home of his grandmother Ann Hastings near Browntown, Green County, WI. Left to right are Barbara Anna Hastings, Frederick Cullen “Fritz” Hastings, James Lawrence Hastings, Helen Curtis, and Ethel Dale.)

Being a military man was not condusive to having a family and Jim would never become a biological father. Nor did he marry at first. Eventually, however, at age thirty-three he was joined in matrimony to Blanche Marguerite Critchfield, daughter of William Taylor Critchfield and Margaret “Maggie” Curley. Blanche had been born 5 March 1899 in Whiterock Precinct, Elko County, NV. Her father had been a gold and silver miner throughout the time she was growing up, first in Whiterock Precinct and then in Winnemucca, Humboldt County, NV. Shortly after graduating from Winnemucca High School, Blanche had obtained a position as a stenographer at Fort Douglas, Cochise County, AZ, where she went on to wed soldier James W. Harper 10 November 1919, taking her into a marriage that lasted over ten years. Despite the number of years she and Mr. Harper were husband and wife, no offspring resulted. This may well have been because Blanche was infertile. Perhaps this is why the relationship ended, though in fact it has not been determined if it ended in divorce or in the death of James Harper. The couple’s final years had been spent in San Francisco, where Harper worked as a heating-products salesman. This accounts for Blanche meeting Jim Hastings, because he became based in San Francisco as of the early 1930s.

Blanche became Mrs. James L. Hastings 4 January 1936 in Reno, Washoe County, NV. The union lasted twenty years, enduring through the disruption of World War II and the moves necessary for Jim’s career. One of the earliest of the moves occurred when they were newlyweds. Jim underwent schooling in Philadelphia, PA, probably as part of an arrangement with the military to get the educational credentials needed in order to be commissioned as an officer. (The photograph at the upper left of this biography was taken in 1946 during Jim’s final few years in uniform.) The classes did not take long to complete. In 1938, the couple returned to the San Francisco Bay Area. Jim’s rank qualified him for family-level housing at the Presidio. He and Blanche remained there into the 1940s. The quarters were ample enough that they took in Blanche’s divorced mother and sister Adele C. Critchfield and the latter’s teenaged son, William G. Hanley.

One of the infrequent times Jim was able to get together with his parents after his move to California is commemorated in this photograph, taken in approximately 1937. Family members gathered at the Fresno, CA residence of Jim’s first cousin (simultaneously his second cousin) John Warner Hastings, the occasion being a visit to California from Martintown by Jim’s parents Frank and Lena and sister Blanche Anna Hastings (who was still a single woman apron-stringed to her parents, not quite yet the wife of Herbert Fernstaedt). Jim is the man in his mid-thirties near the center of the very front row. He is glancing to the side rather than facing the camera. To the right of him is his sister Anna, then his father, and next is Blanche Critchfield Hastings, with her arm looped inside her father-in-law’s elbow. Blanche was probably meeting many of these in-laws for the first time in her life. (For the remaining identifications, see the caption of this same photo as reproduced on the page devoted to Gladys Beryl Spece.)

In the immediate post-World War II period, Jim and Blanche were based out of Sausalito, Marin County, CA, just across the Golden Gate from San Francisco. After his retirement, the couple established a home in Aptos, Santa Cruz County, CA. This was not only an exceptional choice of residence in terms of climate and scenery, but it meant Blanche could be near her immediate kinfolk. Unfortunately these circumstances did not endure long. Blanche died 24 May 1956 -- gone so young that her own mother survived her. She passed away at Letterman General Hospital at the San Francisco Presidio military base.

The funeral was held at the Presidio in the early afternoon of 28 May 1956, followed by burial at Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno/Colma, CA. A substantial contingent of Jim’s relatives made it out for the ceremonies despite the novelty of air travel. (Most family members still tended toward train and automobile travel even for long journeys.) The group from the Winslow area included Jim’s mother, his siblings Fritz, Mary, and John (with wife Wanda), cousin Leah Hastings Schumacher, and his aunt Emma Warner Hastings. A large contingent of California-based relatives attended as well, most of them driving over from Fresno County. Lena remained in California for three weeks, most of it spent with Jim, and some with the Fresno County relatives. On the sixteenth of June, two carloads of kinfolk took off for Martintown and Winslow, Jim driving one car and his second cousin Erma Spece Johnston the other. The travellers includes Jim, Lena, and Emma, along with Erma and her mother Belle. Among the stops made on the way was one in Waterloo, IA to attend the big Spece-clan annual picnic. (Jim’s paternal grandmother was Barbara Ann Spece.) Jim remained in his home region reconnecting with his family and seeing familiar places. He did not return to California for months. It was a way of not having to face the emptiness of the Aptos home. (At left is a picture taken during that road trip or during one of the subsequent excursions that summer. Jim is in the center. Emma is on the left, Belle is on the right, and Erma is sitting by Jim’s feet.)

Jim dealt with his loneliness in a timely manner. After allowing himself a sufficient mourning period, he began dating an acquaintance from his Sausalito years, Ruth Darroch, by that time a divorcée in her early fifties. The pair wed 1 June 1957 at McClellan Air Force Base, Sacramento County, CA. The bride’s original name had been Sara Ruth Russell. She was known mainly by her middle name. This no doubt struck him as normal inasmuch as his mother, two of his sisters, and his Grandma Ann were all known by their middle names. Ruth’s first half-century of existence can be summarized like so:

Ruth was a daughter of George Alvin Russell and Artie E. Irwin. Ruth, born 16 September 1904 in Maysville, DeKalb County, MO, was the second of four children. Her mother’s family had long been in DeKalb County and would remain there, but her father was restless to find better opportunities elsewhere for himself and his household. About the time Ruth entered her teens, her family relocated to a farm outside Alliance, Box Butte County, NE. By 1920 they moved to Fullerton, Orange County, CA. Here Ruth began forging an independent life, getting a job as a telephone operator while still only fifteen years old and moving out of her parents’ home before her sixteenth birthday. (She may have temporarily come back.) George and Artie would go on to Visalia, Tulare County, CA and then to Escalon, San Joaquin County, CA. Ruth appears to have spent her late teens back in Fullerton and nearby Long Beach, which is probably where she became acquainted with the man who was to be her first husband (though her residence is Visalia on her marriage license). He was William Hampton, an aviator and an acclaimed veteran of World War I. Married 7 July 1924 in Santa Ana, Orange County, CA, the couple spent much of their brief married life in greater Los Angeles, where William was the principal owner and operator of Continental Air Map Company. He is credited with making some of the first aerial maps of the western United States. One child resulted from the union before William was killed in a plane crash 28 October 1932 in Placer County, CA. (For more about William, see his biography on the historical website devoted to the Davis-Monthan Aviation Field Register. Click here to go straight to the relevant page. You will note the biography is blank about his early life. Further checking implies his identity was fabricated, leaving his true origin a mystery. The marriage certificate describes him as a native of Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, CA. That much may be true.) By the time of the tragedy, the Hamptons were residents of San Leandro, Alameda County, CA. Ruth would choose to remain in the Bay Area, never returning to southern California. Her next major relationship, resulting in another child born in the mid-1930s, was with Colin Sinclair Darroch, a native of Scotland. He was a seaman, meaning he was often gone from their home in Larkspur, Marin County, CA. They remained together long enough that Colin became a naturalized citizen of the U.S. in 1945. At some point within the next ten years, the pair officially divorced. Larkspur is near Sausalito and this probably explains how Jim and Ruth met. It could be she was Blanche’s hairdresser, cosmetologist being one of the occupations Ruth pursued over the course of her life. (Another was bank teller.)

By the time Ruth married Jim, both of her children were grown. Therefore even though Jim became a step-father and seems to have gone on to be well thought-of by his wife’s descendants, he did not have the experience of being an active, day-to-day parent. In a way, he skipped being a father and arrived on the scene just in time to become a grandfather. (It is likely the only minor who ever shared Jim’s house day-to-day at any point in his life was Blanche’s nephew William Hanley, and that situation did not last long.).

Having no kids left to complicate travel, Ruth accompanied Jim to Winslow about three weeks after the wedding and began an extended stay in the region very much like the one he had undertaken the year before as a recent widower. Emma Warner Hastings’s diary mentions the couple stopping by her place on June 21st early during their trip, and dropping by on September 14th as part of their series of good-bys to the various relatives before heading back. The twelve-week span was an excellent chance for Ruth to get to know her new husband’s people right at the start of their years together. To have undertaken such an extended trip suggests perhaps Jim was trying to convince Ruth to move east. She was obviously willing to get a good look at the area because she was sacrificing the chance to be with her daughter and a brand-new (first) granddaughter, born in mid-July, but ultimately the pair returned to California, where they continued to reside for good.

Now that Jim was retired, they had their pick of spots. They chose to live in Santa Rosa, CA, where Ruth had ended up after her Larkspur days, and where her daughter had graduated from high school just a few years earlier. (A bit of trivia -- as I type these words in the den of my home, I am sitting one mile east of the apartment Jim and Ruth shared. I live on the same street they did. This is pure coincidence. I moved into my current residence long before I ever knew one of my mother’s second cousins had once lived in Santa Rosa.)

Santa Rosa was still home to Jim at the end of his life, though his death itself occurred 1 October 1978 at a medical facility in San Francisco -- probably at the Veteran’s Hospital at Fort Miley. Three days later his body was interred beside the remains of Blanche at Golden Gate National Cemetery in Section V, Site 463. Ruth survived him by a few years, dying 23 June 1982 in Santa Rosa. Her remains were also placed with those of Jim.

As mentioned, Jim had no biological issue, but both of Ruth’s children had offspring and her line is now substantial.

Arranged youngest to eldest, the five sons of Frank Opal Hastings with their father, in an image from the late 1930s. From left to right, Ernest Brown Hastings, Frederick Cullen Hastings, James Lawrence Hastings, Leland Francis “Hap” Hastings, John Cecil Hastings, Frank Opal Hastings.

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