Anna Margaret Traufler (Sister Mary DeSales, O.S.B.) was born February 3, 1878, at Luxemburg, Minnesota. Anna, like her brother, received a religious calling. By 1897, she’d entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph’s, outside St. Cloud. She’s pictured here in an 1896 portrait. A bit of history helps explain some of the moves she made in the first half of her life.
From the website of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota: In 1852, three Benedictine nuns from St. Walburg’s Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria, arrived in the United States. Not only were they the first Benedictine women to come to the New World, they would eventually create a whole new way of life for most American Benedictine women by accepting ministries outside of their own convent walls. They opened a school for German-speaking immigrant girls in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Their numbers grew and, within a very few years, they had established several new foundations, among them one in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1857. This group moved to St. Joseph, Minnesota, in 1863 to become St. Benedict’s Convent. The fourth prioress of that community, Mother Scholastica Kerst, took on ministries in Duluth, Minnesota, beginning in 1881. By the end of that decade, the sisters were staffing several parish schools and a hospital in Duluth. When the Diocese of Duluth was established in 1899, its new Bishop, Rev. James T. McGolrick, desired a community of Benedictine Sisters for his very own. Eventually, in 1892, 32 sisters from St. Benedict’s chose to join a new and independent foundation, headed by once-and-future prioress, Mother Scholastica. The sisters continued in all of the schools and hospitals they had previously staffed, and immediately also opened Sacred Heart Academy for girls in Munger Terrace. By 1894, they had constructed their first permanent home in Duluth, Minnesota: Sacred Heart Institute on 3rd Ave. East and Third Street. In 1898, they completed a new building for St. Mary’s Hospital on its present site.In 1899, 80 acres of farmland in the Kenwood neighborhood were purchased, with an eye to the construction of a motherhouse large enough to house both sisters and students. The property continued to be farmed by hired laborers, providing produce and dairy products for sisters and students. Eighty adjacent acres were purchased by 1907, and construction began on the site. By the fall of 1907, the building was ready for occupancy by the sisters and students of Villa Sancta Scholastica Academy. In 1912, a junior college division was added, and shortly after World War I ended, a free-standing combination gymnasium and assembly hall was constructed, and the main building was enlarged with a wing extension and a tower, giving ‘Tower Hall’ its name.
Annie Traufler chose the same Benedictine order as that of her brother, Rev. Louis, and her mother’s cousin, Bishop John Joseph Koppes of Luxembourg. In the 1895 Minnesota state census, Annie was seventeen and with her parents and 15-year-old brother, Mike, at Aldrich in Wadena County. Soon afterward, she entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph, northwest of St. Cloud, not far from the Trauflers’ former home at Luxemburg. She received her religious name, Sister Mary DeSales, after the French saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622). It’s very possible that Sr. DeSales received nurse’s training at St. Benedict’s Hospital on 9th Avenue North in St. Cloud. The facility was run by the Benedictine sisters and had opened in 1886.
It’s apparent from the history of the St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth that sisters from St. Benedict’s in St. Joseph had begun transferring to Duluth around 1892. Sr. DeSales followed them and lived at the Sacred Heart Convent when the 1900 census was taken. At the time, she was a 22-year-old nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, on East 3rd Street, several blocks north of the shores of Lake Superior. She was still nursing at the hospital when Minnesota’s 1905 state census was taken.
The Trauflers received a scare in 1907. Sr. DeSales was at Bemidji, where St. Anthony’s Hospital was run by the Benedictine sisters. Elisabeth Mongoven and Mike Traufler, who lived in East Grand Forks, received news in June 1907 that their sister was experiencing heart problems. The Evening Times (June 29) stated that Elisabeth and Mike had gone to Bemidji to attend to their ailing sibling. Another Evening Times article (July 10) announced that Mike had returned to Bemidji, as Sister DeSales condition had deteriorated. Elisabeth and Mike traveled back and forth by train to offer comfort and support. Yet the 29-year-old nun didn’t succumb to her heart condition. Instead she rallied and lived to enjoy another summer – and numerous others – before her death in 1982 at the age of 104!
When the 1910 census enumerator came to Duluth at the end of April, he found 32-year-old Sister DeSales at work as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. During the 1910s, Sr. DeSales was transferred 120 miles west to Brainerd. When the 1920 census was taken that January, 41-year-old Sr. De Sales was the superintendent (head, superior) of nursing at St. Joseph’s Hospital, seen here in a 1920’s postcard. In 1898, the Benedictine Sisters of Duluth had come to Brainerd to take charge of the large hospital. It was sold two years later to the Benedictine Sisters Benevolent Association and was christened St. Joseph’s Hospital. Sister Christine Johnson was its first supervisor.
