Fifteenth Generation

5710. Charles Henry Chatfield was born on 21 September 1870 in Florence, Fremont Co., Colorado, USA. He appeared in the census in 1880 in Leadville, Lake Co., Colorado, USA. He appeared in the census in 1900 in Rangley, White River, Picance Creek, Angora, Rio Blanco Co., Colorado, USA. Charles appeared in the census in 1910 in Sanders School District, Rosebud Co., Montana, USA. He appeared in the census in 1920 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. He died Cardiac failure, senility, malnutrition on 23 July 1942 at the age of 71 in Oroville, Butte Co., California, USA. Charles was buried on 25 July 1942 in Chico Cmtry., Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. Charles Henry Chatfield passed away in 1942. During the funeral procession the only thing his wife had to say was, "Serves the drunken old fool right." Unwilling to pardon him for gambling away the family fortune some thirty years before, she had him buried in the non-Catholic section of the cemetery (away from the family plots) at the back corner of the cemetery tool shed.

In July of 2003 my brother Gordon Clemens and I bought our grandfather a headstone. There was room on the plaque, so we added "Son of Isaac W. Chatfield" as a nice touch. We knew full well that adding "Beloved Husband of Nellie" would have our grandmother roll over in her grave, but we thought it a fine idea.
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Occupation: Cattle rancher, farmer, butcher, rice farm foreman, Diamond Match, carpenter.
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USA Census, 1900
Name: Charles Chatfield
Event Place: ED 113 Precincts 1-3, 8 Rangley, White River, Picance Creek, Angora, Rio Blanco, Colorado
Birth Date: Sep 1870
Birthplace: Colorado
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Father's Birthplace: Illinois
Mother's Birthplace: Ohio
Race: White
Gender: Male
Marital Status: Married
Years Married: 6
Marriage Year (Estimated): 1894
Page: 5
Sheet Letter: B
Family Number: 90
Reference ID: 52
GS Film number: 1240129
Digital Folder Number: 004119010
Image Number: 00014
Household Gender Age Birthplace
Head Charles Chatfield M 30 Colorado
Wife Nellie Chatfield F 27 Missouri
Son Charles Chatfield M 5 Colorado
Son Leo Chatfield M 3 Wyoming
Son Harold Chatfield M 1 Colorado
Hired man William Chadwick M 20 Kansas
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USA Census, 1910
Name: Chas Chatfield
Event Place: Sanders School District, Rosebud, Montana
District: 214
Gender: Male
Age: 39
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Birth Year (Estimated): 1871
Birthplace: Colorado
Immigration Year:
Father's Birthplace: Illinois
Mother's Birthplace: Texas
Sheet Number and Letter: 4B
Household ID: 77
GS Film number: 1374848
Digital Folder Number: 004330823
Image Number: 00573
Household Gender Age Birthplace
Head Chas Chatfield M 39 Colorado
Wife Nellie Chatfield F 37 Missouri
Son Chas Chatfield M 14 Colorado
Son Leo Chatfield M 12 Wyoming
Son Howard Chatfield M 10 Colorado
Son Roy Chatfield M 9 Colorado
Dau Nellie May Chatfield F 7 Colorado
Son Gordon Chatfield M 4 Wyoming
Dau Verda Chatfield F 1 Montana
Sister-in-law Mamie Chamberlain F 23 Texas
Hired man Anson Gregory M 19 Illinois
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United States Census, 1920
Name: Charles H Chatfield
Event Place: Chico, Butte, California
Gender: Male
Age: 49
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Can Read: Yes
Can Write: Yes
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Own or Rent: Own
Birth Year (Estimated): 1871
Birthplace: Colorado
Father's Birthplace: Illinois
Mother's Birthplace: Illinois
Sheet Letter: A
Sheet Number: 16
Charles H Chatfield Head M 49 Colorado
Nellie C Chatfield Wife F 46 Missouri
Charles J Chatfield Son M 24 Colorado
Leo W Chatfield Son M 22 Wyoming
Roy E Chatfield Son M 18 Colorado
Nellie M Chatfield Dau F 16 Colorado
Gordon G Chatfield Son M 14 Wyoming
Verda H Chatfield Dau F 11 Montana
Arden J Chatfield Son M 9 Montana
Ina J Chatfield Dau F 6 Montana
Norine E Chatfield Dau F 4 California

