Stephen James Eubank

Unfortunately, I don't know much about my grandfather, Stephen James Eubank, because he abandoned my grandmother's family when my mother was only about eight years old around 1919 or 1920. He was born to James Joseph Eubank and Elsie Jane Rouser Eubank, February 25, 1868, in Sedalia, Missouri. He was listed in the 1870 census in Clay, Lafayette County, Missouri, as Uselle, a 2-year old child, with his parents, James and Elsie. Living next door was James Joseph's father, Stephen Green Eubank, 66, and his 3rd wife, Sarah, 45, and their children, Ellen (Helen), 24, Thomas, 19, Laura Jane, 18, Alice, 15, Ann, 11, Ida, 9, Orella, 6, and Mary, 1 year old. Both James and Stephen were working as carpenters, and were born in Tennessee, Elsie in Ohio, and Sarah in Illinois, as were all of her children, except Ida and Orella, who were both born in Kansas and Mary in Missouri.

Stephen James Eubank's brother, Lee Edward, was born later that year, and their sister, Laura Elsie, in about 1873. By 1880 they were living in Sedalia, Missouri, again, and Stephen was listed as Eucell Eubank, 12 years old, along with his parents, James, 53, and Elsie, 38, and siblings, Lee Edward, 9, and Laura Elsie, 6. Their father James was still working as a carpenter. Stephen Green Eubank died in 1872 and may have moved back to Illinois sometime before that, since his brief obituary showed he "died at his residence at Zanesville" which is not far from Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived years earlier.

James Joseph, Elsie, and their three children left Missouri in about 1883 and lived in San Diego for a while. Stephen was listed in a California Voter Register for San Diego, California, in 1889, but was shown as Euzell J. Eubank(s). At that time he was 21 years old, and was working as a carpenter. There was also an E.J. Eubanks listed in an 1887 city directory showing that he was working as a machinist for Coronado Beach Lumber Company, and was residing in Coronado Beach. His father James was also listed in an 1890 voter registration record in San Diego County, living in Linda Vista, and working as a carpenter. He was 61 years old and was born in Tennessee. However he was also listed in Tulare County in a voter registration record for 1890, so they must have moved from San Diego to Tulare sometime around the fall of 1890.

Per voter registration records for Tulare County in the 1890's, Stephen was listed as Euzell and Eucell Eubank in those records. In the 1890 register his father, James, 64, a carpenter from Tennessee, was living in Tulare and registered September 15th. In the same registry, Stephen was listed as Euzell J. Eubank(s), 22, a carpenter from Missouri, living in Tulare, who registered on October 2nd. About 1895 or 1896, the family moved from Tulare to Los Angeles, and by then he was using the name Stephen James Eubank, and no longer Euzell, Eucell or Uselle.

Where Stephen lived from 1890 to 1900 is unknown, although I did find a S.J. Eubank(s) living in Jackson, Mississippi in 1900, and was with a firm called Eubanks & Traylor, who were architects and builders, and also brick makers. Their address was 110 S. State Street, and S.J. Eubank(s) was rooming at 201 Amite Street. Whether or not this person was my grandfather is unknown.

By 1902 Stephen was again living in Los Angeles at 1918 S. Main Street, and was listed in a U.S. City Directory as Stephen J. Eubank, laborer for Alexander & Beyrle, and his father, James was living nearby at 947 East 54th Street.

In a 1904 U.S. City Directory listing, Stephen was working as a manager for Tatum & Bowen, and was living at 947 East 54th Street with his mother, Elsie, but neither his father nor his brother were listed in the directory that year. At the time, his father may have been living at the Old Soldiers Home in West Los Angeles, (where he died in 1907) and his brother, Lee Edward, may have been married at the time. His sister, Laura Elsie, had married Otto Classen in 1898, so was no longer living with the Eubank family.

For the next 5 years, Stephen disappeared from public records until 1909, when he married my grandmother, Dortha Evelyn Rollins, in Phoenix, Arizona, on April 28, 1909. She was the daughter of John Henry Rollins, Jr., who died when she was just 3 years old, and Dortha Roxana Madsen, the daughter of a Danish immigrant who came to America in 1853 at the age of 9. How Stephen and Evelyn happened to meet is unknown!

Stephen may have been living in Arizona at the time or Evelyn may have been living in California. In the 1910 census for Phoenix, they were listed as follows: Stephen J. Eubank, 40, and Evelyn D. Eubank, 22, and he was working as a house carpenter. They owned their own home but had a mortgage. S.J. Eubank was also listed in the Arizona Voter Registration record living in Phoenix, Maricopa County, and was 41 years old, born in Missouri, with a registration date of July 12, 1910.

By 1911, they were living at 1242 - 2nd Street in San Diego, California, where my mother was born October 14th, and Stephen was still working as a carpenter. By 1913, they were living in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, where my aunt Elsie Louise was born, and Stephen was working on the Alice Arm Mine. By 1915 the family was living in Seattle, Washington, where my uncle, James Rollins Eubank, was born in September.

A newspaper clipping from my uncle James Rollins Eubank's wife, Vera Pauline Hulse Eubank, reads as follows, and attests that Stephen was in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, in 1913:

"Canada, British Columbia...Diamond drilling will be done at the San Diego group of claims on the Kitsault River about six miles from the Alice Arm Mine. A good deal of work has already been done on the property, and a considerable tonnage of ore averaging 3.2% copper and $2 in gold and silver has been proved. A horse trail has been made from the head of the arm. S.J. Eubank and D.F. Jones control these claims." The article is dated: Prince Rupert, January 3.

Another article reads as follows: "Mining Enquiries...Publicity Bureau Has Large Demand for Mining Reports...That the prospector is alive to the publicity being given the mining industry through the press as well as by the assembling of a representative collection of ore samples from different mining divisions in the rooms of the Board of Trade is borne out by the fact that within the past few days over 30 copies of the minister of mines reports, as well as large numbers of copies of the B.C. - The Mineral Province of Canada have been urgently asked for by those who follow the life of the hills and search of their hidden treasure chests.

