James Gideon Philo Eubank

James Gideon Eubank was the second son born to James Joseph Eubank and his first wife, Nancy Ann Trent, who were married on June 21, 1849, in Menard County, Illinois, when James Joseph was 22 years old and Nancy was just shy of her 16th birthday by about two months. James Joseph was born in Maury County, Tennessee, on December 11, 1826, the only son of Stephen Green Eubank (1803-1872) and his first wife, Susannah Quarles Branch Eubank (1806-1832). Nancy Ann Trent was born on August 5, 1833, in Illinois, the daughter of Henry Trent and Harriet Clemmons. James Joseph Eubank and Nancy Ann Trent Eubank had their first son, William, in June of 1850, and William may have been disabled or handicapped since his birth. Sometime before or shortly after their second son, James Gideon Eubank, was born in May of 1853, James Joseph Eubank, left his family in Illinois and headed for the Gold Rush in California. James Joseph Eubank was gone for about eight years.

Many years later when his wife Nancy filed for his Civil War pension, she claimed that she had heard from a miner friend of her husband that James Joseph had died in California. Nancy then married Peter Shult in 1856, probably because she needed help raising her two sons, and at this point she thought James Joseph was dead! Janet Partlow, a descendant of James Gideon Eubank, told me that when James Joseph was living in California and working in the gold fields he went by the name of Richard Banks. Why he chose an assumed name is unknown--maybe he just didn't want to be found!

In about 1861 James Joseph returned to Illinois and was surprised to learn that his wife had married another man, Peter Shult. By that time, Nancy and Peter had already given birth to two daughters of their own. We don't know where James Joseph Eubank went after this discovery, but he may have gone to visit his sister, Martha Ann Eubank Osborn, who was living with her husband and children in Mason City, Illinois. The following year, on August 14, 1862, James enlisted in the U.S. Army's Company C, 124th Illinois Infantry Volunteers, to serve in the Civil War for the Union. He was wounded by a shell to the back of his knees at the Battle of Vicksburg on June 29, 1863.

After he was wounded, he may have gone to visit his sister in Illinois to recuperate during the Fall of 1863. His father and step-mother had moved to Kansas some time about 1859, and had not seen James Joseph during the entire time he served in the Civil War. On January 2, 1864, he reenlisted in Vicksburg, Mississippi, as a Sargent in Company M, 5th Regiment of the U.S. Colored Troops Heavy Artillery, where he served until August 29, 1865, when he was honorably discharged.

After the war, James Joseph must have traveled to Kansas to visit his father and his father's third wife, Sarah Armstrong Waggoner Eubank, and their children, because it was there that he married his second wife, Elsie Jane Rouser, at Wathena, Kansas, in either 1865 or 1866. At the time of their marriage, Elsie was about 26 years old and James Joseph Eubank was 40 years old. Elsie Jane Rouser was born in about August of 1840 in Ohio, and both of her parents were born in Pennsylvania.

By February of 1868, James Joseph and Elsie Jane had their first-born son, Uselle, also known as Eucell or Euzell, and later as Stephen James Eubank, while living in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri. (NOTE: I mention these four different names for Stephen James Eubank, because he was listed variously in several public records by these four names. According to my grandmother's Bible records, Stephen James Eubank was born in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri, in February of 1868, and there was never any mention in her records of Stephen James Eubank going by any other name such as Uselle, Eucell, or Euzell, so at some point, he must have changed his name to Stephen James Eubank.)

The 1870 census for Clay Township, Lafayette, Missouri, shows that James Joseph Eubank and his second wife, Elsie, were living with their first-born child, Uselle, who was strangely listed as a female child in the census record. This was obviously an error on the part of the census taker. James Joseph's father, S.G. Eubank, and his wife Sarah, and their children, were living next door. Why Stephen, Sarah, and their children left Kansas and moved to Missouri at the end of the 1860's is unknown. Maybe they moved there because James Joseph, Elsie, and Uselle, were already living there at the time.

James Joseph and Elsie had another son, Lee Edward, in July of 1872, and a daughter the following year, Laura Elsie in 1873. They were still living in Missouri when both Lee Edward and Laura Elsie were born. In both the 1870 and 1880 U.S. Census records, James was working as a carpenter.

Why S.G. Eubank and his wife and children and James Joseph and his wife Elsie had moved to Missouri is unknown. It is possible that other Eubank family members may have been living in Missouri much earlier. S.G. Eubank's first wife, and James Joseph's mother, Susannah Quarles Branch Eubank, had died in Palmyra, Missouri, in about 1833 during a cholera epidemic. They were formerly listed in the 1830 U.S. Census living in Williamson County, Tennessee, but they may have left Tennessee for Missouri sometime after that and moved to Missouri in order to join other Eubank family members who may have already been living there. There had been a huge migration of people from Tennessee to Missouri in the 1810-1820 time frame due to depressed economic conditions in Tennessee at that time, so maybe S.G. Eubank's family members had gone there to improve their financial circumstances. Some family lore states that S.G. Eubank's older brother, Thomas, had moved from Tennessee to Missouri.

I found no 1860 census record for either James Joseph, his first wife, Nancy Ann Trent Eubank, or her second husband Peter Shult, or James Joseph's sons, James Gideon or William. Only James Joseph's father, S.G. Eubank, and his family were found in the 1860 census, living in Raysville, Bourbon County, Kansas.

Why Stephen Green Eubank and his wife, Sarah, and their children had moved to Kansas from Illinois in the late 1850's is unknown. However, there was a large land grant made available in Kansas around 1854 when Kansas became a state, so that may have been one reason why they moved to Kansas, for the opportunity for more land and better employment opportunities. As late as 1864, Stephen was working as a farmer while living in Kansas. He would have been 60 years old at the time. For some reason he was no longer working as a cabinet maker.

On the same 1860 census page with S.G. Eubank while living in Kansas was a Mr. Osborn. When S.G. Eubank lived in Springfield, Illinois, his partner in his cabinet making business was named Osborn. I wonder if the Mr. Osborn listed in the 1860 census in Kansas was S.G. Eubank's cabinet making business partner from Illinois. I also wonder whether there was any connection between the Mr. Osborn listed in the Kansas census and the husband of S.G. Eubank's daughter, Martha Ann, who married a man named George William Osborn in 1847 in Illinois. If so, this may be another reason why the Eubank family moved to Kansas.

In the 1870 census James Gideon, his brother, William, their mother, Nancy Ann Trent Eubank Shult and step-father, Peter Shult, were living in Washington, Bremer County, Iowa, with Nancy and Peter's children, Anna, 13, Ella, 10, and Jennie, 8. In this census record there was a note next to William's name saying that he was "dumb". Perhaps that was the term they used for retarded, mentally challenged or disabled people in the year 1870. In the 1880 census, William was listed as suffering from "paralysis".

In 1870 when James Joseph and Elsie were living in Missouri they were about 200-250 miles from Washington, Bremer County, Iowa, so it is doubtful James Joseph ever got to see either of his two sons with Nancy during that time. And by then, William and James Gideon would have been 20 and 17 years old respectively, so they may not have seen their father for many years, nor even remember him for that matter. They may have actually thought Peter Shult was their father, since they were both very young when he married their mother in 1856, William being 6 years old and James Gideon only 3 years old at the time.

James Gideon Eubank married Mary Jane Harris in Iowa on October 28, 1873, and by the 1880 census they had moved from Iowa to Caldwell, Sumner County, Kansas. Why they moved to Kansas is unknown, especially since by that time S.G. Eubank had already passed away in 1872, and James Joseph was living in Sedalia Missouri, again. In the 1880 census James G.P. Eubank, 27, was listed with his wife. Mary J., 27, and their two daughters, Olive Belle, 5, and Lucetta Catherine, 4, also known as Kate. The census record showed that James was born in Illinois, his father in Kentucky and his mother in Illinois, but his father was actually born in Tennessee. James Gideon was working as a carpenter at the time.

Next door to James Gideon in Caldwell, Kansas, was his mother, Nancy Ann Trent Eubank Shult, 47, step-father, Peter Shult, 47, and their children, Ella, 19, Jenny, 17, and Frank, 7. Also living in the home was William Eubank, 30, James Gideon's older brother, who was listed as the step son of Peter Shult. The census record states that William had "paralysis", but there was no mention of him being mentally challenged or "dumb" as shown in the 1870 census. In this census, Peter was working as a farmer. There were also three boarders in their home, Christian Clink, 40, a carpenter, Christian Butz, 17, a farmer, and Jacob Butz, 15, also a farmer. The three boarders were all born in Germany.

