Critters at the Cemetery

Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport, CN, Oct 2009

1930 Census Taker, Bessie Hough

I had a great time portraying Bessie Hough at Questing Heirs of Long Beach. Bessie was one of the 87,800 enumerators for 1930 in the United States. I walked her district, visited her house and found her grave.

I almost feel as though I took the census with her.

Bessie shared her experiences of taking the 1930 census in Corona, Ca. She tells us about the enumerator instructions and about the people she spoke to as she walked her assigned district. Bessie is a little bit of a gossip too.

She is my most popular character. I love to be her. I hope she is looking down and is happy that she is remembered.

Following Her Footsteps

The picture is of a rock with Indian writing called "Painted Rock". It was moved for a railroad track.

I didn't know hiking for history could be so much fun. Hey, did I coin a new phrase? "Hiking for History," sounds good.

Since the Janet Gould dedication we decided to make it Janet's Week. We followed her footsteps around Corona.

Kathleen wrote this up about our adventures:

"Diane Wright and I spent a wonderful three days hiking looking for all of the monuments in the Temescal Valley. We now know that three of them no longer exist. After being unsuccessful in our quest to find them, we went to the Corona Library's Heritage Room and listened to Janet Gould's tapes. It was exciting to hear her voice again. According to Gould, Carved Rock had been vandalized and carried away in pieces by the early 1960s. We found evidence that the other "missing" monuments were no longer standing as well. The Butterfield Stage Marker is on a rock as it was originally but no longer says that it is a State Marker. Perhaps when it was rededicated and moved to Dos Lagos it no longer qualified."

This is my personal dilemma: Janet has a very simply stone in the cemetery and she really gave alot to Corona, then there is another person, whom I will not name yet, who has a large nice stone and I can't find much about the life this person lived. If I were to give a speech tomorrow on cemetery ideas, one would be not to judge the man or women by the size of his gravestone.

DAR Dedication for Janet Gould

Janet Gould was honored yesterday for her work in the Auranta Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. She died in 1964 after doing much historic work for Southern California. She was the first in Corona to recognize that local historic sites need to be marked. She was the driving force behind placing several monuments around the city of Corona. She loved to wear dangly earrings and multitudinous braclets which make a tinkling sound when she moved her hands. She lectured about events that took place in Corona and Southern California.
Several ladies of the DAR came dressed in colonial clothing to place a DAR marker on her grave. The caretaker cleaned and shined her stone as well as that of her husband and son. A ceremonial prayer was said as the marker was dedicated.
DAR Chaplain, Diane Stephens, spoke about the life of Janet and her love of history, genealogy and of teaching others of importance of the past.
A story in the Golden Jubliee Edition of the local paper on April 27, 1936 sums it up well. “Author, lecturer, researcher, into early Californiana, Janet Williams Gould of this city (Corona) has devoted many years to the absorbing study of Southern California with the result that she is considered an outstanding authority. Tireless in her search for factual information about the early days, she has been recognized by the Southern California Historical Society as one of its most interested members.”
It was a honor to pay tribute to this charming lady who was known as Corona’s “Duchess.”
To read more of her life go to the Corona Genealogy Society www.coronagensoc.org/sunnyslope.html and read about her as she was portrayed at a Cemetery Stroll.