THE SPAIN FAMILY, Part 2
Helen M. Spain (1E2) -
Helen M. Spain (1E2): in 1900 lived with her parents and siblings and was a tailoress in Schuyler. After she married she kept house and took care of her father.
Francis A. Spain (1E3): He was a day laborer, also lived in Schuyler with his parents, and at the age of 21 in 1900 was also unmarried.
Anna T. Spain (1E4): was a seamstress at the age of eighteen in Schuyler, New York, and of course lived with her family. I just lose track of this branch of the Spain family after 1900.
Mary Spain (1F1): Mary, or Minnie, was alive in 1900 and living on the farm with her mother and stepfather and worked as a tailoress. I believe that after her father died she was a servant in 1880, working on a farm in Newport, Herkimer County, New York for one James Gallagher. At the same time her brother, Charles, was living with their uncle Michael Mahardy in Norway Township in Herkimer County. He was going to school at the time. By at least 1900 Mary was again living with her mother and stepfather in Schuyler. She may be the same Minnnie Spain lsited in the 1936 Fairfield Academy Alumni Association Directory as a student who attended the academy in 1884-1885. If this is the case the directory shows her still living in 1936. That Minnie Spain might also be the Mary Spain, sister of James Henry Spain.
Charles Spain (1F2): went to school in Norway Township, Herkimer, New York some time after his father's death and mother's remarriage. He was living with his uncle Michael Mahardy in 1880. He also was back living with his mother and stepmother by 1900. The 1900 census shows him to be a farm laborer and also unmarried.
Frederick Spain (1F3): was a farm laborer on his stepfather's farm, was not married in 1900 at age 28, and was also listed as Fred.
James Spain (1F4): was also a farm laborer on his step-father's farm. He was also unmarried at the age of 27 in 1900. In 1920 he was still unmarried and working as a hired man and laborer for William J. Bowen on his farm on the Seneca Turnpike in the Town of Vernon, Herkimer County, New York. He listed the mother tongue of himself and his parents in the 1920 census as Irish.
MARY F. SPAIN (1D1A) -
MARGARET SPAIN (1D1B) -
CHARLES JAMES SPAIN (1D2A) (Carl) -
Charles James Spain (1D2A) was my grandfather and we always knew him as "Pop" and my grandmother, Charlotte Spain, as "Mano". He was always Carl to everyone else. My mother says that he did not even know that his first name was Charles until he got his birth certificate some years later. I even took my confirmation name as "Carl" because of him.
Mano and Pop had known each other since elementary school and had grown up together. Pop was also an electrician and laid cables out to Catalina Island and across the ocean. Mom said that between business travel and the fact that he was a Merchant Marine in both World War I and World War II he had literally been to every country in the world and all the states and territories, except Alaska. In the fifties, he and Mano and my mother took a cruise to Alaska to remedy that situation. I knew him, but not as well as I would have liked because he lived in California and was always traveling and we lived mostly on the East Coast and were always moving. I always remember him sending me stamps and a harmonica from Germany and bringing me some small gifts from a trip to Mexico. He died when I was fourteen and I never got to know him the way I wanted to.
The family was quite well-to-do and my mother grew up in Beverly Hills, California. After he retired Pop liked to serve on Federal grand juries. I know as an electrician part of his work was on Hollywood sound stages for Western Electric Company. He was also a starter in the 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles. He used to have little envelopes with the spent shells designating which event they had started. This was the first year they tried an electronic start in the Olympics. Pop had even kept the starter gun and gave it to my cousin, Paul Spain, some years ago. Unfortunately some years later his house was burglarized and one of the items taken and never recovered was that starter pistol from the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. Everyone always commented on how the actor, Clark Gable, looked like Pop, and from the picture I have of him and my Uncle Bill in their uniforms in World War II, I would agree.
CARL JAMES SPAIN JR. (Bud) (1D2A1)-
WILLIAM FRANKLIN SPAIN (Bill) (1D2A2)
PATRICIA CAROL SPAIN (1D2A3)
Paul Berton Spain (1D2B) met his wife, Charlotte, when both were working at AT&T and they married in 1928. They built their home at 4040 West 60th Street in Los Angeles and lived there their entire married life, a total of fifty-eight years. They were the closest and most loving couple that anyone had ever known. They were so close that it actually surprised everyone that Aunt Charlotte(my Great Aunt) did not follow Uncle Paul (my great Uncle) to his grave because they were such a whole. Until her death, Aunt Charlotte, always said that no matter what her Paul was always with her and she made you believe it. She was the most positive person I ever knew and was great to talk to, even with three generations and close to sixty years separating us. My mother always talked warmly of her Aunt and Uncle and I was lucky enough to find out for myself.
Paul kept in touch with his family that lived in Pennsylvania and got to be close to his cousin, Paul Deininger, during the Second World War when he (Paul Deininger) was stationed in Los Angeles for flight school. It is through Paul Deininger, and our mutual cousin, William Curnow, that we know anything about the family of Caroline Klotz (my great-grandmother).