Mildred Anna Riddell

Mildred Anna Riddell, daughter of Nina Frances Harrington and John Everett Riddell, was born 15 September 1907 in Cupertino, Santa Clara County, CA. It is quite likely her parents had come to the area as a result of the post-earthquake construction jobs available all over the San Francisco Bay Area. When the rebuilding boom ended, the Riddells moved to Stockton. This placed them within miles of many other households of the Branson clan, some of whose members were based in Stockton and others farther south in San Joaquin County in or near the town of Manteca.

Mildred and her slightly younger brother Donald were raised mainly in Stockton, and both attended El Dorado Elementary and Stockton High School. Mildred graduated from the latter institution in 1922 -- it was only a two-year high school back then. There was at least one relocation. The family resided in Oakland during the period of America’s involvement in World War I, while Everett was employed by a construction company at the Liberty Shipyard in Alameda.

Mildred followed her mother’s example and became a bride at a young age, except a bit younger still. Her mother had wed at age sixteen and two months. Mildred did so six weeks shy of her sixteenth birthday. The wedding occurred 11 August 1923 in Stockton, officiated by minister J.A.B. Fry. The choice of clergyman may have some significance. When a member of the Harrington clan got married in Stockton, the rites were usually conducted by Reverend Reuben Henry Sink. That had been the case with the weddings of Mildred’s parents and aunts Elsie and Irene. It would be the case later in the 1920s with her first cousins Norma Cowell and Wanda Salmon. The implication is that Mildred may have had to make her own arrangements, pursuing a union before her folks agreed she was ready.

Mildred’s bridegroom was Vernon Prough Ehrhart. The eldest of six children of carpenter Thomas James Ehrhart and his wife Anna Mae Johnson, Vernon had been raised (and had probably been born) just east of Stockton. His birthdate was 11 October 1901, which meant he was six years senior to Mildred. A little over a year into the marriage the couple produced their first child. He was Everett Vernon Ehrhart, born 1 September 1924, two weeks before Mildred turned seventeen. Everett was the very first great-great grandchild of John Sevier Branson and Martha Jane Ousley to come into the world.

The couple resided in San Joaquin County for a few years, spending some or perhaps all of that interval in Stockton. They were still there when Mildred gave birth one more time, to another son. The baby was Eldred D. Ehrhart, born 31 July 1927. Little Eldred only lived four months, passing away 4 December 1927. He subsequently was omitted from inter-family genealogical notes and had to be re-discovered through public records during the creation of this website.

The marriage did not have staying power. The 1930 census for Antioch, Contra Costa County, CA shows that Mildred and Vernon were still making a go of it at that point, but it was not much further into the Great Depression era when Vernon abandoned his family, never to be heard from again. (The California Death Index shows he died 8 July 1979 in Yountville in Napa County. According to a grand niece who found an earlier version of this webpage biography and made contact, Vernon never married again, and since his parents and siblings did not speak of the family he had abandoned, the younger generations of the Ehrhart clan assumed “Uncle Vernon” had never had a wife or offspring.)

Mildred next married Guy Stanley Hillard. (Shown at right in 1955, on the couple’s property.) Known as Stanley or Stan Hillard, he had been raised as the youngest of eight children of George Edwin Hillard and Lizzie Atlantis Richardson, who had come from Pennsylvania to the apple-growing region around Sebastopol, Sonoma County, CA a year or two before Stan’s birth, which occurred 22 March 1910. Mildred and Stan were married 21 June 1936 at the Presbyterian Church in Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA. They had probably met in San Francisco, where he was a bus driver, and Mildred had taken shelter with her parents during the short interval they lived in the city. Soon the earlier marriage and the person of Vernon Ehrhart became a Subject Not Talked About. Though Everett may never have been formally adopted by Stan, the youngster soon changed his name from Everett Vernon Ehrhart to Everett Stanley Hillard. His stepfather had reason to know better than most that a father is defined as the man who raises you. Stan was actually the grandchild of George and Lizzie Hillard. His biological mother was the couple’s older child, Kathryn Alice “Kay” Hillard, who had given birth to Stan as an unwed teenager. (Kay would never admit who had impregnated her. However, Hillard family rumors point to Stan’s biological father as having been George William Ungewitter. If the rumors are based in fact, this is an intriguing heritage, because George William Ungewitter was a son of Mary Emma Donner, a descendant of a member of the infamous Donner Party who attempted to cross the Sierra Nevada in the winter of 1846-47.)

