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Note: Mildred Janet Bourne was born May 21 1894, in Beatrice (pronounce beeATriss), Gage County, Nebraska. Her father, Fred Ellsworth Bourne had moved to Beatrice from Macomb Illinois in 1882. Her uncle Wilbur had started a farm there in 1880 and in 1882 he brought his mother and the rest of the family there to live. Beatrice was the county seat and a fast-growing community at the time. Several railroad lines passed through the town. Wilbur Sherman Bourne, who finished his law studies between 1880 and 1882 in Macomb, became a county judge & mayor and held several public positions in the town. A short biography of Wilbur can be found in the History of Gage County, Nebraska (pp.446-447) Fred Ellsworth worked for the Beatrice National Bank. A booklet commemorating its 25th anniversary is among Beverly Gardner Van Polen's memorabilia.
Fred Ellsworth married Lucy Rose Barnes on December 23, 1891 in Nora Springs, Iowa. Lucy Rose was born in Burr Oak, Iowa. Her family was also strict methodist. It might be that the couple met through some sort of church alliance. Though the couple married in Iowa, they must have soon returned to Nebraska. Their children were all born in Beatrice.
Willard Stewart Bourne was born on January 9, 1893. Mildred Janet Bourne was the second child, born May 21, 1984. Her younger brother, Donald Ellsworth Bourne was born January 20, 1896. The family were members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Beatrice. The family bible contains a record of children being baptised there at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in 1905. Mildred Janet Bourne was Baptised May 14, 1905 by Rev. N. A. Martin -Centenary Methodist Episcopal Church, Beatrice, NE.
Mildred would later tell her daughters she was brought up very strict Methodist...no cards, no dances, church twice a week. She once got into trouble when she was young for singing "Bringing in the Sheets" thinking at the hymn was about laundry. Her grandfather Milton Bourne had been a Methodist Minister for 25 years, a missionary to the Indians at Sault Ste. Marie in Illinois, and District Superintendant for the Rock River Conference in Illinois. Her grandmother Malvina raised her children in the Methodist Episcopal Church in Macomb.
MYSTERY: We have a small children's bible given to Mildred Bourne 1905 by a Gardner in Idaho.
(Were relatives of Malvina Gardner's family in Idaho? George Gordon's son John Henry Gardner was in Idaho,
but how would he have known Malvina and Fred? Do both Gardner lines converge at some point?)
The 1900 US Census for Beatrice, Gage Co, Nebraska lists Fred Ellsworth Bourne as a county judge, living with his wife and 3 children, aged 7, 6 and 4 in a home he owns. Malvina Gardner Bourne dies on March 14 in 1907. Mildred would be 11 yrs. old at this time. Fred Ellsworth is 43. 1910 Census -- the family remains in Beatrice.
In 1911 there is a major flood in Beatrice and many of the low-lying sections of the area have to be evacuated. Could this have inspired the Bourne family to move? According to Mildred's obituary, they moved to California in 1911. But the Berkeley High yearbook tells us that Mildred attended Salem High School in Salem, Oregon in 1913 and transfers to Berkeley High mid-year.
In 1917, Mildred attends U. C. Berkeley. Her brother, Donald Ellsworth Bourne, registers for the WWI draft listing his address as 2339 Blake, Berkeley, Alameda, CA. His age 21, Occupation: Nailer at Red River Lumber, Westwood, CA, temporarily agricultural, student. At this time Fred Ellsworth is an attorney working in the Geology Department at the University of California. It is likely the family were members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland, Alameda, California. This is the church where Mildred would later marry James Ewing Gardner.
The flu pandemic hit in 1917-18. Mildred receives a Red Cross Certificate from Berkeley for first aid and elementary hygiene and home care of the sick. She later tells her children about having to wear masks to go to school.
While attending UC Berkeley Mildred becomes friends with Ruth Gardner, whose family moved to Berkeley in 1907. Ruth introduces Mildred to her brother, James Ewing Gardner, also a student at UC Berkeley. On April 21st, 1919, Mildred marries James Ewing Gardner in the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland, Alameda, California.
The 1920 Census for Napa, Napa, California lists James E. Gardner and Mildred Bourne Gardner living in the Chimiles section of Wooden Valley. He is a farmer. Ruth Evelyn Gardner is born April 10, 1925. Mildred Jean Gardner, February 4, 1927, James Bourne Gardner December 28, 1928, and Beverly Ann Gardner August 11, 1931.
Beverly: In 1930, Mildred's brother Willard visited from Honolulu. He had moved there after his divorce from his first wife, Shirley Jarrett. There was a daughter from that marriage but I don't know if anyone in the Gardner family ever met her. Willard brought Mildred a ukelele and she learned to play a couple of songs on it.
In 1932 or 1933 The James Ewing Gardner family moveD into the house on Seminary Street, living in the back part of the house, while the James Buchanan Gardner family lives in the main section. Mildred's husband no longer farms. Their children attend Napa High School. in 1949, James Bourne Gardner died suddenly from an unknown heart condition. He was 20 years old. Beverly: "He had been playing tennis during the day. The rest of the family were visiting at a relative's house and mother got a call from him. You could tell something was wrong. His speech was slurred. We went home immediately. The doctor came, but there was nothing to be done, and he died later that night." His ashes are inurned in Tulocay Mauseleum in Napa.
The family later moved to a house on 2nd Street in Napa. It is there the grandchildren will play with an elaborate electric train set in the basement and help make a mess in the kitchen making taffy.
Mildred's brother Donald Ellsworth Bourne became Superintendent of Schools in Dos Palos, Merced, California. He and some fellow administrators took out a 99 year lease of land in Wawona, Yosemite National Park. Later the various families would vacation in the house and cabins built on the land and fly fish in the stream. (And chase bats out of the cabins and feed watermelon rinds to the deer.)
LVP: I remember being there on the porch of the big house and everyone was talking with a very old lady in a chair...
Beverly: this would have been Lucy Rose (Barnes) Bourne, This is the Lucy Rose Barnes who wrote the several pages of family history that intrigued me enough to sign up for a genealogy course at the local library...LVP
Mildred's father, Fred Ellsworth Bourne, died on Dec 15, 1956 and her mother, Lucy Rose Barnes died on June 2, 1964. James Ewing Gardner, Mildred's husband, died on May 11, 1959. He was 65 years old. Mildred continued to live in the house on Second Street. She acquired a poodle named Phoebe. Mildred later sold the home on Second Street and moved to an apartment on Pine Street. The Second Street house was moved to another section of town and a bank was built on the land it stood on.
Napa Register, Weds. May 24, 1972 Obituary
MILDRED J. GARDNER
Mildred Janet Gardner, 78 of 1746 Pine St., died Tuesday in a local convalescent hospital after a long illness (Pancreatic cancer). She was a native of Beatrice, Nebraska and the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. Fred Bourne. The family moved to California in 1911. She resided in Berkeley in 1917 where her father was in the Geology Department at the University of California. She moved to Napa in 1919.
She was a member of Napa Grange, NARCE, Napa Senior Citizens, the Napa Friendship Club and the American Association of University Women. Mrs. Gardner is survived by three daughters, Mrs. Ruth Barr, Mrs. Mildred Vreeland, and Mrs. Beverly Van Polen, all of Napa; two brothers, Donald E. Bourne, Dos Palos, and Willard Bourne, San Diego; eight grandchildren; and two nieces. Funeral services will be held at 3pm Thursday at the Treadway and Wigger Funeral Chapel with the Rev. Erwin E. Bollinger officiating. Inurnment will be in Tulocay Mausoleum.
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