Charles Henry Chatfield and Nellie Belle Chamberlin were married on 26 December 1894 in Grand Junction, Mesa Co., Colorado, USA. Nellie Belle Chamberlin, daughter of Finley McLaren Chamberlin and Emily S Hoy, was born on 7 March 1873 in Kansas City, Jackson Co., Missouri, USA. She appeared in the census in 1900 in Rangley, White River, Picance Creek, Angora, Rio Blanco Co., Colorado, USA. She appeared in the census in 1910 in Sanders School District, Rosebud Co., Montana, USA. Nellie appeared in the census in 1920 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. She appeared in the census in 1930 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. She appeared in the census in 1940 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. Nellie died Excess choler on 2 January 1956 at the age of 82 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. She was buried in Chico Cmtry., Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. California, Death Index
Name: Nellie C Chatfield
Event Type: Death
Event Date: 02 Jan 1956
Event Place: Butte, California
Birth Date: 07 Mar 1873
Birthplace: Missouri
Gender: Female
Father's Name: Chamberlin
Mother's Name: Hoy
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Grave stone has Nellie C Chatfield probably because she was a Chamberlin.
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United States Census, 1930
Name: Nellie Chatfield
Event Place: Chico, Butte, California
Gender: Female
Age: 54
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Birth Year (Estimated): 1876
Birthplace: Missouri
Father's Birthplace: New York
Mother's Birthplace: Pennsylvania
Sheet Letter: A
Sheet Number: 7
Nellie Chatfield Head F 54 Missouri
Roy E Chatfield Son M 29 Colorado
Arden I Chatfield Son M 19 Montana
Ina J Chatfield Dau F 17 Montana
Noriene E Chatfield Dau F 14 California
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USA Census, 1940
Name: Nellie Chatfield
Event Place: Chico Judicial Township, Butte, California
Gender: Female
Age: 67
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Relationship to Head of Household: Head
Birthplace: Missouri
Birth Year (Estimated): 1873
Last Place of Residence: Same House
District: 4-12
Family Number: 39
Sheet Number and Letter: 2A
Line Number: 33
Affiliate Publication Number: T627
Affiliate Film Number: 192
Digital Folder Number: 005455019
Image Number: 00611
Household Gender Age Birthplace
Head Nellie Chatfield F 67 Missouri
Son Ray E Chatfield M 39 Colorado
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Headstones, History and a Little Hearsay:

In 1894 Charles Henry Chatfield married Nellie Belle Chamberlin—a no-nonsense Catholic girl. Nellie was stubborn and headstrong with a mind of her own and although exceedingly religious—she refused to consummate their marriage. In frustration, Charles took his new bride to the priest who married them. Father Carr sat Nellie down and instructed her to go home and be a dutiful wife. Nine months later Nellie bore her first child—and over the next twenty years—nine more.

1915: CALIFORNIA My grandmother started her crazy quilt in 1895, the same year she started her family. Twenty years later, with the birth of my mother, Noreen Ellen Chatfield, she completed them both.

During Nellie's first period of confinement (it was improper for pregnant and nursing women to be seen in public) her quilted piece grew. Her fine hands stitched rivers of gold, roads of onyx, and fences of pearl, connecting salvaged pieces of fabric—of little girls petticoats, of Sunday-go-to-meetin' bests, of Grandpa's fine vest, a bit of a wedding dress, a narrow strip of a cambric shawl. Patches of stripes and checks were stitched and cross-stitched with a jigsaw of shapes and hues: brocade rectangles of ochre and mustard; satin triangles of emerald and indigo; poplin squares of carmine and pale rose; fine wools circlets of cerulean and violet. She saved her sewing scraps in a flour sack until she had a quiet moment to stitch the patchwork of smooth velvets, shiny taffetas and bumpy poplins into a multicolored canvas for her embroidered birds and butterflies and sweet honeybees that winged across her quilted legacy.

Over the years her bridle paths of alabaster threads gradually defined a landscape: a random patchwork of cattle-ranches, rice fields and farm lands viewed through the keen eyes of a soaring red-tailed hawk. In her ankle-length skirts and her high-necked long-sleeved blouses, Nellie rocked in her chair, her children in bed, her round sewing frame on her lap—silently laboring over her quilt, her only time of peace and solitude. By the lamp she stitched zigzags of rainbow, dapples of color and splashes of hope, creating a cover considerable enough to warm a generation of Chatfield's.

As the family traveled by horse and buckboard through dust and storm, homesteading parts of Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, the blanket, carefully folded and boxed, traveled with her. I can't imagine living through those times—through the harsh Rocky Mountain summers and winters, praying for better weather, for water and a good crop, for relief from the grasshoppers and the mosquitoes and the incessant biting of horse flies. Praying for her children down with whooping cough, croup and ague—supplicating, kneeling, genuflecting—praying to God for everyone—but herself.

I can't imagine every day having to haul water trying to keep things clean. Making one-pot meals in a black cast-iron kettle. The daily baking of buttermilk biscuits and apple cobblers and rough wheat breads. Canning bushels of peaches and rows of corn to make it through another winter. Snow to shovel. Wood to chop. Constant mouths to feed. Rain. Mud. Snow. Animals dying, blizzards, buckboards, wagon trains, rattlesnakes, tornadoes, droughts—and babies. Twenty years of birthing, nursing, rocking, bathing, and changing crying babies. Although Nellie wouldn't have taken a million bucks for any one of her children—she wouldn't have paid a nickel for another.

