Individual 9: Simeon Clyde Williams

Individual Record 9

Name} Williams, Simeon Clyde (Si)

Family History} Hancock

Title}

Race} White

Sex} Male

Birth: Date} Exa 20 Dec 1897

Place} Covington, Kenton, Kentucky

Marr.: Date} Exa 24 Apr 1924

Place} Woodland, Yolo, California (Link)

Death: Date} Exa 18 Aug 1984

Place} Napa Nursing Center, Napa, Napa, California

Burial: Date} Exa 21 Aug 1984

Place} Rose Memorial, Fort Bragg, Mendocino, California

Grave Marker} Yes

Source 1}	9 = Biography
Source 2}	26 = 1910 USA cen
Source 3}	844 = Draft registr
Source 4}	304 = 1920 USA cen
Source 5}	317 = Marriage rec
Source 6}	72 = Birth record
Source 7}	242 = Obituary
Source 8}	76 = Address list
Source 9}	697 = Will
Source 10}	71 = Death certif
Source 11}	481 = Funeral rec
Source 12}	698 = Obituaries
Source 13}	675 = Photographs
Source 14}	676 = Photographs
Source 15}	694 = Photographs
Source 16}	751 = Photographs
Source 17}	1218=Photographs

Parents: } Theodore John Williams & Myrtle A. Bird
Relationship No.} 8

1st Household No.} 190 = 137 Sixth Street, Detroit, Michigan

Occupation 1} Musician
   Occupation 2} Accountant
   Occupation 3} Landlord
   Occupation 4} Chicken rancher

Religion/Church}

Spouses: Prime} McFarren, Bessie Crystal (Bess)
Total Number of} 1

Notes: I was born on December 20th, 1897, in Covington, Kentucky. After that, my parents went to Detroit, Michigan, I lost part of my foot due to a streetcar accident in Detroit when I was two years old.

My family came to California in about 1904. We moved from Michigan to San Francisco by train. It went through the Grand Canyon.

We were in San Francisco for a short period. All of our worldly possessions were contained in one trunk. We had very little money to live on. In 1904, San Francisco storekeepers still looked with suspicion on paper money. They wanted gold and silver coins.

Fortunately, my father found a job immediately at Atlas Peak in Napa County. There was no school available for me in the Atlas Peak area, however. So after less than a year there, my family moved from the ranch to the town of Napa.

My father rented a house at 120 Main Street. I started to school when I was seven at Lincoln School on North Main Street. It was a very large two-story wood-frame building. I spent one year there.

During 1905, Napa had one of its worst floods. I remember seeing the wooden walk in back of 120 Main floating. People were rowing boats on Main Street as far north as the Catholic Church.

After a year, we moved in the Spring of 1905 to a two-story, ten-room house on Sonoma Road. We rented it from the Hanson's for $5.00 per month. It was near the Cutting Ranch, a 400-acre fruit ranch, where my father worked for several years until he started boring water wells. The 1906 San Francisco earthquake occurred while we were living there.

I began attending the Carneros School, a single-room schoolhouse. It had two ante-rooms for coats, hats, lunchpails, etc. in the front for boys and girls separately. I went to Carneros School for seven years. The boys and I enjoyed numerous pranks while at Carneros. For example, we threw dead blackbirds on the exam papers that our teacher was correcting. I helped stuff the old metal stovepipe with rags so we could have recess. Then there was the time we brought .22 caliber shells and put them in the stove . . . . (Click to see students' names)

My father built a well-boring outfit with a derrick 28 feet tall and a hand-turned auger. This combination could drill water wells to 100 feet deep. He worked at boring water wells in the Napa area, especially all 26 wells in the Cutting tract, until his death. Lengths of 1¼-inch diameter galvanized pipe coupled together were used for lowering a 6 foot by 7 inch auger into the ground as the well deepened. I worked for my father as a well borer for several years.

In September 1918 I was 20 years old when I registered for the World War I draft. I was never drafted — probably because my right foot was partly gone. The draft board described me as tall with a medium build, light brown eyes, and dark brown hair.

(ADDITIONAL BIOGRAPHICAL TEXT IS AVAILABLE AND PENDING!)

The photograph at the right is of Simeon and his granddaughter Linda. It was taken a few days before he passed on in 1984. It was a special day for Simeon because Linda had arranged for Norbert Banse to come to the rest home and provide a small violin concert for the residents. The rest home made a big deal out of honoring Simeon. He was so proud of Norbert and happy to hear him playing some of Simeon's favorite violin selections.