The Davison Family

The California Gold Rush was the era some of the Davison family migrated to this area. Records of this long-standing Colusa family identify at least three ancestors who made their way to Northern California in the early 1850’s.

W.C. Smith was just 18 years old when he and his brother left New Hampshire for California by wagon train. Before reaching its destination, the caravan was attacked by Indians. Reportedly, the Smith brothers were the only two survivors, and though wounded, they managed to escape, find another wagon train, and reach their destination.

W.C. Smith was a brickmason and a pioneer resident of Colusa; his landmark home stood where Messick Ace Hardware is today. His daughter Lily Mae married Frank Davison, a tinsmith formerly of Marysville, in 1860. Lily Mae and son Arch Davison are pictured at left. Arch Davison became a pharmacist, and a father to Jim, grandfather to Frank, Alice and Paul, and great grandfather to Lucas and Rachel Davison.

Rosa Rangel Herrera

(Rosa Bautista)

In the 1950’s, when the Bracero Program was at its peak, Rosa’s father enrolled and came to Nord, California, leaving his wife and children behind in Morelia, Michoacán. During the 1960’s, he began bringing a child with him to work in the fields during harvest, starting with Rosa’s oldest brother Jose and then her two oldest sisters, until Rosa’s mother insisted that the family stay together. In July of 1971, her entire family migrated to Northern California.

They came by bus, and Rosa was just eleven years old. It was a three-day trip from the heart of Mexico to the station in Chico.  Rosa remembers being sick the entire journey and other passengers offering her mother this advice, “Give her a spoonful of gasoline. It will help her not be sick from the fumes!”

Rosa was eleven years old when she came to California, and she eventually made her home in Colusa. Though she spent time in her early years laboring in the fields, Rosa now works for the Colusa Unified School District as a bilingual parent support liaison, providing assistance and a voice for Spanish-speaking families.  

The Halsey Family

Isaac Halsey was twenty years old when he migrated west from New York in search of gold in 1849. He worked the mines for about eight years before he gave up on his hunt, and began filling teeth instead. Isaac eventually moved to Oakland where his son Wilbur Halsey Sr. continued in Dentistry. During the 1920’s, Wilbur Sr. and some hunting partners purchased a track of land off Moon Bend Road.

In 1929, having completed his education at Harvard, Bill Halsey (Wilbur Jr.) took an interest in the family land and prune business, and moved to Colusa. He commented that when he started his career in 1929 the banks were failing, and 50 years later at the end of his career, the banks were failing again. Bill continued to purchase property, sometimes in partnership with the Yerxa family. Circa 1960, alarmed at the rising labor costs, Bill developed the Halsey Harvester for harvesting prunes and other fruits and nuts.

As lifelong advocates for wildlife, the current generations are striving to restore the wildlife bounty which originally attracted the Halseys to the Colusa area.

The Lee Family

Lee Kam Kee was sixteen years old when he obtained fake student visa papers and left the village of Toisan in Canton Province, China, seeking a better life in California.  He traveled on the USS Wilson, arriving in 1916 in San Francisco, where he took a job as a cook.  Lee eventually made his way to Williams, where he cooked for the O'Sullivan Ranch.  In 1920, a family friend asked Lee to take over the General Store in Colusa, which Lee renamed Chung Sun Market, in honor of Chinese revolutionary leader Dr. Sun Yat-sen, whom Lee admired greatly. Despite Lee's limited English and the anti-Asian sentiment of that time, his business grew.

Lee returned to China in the mid-1920s to marry Gee Kin Ying, daughter of a family friend.  While there, they had their first son, Leland.  Lee returned to Colusa to resume management of the market, and a few years later, his wife and young son came to California aboard the USS Jackson.  During their passage, seven-year-old Leland was taken from his mother, as all male passengers were separated from female passengers.  When they arrived in San Francisco, they were detained for over a month on Angel Island.