Since both Ella and Jenny were born in Wisconsin, and Frank in Iowa, it appears the family moved from Illinois to Wisconsin in about 1859 and to Iowa in about 1872 or 1873, and sometime between 1874 and 1880 they moved to Kansas. About 1888 the James Gideon and Mary and their children left Kansas and moved to Washington State where they lived for the rest of their lives.

A Civil War record for a Peter Shult on the New York Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900, showed he was 26 years old when he registered on January 24, 1862, at New York City for a three year period as a Private in the 48th Infantry, Company F. Peter was was discharged February 29, 1865. I don't know why Peter would have registered for service in New York in 1862, although he was born there per the 1880 census record.

Perhaps this is a different Peter Shult than the one married to Nancy Ann Trent Eubank. If Peter was 26 when he registered in 1862, that would mean he was born in about 1836. But, based on the fact that Nancy's Peter Shult was 47 years old in the 1880 census, he would have been born in about 1833. Although it was quite common for men to falsify their age during the Civil War to appear older or younger than their actual years.

By the 1880 census, James Joseph Eubank(s), 53, was once again living in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri, with his second wife Alsy (a mis-spelling of her name, Elsie), 38, along with their three children, Euzell Eubank(s), 12, (later known as Stephen James Eubank), Lee Edward Eubank(s), 9, and Laura (Elsie) Eubank(s), 8. James Joseph was working as a house carpenter and Elsie was keeping house. This census record indicated that James Joseph was born in Tennessee, as were both of his parents, Elsie was born in Ohio, both of her parents were born in Pennsylvania, and all three of their children were born in Missouri, which is correct.

By the 1880 census, Stephen Green Eubank's third wife, Sarah, had moved back to Illinois, after Stephen's death in 1872, and was living with her younger children in Nilwood, Illinois, which was about 15-20 miles from Zanesville. According to an obituary for Stephen, he had passed away "at his residence in Zanesville." Perhaps Stephen and Sarah had already returned to Illinois between 1870 and 1872, or Stephen may have been visiting his daughter, Mary Susanna Eubank Rogers, who lived in Zanesville at the time Stephen passed away. Sarah continued to live in Illinois for a few years after that, and later moved with her children to Arkansas and then to St. Louis, Missouri.

According to a Eubank cousin, Janet Partlow, and per public records, James Joseph Eubank purchased land in Nevada County, California, sometime before 1875. He and his wife Elsie and their children, Euzell, Lee and Laura Elsie, moved to California about 1883 and were living in San Diego. There are no census records for 1890 since they were destroyed in a fire, but I did find voter registration records for James Joseph and two of his sons with Elsie who were living in Tulare, Tulare County, California, during the 1890's.

One 1890 California Voter Registration record shows that James Joseph Eubank, was a 64-year old carpenter from Tennessee living in Tulare, California, who registered to vote September 15, 1890. His son was listed on the same page as Euzell J. Eubank(s), and he was a 22 year old carpenter from Missouri, living in Tulare, California, who registered to vote on October 2, 1890, about two weeks after his father's registration date.

According to another public record for James J. Eubank, on June 15, 1891, he was admitted to the Old Solder's Home in Sawtelle, California, (a section of the city of West Los Angeles), and was discharged on September 29, 1891, at his request. This home was about 170 miles south of Tulare, California. When he was living there James Joseph's pension was $8.00 per month. The Old Soldier's Home is the equivalent of today's Veteran's Hospital, although many soldiers lived at the Old Soldier's Home in Sawtelle until they passed away, as residences were provided for them free of charge in those days. After James Joseph's stay at the Old Soldier's Home, he returned to Tulare County again.

On August 3, 1892, James Joseph was back in Tulare, California, and the California Voter Registration record indicated he was 66, 5'8" tall with a light complexion, gray eyes and hair, with the sight out in his right eye, and he was born in Tennessee. He had lost the sight in his eye while chopping wood when he was in serving in the Civil War. A splinter of wood flew in his eye, and he had trouble with it for the rest of his life.

