This article is about a book written by Otto S. Lewis after his wife and two children perished in the shipwreck of the SS Columbia in 1907. Titled ‘In Memory of My Beloved Wife Mabel B. Lewis and Children Florence and Ray’, it is one of those rare finds that provide both an in-depth look at… Read more »about A Memorial Book By Otto S. Lewis
Category: Father's Family
These are articles about my Bates relatives and ancestors.
The Shipwreck Of The SS Columbia
In this article, I take a look at events surrounding the 1907 shipwreck and sinking of the SS Columbia as reported in various newspapers of the time. Stories of the disaster claimed the front pages of West Coast newspapers for several days as details of the event became known. Particular attention is paid to the stories concerning the Otto Lewis family.
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Discovering Family Lost in a Shipwreck
I first heard that some family members had died in a shipwreck from my aunt, Luella (Munroe) Bates. She didn’t recall the details, but said that a book had been written about it. The book, of course, had been lost over the years. This is the first of several articles describing the search for those family members, the shipwreck, and the book.
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Who were Grandma Ostrander and Aunt Minnie?
In my dad’s baby book, my grandmother, Beatrice Lockwood Bates, listed the gifts he received for his first and second Christmases. Each year a present was received from Grandma Ostrander and one from Aunt Minnie Edwards, but no one in the family recognized these names. In this article, I describe discovering the family connection to both of these individuals. In the process, I found a new family contact who had known my grandmother as a young woman. Read more »about Who were Grandma Ostrander and Aunt Minnie?
A Biographical Album… and a Train Robbery!
One of my early searches for family members on my grandmother’s side turned up an unexpected biography of her father and his family. In this article, I take a look at a biographical album that contains a profile of Franklin J. Holman, and a reference to a train robbery.
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