Sixteenth Generation

8319. Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield was born on 11 March 1903 in Rifle, Garfield Co., Colorado, USA. She appeared in the census in 1910 in Sanders School District, Rosebud Co., Montana, USA. She appeared in the census in 1920 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. Nella May died Stroke on 21 November 1983 at the age of 80 in Martinez, Contra Costa Co., California, USA. She was buried in Queen of Heaven Cmtry., Lafayette, Contra Costa Co., California, USA. California, Death Index
Name: Nellie Mary Mcelhiney
Event Date: 21 Nov 1983
Event Place: Contra Costa, California
Birth Date: 11 Mar 1903
Birthplace: Colorado
Gender: Female
Father's Name: Chatfield
Mother's Name: Chamberlin
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Education: Heald's Business College.

Occupation: Diamond Match factory, Moore Dry Dock Shipyard WWII, Sears & Roebuck, cook/housekeeper for Catholic priests.

Nella May left her second husband soon after she found out that her first husband was alive. Mote was a drinker and a man who slapped her around. When Buster got in between the two of them to protect his mother who was now pregnant with her second child and Buster ended up on the other side of the room from a swing from Mote, she knew it was time to pack up and leave.

Headstones, Hearsay and a Little History:

Mar 11, 1903: Rifle, Colorado Two years after Roy was born, Nellie "Nellie May" Mary Chatfield came along. Nellie May was estimated to be two-and-a-half pounds when she was born, so teeny her mother kept her in a shoebox warmed by the wood stove. She was her fifth baby, but her first girl, and Nellie Chatfield mollycoddled her tow-headed wisp of a child. Nellie May and Roy were Nellie's favorites of all of her children, and she spoiled them both, terribly.

It was in 1920 that Nellie May—at sixteen and the eldest Chatfield daughter—got a job working for the Diamond Match Company. Diamond Match paid good money for the day.

A clotheshorse as a young working woman, she had $5,000 worth of pearls and fancy brimmed hats, winter wool coats belted at the waist, calf-length plaid skirts and sashed tops tied to the side in streamers, cream-colored blouses with velvet ribbon running through the neckline, sheer ones cinched at the waist and coming down in a tunic, with a camisole underneath. Generous with her pay, she bought her sisters clothes too.

There was a group of free-spirited beauties working at Diamond Match. Dressed in their uniforms, bloomers tucked inside their knee-stockings, hats protecting their hair, they stood together boxing matches. Before the final wrapping they carefully wrote their names on small white cards and inserted them inside. Men wrote back to them in care of the match company, enclosing photos of themselves and their friends. They were pen-pal letters, but some of these correspondences went on for some time, and some blossomed into romances. When they could the eligible young men arranged to meet the girls at the dance hall in Paradise, a half hour's drive from Chico. Everyone danced at the dance hall in Paradise.

Buried Plot: Section A, Row 16, Site 37.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=32457947

Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield and Edward Waldon McElhiney were married on 17 April 1926 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. They were divorced on 15 September 1936 in Oakland, Alameda Co., California, USA. They were divorced. Apr 24, 1926: Chico Newspaper, Chico, Butte Co., California:

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1926

Chico Girl is Bride of Truckee Man

CHICO—(Butte Co.) April 24,— Miss Nellie Chatfield. A member of a well known family in Chico, a graduate of the local schools and of the business college, was married on Sunday to Edward McElhiney of Truckee, where the couple will make their home.

The ceremony was performed by Rev. J.B. Dermod, of St. John’s Catholic Church, in the presence of the relatives of the bride, including her parents, Mr. and Mrs. C.H. Chatfield, her sister, Miss Verda Chatfield, and her brother, Gordon Chatfield.

The groom formerly lived in Miller, Neb., and is now employed by the Southern Pacific Company at Truckee.

Divorced: Sep 15, 1936, NELLIE MARY CHATFIELD, Oakland, Alameda Co., California; grounds of cruelty
Edward Waldon McElhiney, son of Edward Gayle McElhiney, was born on 30 November 1905 in Loomis, Phelps Co., Nebraska, USA. He died on 26 May 1972 at the age of 66 in Reno, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA. He was buried in Mountain View Cmtry., Reno, Washoe Co., Nevada, USA. Edward worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad in Truckee, Nevada Co., California and from April through November they lived in a side railed boxcar. It was too cold to cook outside and his new wife tried to cook a chicken dinner in their makeshift living quarters. Edward Waldon McElhiney laughed at her. The romance of living in a boxcar in the middle of winter is one thing to endure, being laughed at is another. Sometimes it’s the small things that finally make a woman take flight. Eight months pregnant, she left her husband and moved back home to her mother’s where she gave birth to her firstborn, naming him after her older brother and after St. Joseph: Roy Joseph McElhiney. They called him Buster. Then word came to Chico that McElhiney was killed in a train coupling accident a short time after she’d left him, but he hadn't died.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23247905&ref=wvr

Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield and Edward Waldon McElhiney had the following children:

Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield and Louis Lee Mote were married about 1931. Louis Lee Mote (private).

Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield and Louis Lee Mote had the following children:

Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield had the following children: