Josephine Agnes Converse

Josephine Agnes Converse, daughter of Eunice Lucille Harrington and Winfred Delorane Converse, was born 17 December 1909 on a farm near Manteca, San Joaquin County, CA. She was the last of her parents’ four children -- a group of kids born in quick sequence in the early years of the 20th Century.

Manteca had become the headquarters of a large clump of the Branson clan in the six to seven years preceding Josephine’s birth. Among the things keeping the bond strong was that Otis Cowell, husband of Josephine’s aunt Elsie Harrington, and Claude Salmon, husband of Josephine’s aunt Irene Anna Harrington, were both sons of families who had founded the community. In about 1906, Josephine’s parents had decided to relocate north from Merced County and live in close proximity to Elsie and Otis and Irene and Claude and their families. The households of the three Harrington women and their spouses formed a kind of nucleus for the clan. Josephine grew up near such other relatives as her grandmother Nancy Anna Branson Harrington Napier, her great aunt Theresa Branson Moore, and her mother’s first cousins Clarence Johnson and Alice Branson Williams. Of great influence was the bevy of older female relatives, all of whom were heavily involved in the local social scene. She and her first cousin Norma Emily Cowell were the main constituents of the younger-generation participants in the doings of this group. One of the ways that socializing was expressed was by participation in the Manteca chapter of the Native Daughters of the Golden West, also known as Phoebe Apperson Hearst Parlor #214. Josephine embraced the traditions. She even served as president of Parlor #214 during the late 1920s, rising to that position before she was out of her teens.

Farming became a challenging way to make a living during the 1910s for a variety of reasons, and Josephine’s father was among those who struggled to land in the right situation. At one point in her early childhood her father’s efforts to support his family resulted in a move to Tracy, farther west in San Joaquin County. However, this proved to be a temporary relocation. Winfred was hired by Manteca farmer Edward Powers, working his way up to foreman during the 1920s. Josephine therefore spent nearly all of her school years in Manteca.

At Manteca Union High School, Josephine and her cousin Norma Cowell belonged to the same class year and were constant companions. The two girls are shown at right on campus in 1926, when they were both sixteen years old. (Josephine is on the left.) Other relatives who attended Manteca High during Josephine’s span of attendance, though they were not quite in the same class year, were first cousins Wanda and Jack Salmon and second cousins Ruth Johnson, Lloyd Johnson, Ray Williams, and Ruth Williams. Josephine was in more than one play at school. She nabbed the lead female role for the senior play, portraying the heroine, Poppy, in the M.U.H.S. production of Captain Applejack, which was performed 3 June 1927, just before she and Norma graduated. Norma also had a role in Captain Applejack.

Less than a month after that play was performed, Norma wed Theron Hodson and began her existence as a married woman. Josephine was, it seemed, destined for other things, at least in the short term. She was accepted at Western Normal School in Berkeley and left in mid-August, 1927 to begin her student days. Western Normal School was a private institution meant specifically for the training of elementary-school teachers. It had been existence since 1901 as the Dodd School, but as Josephine and her class year arrived, was incorporated under the new name. Josephine may have decided to study there due to some sort of Native Daughters scholarship. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, the mother of William Randolph Hearst and the person for whom the Manteca lodge was named, was a great champion of education, having made philanthropic-level donations in the 1890s that vastly boosted the prestige and size of the University of California at Berkeley. It stands to reason the lodge would have maintained a scholarship in Phoebe’s honor, and Josephine would have been a natural recipient of the award in 1927.

Sources do not make clear if Josephine got her credential from Western Normal. If so, she does not appear to subsequently taken a job as a schoolteacher, and she spent the end of the 1920s and very beginning of the 1930s living at home at 315 S. Locust Avenue in Manteca with her parents and brother Milton. (Her eldest brother Gene was there for some of that period as well, just prior to his relocation to Butte, MT.) Josephine did, however, enter the working world. She became a bookkeeper for Turner Hardware and Implement Company. Eventually, though, she gave in to precedent and became a wife and homemaker, even if she did not plunge into matrimony quite as quickly as had other close female relatives such as Norma Cowell and Wanda Salmon -- Josephine was a full twenty years old before she put on her wedding dress.

The object of Josephine’s affection was Plinio Mark Bianchi, a young dairyman from the nearby community of Ripon. The ceremony occurred 2 May 1930 at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Manteca, Father E. Tozzi officiating. (St. Anthony’s would remain Josephine’s church for the rest of her life.) Norma was matron of honor. Plinio’s brother Romeo served as best man.