Today Mr. Godenrath, who is following closely this branch of the board's activities, was called upon by Mr. S.J. Eubank, a well known Alice Arm prospector, who won second prize of the best collection of prospectors' specimens at the first fair here, and was offered his complete collection of over forty specimens of northern British Columbia ores. Needless to say the loan of the collection was highly appreciated by the commissioner as it will aid greatly to the already attractive..." (the rest of the article was cut off the page I have.)

A record of a U.S. Border Crossing from Canada dated November, 1915, showed that Stephen J. Eubank, 47, returned to Seattle, Washington, from Alice Arm, British Columbia, where he was listed as the proprietor of a placer mine. He was traveling alone, his wife having given birth to their son, James Rollins Eubank in Seattle, Washington, just two months earlier on September 12, 1915. For some reason the record showed that he was born in Mexico, but he was not, and of course was born in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1868. However, there is a town in Missouri by the name of Mexico, which is not far from Sedalia, Missouri. I wonder if that is what he meant when he said he was from Mexico!

After leaving Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, Stephen and Evelyn lived in Seattle, Washington, from about 1915 to 1917 according to City Directory Listings from Ancestry.com. In 1916 and 1917, they were living at 2709 - 2nd Avenue, Seattle, and Stephen's profession was listed as a miner and laborer respectively for those two years.

Also listed in those directories were an Earnest S. Eubank, a salesman living at 903 30th Avenue, a George E. and Georgia C. Eubank living at 1101 32nd Avenue South, working as a bookkeeper for North Coast Dry Kiln company, a Paul C. and Mary E.H. Eubank living at 903 30th Avenue, and a William O. and Isabelle A. Eubank, living at 619 21st Street, but I don't know if Stephen was related to any of these other Eubank families. There were also four families listed as Eubank(s), Albert and Carrie living at 1816 12th Avenue, Alfred R., living at 1202 E. Pine, John M., and Louisa B., living at 522 Virginia, and John was working as a salesman for Curtis Inc., Company; as well as a Leroy E. and Bertha, living at 615-1/2 E. Pike Street.

As far as I know, the only relatives of Stephen James Eubank who were living in the Seattle/Tacoma area of Washington State in 1916 and 1917 was his half-brother, James Gideon Eubank and his wife Mary and their children. James was the son of Stephen's father, James Joseph Eubank, and his first wife, Nancy Ann Trent Eubank. James Gideon Eubank, who was 15 years older than Stephen, had moved to Washington State in the 1880's from the Mid-West.

A half-sister of Stephen James Eubank's father, James Joseph Eubank, Alice Orille Eubank Phillips, was living in the Seattle-Tacoma, area of Washington, with her husband, but she passed away in 1915. Alice was the daughter of Stephen Green Eubank and his 3rd wife, Sarah Armstrong Waggoner Eubank, who died in 1902.

By 1918, Stephen and Evelyn were living in Portland, Oregon, at 344 - 19th North, and Stephen was again working as a carpenter. Ironically, that address was just two or three miles from where my husband and I were living when we were working in Portland, Oregon, from 1992 to 1993, but didn't know at that time my grandparents had also lived there nearly 75 years earlier!

Letters written by Stephen James Eubank to his mother and sister from about 1915 to 1919 indicate that his marriage to Evelyn had become strained, and at some point in about 1919 or 1920, Stephen abandoned Evelyn and their three small children, and my grandmother took her children to Bakersfield, California, where her mother, Dortha Roxana (Madsen) Rollins McKinney, was living with her three children by her second husband, Joseph Thomas McKinney. Evelyn's brother, John Delbert Rollins, was also living nearby in Bakersfield with his first wife, Abbie, and was working for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad, as was his half-brother, Dan Carroll McKinney. Dortha Roxana's brother, John Christian Madsen, was also living in nearby Arvin, California, and working as a farmer there from about 1915 to 1918.

Following are transcripts of the three letters that Stephen wrote to his mother and sister when he was living in Prince Rupert, British Columbia, in 1915, and also in Portland, Oregon, between January and February of 1919, not long before he abandoned his wife and three small children....

Prince Rupert, British Columbia, Canada, March 4, 1915:

Dear Mother: I just received the birthday card today and was so glad to get it knowing so well that you would remember that day above all others, and it makes me feel ashamed that I am so undutiful and negligent as to not ever write. I was going to write you on the 25th but it seems that something always happens and then it is put off. I have to work all day and in the evenings the babies take up my time till they go to bed, and that’s between 9 and 10, and I have to get up at 5:30 and get my breakfast and generally Frances is up with me in the morning.

I can’t make her stay in bed no matter how cold the weather is she is right there. I wrap her up in my big overcoat till I get a fire made and the house warms. She says when she is a big girl she is going to get up and get papa’s breakfast. She thinks she can cook now. She stands up on a chair and dries the dishes for mamma. They have a little table and dishes and they play keeping house all day. The baby will be 17 months old this month and she just runs everywhere and is beginning to talk and she won’t let any body feed her. She has got to have her bib and sit up to the table and eat herself, just as big as a grown up, and she won’t stand for Frances to have her place at the table. She is just as old fashioned as she can be. She sits in her little rocker and folds her little arms and rocks just as big as anything.

Mother, you don’t even realize how pretty they both are. Frances is just like a big rose in full bloom, a perfect picture and the baby is simply a peach. You don’t know how proud I am of those two babies and I want you to see them so badly, and hope it will be so that we can make a trip south pretty soon. I have some hopes of selling out. As bad as times are I am getting some offers to bond the property for $35,000 on a three year bond, and if I can get it off and get some money down, I will take a trip south and look after my Mexican property, and let Evelyn and the babies stay in some good place while I attend to it and get it in shape to sell.

I want to get them in a good permanent home as soon as I can and I hope that it won’t be long. I would have been sold out here before now only for the war. Times are very hard here now, but I manage to keep my job, dull as times are. Evelyn is not feeling very well lately and I want her to have a change. It rains here so much and they have to stay inside most of the time and that makes any one feel bad. Then I want to get a place where there is more sunshine and the children can get out and run around more and a place where you can be with us and see more of the children. They would like to see you. Frances talks lots about her two grandmas and seems to be so proud that she has two grandmas and she wants to go and see them. I hope it won’t be long till she can.

