Gertrude Ellen Branson

A half-sister of Jean Clare Branson, Gertrude Ellen Branson -- commonly known as Trudy -- was the only child of John Joseph Branson and his second wife, Marie Thurlwell. She was born 21 December 1926 in Santa Maria, Santa Barbara County, CA. She was named for her grandmothers Gertrude Beeson and Ellen Geary. She is not to be confused with her father’s first cousin Gertrude Branson, daughter of Reuben Branson.

Trudy and her parents were residents of Orcutt during her early childhood, where her father was a hotel proprietor among other occupations. Orcutt was very near Santa Maria -- in fact, today the two towns have merged and Orcutt forms the southwestern borough of the combined community. When Trudy was about six years old, the family dynamic changed dramatically. Her father and mother appear to have gone through a long-term marital separation. This was not an outright divorce, and the pair may have been on amicable terms as a general rule, but there is no question that they did not share the same address. Documents such as voter registers and obituaries make clear that John returned to his birth home in Hornitos, Mariposa County, CA in late 1932 or early 1933, and that Hornitos was his official address until at least 1946. Meanwhile, it appears that Marie went home to live with her parents on their ranch in Los Berros Valley, San Luis Obispo County, CA. Later in the 1930s, Marie moved to Arroyo Grande, San Luis Obispo County, CA -- one of the communities along the coast at Pismo Beach. Here she remained until Trudy was grown and married, and it was only after that was accomplished -- in 1945 -- that Marie finally began sharing a home again with her husband on a full-time basis. She joined him in Hornitos, and then not long after the death of John’s mother in 1946, they returned together to San Luis Obispo County.

Trudy was surely part of her mother’s household rather than her father’s, meaning that she was very much someone who thought of herself as from San Luis Obispo County. She began her school years in Los Berros Valley, and then from about ten or twelve onward, attended classes in Arroyo Grande. The photograph reproduced at left is Trudy’s high school graduation picture from 1944; she probably attended Arroyo Grande High School.

Another person who arrived in the Pismo Beach-Arroyo Grande area in the second half of the 1930s was James Martin Miller, who in the course of time would come to be Trudy’s first husband. Jim and Trudy may have initially encountered one another in the 1940s -- for example during the 1940-41 term at Arroyo Grande High School when he was a senior and she was a freshman. However, chances are high they met earlier, perhaps even as early as 1937. The reason to suspect an early introduction is that Jim’s grandmother Myra (Dresser) Hamlin was a close friend of Trudy’s great aunt Mattie Branson White. Mattie may even have been present at Jim’s birth, assuming that birth -- on 12 October 1923 -- took place at home as many births still did back in the early 1920s. Mattie and her husband Joe T. White lived a short walk away from the home of Jim’s parents Albert Martin Miller and Alice Jane Hamlin in the tiny community of Pond in northern Kern County, CA near Delano. Grandma Myra would have been aware of Mattie’s experience helping her midwife mother Martha Jane Ousley Branson delivery baby after baby for her neighbors in Hornitos, and Myra would have sought Mattie out when Alice went into labor with Jim. Even if Mattie was not present at the birth itself, she had known Jim from the time he was a newborn. Mattie is likely to have been a guest of the Hamlin clan during the 1930s at their homes in Pismo Beach and Arroyo Grande. Residents of the south end of the San Joaquin Valley regarded coastal San Luis Obispo County as their main getaway retreat from the fierce dry heat, and individuals fortunate enough to own beach-area homes made it a common practice to invite along less fortunate friends. Mattie would have considered it a happy development indeed to know that a grandson of her good friend and Trudy -- one of the very few younger members of the Branson clan she was in touch with by that late point in her life -- might look at one another as marriage material. Unfortunately Mattie did not live to see the pair exchange their vows, but she may have observed the first glimmers of interest.

Trudy was somewhat young when she wed Jim 27 February 1945. Only eighteen. But by the standards of the era, eighteen was considered a perfectly acceptable age for a young woman to marry, particularly if the bridegroom had reached twenty-one. Given how long the two may have known one another, it shows no particular sign of having been an impulse development. The couple may even have waited a bit longer than they wanted to, the war being the hindrance slowing down their plans. James had joined the U.S. Navy 24 February 1943 and was still serving. He was however now based on land, his posting being Jacksonville, FL. The rites were conducted there at the Duval County courthouse, officiated by county judge McKenny J. Davis. Trudy and Jim then made Jacksonville their initial home. He was discharged 22 December 1945. By no later than the early part of 1946, they came back to San Luis Obispo County.