On the same page was a record for his son, Lee Edward Eubank, listed as 42 years old, 5'10" tall, with a light complexion, blue eyes and brown hair, who was born in Missouri, and registered to vote on August 2, 1892. Lee Edward's age was listed incorrectly on that voter registration record because he was born in 1872 in Missouri and would have been only 20 years old in 1892. In order to have been 42 years old in 1892, he would have to have been born in 1852, and we know that is not true, since James Joseph's oldest son, William was born in June of 1850, and his second son, James Gideon was born in May of 1853.

Another California Voter Registration record for James Joseph in 1896 showed him as a 70-year old carpenter from Tennessee, 5'8" tall with a light complexion, gray eyes and gray hair, with his "right eye out". In this record he had been readmitted to the Old Soldier's Home in West Los Angeles on March 24, 1896, and registered to vote there June 2, 1896. At the time his pension had gone up to $10.00 per month. I'm not sure when he left the Old Soldier's Home in 1896, but I found another record for him as shown below, living in outside the Old Soldier's home at another address in Los Angeles.

In the 1896 U.S. City Directory listing (Maxwell's Los Angeles City Directory and Gazeteer of Southern California), James Joseph was shown as a carpenter living at 777 Elmore Avenue with his son Lee Edward, who was working as a mill hand at Alta Planing Mill Company, his daughter, Miss Laura Elsie Eubank, a dressmaker, and a room mate, Miss A.J. Gastren. However, neither James Joseph's wife Elsie, nor his son Stephen James (Uselle, Eucell or Euzell) Eubank, were listed in this directory, so I don't know where they were living at the time. James Joseph seemed to be in and out of the Old Soldier's home between the years of 1891 and 1896 and possibly longer, maybe even up until his death there in 1907.

James Joseph passed away on June 4, 1907, and the cause of death was listed as chronic interstitial pneumonia according to his domestic history on the Old Soldier's Home records. That record also stated that he was born in Tennessee, his residence subsequent to discharge in 1891 was Tulare, Tulare County, California, and that he was married to Elsie J. Eubank of Tulare, California.

However. on another of James Joseph's Old Soldier's Home records, the address listed for his wife, Elsie, was 335 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, California, which may have been where she was living at the time of James Joseph's death in 1907. However, in the 1900 census Elsie was living with her son Lee Edward at 947 54th Street in Los Angeles.

Additional information from James Joseph's Old Soldier's Home records indicate that he was a Protestant. The rate of his pension was raised from $8.00 to $10.00, then to $12.00 and then to $30.00, so perhaps the last amount was what Elsie received per month for his survivor's pension after James Joseph passed away.

His personal effects at the time of his death in the Old Soldier's Home consisted of $4.00 in cash and personal items valued at 50 cents, which were turned over to Elsie J. Eubank on June 28, 1907, and his Pension Certificate, 127-787 was sent to an agent in San Francisco on June 5, 1907.

James Joseph Eubank was buried in the National Cemetery for Veterans in West Los Angeles in Section 13, Row D, and Grave No. 13, and his gravestone there shows him as J.J. Eubank. (I took pictures of his stone and the surrounding area when I visited his grave in 2010, over one hundred years after his death. Although I had worked less than five miles from that cemetery from 1968 to 1972, I didn't know my great grandfather was buried there until many years later.)

Getting back to James Gideon Eubank and his family......by the 1900 census, James Gideon, 47, was living in Lake City, Pierce County, Washington, had been married for 27 years to his wife Mary J., 47, and they had had four children. Living in the home with them was their son James Eugene, 17, and daughter, Grace Pearl., 16. Their two oldest daughters, Olive Belle and Lucetta Catherine, known as Kate, born in 1875 and 1876, had already left home to be married. Olive married Silas Patterson, in Washington State in 1892. Lucetta Catherine, or Kate, married Raymond James Melvin in 1899.

Why James Gideon Eubank moved his family from Kansas to Washington State is unknown, but it may have been for better opportunities for work. A devastating fire in Seattle in 1889 destroyed the city's commercial district and rebuilding began immediately, the burned wooden structures were replaced with more fire-resistant brick and stone buildings, many of them still occupied, like the former Cadillac Hotel, which is now home to the Seattle unit of the Klondike Gold Rush National Historical Park. Since James Gideon had been working as a carpenter, he probably would have found ready employment in the Seattle area with all the reconstruction going on there at the time as a result of the fire.