Well mother, dear, I sincerely hope it won’t be long until I can see you again and do hope and pray that your health will remain good. I fully realize that the years are slipping by, and I am trying my best to get settled in a home and I must. The children demand it—it is coming to them and they must have it.

My life has never been what I wished it to be. Fate has always ruled against me, whether it is my fault or not, I do not know. But I am partly well satisfied now and if things work right, I should soon be well fixed.

I would not be without my dear babies for anything in this world, and if I can just keep my health, I will pull through in spite of fate and everything else.

Well mother, I will close for this time. It is now eleven o’clock. Evelyn and the babies are in bed asleep. How I wish you could see the dear little angels. They are so sweet and pretty. Good night, Dear Mother, God bless you and protect you. We all want to see you so very much.

Your Son

Frances says write grandma a whole lot of kisses xxxxxxx

The next letter was written to his sister, Laura Elsie Eubank Classen, and is dated as shown below. His mother had already passed away by the time he wrote this letter to his sister. She died in December of 1918.

Portland, Oregon, January 23, 1919:

Dear Sister:

I received your letter and Mother’s picture some days ago, but have not had an opportunity to answer until now. I have just put all the men inside as it is pouring down rain in torrents. I have been very busy, the work takes up about 10 hours a day of my time and then there is the work around the house to do when I get home. Two nights a week I have to take Frances for her music lesson and the larger part of last week I was taking the Masonic degrees up to 32 degrees. I sent you a paper with the picture of the class that went through.

I am coming down to Los Angeles some time in the Spring to take the Shrine degrees then I will have it all but one, the 33rd degree that I will never get because my turns will not come in my life time. I gave your letter to Frances. She prizes it very highly. She read all but two or three words, those she had to spell out for me. She is learning very fast.

Evelyn, Louise and The Baby had the flu, but Frances and I escaped. We only had the Doctor one visit. He said that he could do no more than I was doing. I kept the windows down about 6 inches from the top and kept the house warm. I would set the alarm clock one hour at a time at night and sleep in a chair and keep the house at an even temperature.

Well they are all out of it now and they eat like pigs. The boy he just stuffs from morning to night and is fat as a pig. In the spring I am going to move to a house we bought. It is a two story 9-room house, modern except heat, with two good rooms on the back of the lot. Will put in a furnace this summer and fix it up some and put up their play ground things which I have made for them…trapeze, Roman rings, bars, swings, so that they may have physical exercise. I have plenty of glass to build them a large flower house, all glass, and I want to get them some rabbits, birds and pigeons. I will fix up a big wire netting for them so that they will have pleasant surrounds as they grow up, it helps out their education.

Now Sister dear, you must try to control yourself and console yourself knowing as we all well know that death is something that we all have to face sooner or later. I believe as Omar the great Persian poet and philosopher writes…He says “The Moving Finger writes; and having writ, moves on: nor all the piety nor wit shall lure it back to cancel half two lives, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.”

And as you say I will always teach my children to love and have reverence for their dear Grand Mother, also their mother, even if we do not agree in many things. I make the children stand around and take notice of what she says to them. I note quite a difference in her at times. She is changing although she is money mad and has a conceited notion that she is out of her sphere. That is the reason that I have kept considerable from her that otherwise she would have known.

Well sister, if you have any little thing or keepsake you would care to send, I would always like to have them. I will lock them in my safety deposit vault until some future time as the children grow up. It is for them that I shall devote my entire life and hope to leave them on a good secure footing always admonishing them to stick close together and never separate.

None of us ever had a chance only to shift for ourselves and mother never had any opportunity in her entire life to have anything the way she would have had it, or probably things would have been very different.

As to Otto you say that we owe him a debt of gratitude that I am well aware of. I thoroughly acknowledge that he was always good and kind to mother, and shall always respect him for it. Some day I may be able to do something for him. But these things cannot be measured in money. I do hope that you and Otto will always be together and now that mother has been taken away from us we should all stick closer together and do all that we can for one another, forget the money consideration. That is the only trouble between Evelyn and me, and I assure you I do everything I can to avoid trouble on account of the children.

Well I guess I will close, will send you a picture of the other children soon, probably of the whole family in a group. Evelyn suggested the other day that we have one taken—the first time she ever mentioned it. Write me once in a while, I will always answer you.

With Love, Your Brother

Postal Station 38

P.S. If you have a picture of the place please send me one if only a small one. I want to keep it with the rest of my things I have put away.

The next letter is dated February 10, 1919, from Portland, Oregon:

Dear Sister:

I just received your letter and the pictures. I was glad to get them and to know that you took the interest in me to get them. I am so sorry that you grieve so much as it only worries you both in body and in mind. I only wish you could see it the way I do, and have heard a lecture that I heard last night. I am sending you the card marked with a cross. I have heard all the lectures up to February 9th and I do not expect to miss one of the whole series. “Theosophy is the only teaching.” I have believed in it for years. It is the only scientific religion that there is to my mind. It is in harmony with Free Masonry, more especially in the higher degrees. I only wish that you were fully versed in it.

Your whole life would seem different, Dear Sister, do not grieve. Look higher, it is the will of the master. I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind that Mother has passed beyond to that house eternal not built by hands. Why should we grieve, she is in safer hands than ours. This I firmly believe and shall endeavor to raise my children in the same belief.

You speak in your letter about seeing Mother once more. You can if you just think in the right way, not in the body but in the spirit she will talk with you. She appears to me and Frances also. I could go into this belief with you much further. I believe in it so strong that nothing on earth could change me.

I would like to come down there for a while and shall try to arrange to do so sometime in the summer if possible. I am about to be promoted to general foreman and that will keep me pretty busy. I am writing this letter to you among many interruptions, men coming in to ask questions, and it seems that I never have a moment of quiet to myself, always hustle and bustle.

The only pleasant hour or so that I spend is at home alone with the children. Ev goes to school four nights a week – it is making a marked improvement in her. I can also see a change in the children owing to her attitude toward them. She is loosing her snarling ways and is beginning to realize that it won’t work with other people.

The paragraph in your letter where you speak of mothers things, they may not have an intrinsic value, but as mementos, I consider them valuable beyond money, which I think less of than anything in the world except just enough for our needs and education.

