Emily Helen Thistle

Emily Helen Thistle, second of the three daughters of Marguerite Ellen Branson and LeBaron Guy Thistle, was born 19 February 1912 in Mariposa County, CA, in or near the town of Hornitos. (One source indicates it was the town of Mariposa.) By 1912, the gold-extraction economy of the Mother Lode was reeling. What ore remained was difficult to get at, and new government environmental regulations, including those restricting hydraulic mining, had taken away methods the industry had increasingly depended upon to keep its profit margin viable. Guy Thistle lost his longterm job at Mt. Bullion mine and had to make do with whatever sorts of employment came his way. Two of the occupations he is known to have resorted to were real estate broker and notary, neither of which provided a consistent income. Marguerite may have been obliged to return to work as a school teacher. Often it was difficult for either parent to be at home with their girls -- Alice, Emily, and Imogene -- and so the kids stayed with their maternal grandparents Joseph and Ella Branson on their sprawling cattle ranch north of Hornitos. The ranch was as much home to the girls as anywhere, and throughout their lives they maintained an affection for the place. They held on to their mother’s twenty percent legacy share of the acreage, and their heirs still collectively own that share as of this writing.

In 1918, belatedly yielding to the exodus that had siphoned off most of the population of Mariposa County, Guy and Marguerite chose to relocate to Fresno. To this day, Fresno County and nearby parts of the San Joaquin Valley are the stomping ground of much of the Thistle/Branson clan. Emily attended Fresno High School, graduating as part of the Class of 1929. (The photograph of her in the upper left corner of this biography comes from The Owl, the yearbook of Fresno High.) Emily went on to Fresno State College, graduating as part of the Class of 1933. She continued to live during this period with her parents and sisters at 559 Cornell Avenue, the residence the Thistles had moved into during the first half of the 1920s.

For Guy and Marguerite themselves the Fresno phase of their lives was relatively short -- only a decade and a half. Leukemia gnawed away at Marguerite’s health, and after years of decline, she succumbed in May, 1933. Guy only lived another nine months. A few months after that, Joseph Branson passed away. Fortunately for Emily, she had a husband to provide emotional support through this dark time. He also helped provide financial support, of course, but this was less critical. Emily was a school teacher, and would continue to teach until the 1960s, aside perhaps from an interval when her kids were very young.

Her husband, a butter maker, was Julius Christensen, son of Soren Christensen and Sorcine Pedersen. Julius had been born in Denmark 9 July 1904. This made him 7˝ years older than Emily. He and Emily were wed 16 June 1933 in the city of Fresno. The couple became parents of two children in the 1930s. These two offspring were the first grandchildren of Marguerite and Guy; even so, neither grandparent survived long enough to see them born. Over the course of the 1930s Emily’s sisters became wives and mothers and the clan expanded further. Like her own children, her nieces and nephews would remain local and Emily had the opportunity to know them well.

Emily and Julius settled on Adoline Avenue in the southern part of the city of Fresno, living out their lives as residents of the town. She was among those family members who took an interest in the Branson reunions and contributed information about her branch of the clan to Ivan Branson during his final burst of genealogical fact-gathering in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In some cases, the notes Emily gathered served as the only source of information on certain far-flung relatives.

Julius died 6 February 1985 in Fresno. Emily endured only a short period of widowhood, surviving just long enough to see grandchildren begin to establish the next generation. Her eldest great-grandson, only three years old when she died, endearingly called her Mockie. Emily passed away 15 November 1986 in Fresno. Her remains were interred with those of Julius at Belmont Memorial Park Cemetery.

Children of Emily Helen Thistle with Julius Christensen

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