Early on, the Lees and their employees lived over the store.  Eventually, the family grew to nine children and moved out to a separate home. Chung Sun Market (now located a half-block from the original store) is still family owned and operated by Lee sons Jimmy, Bob, Roy, and son-in-law So Han Park.

The Steidlmayer Family

The Steidlmayer family in this area trace their lineage to a farm near Peuerbach, Austria where Anton Steidlmayr (sic) was born on New Year’s Eve in 1861. He was the youngest of six children, and with the exception of speaking a different language, there was little to distinguish his youthful days on the farm from those of American boys of the same period. At 19, he entered the service of the Austrian emperor, and for three years was a bugler in the army. After securing his leave, and returning home for a few months, he came to the United States where he briefly found farm work in Nebraska before heading to California.

In the spring of 1887, Anton arrived in Grand Island where he became an employee of C. M. Mumma. Anton worked for six years gaining a thorough knowledge of the soil, climate and possibilities of the valley, an experience which would become of great value to him in subsequent years. In 1894 he purchased 86 acres along the river, south of “Sycamore” in Colusa County and devoted his life to farming. He married Francisca Reitbeck, a native of his Austrian home town, and together they raised six children: Francis, Tony, Mary, Charles, George and Alice.

Tony married Mary Ann Kelly and had Peter, Toni Ann, Mark, Paul and Leo Steidlmayer.

Charles married Louise Lorenzato and became parents to Richard, Betty, Jimmy, Louis and David Steidlmayer.

George married Geraldine Ottenwalter and raised their two children, Bobby and Sally Rosemary Steidlmayer.

Colusa High Contributors

Mackenzie Bressler

My great-grandfather came to California in 1923 from Minnesota to start the family dairy farm.  He raised his family in Maxwell, which is where my grandfather (Papa Howard) lived his whole life.  Papa's preacher at the local church told him about his niece in Missouri.  He told my Papa that Minnie was a nice young lady who was looking to come to California. 

My Papa told his family that he was going to Missouri to buy a new horse because his horses were all getting too old and not getting the job done.   Of course he didn't really need a horse; he had fine horses on the ranch.  He went to Missouri to find the preacher's niece.  Papa always told me and my brother that it was love at first sight.  Howard brought Minnie back to the family dairy and they fell in love.  He married her and they had their first child, my dad Terry.  My dad worked on the family ranch all the way through school.  His sister went through high school and graduated from college and moved back to Missouri, where she still lives today.

It's always great to hear Papa tell the story of him and grandma.  He and she are the source of our down-home country roots, and the generations to come will follow those roots.

Ashley Cotter

My family's history is long and complex.  I have ancestral ties to ethnic groups all around the world, and many stories I have not heard, but there is one story my grandmother has told me about my great-great-grandfather's journey to California.

My great-great-grandfather (referred to as Nannan) was born Reginald Bernard deSausmarez in 1891.  The deSausmarez family occupied the family manor on the Isle of Guernsey in the English Channel.  They were a wealthy and powerful family who had ties that went back many centuries.  Nannan was the youngest of seven children and grew up in the manor. Ethel Evans, a maid who came from Morton, near Liverpool, also occupied the home.  Despite their different social statuses, Nannan and Ethel grew infatuated with each other.  Their love eventually led to their move to America.

Ethel Evans is my great-great-grandmother (Nanni).  She became pregnant at the age of twenty-one.  Her lower social status may not have stopped my Nannan, but his family could not overlook the disgrace.  Reginald was disowned.  Having nowhere to go and no income, the two young lovers left for America and arrived in 1911.  Their luck did not change; Nanni gave birth to a stillborn boy.

When Nanni became pregnant for the second time, she went back to Liverpool to bring her child into the world with the help of her family.  She gave birth to my great-grandmother, Marion Kathleen deSausmarez, in 1914.

Throughout Kathleen's childhood, she and Nanni went back and forth between Liverpool and Nannan, who had moved to Los Banos to work on the railroad for the Southern Pacific Company.  In the early thirties, the family moved to Berkeley, where Nannan and Nanni remained the rest of their lives.

 

Luke Corriea

Both of my great-grandparents on my mom's side came from small towns in Italy--my great-grandmother from Castellamonte on the French border, and my great-grandfather from Castana, a small town near Venice. 

In 1901, when my great-grandmother was one or two years old, she and her family left Italy and moved to Michigan.  Later, they settled in Illinois near Chicago.   My great-grandfather left Italy when he was 18, following his brother Pete, who had come to the U.S. earlier and was drafted and served in WWI.  My great-grandfather went to Canada, Texas, and finally Illinois, where he eventually met my great-grandmother and married her.  As a young adult, he worked primarily as a miner.

When WWI ended, brother Pete settled in California and told my great-grandfather that the weather was much better in the West than it was in Illinois.  So my great-grandparents and the first four of what eventually grew to their family of eight children came to California by train and settled in Millbrae.  In Millbrae, they had a bar/restaurant where my great-grandmother cooked for Italian workers who lived nearby. 

Joe Ferrini

My grandmother said the name Ferrini in Italian means "iron steel," so I'm guessing one of my great-ancestors was a warrior in ancient times.  I would love to go to Italy some day and look through the archives to see if it's true.

My grandparents grew up in Italy and started their family there.  At age twenty-five, my grandmother had their first child, my aunt Bethany.  Three years later, my dad Matthew was born.  In 1961, when my dad was two years old, my grandpa decided to move the family to the United States to search for better work and higher pay.  They got on a boat and arrived in New York.  My grandmother didn't really like talking about the trip because she said it was the worst experience she'd ever encountered in her life.  The boat was crowded and smelled awful, and everyone was throwing up because of the waves.  New York was crowded, too.

The family got on an airplane and flew to California and settled in San Luis Obispo, where my dad and aunt grew up.  My grandfather became a fisherman off the Pacific coast.  In 1977, he switched to real estate.  When my dad graduated from high school, he moved to Colusa to start farming and running sheep and cattle, which our family still does today. I am very thankful for being here in Colusa County.

Kimberlee Harmon

I would like to start with the story of my dad's mom.  My grandma's parents both grew up in Germany, not knowing each other.  My great-grandmother and her family moved to Massachusetts when she was a little girl; my great-grandfather moved to Massachusetts from Germany when he was a teenager.  The two eventually met in Massachusetts and married, and then moved to Vallejo, California because my great-grandfather was in the Navy and circumstances required them to move.

My relatives on the Harmon side also grew up in Germany, and some of them migrated to America prior to the Revolutionary War.  One Harmon was actually stationed at Valley Forge and served as one of George Washington's aides there.  The Harmons slowly moved across the country and eventually ended up in Mexico, and then moved to New Mexico.  My great-grandfather Rhay moved to Orange County in southern California to work in the orange groves.   He soon tired of that and moved to Alaska to work in the gold fields.  He eventually made his way back to New Mexico where he raised cattle on a few thousand acres and started a family--my grandfather and his sister were raised in New Mexico.

After they grew up, my grandpa and his sister and their mother (my great-grandmother Harmon) moved out to the West Coast.  My grandfather was living in the East Bay and worked in Oakland when he bought the linen supply and moved to Colusa.  We Harmons still run that same Colusa Linen Supply.

Kellie Hodges

My great-grandfather was born in the early 1900s? and raised in England.  He lived there until he finished college and had some work experience.  Then he moved to Australia for a couple of years where he worked on a documentary about ???.  Once the documentary was finished, he decided to do some more traveling.  In the course of his travels, he visited the United States, and after realizing how much he liked it here, he bought a house in San Francisco and worked as a ????

During this time, my great-grandmother was living in nearby Napa, and she frequently visited San Francisco.  On one of her several visits, she met my great-grandfather.  They got married and decided to settle down and start a family.  After a couple of years, they had enough money to move, so they packed everything up into their Model A truck and drove to the town they would call their new home, Stonyford.  They purchased a nice little hotel called Leesville and raised their children--my grandpa and his sister--in Stonyford.

Once my grandpa finished school, he moved to Colusa where he met his wife.  They settled down here and had three kids of their own.  One was my father, who stayed in Colusa, got married to a woman with two kids, and then had me.  Now that I'm almost an adult, I plan to move to San Francisco and visit Australia and England to see what my great-grandfather's journey was like.

Aimee Maldonado

Both my grandpa and his dad joined a program called the "Braceros," a name ranch owners called their workers.  The Braceros ("strong arm") Program gave people from Mexico an opportunity to come to the States over the summer to do field work and earn better wages.  My grandfather and great-grandfather had to leave a lot behind before actually coming to America, including my great-grandmother.

Since his job was seasonal, my grandpa would commute every summer and occasionally would get sent all over California just so he would be able to stay in the program.  After doing the same routine for a couple of years, he finally decided to fix papers for himself so he would be able to commute whenever he wanted instead of just over the summer.  Colusa was one of his favorite towns; he loved the fact that it was a small rural town with enough work to grow a stable family.  Not long after, my grandparents got married, and four years later my mom was born.

When my mom was little she would jump around from state to state, get her education in Mexico and visit over the summer along with her four brothers and sisters.  She and my dad met in 1978 and soon decided to get married and start a family.  My grandpa helped my dad get his papers, and soon both of them were able to start their new life together, here in Colusa.  As time passed, my mom, uncles, and aunts all decided to stay in California to make a better living for their own families.  My generation all lives in California now, and I don't think we appreciated what my grandpa really did for us until now.

Autumn Piña

My great-great-grandfather was of Irish and Spanish descent; that's where my last name Pina comes from.  In the mid-1800s, he traveled from New York City to Northern California with the United States Army.  He was part of the "Chico to Round Valley Trail of Tears," the forced removal of Native Americans in the Chico area to the Round Valley Indian Reservation near the small town of Covelo in Mendocino County.  In August of 1863, his troop of 23 cavalrymen was instructed to take the Native Americans nearly 100 miles on foot, and it was called the Trail of Tears because many of the Indians got sick and died along the way--out of the 461 Native Americans who started from Chico, only 277 finished the trek.

Once the troop had gotten the Indians to Covelo, they stayed there to watch over and guard the Native Americans.  After living there for a while, my great-great-grandfather met a young native woman who later became my great-great grandmother.  They had probably met at one of the small parties the Indian families had from time to time.  I don't have much information about them after that, except that they had a son, my great-grandfather Charles Alfonso Pina.  Then that Pina had my grandfather, Charles Pina.  He stayed in the area for a while, then moved from Round Valley to Colusa.  That is the story of how the Pina family came to California from New York. We have never left the Golden State; we've been here for well over 100 years.

Santino Valdez

My Grandfather Chano used to say he was an alambrista (tight rope walker) and a mojado (wetback) meaning that he came to the U.S. illegally from Mexico. He came to the U.S. by jumping a wire fence and swimming across the Rio Grande. The first time he crossed he was seventeen. Both of his parents had died and my grandfather had to take care of his younger brother and sister so he decided to move to California to find work and support them. At first, he worked seasonal jobs that had him moving all over California. He found stable work with Wilbur Ranches in Colusa. He worked seasonally, and returned to Mexico when the work was over.

In 1958, the owner of Wilbur Farms, Mr. Wilbur, wrote a letter of support to the I.N.S. so my grandfather could get his green card.  In 1962, he married my grandmother, Celia. A year later they had their first child, my Uncle Moises. When Uncle Moises was about three months old, Mr. Wilbur wrote another letter of support to the I.N.S. so my grandmother and uncle could enter the U. S. legally.

My grandparents stayed in Colusa and raised their family here because Colusa is the first place my Grandfather Chano found steady work.