Jim and Trudy could empathize with one another in the sense that both had spent a large portion of their childhoods in their mothers’ households without the presence of their fathers. Jim’s parents had moved from Pond to Houston, TX during the 1920s. The relocation was prompted by an oil-industry career opportunity for Albert Miller, who would remain in Houston for good. But in the 1930s, the marriage had fallen apart, and Alice had brought her kids -- meaning Jim and his older sister, Lois Alice -- back to California. Because of this personal history, Trudy and Jim were probably both motivated to “do better than that.” Alas, they did not have the chance. It would appear that Jim was sterile. Eventually, the lack of a pregnancy may have caused a rift between the spouses. The rift grew deep, perhaps because Jim developed an interest in another woman. Trudy moved out of the Paso Robles house she and Jim had shared. She filed for and was granted a divorce in the spring of 1952. Less than two years later Jim would wed subsequent wife Elizabeth Jean MacMillan. Meanwhile Trudy, probably after temporarily taking shelter with her parents, put some distance between herself and her ex-spouse. Two thousand miles apparently met her standard of the right amount of distance. She moved to Dearborn, MI, where she became a saleswoman at a store called Albert’s.

Living in the Detroit area represented a chance to start fresh. That included the possibility of starting fresh on the romantic front. Things worked out fairly quickly in that respect. By no later than the spring of 1954 Trudy became involved with Bernard Stanley Gabriel. Bernard, often known as Gabe, was from a rural part of Wayne County in or near the small town of Romulus. Things grew serious and the couple decided to get married. They did so by eloping to Steuben County, IN, where they became husband and wife 29 September 1954.

Gabe, one of nine children of Frank P. and Johanna R. Gabriel, was well-rooted in Wayne County, but nevertheless said good-by to the region for good once it became time to establish a family life with Trudy. The couple settled in Arroyo Grande, residing on South Alpine Street. They produced five kids in rapid fashion, the last born before the end of 1962. Unfortunately Gabe was an alcoholic. In spite of the daunting prospect of raising a large brood of children separate from him, Trudy sued for divorce. Completing the process took time -- probably in part due to Catholic-faith issues -- but the final decree was granted no later than the autumn of 1965.

With the death of John Branson in 1966, news of Trudy ceased reaching the larger Branson clan, and it is not known precisely how she dealt with her trying circumstances. Obviously, among other things she had to be a working woman -- a 1961 San Luis Obispo County directory shows that even during the marriage, despite already having four very small children to care for, she was a saleswoman employed at Peggy’s of Arroyo Grande. Another feature of her middle-aged phase of life is that she married again. The identity of this third spouse is however a mystery except that his last name must have been Wright because in 1977 Trudy reported to the Social Security administration that she was now going by the name Gertrude Ellen Wright, and Wright was her last name for the remainder of her lifetime. It is somewhat possible she may have again, albeit briefly, resided somewhere other than the central coast as a result of being connected to Mr. Wright. If so, she came back yet again. When she passed away 26 October 1990 at a hospital in San Luis Obispo, her home address was then in Grover Beach, adjacent to Arroyo Grande. Her cremains were inurned near the graves of her parents at Arroyo Grande Cemetery.

James Martin Miller had recently passed away by the time Trudy expired. Jim died 28 May 1988 in Arroyo Grande. His marriage to Elizabeth proved stable and from 1954 onward they had been steadily based in Arroyo Grande. He worked as a tank truck driver for Sebastian Oil Distributors. Though he did not have biological children, Elizabeth had come to the union with a four-and-a-half-year-old daughter from her prior relationship with John Orland Pence, and so Jim had the experience of helping raise a child in his role as a stepfather.

Bernard Gabriel married his second wife Hattie Estella Hubbard Myers in 1973, becoming the stepfather of her five children, just as she became the stepmother of his five. Gabe died 2 March 2002 in Arroyo Grande. Hattie died less than six months later.

Decendants of Gertrude Ellen Branson with Bernard Stanley Gabriel

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