Maybe my grandmother's crazy quilt kept her sane. With the passage of time, like the passage of her family, its threads—winding and wandering through the generations—have worn, frayed, and unraveled. But like her family, its colors have withstood, endured and upheld the tapestry of life.

Brilliantly.

Catherine (Clemens) Sevenau

Charles Henry Chatfield and Nellie Belle Chamberlin had the following children:

+8315	i.	Charles Joseph "Charley" Chatfield.
+8316	ii.	Leo Willard Chatfield.
+8317	iii.	Howard Francis Chatfield.
+8318	iv.	Roy Elmer Chatfield.
+8319	v.	Nellie Mary "Nella May" Chatfield.
+8320	vi.	Gordon Gregory Chatfield.
+8321	vii.	Verda Agnes Chatfield.
8322	viii.	Arden Sherman Chatfield was born on 29 August 1910 in Sanders, Rosebud Co., Montana, USA. He appeared in the census in 1920 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. He appeared in the census in 1930 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. Arden appeared in the census in 1940 in Stockton, San Joaquin Co., California, USA. He died Heart failure on 3 October 1981 at the age of 71 in Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. He was buried in Chico Cmtry., Chico, Butte Co., California, USA. California Death Index Name Arden Sherman Chatfield Event Type Death Event Date 03 Oct 1981 Event Place Butte, California Birth Date 29 Aug 1910 Birthplace Montana Gender Male Mother's Name Chamberlin ----- United States Social Security Death Index Age 71 Given Name Arden Surname Chatfield Birth Date 29 Aug 1910 State California Last Place of Residence Butte, California Previous Residence Postal Code 95926 Event Date Oct 1981 ----- California, Napa and Butte Counties, Obituaries Deceased Name Arden Sherman Chatfield Event Type Obituary Event Date 1981 Event Place Butte, California Gender Male Age 71 Relationship to Deceased Deceased Birth Date 29 Aug 1910 Birthplace Sanders, Montana Death Date 06 Oct 1981 Parents and Siblings Charles Chatfield Parent Unknown Ina Fouch Sister Female Nellie Mcelhiney Sister Female Charles Brother Male Others on Record John Crowley Nonrelative Unknown ----- Find A Grave Memorial# 32458904 ===== Military: WWII, US Army Private, Co. G Infantry Division 184th Reg; cook Occupation: Farm laborer, Chico Ice Company, cook, waiter, busboy Avocation: Hobo, traveled USA hopping trains Married: no Children: none ----- Arden was the wanderer in the family, a vagabond of sorts. He traveled the country by rails or by hitchhiking, seeing every state (except for Oklahoma) through his dark glasses (he had a growth over his eye). On the road he was always immaculately dressed (favoring light colored slacks and shirts) and his shoes always shined. Story has it that he wore two shirts, two pair of pants, and two pairs of socks so he could travel empty handed. He would disappear for a few days, occasionally a few weeks, often a few months, sometimes a couple of years. One Sunday he got up in the middle of a conversation with his mother, walked out the front door, and no one saw him for three years. When he returned, he walked back in, sat down and finished his sentence as if he’d never left. Years before he’d been hit on the head with a fifty-pound block of ice while working at the ice company. It must have affected him. He died Saturday in a local hospital. Born Aug 29, 1910, to Mr. and Mrs. Charles Chatfield in Sanders, Mont. His family moved to Chico when he was five. He was reared and educated here. He served in World War II and worked as a farm laborer for 30 years. He retired when he was 65 years old. Survivors include two sisters, Ina Fouch of Yuba City and Nellie McElhiney of Martinez; and a brother, Charles of Paradise. The Rev. John Crowley will officiate at the service. Burial will be at the Chico Cemetery. ----- TRANSIENT BOOKED Arden Chatfield, a transient, is scheduled to appear in police court tomorrow following his arrest at 7:15 p.m. last night at Humbolds Road and Mill streets on a charge of vagrancy. 1935, Chico Enterprise, Chico, California: BANDIT SUSPECT FREED BY DEATH Because death wouldn’t take a holiday, Arden Chatfield, a 25-year-old youth, yesterday escaped a robbery trial. Chico authorities were notified by the police that the complaining witness died two weeks ago and prosecution would be useless. Judge Carraghar sentenced Chatfield to 30 days in the county jail for technical vagrancy. He was arrested by Sergeant Lee Parker, who testified he found several cans of marijuana in Chatfield’s pockets. Oct 1981, Chico Enterprise, Chico, California: ===== United States Census, 1940 Name Arden Chatfield Event Place Ward 4, Stockton, Stockton Judicial Township, San Joaquin, California Sex Male Age 30 Marital Status Single Race White Relationship to Head of Household Inmate Birthplace Montana Birth Year (Estimated) 1910 Last Place of Residence California
+8323	ix.	Jacqueline "Ina" Chatfield.
+8324	x.	Noreen Ellen "Babe" Chatfield.