Once Mother told me she had something sewed up in her dress for me. I never knew what it was, she never told me and I did not question her and could not understand what it could be, but it does not matter if it was of value. I would not take it only as a remembrance.

Once I conceived the idea that it was an insurance policy but this was only a guess, but look her clothes over carefully and do not dispose of a piece of them. Well I will close for this time.

With Love, Your Brother.

After 1919 my grandfather disappeared from all census and public records. He was only seen by his wife and children one more time in about 1924 or 1925 after they had moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles was the last place where Stephen James Eubank's father, James Joseph Eubank, had been living before he passed away in 1907, and the last place where his mother, Elsie Jane Rouser Eubank, lived until her death in 1918. Stephen's brother Lee Edward Eubank, who also lived in Los Angeles, died in 1951, and their sister, Laura Elsie Eubank Classen also lived there until her death in 1956. However, none of them would ever reveal the whereabouts of Stephen James Eubank after he deserted my grandmother and her children.

In the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, Evelyn Eubank and her three small children were living in Bakersfield, California, with or near her mother, Dortha, and Dortha's children from her second marriage, Dan Carroll, Thelma Josephine, and Gladys Violet McKinney. Thelma was working as a stenographer, but neither Dortha nor Gladys were working, and Dan Carroll McKinney was working for the railroad as a fireman.

Evelyn was granted a divorce from Stephen James Eubank in Bakersfield, California, in 1923 for "willful desertion" according to my grandmother's Bible records. Her mother, Dortha, had separated from her second husband, Joseph T. McKinney, sometime between 1910 and 1915, and moved from Arizona to California. My grandmother's brother, John Delbert Rollins, had been living in California as early as 1917 when he was working for the railroad in Needles, California, according to his World War I Draft Registration record.

By 1930, John Delbert Rollins had moved back to Southern California from Bakersfield and may have been living in the Needles area again with his second wife and was still working for the railroad. He passed away in Riverside County, California, in 1967. His father, John Henry Rollins, Jr., had died in a tragic accident in 1889, when Dortha was just 20 years old with two small children, Dortha Evelyn, and John Delbert, to raise on her own.

It wasn't until eight years later that Dortha married Joe McKinney in 1897 in Arizona. He was an Arizona Sheriff and a stock raiser who at one time owned about 15,000 of cattle grazing land there. They had four children between 1898 and 1905, but were separated off and on for the rest of their marriage, which continued until Joe McKinney's death in 1948. Dortha died just 5 years later in 1953, and was buried in Safford, Arizona, with her parents, Christian Madsen and Roxanna Louisa Welker Madsen, who were early Mormon pioneers, having moved to Arizona in 1883 from Bloomington, Bear Lake, Idaho, via an oxen-pulled wagon train, a journey of over 1,000 miles.

Christian Madsen came to America in 1853 from Denmark after his family converted to the Mormon religion, and his parents and siblings arrived in America in 1857. Christian's wife, Roxanna Louisa Welker, was born in Iowa in 1851 as her parents, John Welker and Roxana Mahalia Dustin Welker, were crossing the plains with the Mormons on their trek to the Great Salt Lake.

They arrived in Utah in 1952 with the Isaac Stewart Pioneer Company. They stayed in Utah until about 1863 when the church sent them to settle the Bloomington, Bear Lake, Idaho, area with other church members. Then in 1883 they left Idaho for Safford, Arizona, in order to have a longer growing season for their crops and a better climate for my 2nd great grandmother, Roxanna Louisa Welker Madsen, and her mother, Roxanna Mahala Dustin Welker.

My grandmother and probably her mother, Dortha, moved from Bakersfield to Los Angeles in about 1924. Evelyn's son, James Rollins Eubank, was baptized in the Mormon Church, Adams Ward, Los Angeles, in 1924, according to my grandmother's Bible records. I don't know if she moved to Los Angeles because her brother, John Delbert Rollins, had moved back to southern California to work for the railroad or because her half-sister, Thelma McKinney, had taken a job as a stenographer with a Los Angeles law firm. Or it may have been because other Rollins and West family members had moved there from Arizona and Utah in the early 1920's.

In 1920 a niece of Dortha Roxana Madsen Rollins McKinney, Louyre Rollins Rosenbloom, had also been living with the family in Bakersfield with her one-year old son, John. Louyre was the daughter of William Samuel Rollins, Dortha's brother-in-law, the brother of her first husband, John Henry Rollins. After Louyre's young son John died in 1921, she moved to Los Angeles for a while as well, and then later moved to San Diego, remarried had another family and eventually moved to Oregon where she died in the 1990's.

In the 1930 census for Los Angeles my great grandmother, Dortha and her daughter, Thelma, were living at 6715 Victoria Avenue along with my 18-year old mother, Frances Amelia Eubank. My grandmother, Dortha Evelyn, was living nearby with her other two children, Elsie Louise and James Rollins Eubank. Whey they were not all living together is unknown, although perhaps there was not enough room for everyone in Dortha and Thelma's home.

Dortha's first mother-in-law, Nancy Malinda West Rollins, had several other children who moved to the Los Angeles area from Arizona in the early 1900's, so that may be another reason why Evelyn and her mother, Dortha, moved to Los Angeles from Bakersfield in the early 1920's, to be near other Rollins and West family members living there at the time.

I don't know how close my grandmother was to her sister-in-law, Elsie Laura Eubank Classen, or her brother-in-law, Lee Edward Eubank, but since they were both living in Los Angeles from the late 1890's and early 1900's, that may have been another reason Evelyn moved to Los Angeles, perhaps to hear news of her ex-husband, Stephen James Eubank, or get some financial support from their family. Elsie's husband, Otto Classen, was a pretty well known artist from Germany, and he may have helped somewhat with the support of Evelyn and her children at that time.

I know that aunt Elsie or uncle Otto gave one of his paintings to my mother, and also gave several paintings to my uncle Jim and his wife, Vera. Those paintings are worth quite a lot of money today, since Otto's popularity as a landscape artist grew after his death in 1939. He had a one man show of his work in Santa Monica, California, in about 1937. Some of his paintings have recently sold for thousands of dollars.