A Traufler descendant said in a telephone interview that “after a while, Annie had had enough of the religious life, and she hit the road.” Indeed, she had. In her early 40s, she was released from her vows, packed her suitcases, and took a train to California, settling quickly in Los Angeles. Around that time, a house painter named William H. Leasure arrived in L.A. from Oregon. He was a son of the prominent Oregon attorney, John C. Leasure (the mayor of Pendleton, Oregon, in 1885), and his wife, Anna Blakely. William was born at Pendleton on March 25, 1883, and was a Private in Company F, 30th Infantry, from 1901 until his honorable discharge in 1905.
William and Annie obtained their license on June 13, 1922, and were married on June 17 by Rev. Henry Gross, pastor at All Souls Catholic Church at Alhambra. It seems that Annie had lost a year of age, when filling out the license. Her Minnesota birth record clearly shows a date – February 3, 1878. Annie was 44 on the day of her wedding, not 43 as listed on the marriage document. William and Annie first lived in Los Angeles at 1325 DeLong, according to the 1923 Los Angeles city directory. He was painter, according to the listing, and his marriage license application says that he was an interior house decorator. By the time of the 1930 census, the couple rented for $35 a month at 1455 W. 53rd Street. In those days, the enumerator asked where the parents of each person were born. We can’t be sure which of the two answered the questions – it might’ve been William, or Annie, or even a neighbor – but the responses are interesting. Only William’s mother’s birthplace, Oregon, was correctly given. His dad’s birthplace was listed as “United States,” instead of Oregon. Likewise, the same vague “United States” reply was offered for Annie’s parents, as opposed to Luxembourg for both. The couple moved rather often and by the summer of 1933 lived at 541½ N. Heliotrope Avenue. They lived there on August 28, 1933, when William put a gun to his chest and squeezed the trigger. William H. Leasure died shortly afterward at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Annie identified his body and provided the information given on his death certificate. William’s military records include a disability pension claim filed on October 7, 1927. That claim noted that he had an alias, Harry Franklin, but we don’t know why he used it. He got the pension, but we may never understand the extent to which his physical condition played in his suicide. Because he’d served his country from 1901 through 1905, he was buried in section 62, row A, lot 7 of Los Angeles National Cemetery.
On October 5, 1934, Annie married Howard Payne Davis of Alhambra. She was his fourth wife. Howard was a son of Francisco (Frank) Davis and Frances Ellen Thaxter. He was born December 31, 1879, at Carson City, Nevada. As an 18-year-old, on May 4, 1898, he enlisted in Troop A, 1st Regiment, of the Nevada Volunteer Cavalry. His troop was sent to the Philippine Islands in June, during the Spanish-American War. He returned home and was honorably discharged at the Presidio in San Francisco on November 15, 1899. On March 27, 1925, he applied for and subsequently received a disability pension for his military service.
On January 7, 1900, at Oakland, Howard married Estella Mary Ashley. They had two children, son Carroll Payne Davis and daughter Ethel Ashley Davis, and made their home in Berkeley during the early 1900s. Howard was electrician by trade. But his relationship with Estella finally soured, and she divorced him by 1917. She took the children, and he moved in with his mother. On September 12, 1918, as the end of WWI drew near, Howard registered at his local draft board in San Francisco. He gave his occupation as a ship builder at the Union Iron Works on 20th and Illinois Streets. His nearest relative was his mother, Mrs. F. E. Davis, who lived with him at 2059 Market Street. He was described as a tall man with medium build, blue eyes, and light brown hair. The war ended about a month later, but Howard had already served his country, so he wasn’t called to duty.
In 1919, Howard married 26-year-old Geraldine C. Bishop of Los Angeles. She was born at Redlands on July 12, 1893, and was the daughter of L. H. Bishop and Lena Stone. By 1920, Howard and Geraldine lived at Knights Ferry, a town established during the California gold rush of 1849. This speck of a community lies along the Stanislaus River, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Stanislaus County. They had no children, and Howard owned his home free of mortgage, while working as an electrician. They’d come south to Alhambra by the time of the 1930 census, taken in April. The couple lived in a home they owned, worth $4,000, at 2608 Ramona Blvd. They answered yes, when the enumerator asked if they owned a radio. At the onset of the Great Depression, a radio was a most treasured household item! Howard worked for the Edison Light Company as an electrician. Four months later, Geraldine Bishop Davis died in National City, near San Diego. The August 27, 1930, edition of the Evening Tribune ran a small announcement of her death.
