Frances Bernice Williams

Frances Bernice Williams, youngest of the four children of Alice Branson and John Henry Williams, was born 18 September 1914 on a farm near Manteca, San Joaquin County, CA. Her parents and older siblings had recently settled upon the acreage after years spent at Mount Bullion in Mariposa County, where John had worked as a gold miner.

Frances was only eight years old when her father died. By then, her brothers Vernon and Ray were sufficiently grown that they probably assisted their widowed mother to keep the farm going for a few more years. In late 1925 neighbor Milton James Henry suffered the loss of his wife, the former Lena Viola Early. Alice and M.J. filled the voids in each other’s lives by becoming spouses in October, 1928. If the Williams land had not been sold earlier, it was disposed of then, and Alice moved to M.J.’s farm. Frances, then in her early teens, was part of the combined household. The other children -- not only Frances’s three siblings but M.J.’s son and daughter as well -- were old enough that they did not move in, or did so only briefly. The 1930 census shows Frances as the only minor in the home. There is no indication in that census that her last name was Williams. This is probably the enumerator’s misunderstanding, but it could be that M.J. had formally adopted Frances and that she had become Frances Henry.

Frances attended Manteca High School and appears to have stayed local in her early adulthood. During her early twenties she worked as a clerk for the San Joaquin County Welfare Department, resigning the position when she ceased to be single (the same month she turned twenty-four). Having work experience outside the home would later be an asset, as she was widowed in her late forties, but she may have assumed she would remain a housewife for good as she walked down the aisle 7 September 1938 at the home/farm of her mother and stepfather.

Reverend Arthur P. Brown officiated at the ceremony. The bridegroom was Edward Monroe Young. A son of Julia Anderson and the late Charles Edward Stuart Young, Edward had been born 6 May 1915 in Turlock, Stanislaus County, CA, and had gone on to graduate from Ripon High School and attend Modesto Junior College. According to an article about the nuptials published in the Stockton Record, the newlyweds were to settle in Richmond, Contra Costa County, CA. The move to Richmond was probably associated with a job opportunity. The venue had an advantage for Fran in that Richmond was the place of residence of her aunts Inez Branson and Alma Branson Youd, as well as her mother’s first cousin Lizzy Bauer Reeb. However, the situation in Richmond did not pan out. Fran and Ed’s first child, born slightly over nine months later, was born in Stanislaus County. Soon the newlyweds moved to Calexico, Imperial County, CA, where Edward worked as a fruit inspector for the Federal/State Fruit Inspection Service.

By the mid-1940s the family had settled in Delano, Kern County, CA, where two more children were born. It would be a steady home and existence for nearly twenty years, but then Frances -- who had come to be known as Fran in adulthood -- was hit by a double tragedy. The first blow was the death of Edward. He placed his automobile in the path of an on-coming truck and was killed. Family members speculated that the collision was no accident, but actually a form of suicide. Ed had been despondent for a couple of years due to a bad financial situation. The date of his death was 14 September 1962. By then, Fran was caring for her aged mother Alice, a widow well into her eighties. Alice passed away a year after Edward, succumbing on the ninth of September, a couple of days after Fran and Edward would have celebrated their silver wedding anniversary if he had lived that long.

Delano lost its shine. Fran decided to make a new home near her sister Ruth Carlson, who was residing on the Mendocino coast of northern California. Fran assisted in the operation of the Ruth Carlson art gallery in the village of Mendocino, which Ruth had founded after the death of her forester husband Edwin “Babe” Carlson. After Ruth passed away in 1978, Frances kept the gallery going.

Fran appreciated the beauty and virtues of Mendocino and would never again make her home elsewhere. This did have one unintended consequence, and that was the geographical distance from her kinfolk. After the death of Ruth, her “close at hand” relatives consisted only of her daughter, son-in-law, and a pair of granddaughters. However, the isolation was not extreme. Her eldest son and his family were based in Santa Rosa, CA, within easy day-trip driving distance. Her younger son and his family were based in Corona, Riverside County, CA -- not as convenient, but then again, still within California. And Mendocino was the sort of place that made her grandchildren and great-grandchildren want to go visit “Grooma.”

Fran never remarried, and ultimately spent almost forty years as a widow. She finally expired 30 May 2001 in Fort Bragg, Mendocino County, CA. Six days later her remains were interred at Evergreen Cemetery in Mendocino.

Descendants of Frances Bernice Williams and Edward Monroe Young

Details of Generation Five, the great-great-grandchildren of John Sevier Branson and Martha Jane Ousley, are kept off-line to guard the privacy of living individuals. However, we can say that Fran’s descendants (as of early 2016) include three children, at least seven grandchildren, at least fourteen great-grandchildren, and at least seven great-great-grandchildren.

To go back one generation, click here. To return to the Branson/Ousley Family main page, click here.