Maria

My dad was 20 years old when he decided to come to the U.S. so that he could have a better future.  He took a bus from Mexico City to Tijuana, where he and about ten other people went to find the people trafficker who would get them across the border.  After crossing over, he could not get ahold of his brother so he had to stay with the trafficker, or "coyote" for three days.  The coyote gave strict orders not to leave the house, and for those three days, my dad lived off of one cup of noodles and a Coke.

My father finally connected with his brother, who took him to Los Angeles.  The people they lived with were not okay with my dad staying there, so they kicked both of them out of the house.  My dad and his brother had no money, only two bus tickets to go from LA to Chico.  They arrived at a friend's three-bedroom house with at least twenty people living in it.   My dad got a job almost immediately, but it only paid $3.25 an hour and he only worked one or two days a week.  His paycheck provided only enough money for food.

One day my father got the opportunity to move in with a cousin whom he had not seen in over four years.   Then a friend told him that there were job opportunities in Williams.  They both got jobs, and my dad and his friend drove from Chico to Williams every day for a month and a half.   After deciding that they were paying more for gas than anything, four of them rented a Motel 6 room in Williams, where my dad lived for two months until he met my mom.  

Anonymous

Whether you're black, white, brown, yellow, or purple, if you go back far enough you will find an immigrant coming west for new hope. I am a mix of native Mexican Indians and Spanish immigrants. My mom's ancestors immigrated to North America from Spain.  After years of mixed breeding, they became Mexican.  My dad's ancestry goes back to the ruthless Aztecs who were almost wiped out by the arrival of the conquistadors.

How did we get to California?  Well, my mom was fascinated with the summer Olympics in 2000, and we always rooted for the U.S.  My mom had big dreams for us; she wanted us to have a chance to shine like the athletes on T.V.  Although Mexico is great, the opportunities were limited, so my mom and dad made one of the hardest decisions of their life:  we were to pack our bags and head to the U.S.  Naturally I was heartbroken because Mexico was all I knew and I couldn't imagine leaving it to go to an alien land.

After many emotional goodbyes we left our small town in Mexico.  When we arrived at the San Francisco airport, the amazing lights and impossibly tall buildings bewildered me. I was awed by the immense labyrinth of buildings, streets, stoplights, sidewalks, shops, and people.  We settled in a seasonal migrant camp in Williams, but my mom, being a tree fanatic, hated the dead, dry appearance, so six months later we moved to Colusa, and here we are today.  I can honestly say I wouldn't want to live anywhere else.

Diane Foster Bransford

My parents Howard and Eva Foster were each raised on the prairie of Southern Oregon/Idaho. Their families migrated to the area from Missouri and Colorado. Howard and Eva met each other during the Great Depression, and married in 1935. My father established his honey business that year as a third generation beekeeper. The photo on the left shows him with his first load of honey in 1936. The load is being pulled by my parents’ family car, a 1929 Model-A Ford.

The business expanded from Oregon into Idaho and Montana. In 1946, my parents purchased another component to Foster Apiaries from Tom Burleson, a Colusa beekeeper who was selling his business. The purchase offered my father the perfect opportunity to expand his business into breeding bees. He worked with the UC Davis entomology staff perfecting the science of artificially inseminating bees to produce queens.

Because my father’s business included bee production and pollination services in Colusa County, as well as honey production in Montana, we migrated between Montana and Colusa each year. My four brothers and I were schooled in Colusa, but each June left for Montana with our many animals and some household goods. Some years, if the honey crop was late, we were not quite back to Colusa for the first weeks of school.

After college, my brothers Jim and Jerry returned to Colusa as fourth generation beekeepers. My husband Don Bransford was also raised in Colusa, and after our own college educations and professional endeavors, we returned to this beautiful community where we raised our four children, Darcie, Scott, Nathan and Beth.