Howard wasted little time in finding his third wife. She was Frances Celeste Kirk, who taught art in local high schools. Frances was born in Illinois on March 13, 1884, and was a daughter of Orlando Kirk and Mary Cummings. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the early 1920s, she was in Los Angeles, teaching the subject in public schools. She and Howard married on December 11, 1931, as proclaimed by The Van Nuys News on December 24. But this union was doomed to fail, and they divorced soon afterward. Even so, city directories of Alhambra from 1928 through 1935 list Geraldine as Howard’s wife – despite the fact that she’d died in 1930! Frances kept her maiden name and became a well-known artist in the San Fernando Valley art circles. Frances Celeste Kirk died in Los Angeles on August 6, 1984, at the age of 100.
The fourth of Howard’s wives was Annie Traufler. It seems the couple slipped away quietly to be married in Carson City, Nevada, at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They were married on October 5, 1934. The 1935 Alhambra city directory lists Howard P. Davis and wife Geraldine at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. This was incorrect, as mentioned, because Geraldine had died five years earlier. However, the 1937 Alhambra directory shows Howard P. Davis and wife Ann at the same address.
When the 1940 census was enumerated, the Davises were at 2608½ W. Ramona Blvd. They owned their $2,000 home, and both had lived in Alhambra as of April 1, 1935. Howard also informed the census taker that he’d completed one year of college and that his wife had finished four years of high school. At age 61, Annie did the housework, but her 60-year-old husband was unable to work. It appears that they had another home 500 miles north and were splitting time between it and their home in Alhambra. Here’s why. The June 1940 obituary for Margaret Mohs mentions her sister, Mrs. Howard P. Davis of Belden, California. Belden is a small town (population 22 in the 2010 census!) in Plumas County, forty miles northeast of Chico. Also, the Davises aren’t recorded in Alhambra’s 1939 and 1941 directories.
Howard developed arteriosclerosis in his 60s. His doctor, O. H. Hanson, initially saw him and began monitoring his condition in June 1940. Despite the occasional symptoms, he continued to work as an electrician at the utility company. At home on Thursday morning, December 26, 1946, Howard Payne Davis suffered a massive heart attack. He died within ten minutes, five days shy of his 67th birthday. Like Annie’s first husband, Howard was a military veteran. As such, he was eligible for burial in the same Los Angeles National Cemetery. He was laid to rest in section 243, row A, lot 14.
After Howard’s death, Annie returned to home to Alhambra. She never remarried. Once again, Alhambra city directories can help determine her whereabouts. In 1949 and 1952, she remained in her house at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. (Today, her front yard would face a congested Interstate 10!) In the 1954 directory, she was listed at two locations: 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. and 109 Bushnell Ave., less than three miles north and a block away from All Souls Catholic Church. By 1956, she lived only at the Bushnell address. In 1964, she lived at 36 N Bushnell Avenue, apartment F.
Annie returned to St. Cloud to attend the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the ordination of her brother, Fr. Louis Traufler. She was in her early 70s when she posed next to him in 1948, and she was 80 years old when she attended the June 1958 celebration.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s – after a nursing career spanning 35 years – very little is known of Annie’s life. But she began developing symptoms of dementia while in her seventies. Her niece, Dorothy Traufler (a daughter of Annie’s brother, Mike), was a hospital nurse. At age 28 in 1940, she rented a place in Minneapolis with her widowed mother and adult siblings, but she soon headed toward California. In July 1944 at Denver, Dorothy married an automobile salesman, Morgan E. Everett of Long Beach. They made a home in California and had a baby the next year. But they divorced after a few years, and she eventually moved to Alhambra. By the 1970s, Dorothy had a home at 2212 W. Alhambra Rd. She supplied the information on Annie’s death certificate, so it appears that she was responsible for her aunt during the final decades of her life.
Eventually, Annie was placed in St. Ann’s Home for the Aged, an L.A. nursing home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The old building is shown below. Built by the nuns at First and Mott Streets in 1908, it served the needs of the elderly poor for nearly seven decades. But by 1976, the old building no longer met fire code requirements. A new site was chosen at 2100 S. Western Avenue in San Pedro, less than a mile away from the Pacific coastline. Ground was broken on October 26, 1977, and on August 7, 1979, the Little Sisters moved their 120 aged residents into a modern new home, the Saint Jeanne Jugan Residence. Annie was among the elderly patients who made the big move, and she stayed there until her death.
