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Guy H Christy 1905
From Kentucky to California
The Family Moves West
In late 1897 or early 1898, Guy Herbert and Bessie Roberts Christy moved from North Alton, Illinois to Paducah, Kentucky. His parents George and Elizabeth, in their 50s, moved with them. Their children Herbert Estelle and Anne Elizabeth were born in 1898 and 1899, respectively. Guy struggled to find work, and on April 2, 1902, he filed for bankruptcy in Paducah. He continued to work as a blacksmith although not very successfully through 1906.
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| Bessie Christy recorded the dates the family traveled from Kentucky to California on this 1907 Calendar. |
In January 1907, Guy headed west. Notes kept by Bessie on a 1907 calendar document the dates for the family's journey from Kentucky to California. Guy's father George (now 66 years old) and his mother Elizabeth (59 years old) accompanied them on the trip.
The family took a train from Paducah to Durango, Colorado. The journey took five days. They likely changed trains several times, taking the Illinois Central Railroad to St. Louis, and then the Missouri Pacific or Rock Island Railroad to Denver. From Denver, they would have taken the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad To Durango. They arrived in Durango on January 20, 1907. It was a very cold day. Anne Christy, seven years old at the time, said she was shivering so badly that her father gave her a sip of whisky to warm her up.
Guy and the family remained in Durango until September. He apparently sought work there, but it's mining boom had largely played out after silver prices dropped from $1.05/oz to $.63/oz in 1893. A fire in 1889 virtually destroyed Durango's downtown, and the Silver Panic of 1893 caused a major downturn in silver mining.
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| Herbert and Anne Christy in the yard of their home in Santa Cruz, circa 1908. |
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| Guy Christy in his blacksmith shop in Santa Cruz, circa 1909. He went on to become an instructor in welding and blacksmithing at Heald School in San Francisco. |
On September 7, 1907, the family departed Durango for Silverton likely on board the Denver & Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad. They remained in Silverton for only seven weeks. On Oct 31, 1907, they boarded a train heading to California. They took the narrow gauge Denver & Rio Grande Railroad 47 miles from Silverton to Durango, and then from Durango to Alamosa, Colorado.
In Alamosa, the boarded the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad for Denver, and then traveled to San Francisco. In San Francisco, they caught the Southern Pacific to San Jose, and traveled by wagon or stage coach to Santa Cruz. They arrived in Santa Cruz on Nov 7, 1907.
The family returned almost immediately to San Francisco on November 9. By 1907, many businesses had reopened, and banking services were restored, helping to fund reconstruction. The inflated wages of that period were shrinking due to an oversupply of labor. A major strike of streetcar men had just ended with the complete collapse of the labor unions in San Francisco, and all the supervisors and the mayor had been found guilty of bribery. If Guy sought work there, he was apparently unsuccessful, and he returned to Santa Cruz. In 1910, the family was living at 808 Bonito Street in Santa Cruz and guy was self-employed at Christy and Fisher, a blacksmith shop.
His parents George and Lizzie lived next door. Their daughter and Guy's sister Carrie along with her daughter Camille also lived with George and Lizzie. Carrie's husband was apparently living and working in Oregon as a salesman in a drug store. They never reunited and it's not known when he died.
George died in 1913. His wife Lizzy Stephens Christy, who had accompanied the family all the way from Kentucky to Santa Cruz and then San Francisco, moved home to Paducah, Kentucky to live among her brothers and sisters. She died on May 31, 1932, at age 83.
Carrie moved to Los Angeles with her daughter Camille until 1923, when she is listed in the Little Rock, Arkansas business directory. Lizzie lived with her sister-in-law Nita Diuguid Houck in Little Rock, Arkansas. When she died, her body was transported home to Paducah by train and Lizzy was buried in the Stephens plot in the Oak Grove Cemetery.
From Farrier to Welder
Guy apparently went to Nevada to seek work in the silver mines. There is a picture of him repairing a wagon, labeled "1908 Elko, Nev."
Guy returned to Santa Cruz within the year and opened his own blacksmithing shop, as shown in the picture above. It appears, however, as automobiles multiplied, that the days of blacksmithing were numbered.
In 1915, Guy's father George William Christy died at age 73. George's headstone, in the International Order of Odd Fellows cemetery in Santa Cruz, California, is inscribed, "July 15, 1915 Geo. W. Christy CO F 27 ILL INF". Guy, Bessie, the children and grandmother Lizzy Stephens Christy remained in Santa Cruz until November 9, 1916, when the family, excepting Anne, moved to San Francisco.
At age 17, Anne showed an early streak of independence and remained in Santa Cruz to complete her studies at Heald Business College in bookkeeping and shorthand. Two months later, in January, 1917, she followed her parents to San Francisco and sought work there (as shown by reference letters written by her instructor).