My mother told me she saw her father only one other time after he abandoned the family in 1919 or 1920, and that was when she was about 14 years old, which would have been about 1925. Supposedly Stephen James Eubank came to see his children then, probably while he was visiting his brother or sister, but he never contributed financially to the support of the family after he deserted his wife and children in 1919, and he never came to visit them again as long as my grandmother, mother or her siblings lived.

After that last visit, no one in my mother's family ever saw or heard from Stephen again, and although Stephen's sister Laura Elsie, stayed in touch with my grandmother, mother, and her siblings, Laura Elsie would never divulge any information about Stephen's whereabouts, or if he remarried or had another family. And since his mother died in about 1918 she was not available to ask for information regarding Stephen's whereabouts after he abandoned his wife and children, although if she had been alive I doubt she would have divulged any information about her son either! It is truly a mystery as to whatever happened to Stephen after about 1925 when he was about 57 years old.

I've often wondered what ever happened to Stephen James Eubank after 1925, and thought he may have remarried and had another family, although he would have been between 50 and 60 years old then. However, his father and grandfather both had children well into their 50's and 60's, so maybe Stephen did as well! Stephen did mention in one of his letters that he planned to go to Mexico and look after some property he had there. Maybe he did go to Mexico and never returned to the USA.

The only census records I could find for Stephen's parents, James Joseph Eubank and Elsie Jane Rouser Eubank, were the 1850, 1870, 1880, and 1900 census records and early 1890 voter registration records. After the death of James Joseph Eubank's mother, Susannah Quarles Branch, in 1833, from a cholera epidemic in Palmyra, Missouri, James was sent to live with his maternal grandparents, James and Martha Minor Branch in Tennessee, and he was probably raised by James and Martha for a few years until Martha passed away in 1839 and James passed away in 1844.

In 1844, James Joseph would have been 17 or 18 years old, and he may have gone to live with one of Susannah's brothers, James Goode Branch, and his wife, Sarah Uzzell, or his twin brother, William Minor Branch, and his wife, Mary Uzzell, Sarah's sister. James Joseph Eubank named his first two sons with his first wife Nancy William and James, which could have been in honor of his dead mother's brothers who may have helped raise him in Tennessee after her death.

For some reason, after his mother's death, James Joseph's father, Stephen Green Eubank, and James' sister, Martha Ann, left Palmyra, Missouri, and went to live in Illinois. Stephen met and married his second wife, Mary Ann Phillips, in Schuyler County, Illinois, in 1834. They had two daughters, Mary Susannah in 1836 in Peoria, Illinois, while Stephen was a constable and tavern owner there, and Margaret Green Eubank, in 1838 or 1839 after they moved to Springfield, Illinois.

Sadly, Mary Ann died in 1841 from consumption, and their two daughters were sent to live with her brother, Moreau Phillips, where they lived until about 1845 or 1850, when they returned to live with their father and his third wife, Sarah Armstrong Waggoner Eubank, who Stephen married in August of 1845, in Beardstown or Petersburg, Menard County, Illinois. Sarah was 24 years younger than Stephen and bore him 13 children, the last of whom was born in 1870 two years before Stephen died in 1872 at the age of 68.

James Joseph Eubank probably stayed in Tennessee with his Branch family relatives for about 15 years, from about June of 1833 until perhaps December of 1848, when at the age of about 21 he returned to Illinois to see his father and sister. On June 21, 1849, James Joseph married his first wife, Nancy Ann Trent, in Menard County, Illinois. They were listed there in the 1850 U.S. Federal Census living in Petersburg, Menard County, Illinois, with their first-born son, William, who was one month old.

James Joseph's father, Stephen Green Eubank, was living nearby with his third wife, Sarah, and their first two children, Helen, born in 1846, and Charlotte, born in 1848, and Mary Susannah and Margaret Green Eubank, Stephen's daughters with his second wife, Mary Ann Phillips. Another son was born to Stephen and Sarah in 1850, Stephen Thomas Eubank, and they went on to have 10 more children between 1850 and 1870.

In about 1853, James Joseph left his young wife Nancy and their sons in Illinois, either shortly before or just after the birth of their second son, James Gideon Eubank, and went to the gold fields of California to strike it rich. James was gone for about eight years and during that time, Nancy heard from a miner friend of James Joseph's that James had passed away out in California. So thinking she was a widow, she married Peter Shult in Chicago in 1856 and they went on to have four more children.

Nancy said in one pension application for James Joseph's Civil War pension, that for some reason when James lived in California, he went by the name of Richard Banks. Why he lived under an assumed name is unknown. Nancy also stated that when James Joseph returned to Illinois, he gave her some story about having to take a ship from California around the tip of South America and then up the East Coast where he then traveled overland west to Illinois, and that's why it took him so long to get back home to Illinois from California. This is a very far-fetched story, and who knows if it was true or not! But one does wonder why he was gone for 8 years and where he lived during that time, and why he never wrote to his wife back home in Illinois.

When James Joseph finally returned to Illinois in about 1861 and learned that Nancy was married to another man, he probably went to visit his sister, Martha Ann Eubank, who was living in Mason County, Illinois, with her husband, George Osburn. James Joseph's father and stepmother, Sarah, had left Illinois and moved to Kansas sometime about 1859.

James Joseph filed a petition for divorce from Nancy and that petition kept coming up in court until 1868, but during that time, James was fighting in the Civil War from 1862 to 1865, and after the war he went to see his father's family in Kansas, and married his second wife, Elsie Jane, there in Wathena, Kansas, in 1866. He may not have realized that his divorce from Nancy was never finalized in Illinois before he left for the war.

On August 14, 1862, James Joseph enlisted as a Private in Company C of the 124th Illinois Infantry. He was wounded by a shell to the back of the knees at the battle of Vicksburg on June 29, 1863, and suffered from his wounds for the rest of his life. He was periodically in and out of the Old Soldier's Home (now called the Veteran's Administration Hospital) in West Los Angeles during the years from 1891 until his death there in 1907. James was discharged from Company C of the 124th Illinois Infantry on January 2, 1864, and re-enlisted the same day in Vicksburg, Mississippi, as a Sergeant in the 5th U.S. Colored Troops Heavy Artillery, where he served until August 29, 1865, when he was discharged due to his disability from the shell wound to his knees in Vicksburg in 1863.

After the Civil War, James and Elsie were listed in the 1870 U.S. Federal Census, living in Clay, Lafayette County, Missouri, as follows: James, 40, Elsie, 28, and their 2-year old child, Uselle (Stephen James Eubank). James was working as a carpenter and was born in Tennessee. His wife, Elsie, was born in Ohio, and their child, Uselle, in Missouri. Uselle, or my grandfather, Stephen James Eubank, was born in Sedalia, Pettis County, Missouri in February of 1868, two years earlier, which is about 30 miles from the town where they were living in 1870, Clay, Lafayette County, Missouri. And even though Uselle was listed as a female child in the census, that was obviously an error on the part of the census taker, and Uselle, was in fact a male child and my grandfather, Stephen James Eubank.

Living next door was James Joseph's father, Stephen Green Eubank, 66, his 3rd wife, Sarah, 45, and their children: Helen, 29, (Stephen) Thomas, 19, (Laura) Jane, 18, Alice, 15, Ann, 11, Ida, 9, Leolelia, 6, and Mary, 1 year old. Stephen Green Eubank was working as a carpenter. All their children were born in Illinois except for Ida and Leolelia, who were born in Kansas, and Mary, who was born in Missouri.

James Joseph and his wife, Elsie, and son, Uselle, and his siblings were listed in the 1880 census in Sedalia, Missouri, as follows: James Eubank(s), 53, Alsy (mis-spelling for Elsie), 38, Eucell, 12, (Stephen James Eubank), Lee Edward, 9, and Laura Elsie, 6. James was working as a house carpenter.

Stephen James Eubank, was listed as Euzell and Eucell in California Voter Registration Records during the 1890's, but by the time the family moved to Los Angeles in about 1895, he was going by the name of Stephen James Eubank, and no longer used the name Euzell or Eucell or Uselle as far as I know.

In the 1890's Stephen James Eubank was listed as Euzell in voter registration records, and was living in Tulare, California, with or near his father, James Joseph, before the family moved to Los Angeles. James Joseph had purchased land in Nevada County, California, in the 1870's but sold that land about 1875. I don't know if he or his family ever lived on that land. Some of James Joseph's pension application records indicate that by about 1883 he and Elsie were living in San Diego, California. They must have moved to Tulare County after that.

James Joseph's voter registration records from the 1890's showed he was living in Tulare, California. The land he purchased in the 1870's in Nevada County may have been purchased for purposes other than as a residence. Nevada County is about 265 miles north of Tulare, California, but Nevada County is only about 45 miles from where gold was discovered in 1848 at Sutter's Mill, located in Coloma, California. Maybe James Joseph was still hoping to strike it rich as a gold miner in the 1870's, but I found no evidence that he ever lived in Nevada County, California, where the land he purchased was located. It appears that he sold that land in about 1875.

California Voter Registration records show James Joseph and both of his sons, Euzell and Lee Edward, were living with or near him in California during the 1890's. A California Voters Register with a registration date of September 15, 1890, showed James Joseph Eubank(s), age 64, was living in Tulare, California. The record stated he was born in Tennessee and his occupation was as a carpenter. On the same page of this voter registration record, his son, Euzell J. Eubank(s), was 22 years old, born in Missouri, and also working as a carpenter. Euzell's voter registration date of October 2, 1890, was only a couple of weeks after his father's registration date. Euzell was also living in Tulare, perhaps with his father, but there were no street addresses shown in these voter registration records, unfortunately.

Online records from Family Search.org show that the United States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers was where James J. Eubank was living in 1891 at Sawtelle, California. This place was commonly known as The Old Soldiers' Home. Sawtelle, California, and is now known as the VA Hospital in West Los Angeles. James Joseph must have left Tulare to enter the Old Soldier's home in Los Angeles in 1891. The record showed the following sources: NARA publication title, Historical Registers of National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers; NARA publication number M1749; NARA roll number 194; film number 1577623; digital folder number 004172584 and image number 00500.

In the above record, James Joseph was listed as a Protestant, born in Tennessee, was 64 years old, 5'-9" tall, with a light complexion, and his occupation was as a carpenter. These records also stated that James Joseph's residence subsequent to discharge from the Old Soldier's Home was in Tulare, Tulare County, California, and that he was married to Elsie J. Eubank of Tulare, California, so he must have moved back to Tulare from Los Angeles after he was released from the Old Soldier's Home in 1891.

However, below his wife's name on James Joseph's record was a home address of 335 N. Highland Avenue, Hollywood, California, which is about 170 miles south of Tulare, and is located in Los Angeles County. Perhaps that was an address for Elsie after James Joseph's death in 1907. He was admitted to the Old Soldier's Home on June 15, 1891, and was discharged on September 29, 1891, at his request. This record shows that his rate of pension was $8.00 which I assume meant per month. It was later increased to $10 and then $12 per month, and possibly as much as $30 per month, perhaps after his death, which Elsie would continue to receive as his widow.

James Joseph reapplied for his Civil War pension from Tulare, Tulare County, California, in 1892. An 1892 voter registration record showed Lee Edward Eubank, James and Elsie's second son, born in Missouri in about 1870. He was 5'-10" tall, had a light complexion, blue eyes, and brown hair. Lee Edward was living in Tulare, perhaps with his father. Lee's voter registration date was August 2, 1892. James Joseph was listed on the same page, 66 years old, 5'-8" tall, with a light complexion, gray eyes and hair, and his sight was gone in his right eye, and he was born in Tennessee. James Joseph's voter registration date was August 3, 1892, the day after Lee's. I don't know if they stayed in Tulare from 1892 until 1896, but the next public record for James Joseph showed that he was living in Los Angeles in 1896.

Per an 1896 U.S. City Directory Listing, specifically, Maxwell's Los Angeles City Directory and Gazeteer of Southern California, Lee Edward Eubank was living at 777 Elmore Avenue, Los Angeles, and was working as a mill hand for the Alta Planing Mill. Alta was responsible for erecting many elite residences in Los Angeles at the time, including several homes in the West Adams Heights area, a turn-of-the century neighborhood that was once home to LA's wealthiest citizens. Homes built in that area in the early 1900's cost anywhere from $12,000 to $24,000 which was a lot of money in those days.