By 1890, Seattle's population had reached 42,000, an astonishing 12-fold increase since 1880, growth being stimulated by railroad building, the construction frenzy set off by the 1889 fire, demand for lumber, development of the port, and increased shipping activity.

In the 1900 U.S. Census, James Gideon was still working as a carpenter. This record indicated that he was born in Illinois in May of 1853, and both his parents were also born in Illinois, but that is not correct, since his father, James Joseph was born in Tennessee, and his step-father, Peter Shult, was born in New York--only his mother was born in Illinois. James Gideon's wife, Mary, was born in Indiana, as were her parents, and both of their youngest children were born in Kansas, James Eugene in June of 1882, and Grace Pearl in September of 1883.

On July 17th, 1897, the steamship Portland docked in Seattle from St Michael, Alaska, carrying 68 prospectors and what newspapers said was "a ton of gold." Two days earlier a similarly laden ship had arrived in San Francisco from Alaska. What had been a just a few hundred prospectors sailing from Seattle each week, soon turned into a stampede of thousands as newspapers spread word, telegraphed from Seattle, that a great quantity of gold had been found along a remote river in what is today the Yukon Territory of Canada. While it has been erroneously recorded, even to this day, that the Canada's Northwest Mounted Police required each person headed there to bring a year's supply of food and equipment, that was not to be the case.

This didn't stop the Seattle merchants from quickly exploiting this rumor, advertising the city far and wide as the "Gateway to the Gold Fields" - the place where all one's Klondike needs, from food and warm clothing to tents and transportation-could easily be fulfilled. As a result, some 30,000 to 40,000 of the estimated 70,000 stampeders, who outfitted to go to the Klondike, bought their "ton of provisions" in Seattle. The city continued to prosper.

In 1900, Seattle's population had nearly doubled from 1890, to 80,000. Despite occasional downturns, economic and population growth continued in the 20th century, and into the 21st. Shipbuilding was a major industry early in the 20th. In 1916 William Boeing launched the company bearing his surname, now the world's largest aircraft manufacturer. The city's port evolved into a major depot for container ships and was also a grain exporting center.

At some time between 1900 and 1907 before James Joseph passed away at the Old Soldier's Home in West Los Angeles, supposedly he received a letter from his son, James Gideon Eubank, saying that he believed James Joseph was his father, and he asked him to come to Washington for a visit. According to Janet Partlow, when he did go for a visit, James Joseph was passed off as a distant cousin to James Gideon's children, and they did not know that he was their father's father or their own grandfather.

Since James Gideon's mother, Nancy Ann Trent Eubank Shult married Peter Shult in 1856, James Gideon's children probably thought that Peter was their grandfather, because at the time their first two daughters were born, Olive in 1875, and Lucetta in 1876, Nancy and Peter had been married nearly 20 years. The girls must have assumed that Peter was their grandfather their entire lives, and James Gideon probably did not want to shatter that belief.

On James Joseph Eubank's Geni profile page under the Media Tab, there is a photo of him taken when he went to visit his son, James Gideon in Washington sometime in the early 1900's. He appears in that photo to be an old man with a large mustache, peering out from under a large hat. It's too bad that his own grandchildren did not even know he was actually their grandfather when he came to visit them not long before he passed away.

In 1900, James Gideon Eubank's half brother, Lee Edward Eubank, 27, and his mother, Elsie, 59, were living at 947 - 54th Street in Los Angeles, California. Lee was single, working as a carpenter, and his mother was still married to his father, James Joseph Eubank, but James Joseph was not living in the home with them at the time according to the directory listing. James Joseph may have been living at the Old Soldier's Home in West Los Angeles then, since he was in and out of the home from about 1891 until his death in 1907. It's sad to see that he was in an institution off and on for almost 16 years at the end of his life due to the injuries he suffered during the Civil War.

In the 1910 census, James Gideon, 56, and his wife, Mary, 57, were living in Dupont, Pierce, Washington. Their children were no longer living with them. This census record indicated his father was born in Tennessee and his mother in Kentucky, but that is incorrect, since his mother was born in Illinois. His wife stated she was born in Indiana and both her parents were born in North Carolina, which is different from the earlier census record which stated they were born elsewhere. James was still working as a house carpenter and they owned their home free of a mortgage. I wonder if James Gideon had built his own house since he was a carpenter.

U.S. City Directories for Tacoma, Washington, dated from 1912 to 1914 indicate that James G.P. and Mary J. Eubank were living at 414 S. 59th Street and James was still working as a carpenter. Their son, James Eugene Eubank and his wife Della L. Watson Eubank, were living at 5401 S. 54th Street and 3020 S. 54th Street, and he was working as a blacksmith. I found no record of James Gideon Eubank in the 1920 census, and he passed away six years later at the age of 73 in 1926. However, his wife, Mary Jane Harris Eubank, was listed in the 1920 census living with her daughter, Grace, and her husband and children. They were listed as follows in the census record:

Octave Schuffert, 42, Grace, 36, and their two daughters, Hazel, 14, Eva, 8, and Mary Eubank, 66 years old. Octave was working as a laborer in the logging industry. He was born in Michigan and both his parents were born in Germany. Grace was born in Kansas, and both their children in Washington. Mary was born in Indiana and both her parents in North Carolina.

James Gideon's half-sister, and Lee Edward's full sister, Laura Elsie Eubank, married Otto Classen in 1898 near Hollywood or Los Angeles. Otto was a pretty well-known landscape artist from Germany. They lived in Hollywood, Santa Monica and Malibu for most of their married life. Lee Edward married a neighbor girl, Jessie Pugh, at some point in Los Angeles, but they later divorced, and in a subsequent census record, she was found living with her parents again after their divorce. I don't know if they ever had any children, but I do know that Laura Elsie Eubank and Otto Classen never had any offspring, and Otto died in 1939 and Laura Elsie in 1956. James Joseph's second wife, Elsie, passed away in Los Angeles about 1918.

I'm not sure when James Gideon's brother William died, however, it was probably sometime not too long after the last census record was found for him in 1880. I could not find him in the 1900 census record and by 1910 he was known to have been dead per the census record for this mother that year which showed she had given birth to 6 children, 5 of whom were still living at the time.

Eucell / Euzell / Uselle (Stephen James Eubank), my grandfather, was not found in the 1900 census records either, but was shown in a couple of U.S. City Directory listings living in Los Angeles in 1901 and 1904. In 1901 he was living at 1918 S. Main Street, and in 1904 at 947 - 54th Street. Five years later in 1909, he was married to my grandmother, Dortha Evelyn Eubank, and they were living In Arizona at the time of the 1910 census. Two years later, they were in San Diego where my mother, Frances Amelia Eubank Smith, was born in 1911, and then in 1913, they were living in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, where he was working on the Alice Arm Mine, and my aunt Elsie Louise was born. Two years later, they were living in Seattle, Washington, where my uncle James Rollins Eubank was born in 1915. Between 1917 and 1919 they were living in Portland, Oregon.

I wonder if my grandfather, Stephen James Eubank went to live in Washington because his older half-brother, James Gideon Eubank, was already living there. By the time Stephen James Eubank moved to Seattle, Washington, in 1914 or 1915, his father had been dead for over 7 years. And since his older half-brother, James Gideon Eubank, was 15 years older than Stephen, he may have seemed like a pseudo father figure to Stephen, and certainly somewhat of a grandfatherly figure to his children, Frances, Louise and James Rollins Eubank. And since James Gideon had been living in Washington since at least 1888, by 1915, he would have been well versed on the area and could recommend places for Stephen to live and work.

By 1919, Stephen had abandoned his wife, Dortha Evelyn, and their three children, and she took their children to Bakersfield, California, where Evelyn lived with or near her mother, Dortha Roxana Madsen Rollins McKinney. Dortha had been separated from her husband, Joseph T. McKinney, an Arizona Sheriff, who she married in 1897, 8 years after the death of her first husband, John Henry Rollins. Dortha Evelyn Rollins Eubank received a divorce decree from her marriage to Stephen James Eubank in Bakersfield, California, sometime in 1923, according to her family bible records, on the ground of "willful desertion."