For Mildred and Everett, Stan was a healing balm on the injury suffered by Vernon Ehrhart’s abandonment. Stan was dependable and nurturant and remained at Mildred’s side ’til death did them part. (Stan and Mildred are shown immediately below as they looked in 1969 or close to that year, thirtysome years into their union.) Later Everett’s children would grow up unaware until adulthood that Stan was not their biological grandfather.

For the first two or three years of the marriage, Mildred and Stan may have lived with or near her parents in San Mateo, San Mateo County, CA. In 1939 or early 1940, both households became ensconced in and near the city of Santa Cruz. During the war years and the immediate post-war interval, Mildred and Stan resided within the city at 22 Melrose Avenue. In 1946, Stan and his father-in-law and Mildred’s brother Donald formed a partnership as Union Service Station. The partnership soon transformed, though, with Mildred’s parents taking over full ownership of the business while Donald and his wife and son left the Monterey Bay area. Mildred and Stan founded their own service station at 1504 Mission. Eventually Mildred and Stan established themselves in the hills above town on a twenty-acre ranch not far from where University of California Santa Cruz now sits. It was a well-kept, modern, working ranch with horses, pigs, and sheep. Earnings from the raising of this livestock was supplemental income, though. Financial security came from the service station. Later Stan was the owner/proprietor of an auto parts store. In addition to being a homemaker, Mildred did much of the bookkeeping for Stan’s businesses and generally assisted at the store.

During the late 1940s, Mildred enjoyed an ususual amount of extended-family proximity compared to later years. The households of her son Everett (now living his independent life with his bride, Beverly Byrne), her parents, her brother Donald and sister-in-law Josephine, and aunt Eunice Harrington Converse and uncle Winfred Converse, were all in Santa Cruz. However, most of these relatives moved away no later than the beginning of the 1950s. Even son Everett departed, going to Los Altos Hills and then, in 1965, on to Salinas. The big exception was Mildred’s parents, who remained close at hand until their deaths. In fact, after Everett Riddell passed away in 1965, Nina moved in with Mildred and Stan at their ranch, spending the last few years of her life there, until her death in 1970.

Mildred and Stan did not have offspring together, making Everett an only child for all but those few months of 1927 when Eldred was alive. Perhaps some difficulty with Eldred’s birth affected Mildred’s physical ability to have more children. Perhaps the emotional trauma of losing Eldred made her unwilling to risk more anguish.

Stan died 12 February 1974. Mildred was not yet elderly at that point, and spent many years as a widow. Her final phase of life was spent at Canterbury Woods retirement community in Pacific Grove, a suburb of Monterey, Monterey County, CA. Canterbury Woods, operated by the Episcopal Homes Foundation, was an excellent setting for Mildred at that juncture, and she enjoyed her time there, spending many hours doing needlepoint, gardening, and playing bridge. She passed away at Canterbury Woods 24 December 2000 at age ninety-three. Her remains were placed with Stan’s at Santa Cruz Memorial Park in Santa Cruz.

In late 2008, Stan’s nephew Lee A. Hillard posted a profile of Mildred on FindaGrave.com. It has some additional information about her, and other photos. Click here to go straight to that page. Other links will take you to memorial pages for Stan and members of his family.

Mildred with her parents in 1909 or 1910. The extended family was staging a play that day and her father is wearing a wig -- and her mother’s hair is mussed from having recently taken one off. Two other photos from the same album (belonging to Mildred’s aunt Josephine Harrington McDonald Baysinger) show that Mildred had become worn out waiting for the grown-ups to be done with their grand production and needed to have some attention paid to her.

Children of Mildred Anna Riddell with Vernon Prough Ehrhart

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