Plinio, born 2 January 1907, was a son of Abbondio Bianchi and Martina Dedini. His parents had come to the United States from the Italian portion of Switzerland at the turn of the century. Plinio -- whose middle name may have been Marco before it was Americanized to Mark -- and his older siblings Ellen and Romeo had been born in California, probably on a dairy farm near Benicia, Solano County, CA. The family had arrived in the Ripon area during the 1910s. His father had died when Plinio was only ten years old. The widowed Martina (also known as Martha) had not remarried, but had been helped along as a single mother by both Bianchi family members and Dedini family members. Two of Plinio’s uncles, Angelo Bianchi and Peter Dedini, lived on adjacent farms with their families. This pair in particular became Plinio’s surrogate fathers, though in the long run it was Romeo -- only twelve years old when Abbondio Bianchi died -- who became the primary senior male figure in Plinio’s life.

Josephine and Plinio settled in Ripon on the Bianchi dairy farm. Their first child was born a little more than nine months into the marriage, as if to say the stage was set for offspring to appear at a fast clip, resulting in a classic “big Italian family.” It was a false impression. The couple only had three children total, with the second and third not arriving until the late 1930s. The hiatus between the first and second child was perhaps was a consequence of the uncertainties of the Great Depression.

Plinio spent many years as a dairy farmer -- the only hint that he might have eventually had some other occupation is that in a 1955 phone book, he and Josephine are listed at an address in Stockton. Meanwhile, in the 1930s, he worked in tandem with Romeo. The brothers’ lives were tightly linked during this period. Romeo shared the household with Plinio, Josephine, and their offspring until ending his bachelor days and starting a family with Arleene Alice Gall shortly before World War II cast its gloom on the nation.

Josephine’s brothers Gene and Clyde were gone from the Great Central Valley for significant stretches of their adult lives. Josephine, along with her brother Milton and cousins Norma Hodson, Lloyd Johnson, and Ruth Johnson Wampler Knowlton, chose to keep their roots in the county, be it Manteca, Ripon, or Stockton. All three of Josephine’s kids more or less followed her example and made their homes in central California.

Plinio died somewhat prematurely -- he was only in his late fifties. The event occurred 8 April 1965 in San Joaquin County (this would mean either Manteca or perhaps a hospital in Stockton). Though Josephine was only fifty-five when widowed, she did not remarry. Among the ways she filled the next two decades were lodge activities, church functions, and for exercise, such things as nine holes or so at the Spring Creek Golf Club. She passed away Tuesday, 13 May 1986 in Stockton, where she had been hospitalized. She was a resident of Manteca at the end -- in fact, aside from her stint at Western Normal School and the possible 1950s temporary relocation to Stockton, she had been a resident of Manteca all the way along since birth. Her remains were laid to rest Saturday, 17 May 1986 at St. John’s Cemetery between Manteca and Escalon.

Josephine Agnes Converse Bianchi is not to be confused with Josephine T. Bianchi (1906-2004), who also dwelled in the Manteca/Ripon area.

This 1933 photograph of some of the Manteca clan comes from the memorabilia of Josephine’s aunt Mary Josephine Harrington McDonald Baysinger -- the person for whom Josephine was named. Unfortunately no names were written on the print. All individuals have been identified, but only through a process of photo comparison and logic; it remains possible that one or two of the guesses are wrong. Standing in back, from left to right: Eunice Lucille Harrington Converse, Winfred Delorane Converse, Elsie Margaret Harrington Cowell, Milton Delorane Converse, Alzoe Agnes Gianelli Converse, Theron Ormal Hodson, and John James “Babe” Napier. Left to right in the chairs (the middle row of people): Bridget Agnes Byrnes Gianelli, Nancy Anne Branson Harrington Napier, Theresa Branson Moore, Otis Marion Cowell. The three adults squatting on footstools in front are, left to right, Norma Emily Cowell Hodson, Josephine Agnes Converse Bianchi, and Plinio Mark Bianchi. The identity of the baby and toddler are known -- their apparent ages are, in fact, the means of determining the date the picture was taken -- but their names are held back because these two family members are still alive as of 2011. The photo of Josephine and Norma at Manteca High School also comes from the same collection of memorabilia. The girls wrote a note to their aunt on the back, so the identities and the setting are not in doubt.

Children of Josephine Agnes Converse with Plinio Mark Bianchi

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