Also listed on the same page as Lee in the 1896 directory was James Joseph, also working as a carpenter, and his daughter, Laura Elsie, who was working as a dressmaker, and a room mate named Miss A.J. Gastren. However, Lee's mother, Elsie, was not listed in this directory, nor was Euzell or Stephen James Eubank. James Joseph was readmitted to the Old Soldier's Home in West Los Angeles on March 24, 1896, and at that time, his pension was increased from $8 to $10 per month.

For some reason James Joseph's son, Euzell or Stephen James Eubank was not listed in the 1892 or 1896 voter registration records. Perhaps he was living in Los Angeles with his mother and sister at the time. But I really don't know where he was living for about a ten year period after October of 1890 in Tulare, until 1901, when he was found living in Los Angeles.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census for the Old Soldiers Home Pacific Branch in Los Angeles, there was a listing for a James J. Eubank, born September, 1822, (he was actually born in December of 1826), who was a 77-year old widower born in Ohio. I don't know if that was Stephen's father or not, based on the wrong birth year and state. However, James Joseph was not listed in the census record below with his wife and son Lee Edward in 1900.

In the 1900 census, Lee Edward, 27, and his mother, Elsie, 59, were living at 947 E. 54th Street in Los Angeles. Laura Elsie Eubank had married her husband, Otto Classen, in 1898, so she was living with Otto at the time. Lee Edward may have married a neighbor girl, Jessie F. Pugh, in 1901, because there was a listing in the Los Angeles Times newspaper dated May 30th stating that Lee E. Eubank, 29, and Jessie F. Pugh, 26, obtained a marriage license. Jessie's father was a carpenter, so that may be how she met Lee, since Lee and his father, James Joseph, and his brother, Stephen James, had all worked as carpenters in Los Angeles in those days.

Euzell was listed as Stephen James Eubank in a 1902 U.S. City Directory Listing, and was living at 1918 S. Main Street, Los Angeles. He was working as a laborer for Alexander & Beyrle. In the same 1902 U.S. City Directory Listing, James Joseph was living alone at 947 E. 54th Street, Los Angeles. These two addresses are only about three and a half miles apart. But where were Elsie and Lee Edward? Maybe Lee Edward was living with with his wife, Jessie, at the time, and perhaps Elsie was living with her daughter, Elsie Laura, and her husband Otto Classen then, since they were married just 3 or 4 years earlier.

In a 1904 U.S. City Directory listing, Stephen James Eubank was working as a manager for Tatum & Bowen, and was living at 947 E. 54th Street with his mother, Elsie, but neither James Joseph nor Lee Edward were listed in that directory with them. Maybe James Joseph was once again living at the Old Soldier's Home by 1904, but where was Lee Edward then, still living with his wife? They may have divorced by about 1905 because in a 1905 U.S. City Directory listing, James Joseph and Lee Edward were both living at 951 54th Street. However, neither Elsie or Stephen James Eubank were living with them at the time, or at least they were not listed in the directory. It seems that James Joseph and his family certainly moved around a lot in those days and had sort of a "musical chairs" existence.

In the same 1904 directory there was a Joseph E. Eubank(s), with a company called Eubanks & Snyder, who was living at 1910-1/2 East Main and the business was located at 601 Moulton Avenue. The business was listed as a saloon. But I don't know if Joseph was related to James Joseph Eubank or his family.

James Joseph passed away at the age of 80 years old on June 4, 1907, from pneumonia and or dementia while living at the Old Soldier's Home, and his personal effects were turned over to Elsie J. Eubank on June 28, 1907. He had $4 in cash on hand and .50 worth of personal effects at the time of his death. His pension certificate 127-787 was sent to an agent in San Francisco on June 5, 1907. At the time of his death his pension amount was $30.00. He was buried in the National Cemetery for military veterans in West Los Angeles, Section 13, Row D, Plot number 13.

The next time my grandfather, Euzell or Stephen James Eubank, showed up in public records was in the 1910 census in Arizona when he was married to my grandmother, Dortha Evelyn Rollins Eubank. The following year, Stephen and Evelyn were living in San Diego, California, where my mother, Frances, was born on October 14, 1911. They may have moved there because one of Evelyn's aunts and uncles were living there at the time. Her father's sister, Margaret Eve Rollins Rynning and her husband, Thomas Harbo Rynning, had moved to San Diego from Arizona in the early 1900's, and Tom was working as a building contractor there. Since Stephen James Eubank and his father James Joseph and brother Lee Edward had all worked as carpenters, he may have been building houses with Tom Rynnng in San Diego at the time.

In an affidavit Elsie Louise Rouser Eubank completed in 1911 regarding her eligibility to continue to receive James Joseph's Civil War pension (since Nancy Ann Trent Eubank Shult had also subsequently applied to receive his benefits), Elsie mentioned that her son, Lee Edward Eubank was living in San Diego. However, she did not mention where Stephen James Eubank was living then for some unknown reason, although I know he was in San Diego in 1911 since my mother was born there that year.

I often wonder why Stephen James Eubank was originally named Uselle or Eucell or Euzell (spelled differently in various public census and voter registration records), and thought perhaps that is was because of James Joseph's aunts Sarah and Mary Uzzell Branch, who may have helped raised him after his mother and maternal grandparents died in 1833, 1839 and 1844. Perhaps James Joseph gave Stephen the name Uselle in honor of the Uzzell sisters who may have been very kind to him while he was growing up. It must have been hard for James Joseph to lose his mother when he was so young (about 6 or 7 years old when she died in 1833), and then to be sent back to Tennessee to live with her parents, only to lose his grandmother in 1839 and grandfather in 1844. It must have been so very sad for him to lose so many family members in an 11-year time period, and to be separated from his father and sister, Martha Ann Eubank, as well.

If the Uzzell sisters took care of James Joseph after his grandparents passed away and before he returned to Illinois to see his father, he must have been very grateful to them for their kindness. I suppose that would be reason enough to name his first born son with Elsie as Uselle! He had named his first son with Nancy Ann Trent Eubank, William, perhaps after James Joseph's uncle William Minor Branch, and their second son James Gideon Eubank, perhaps after William's twin brother, James Goode Branch, the husbands of the Uzzell sisters Sarah and Mary.

