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Showing posts with label Leslie Wolfe Sr.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leslie Wolfe Sr.. Show all posts

Sunday, May 30, 2021

Flashback: How the Hastings descendants came to California

Oil brought the Hastings family West.

family tree of Mary Hazel Wolfe Nevis

Mary Hazel Wolfe's mother was Jennie Hastings. Like her husband James Tarr Wolfe, Jennie and her family were from Pennsylvania, perhaps Oakdale (near Pittsburgh). 

Jennie Evelyn Hastings


Jennie's siblings include John, Cyrus, Laura, Alfaretta "Allie", Jesse, Emma, Elwood, William, Quincy, Frank, and Wayne. Since Quincy's middle name is Dickson, he might the "Dick" in the photo below:

Jennie Hastings, Allie Hastings, Frank Hastings, Wayne Hastings, and Dick Hastings



possibly Frank Hastings

back of photo of Frank Hastings

The Hastings family was already in Venango County by 1850 at the time of the oil boom there. Although the family set themselves up as farmers, they were enterprising and got into other businesses such as barge work, transporting goods such as oil barrels down stream to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. Frank Tuller Hastings (Mary Hazel's uncle) got into the oil business, which took him from Venango County to New Mexico, California, Montana, and Alberta. When Frank was still in Albuquerque, in the second decade of the 1900s, his sister Jennie and her husband James Tarr Wolfe had moved there, too. After Jennie died in New Mexico in 1924, her husband relocated to Los Angeles with their daughter Hazel's family. Hazel's brother Leslie moved to nearby San Bernardino, California, and their brother Ellwood to Las Vegas.

Merrill Hastings on "Pride", Hastings Farm, Pennsylvania


(Merrill Hastings is Wayne's son, Hazel's cousin. The photo would be from the first decade of the 1900s, as Merrill was born in 1899.)

believed to be Mary Davidson Wolf, perhaps 1870s

Leslie H. Wolfe, 1917, U.S. Navy, World War I

J. Ellwood Wolfe circa 1920

The Nevis family lore says that William Guy Wolf and Mary Davidson's son James Tarr Wolfe (1864–1936) was a farmer but had also invested in a company drilling for oil; his wife Jenny Hastings Wolfe (1867–1924) and mother-in-law Mary Jane McQuaid Hastings (1832–1915) complained after a while that the company was not striking any oil and they nagged him into selling his shares. Three weeks after the share sale, that company struck oil. Arnold maintained that James Wolfe never recovered from the "theft" of his good fortune and never forgave his mother-in-law. After Jennie died, he panned for gold in California certain his luck would return.

(On the other hand, the Canal Best web site says that James Tarr Wolfe's great grandfather John Brookmire Hastings (1797–1872) "owned land near Franklin [Pennsylvania] which became a valuable oil field — after he sold it" so I wonder if the generations got mixed up a bit and Jenny Hastings Wolfe and her mother Mary Jane McQuaid Hastings got a bad rap unfairly here in the family legend.)

Another myth from the Hastings side of the family involves ancestors of Jenny Hastings. There is indeed a line of noble Hastings in British history: Francis Hastings (1560–1595), son of the Earl of Hastings (George Hastings, 1540–1604), who was himself son of Francis Hastings, 2nd Earl of Huntingdon (1514–1561), the son of George Hastings, 1st Earl of Huntingdon (1488–1544), son of Edward Hastings, 2nd Baron Hastings (26 November 1466–1506), son of William Hastings, 1st Baron Hastings (circa 1431–1483), and so forth. So the peerage is beyond dispute, and frequently their wives' lineages are even more distinguished, but unfortunately there is little evidence of this ancestry for the Hastings family of Pennsylvania, though I suppose it is not out of the question either, through perhaps some younger brother who did not inherit the title, estate or wealth, or was exiled in disgrace to the colonies.

a family tree for Mary Hazel Wolfe Nevis, sketched circa 1970

Instead, Hazel's great grandfather John Brookmire Hastings was born out of wedlock to Mary Sutley and John Hastings. A Wikitree entry for Mary Sutley shows a deed book entry describing a case of John Hastings having knocked up Mary, who sues him for child support after her marriage to another man, John Brookmire:

Venango County, PA Deed Book A, pp. 59
Whereas MARY BROOKMIER, daughter of Christian SETLEE(sic), formerly of Franklin County and state of Pennsylvania, now of the county of Venango and state aforesaid, about 9 years ago at the town of Chambersburg did enter an indictment against a certain John HASTY(sic) for unlawfully begotten her, the said Mary, with child...and the said John Hasty found guilty and judgement being entered in favor of said Mary (for certain sum or sums of money supposed to be 50c per week for a space of __years and $14. for expenses at birth of said child)....and whereas the said Mary having since entered into the marriage state with a certain John BROOKMIER and in order to bring about a final close of said business and to receive the remainder sum of money due in consequence of the decree aforesaid, the said John Brookmier becomes party to these presents..... Appoint George Setlee(sic) of Venango County, as their true and lawful attorney to demand the money from John Hasty.....