In San Francisco, Guy paid to attend the Heald School and learn welding. He then worked for Heald from the middle of 1916 to the middle of 1917. In October 1918, the family lived in the Glasgow Apartments at 525 Turk, near Larkin, in San Francisco.
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| An Willys-Overland Car Company model in 1916. Only $615. In 1914, the Willys-Overland car company was second only to Ford in car production. |
In early 1919, Anne Elizabeth "Betty" Christy—she grew to dislike the name Anne—went to work for one of the companies that had put her father out of the farrier business, the Willys-Overland Car Company, as an accountant. In January 1920, according to the Census, her father Guy was also working for the former competition as a welder in an autoshop; Bessie worked as a sales clerk in a store, and Anne (or Betty) was listed as a stenographer in the auto business. Betty, my grandmother, told me with great satisfaction that she "made good money on that job." She was the only woman in the accounting department and she had men working under her, an unusual situation for a woman her age and for the time period.
Earlier in 1919, Betty met a Navy radioman named Harold Bartle "Bart" Phelps on a blind double date with another girl. Their courtship was rapid. Bart was transferred to Honolulu in August 1919. Only a few months later, on March 20, 1920, Betty left her job and sailed on the Matson ship S. S. Manoa from San Francisco to Honolulu. Betty and Bart were married there one week after she arrived, on April 6. No family members could make the expensive trip to Hawaii. No invitations were sent, only an announcement afterwards. They were eventually married over 64 years.
Guy Becomes a Welding Instructor at Heald
By 1920, Guy was an instructor in welding at Heald, and in 1921 he became the welding and blacksmith department head.
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| Front, clockwise: Bessie, Herbert, Anne, and Guy circa 1915, just after their move to San Francisco from Santa Cruz. | ||||||
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Guy and Bessie's son Herbert "Bert" Estelle Christy first served in the Army during World War I in the 320th Signal Corp. After he was discharged, he went to work for the Union Pacific railroad. According to his sister Betty, "He got off the train one day and dropped dead."
Bert never married. He died on April 22, 1927, apparently of a heart attack or stroke, just after his 29th birthday, in San Bernardino, California. A telegram from E. E. Cunningham in San Bernardino to Guy H. Christy in San Francisco, dated Apr. 22, 1927, states, "HERBERT E. CHRISTY DIED SUDDENLY PRESUME HEART FAILURE SAN BERNARDINO TODAY. E. E. CUNNINGHAM". Herbert's mom's sister, Ruth Kate Diuguid, was married to a Cunningham in Paducah, KY. Perhaps E. E. Cunningham also worked for the railroad or was located in the San Bernardino area. Herb was buried in Colma, California. (A deed from the Mountain View Cemetery Association, dated April 25, 1927, grants Guy H. Christy a lot "numbered 483, block Cedar".) A notarized document, signed by Herbert's grandmother, attests to his birth at 714 South Fourth Street, between Ohio and Tennessee Streets, in Paducah.
According to the 1930 Census, Guy and Bessie continued to live in the Glasgow Apartments. Guy's birthplace is mistakenly given as Scotland, but then the entry appears to be crossed out and possibly "IL" is added. His parents' birthplaces are Illinois, and Bessies' are Kentucky. The monthly rent was $35 and they did not own a radio.
It's during this period that we believe they met May Forrgeaud Haskell, widow of Brig. General Harry L. Haskell. She lived only a few blocks away at 1482 Sutter Street, and we found among my grandmother Anne Christy Phelps' possessions a Civil War medal belonging to May's husband.
At some point during the 1930s, Guy apparently opened a welding shop in Sacramento, attested to by a business card for "Christy's Welding Works" at 1205 Eye Street.
In June, 1941, Bessie visited with her sister Anita "Nita" May Houck in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the 1940s, Guy and Bessie moved to 1574 78th Ave. in Oakland, California. They managed an apartment house in Oakland near Lake Merrit.
Their daughter Betty worked outside the home for a few months during the war, otherwise she was a full-time mother and homemaker. Betty and Bart built a house in 1936 in San Mateo, California for $7,000.
Guy and Bessie died only a few months apart: Bessie on March 12, 1947 and Guy on November 10, 1947. They are buried together in Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California.
Knowing her parents' experience during the Depression and their distrust of banks, Betty and Bart expected to find some money hidden in their home, and they looked throughout the house several times, but only found several small envelopes with a few dollars in them. Shortly afterwards, Betty had a dream and received an impression. She told Bart to look in the heater compartment over the top of the door. Hidden there where only knowing fingers would find it was an envelope containing $1500—equivalent to about $22,000 in 2025.
Anne and Bart lived at 303 Seville Way for 48 years, when Bart died in March 1984 at age 91. In 1987, Betty sold the home that had cost them $7,000 in 1936 for $291,000 and moved to Santa Maria, California, to be near their only son, Harold "Hal" Bartle Phelps, Jr. and his wife Maxine. Betty passed away from natural causes on December 12, 1997 at the age of 97.