Why James Joseph's son, Uselle, Eucell or Euzell, adopted the name Stephen James Eubank is also a mystery. The first evidence of him using that name was when he was living in Los Angeles in 1902. Perhaps he adopted the name Stephen from his paternal grandfather, Stephen Green Eubank, who died just 4 years after he was born. His middle name James may have been for his father's first name or his maternal grandfather, James Branch, or his maternal uncle, James Goode Branch. I don't know why Stephen went by Uselle, Eucell or Euzell during his younger years and then started using the name Stephen James Eubank in the early 1900's. Maybe he was trying to cover up secrets from his past like his father had when he went by the name of Richard Banks while he was a gold miner in California in the 1850's.

Since James Joseph and Nancy Ann Trent Eubank's first born son, William, was disabled, Nancy probably needed help caring for her family after James Joseph went to California, and that's why she married Peter Shult in 1856, thinking her husband had died in California. Nancy and Peter had three daughters and a son of their own, but she continued to care for William his entire life. An 1880 census record for Nancy, her second husband, Peter Shult, and James Joseph's son, William, indicated that William was suffering from paralysis. The 1870 census record had listed William as being "dumb", which may have been how they referred to "retarded" or mentally challenged people in those days. I remember the old expression, "deaf and dumb" which was used for people who were disabled.

I could find no further census records for William Eubank after 1880, so he probably passed away sometime between 1880 and 1900, when I did find a census record for Nancy Ann Trent Eubank Shult, and William was no longer living with her family at that time. Plus a 1900 census record indicated she was the mother of 6 children, 5 of whom were still living, and since she had two children with James Joseph and four children with Peter Shult, that would be the total of six children. Because all of her other children were still living in 1910, William must have been the child that had already passed away.

James Joseph and Nancy Ann Trent Eubank's second son, James Gideon Eubank, moved to the Seattle-Tacoma, Washington, area in about 1882, and he passed away there in 1926. That may have been one reason why Stephen James Eubank and his wife, Evelyn, moved to Seattle in 1915, because his half-brother, James Gideon, was already living there. James Gideon was born in 1853 and Stephen James Eubank in 1868, so because of the 15-year age difference, James Gideon may have been somewhat of a father figure to Stephen, after their own father's death in 1907. Although I don't know how much contact James Gideon and Stephen James Eubank had with each other, since James Gideon was probably not familiar with his father, James Joseph, because he was gone for the first eight years of James Gideon's life. James Gideon may have thought that Peter Shult was actually his father. Although I recently learned that James Gideon contacted James Joseph via a letter in the 1890's and said that he believed him to be his father and asked him to come for a visit, which he did sometime before his death in 1907.

According to Janet Partlow, a Eubank cousin, James Joseph Eubank went to visit his son, James Gideon Eubank, in Washington state, sometime not long after receiving that letter, and stayed for a visit of about 3 months. At the time of his visit, James Joseph was passed off to James Gideon's family as a distant cousin, not as James Gideon's father. I'm sure James Gideon's children always thought that Peter Shult was their grandfather. When James Gideon's first daughter, Olive, was born in 1875, James Gideon's mother, Nancy, had been married to Peter Shult for nearly 20 years, so I'm sure Olive thought Peter Shult was her grandfather, not James Joseph Eubank, who she had probably not met prior to 1900.

Janet sent me a photo of James Joseph with his granddaughter, Olive, and her sister, Lucetta, taken when he went to visit James Gideon in Washington state. James looked like a very old looking man with a big mustache, peering out from under a large hat, and he really looks nothing like the photo taken of him in 1870, which is the one shown on James Joseph Eubank's Geni profile page. But of course 30 years had passed since that photo was taken, and he had endured a pretty hard life!

Stephen James Eubank's brother, Lee Edward Eubank passed away in Los Angeles in 1951, and his sister, Laura Elsie Eubank Classen, passed away in 1956. Sadly, neither of them ever had any children, so I have no cousins from my great aunt or uncle. I vaguely remember going to visit my great aunt Elsie when I was very young, but never got to meet my great uncle, Lee Edward Eubank, since he passed away in February and I was born in June of 1951. And since James Gideon and William Eubank passed away 25 and 50 years before I was born, I never had an opportunity to meet them either.

I certainly wish I knew more about my grandfather and his father and grandfather, and what happened to Stephen James Eubank after he abandoned my mother's family! I didn't know my dad's father either, unfortunately, because he died many years before I was born, in 1928 in Venice, California. Grandpa Smith had been a farmer in Kansas from about 1894 until 1922, and because he had asthma, the family moved from Kansas to California to escape the "Dust Bowl Days" of Kansas according to my father.

My father, Halley Dale Smith, was only about 18 years old when his father passed away in 1928. In 1930 dad was living with his widowed mother, Mattie Estella Scott Smith, her first-born son, Bertle Haze Smith, and his sister, Eeva Delight Smith, in Venice, California. Two of his older brothers were living nearby, Merton Dee and Lawrence Benton Smith, or my uncles Dee and Larry as we called them. Uncle Larry was the head of the paint department at Disneyland. Uncle Dee worked with my father off and on during the years from about 1930 to 1970.

I certainly missed out by not having grandfathers in my life, and both of my grandmothers died when I was fairly young, my mom's mother when I was 5 years old, and my dad's mother when I was about 8 or 9 years old. However, Grandma Smith had been suffering from dementia for several years when she passed away at the age of 89, so I don't have many memories of her after I was about 7 years old. The fact that my parents had me later in their lives, when they were both about 40 years old, as well as the fact that my father was the second to the last of five children, meant I had much older grandparents. Even my Smith aunts and uncles were older, except for aunt Eeva Delight Smith Wall, so my older cousins really seemed more like aunts and uncles than cousins.

I do envy my husband who remembers well all four of his grandparents! Nothing like having them around and in your life when you are growing up!

So the mystery of Stephen James (Uselle, Eucell or Euzell) Eubank continues to this day and will probably never be solved. Maybe I have a lot more Eubank cousins out there that I'll never know, which is sort of sad!

Della Dale Smith

Revised June 29, 2016