Her mother Dortha had been living in Bakersfield with her three children with Mr. McKinney, Dan Carroll McKinney, Thelma Josephine McKinney and Gladys Violet McKinney. Nearby was John Delbert, Rollins, Dortha Evelyn's brother, who was living there with his first wife, and working for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad as a fireman and locomotive engineer. John Delbert's half-brother, Dan Carroll McKinney was also working as a fireman for the A T & S F railroad, and his sister, Thelma Josephine McKinney, was working as a stenographer. Their younger sister, Gladys, was still in school being only 16 years old in 1920. Sometime around 1925 Gladys and Dan moved back to Arizona, where they lived for the rest of their lives.

By 1930, Dortha, her daughter, Thelma, and my mother, Frances Amelia Eubank, were living in Los Angeles on Victoria Avenue in a home that Thelma owned valued at $5,000. Dortha's daughter, Dortha Evelyn, was living nearby with her other two children, Elsie Louise and James Rollins Eubank.

In 1930, Dan Carroll McKinney was 32 years old, and his sister, Gladys, 26, and Gladys was married in Arizona not long after that, and her first daughter, Cheryl, was born in 1932. Dan was married twice and had a son and daughter by his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Bryce. Their son was Dan Catroll McKinney, Jr., and their daughter was Jo Ann, known as Joanie to the family. Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah was named in honor of Mary Elizabeth Bryce's grandfather who was an early Mormon pioneer of that area.

Dan divorced his first wife, Mary Elizabeth Bryce, and married his second wife, Olga, and they had one daughter, Thelma Rose, who was named after her aunt Thelma Josephine McKinney. Thelma Rose died at a fairly young age from breast cancer sometime after 1957. Dan and Mary Elizabeth's daughter Jo Ann married a folk singer by the name of Bud Dashiel, who was pretty well known in the 1960's and 1970's, however they divorced and I don't believe they ever had any children.

In 1932, my mother, Frances Amelia Eubank married my father, Halley Dale Smith, and then 19 years later, I was born in the St. Francis Hospital in Lynwood, California, on June 27, 1951. I was their only child. Her sister, Elsie Louise married John Alfred Koegler and they had two sons, John Alfred Koegler, Jr., in 1938, who died in 2016, and James Rollins Koegler in 1945, who died in 2009. James Rollins Eubank married Vera Pauline Hulse in 1945 and they had two sons, Robert Glenn Eubank in 1946, and Jerald Charles Eubank in 1951, both still living.

All three siblings, Frances, Louise, and Jim, lived in and around the Southern California area until their deaths. Frances passed away in 1995 (while living with us in New Jersey from 1993 to 1995), and is buried in the Kern River Valley Cemetery in Wofford Heights, California with her husband, Halley Dale Smith, who passed away there in 1976. Elsie Louise's husband John Alfred Koegler also died in 1976, and is buried in the same cemetery. Elsie Louise's died in 1992, and her ashes were scattered in a rose garden in Bakersfield by her two sons, Al, Jr. and Jimmy. James Rollins Eubank passed away from a stroke at the age of 88 in 2004 and was buried in Oceanside, California. His wife, Vera, still resides on their 40-acre mountain top home there at the age of 94 years old.

Jim and Vera's son, Robert Glenn Eubank resides in Encinitas, California, with his wife, Weihong (from China) and their two children, Meili and Tai. Bob's brother, Jerald Charles Eubank, lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, with his wife Susan Walsh Eubank, who was born in Wyoming. They never had any children. Al Koegler, Jr.,'s daughter, Robin, lives near Mission Viejo, California. Al's brother, Jimmy, never married nor had any children. I live in Brenham, Texas, with my husband, Daniel Hugo Pistelli, but never had any children, since Daniel had three sons with his first wife, and they all live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Sadly, that is all I know about my great uncle James Gideon Eubank and his extended family. Unfortunately, I never got to know him because he died about 25 years before I was born in 1951. I will continue to research James Gideon Eubank's children and provide a little history for them here as well. Below is a link to his oldest daughter, Olive's Geni profile page. Her descendant is Janet Partlow, my 2nd cousin twice removed, who currently lives in Washington state.

Olive Belle Eubank Patterson

Della Dale Smith-Pistelli

Revised January 18, 2017