Matthew Brown

California Stars

Reading the catalog of Oklahoma towns in The Grapes of Wrath is like listening to my Granny Brown tell a story. Her people were from Tahlequah, just about fifty miles north of Sallisaw where the Joads rolled their ancient Hudson out onto the highway. My Granddad was from down around Cordell, and just about every other part of Washita County, southwestern Oklahoma. They traveled a path between those ends of the state for many years. My uncle, Billy Brown, was born down in Washita in 1940 in a town called Port that ceased to be recognized by the state as a town that same year.

The whole country was drying up and blowing away. My family spent the worst Dust Bowl years around Tahlequah near my Granny’s folks, but they were back in Port during the winter of 1940 to have their first son and see the first significant rains to hit that part of the country in almost ten years. It wasn’t long before they were back up north to Gentry, Arkansas for the births of their second and third children, my father Jack and my Aunt Bobby. That didn’t last too long either. In 1944, encouraged by friends who had come several years before them, they piled in my great grandfather’s Ford and came out to Durham, California. After that they stayed still for forty-five years until they decided to move back to northeast Oklahoma. It has taken me many years, but I think I understand why. My uncle Billy soon followed. They are all three, Laura Francis, Floyd, and Billy Brown buried near Jay, Oklahoma. 

The Hickel Family

My husband James Hickel and I were both born and raised in northern Montana, both from farm families, but different areas. Jim had a younger brother living in my town who was working as a mechanic at the local Ford garage. I was a waitress at a small cafe, and one day in the fall of 1945 Jim came in and ordered a piece of banana cream pie. This was the beginning of our courtship. We married in 1946, and remained in town for a few months before moving to Roundup, and then Billings. Jim worked in the parts department at the Ford garage in all three of these towns, thanks to Wayne Hoblit. We were in Billings five years, and sometime in the fall of 1952, Wayne’s father Morley Hoblit contacted Jim to see if we would be interested in moving to Colusa where the Hoblits had their Ford Agency. It did not take long to decide, and all of our furniture and belongings were loaded on a flatbed and we headed to Colusa. This was January of 1953.

The trip was long and uncomfortable for me since I was expecting our third child. I remember we came over Donner Pass after a bad storm and the highway was covered in 10 inches of slush. I thought, this is California? We just came from snow country! Later, coming down the mountains after the storm into a beautiful green valley was quite a site to see.

Once in Colusa, we rented a small apartment and Jim started working for Hoblit Motors in the parts department and later as Service Manager. I had a daycare in my home, and Jim helped me when my helper wasn’t there. He passed away in late August of 2010. We were married 64 years and had a wonderful life and five children--four now living in Colusa. We have seven grandchildren and five great grandchildren. It has been a pleasure doing this short history of our family.

        The Hoblit Family

The area of Montana and South Dakota was home to the Hoblit family until the 1940’s when the harsh climate and high altitude were threatening Morely Hoblit’s health. He suffered a heart attack, and on the advice of his doctor, Morely decided to move west. He sold the car dealership in Red Lodge, Montana that he owned with his son Wayne, and began his search for a place to reinvest. After looking in various places in Oregon and Washington, Morely finally went to the Ford District Office in Richmond, California. There, he learned about a car dealership in “a little town up north” that was in need of new ownership. He contacted his son Wayne, and asked him if he would reinvest in a place called Colusa. Wayne agreed, packed up his Ford Country Sedan, and drove out to California with his wife Virginia and their young daughter Beverly. The year was 1948.  

Morley and Wayne opened their business in Colusa on February 1, 1949.  That summer, friends Jim and Alma Hickel came from Billings, Montana to visit. Jim was a parts manager back in Billings. During that visit Wayne told Jim, “If you ever get tired of the cold weather, we’ve got a place for you here.” Wayne and Virginia’s family grew, and soon Steve and Dave joined sister Beverly.

In 1952, Jim Hickel took his friend up on the offer of work. A few years later, Jim’s brother Roger followed, and both Hickel men made their home here. Wayne also brought Barney and Lucy Hoffman out west. And Grace and Tom Smith. One man’s decision to make a change affected the lives of many.