John Brookmire Hastings, the same one that sold his land before oil was discovered on it, was raised in the Brookmire family, but retained his biological father's surname. I could find nothing further of his father, the scoundrel John Hastings — no family history, no later activity.

The family religion (Presbyterian) comes down through the Anglo-Irish branch of the family: the McQuaids, the Duffields, and the McClintocks, but it appears that all of Hazel's ancestors were Protestants of some sort. The German side of her family emigrated from the area near the Rhine — they were Protestants fleeing the many wars devastating that region, particularly the Thirty Years War. And through her grandmother Hannah Smith, the lineage goes back to the early Plymouth Colony leader Thomas Prence and church deacon Henry Cobb


next post  Flashback: Arnold's early years

previous post  Flashback: Plumer, Venango County, Pennsylvania

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943

Saturday, May 29, 2021

Flashback: Plumer, Venango County, Pennsylvania

Some time in the early 1970s or perhaps 1969, Hazel took a trip east with her brother Leslie to visit the old family homestead in Plumer, Pennsylvania. These are some snapshots Hazel sent her son Arnold, with descriptions written on the back of the photos. 

photo by Hazel Wolfe Nevis, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Hazel Wolfe Nevis, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Leslie Wolfe, circa 1971


photo by Hazel Wolfe Nevis, circa 1971
Natural Bridge, Virginia, circa 1971



next post  Flashback: How the Hastings descendants came to California

previous post  Flashback: How the Wolfe family came to California

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943






Friday, May 14, 2021

Arnold's Story: August 4, 1950 Lenore Wolfe

Lenore Wolfe is Arnold's Uncle Les's second wife. Leslie Senior has divorced his wife Frances and fighting over custody of their three children — Leslie Junior, Donald, and Nancy — to Vista, San Diego, with her.








next post  August 4, 1950 MHN

previous post  July 31, 1950

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943


Monday, December 21, 2020

Arnold's Story: August 17, 1944

Alongside the description of Les Wolfe Jr.'s military funeral, this letter mentions Hazel's youngest brother James Ellwood Wolfe, his wife Rubye Keller Wolfe, and their children Walter and Jane. 

I did not realize that Hazel considered herself a fundamentalist, but perhaps that designation had a less extreme interpretation in the 40s than it does today. Her views as a Presbyterian were largely quite mainstream, as I surmise from her letters, family remembrances and her large collection of books on religion. One family memory from the early 1970's was her annoyance at a commercial for Crest toothpaste in which children interrupt parents yelling "I have no cavities". Children were not to interrupt adults, in her opinion. She boycotted Crest after that.









Marine Raiders was a 1944 war movie showing a fictional depiction of the 1st Marine Raider Battalion and 1st Marine Parachute Battalion on Guadalcanalrecreation in Australia, retraining in Camp Elliott (where much of the film was made) and a fictional attack in the Solomon Islands. It starred Pat O'BrienRobert Ryan, and Ruth Hussey.

Secrets of Scotland Yard was a 1944 espionage thriller based on a story "Room 40, O.B." by Denison Clift, about a British police detective uncovering a Nazi spy in Britain's cryptanalysis organization. 


next post  August 24, 1944 Al Grote

previous post  August 7, 1944

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943

Sunday, December 20, 2020

Arnold's Story: August 7, 1944

Hazel writes to her son Arnold about his sister Laura, who had just had her tonsils removed at the hospital. Also, Hazel's brother Les has had to arrange a funeral for his recently deceased son Les Jr. (killed in a Navy plane crash in Miami) in San Bernardino, California. Marie is Les Jr.'s widow from Oklahoma City. 




Hazel was a staunch Presbyterian until late in life when she converted to Catholicism so that Bill Nevis may have mass said at his funeral. In those days a mixed married between Catholics and Non-Catholics denied a Catholic the honor of a church mass, and younger Hazel refused to bring up her children as Catholics; after menopause she did not mind agreeing to raise her children Catholic. After Bill died, Hazel joined and attended the Church of the Nazarene in Whittier, California, where they had move from Glendale in the late 1960s. I recall that Hazel was a fervent reader and had accumulated a large collection of books on religion by the time she, too, passed from this world in the 1970s. 

next post  August 17, 1944

previous post  August 6, 1944

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943



Friday, December 18, 2020

Arnold's Story: August 4, 1944

This letter contains the sad news about Les Junior's death in a plane crash on his return from battle in Italy. Les Jr. is Hazel's brother's son and Arnold's cousin. I think I never met any of the Wolfe relatives, and I do not know why.







next post  August 8, 1944

previous post  July 31, 1944

first post in Arnold's Story  July 1943

first post in blog  Leonard's Story: May 29, 1943