In November 1979, 100-year-old Anna was assigned a female physician, Pacita C. Tan. The young doctor last attended her centenarian patient, who’d suffered from dehydration for two days, on November 16, 1982. Anna Traufler Davis passed away peacefully at 6:10 a.m. the next morning. Her death certificate incorrectly cites a birthdate of February 3, 1879. Yet her birth record proves that she was born on that date in 1878. Therefore, Annie was 104, rather than the 103 listed. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
From the website of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota: In 1852, three Benedictine nuns from St. Walburg’s Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria, arrived in the United States. Not only were they the first Benedictine women to come to the New World, they would eventually create a whole new way of life for most American Benedictine women by accepting ministries outside of their own convent walls. They opened a school for German-speaking immigrant girls in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Their numbers grew and, within a very few years, they had established several new foundations, among them one in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1857. This group moved to St. Joseph, Minnesota, in 1863 to become St. Benedict’s Convent. The fourth prioress of that community, Mother Scholastica Kerst, took on ministries in Duluth, Minnesota, beginning in 1881. By the end of that decade, the sisters were staffing several parish schools and a hospital in Duluth. When the Diocese of Duluth was established in 1899, its new Bishop, Rev. James T. McGolrick, desired a community of Benedictine Sisters for his very own. Eventually, in 1892, 32 sisters from St. Benedict’s chose to join a new and independent foundation, headed by once-and-future prioress, Mother Scholastica. The sisters continued in all of the schools and hospitals they had previously staffed, and immediately also opened Sacred Heart Academy for girls in Munger Terrace. By 1894, they had constructed their first permanent home in Duluth, Minnesota: Sacred Heart Institute on 3rd Ave. East and Third Street. In 1898, they completed a new building for St. Mary’s Hospital on its present site.In 1899, 80 acres of farmland in the Kenwood neighborhood were purchased, with an eye to the construction of a motherhouse large enough to house both sisters and students. The property continued to be farmed by hired laborers, providing produce and dairy products for sisters and students. Eighty adjacent acres were purchased by 1907, and construction began on the site. By the fall of 1907, the building was ready for occupancy by the sisters and students of Villa Sancta Scholastica Academy. In 1912, a junior college division was added, and shortly after World War I ended, a free-standing combination gymnasium and assembly hall was constructed, and the main building was enlarged with a wing extension and a tower, giving ‘Tower Hall’ its name.
Annie Traufler chose the same Benedictine order as that of her brother, Rev. Louis, and her mother’s cousin, Bishop John Joseph Koppes of Luxembourg. In the 1895 Minnesota state census, Annie was seventeen and with her parents and 15-year-old brother, Mike, at Aldrich in Wadena County. Soon afterward, she entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph, northwest of St. Cloud, not far from the Trauflers’ former home at Luxemburg. She received her religious name, Sister Mary DeSales, after the French saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622). It’s very possible that Sr. DeSales received nurse’s training at St. Benedict’s Hospital on 9th Avenue North in St. Cloud. The facility was run by the Benedictine sisters and had opened in 1886.
It’s apparent from the history of the St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth that sisters from St. Benedict’s in St. Joseph had begun transferring to Duluth around 1892. Sr. DeSales followed them and lived at the Sacred Heart Convent when the 1900 census was taken. At the time, she was a 22-year-old nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, on East 3rd Street, several blocks north of the shores of Lake Superior. She was still nursing at the hospital when Minnesota’s 1905 state census was taken.
The Trauflers received a scare in 1907. Sr. DeSales was at Bemidji, where St. Anthony’s Hospital was run by the Benedictine sisters. Elisabeth Mongoven and Mike Traufler, who lived in East Grand Forks, received news in June 1907 that their sister was experiencing heart problems. The Evening Times (June 29) stated that Elisabeth and Mike had gone to Bemidji to attend to their ailing sibling. Another Evening Times article (July 10) announced that Mike had returned to Bemidji, as Sister DeSales condition had deteriorated. Elisabeth and Mike traveled back and forth by train to offer comfort and support. Yet the 29-year-old nun didn’t succumb to her heart condition. Instead she rallied and lived to enjoy another summer – and numerous others – before her death in 1982 at the age of 104!
When the 1910 census enumerator came to Duluth at the end of April, he found 32-year-old Sister DeSales at work as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. During the 1910s, Sr. DeSales was transferred 120 miles west to Brainerd. When the 1920 census was taken that January, 41-year-old Sr. De Sales was the superintendent (head, superior) of nursing at St. Joseph’s Hospital, seen here in a 1920’s postcard. In 1898, the Benedictine Sisters of Duluth had come to Brainerd to take charge of the large hospital. It was sold two years later to the Benedictine Sisters Benevolent Association and was christened St. Joseph’s Hospital. Sister Christine Johnson was its first supervisor.
A Traufler descendant said in a telephone interview that “after a while, Annie had had enough of the religious life, and she hit the road.” Indeed, she had. In her early 40s, she was released from her vows, packed her suitcases, and took a train to California, settling quickly in Los Angeles. Around that time, a house painter named William H. Leasure arrived in L.A. from Oregon. He was a son of the prominent Oregon attorney, John C. Leasure (the mayor of Pendleton, Oregon, in 1885), and his wife, Anna Blakely. William was born at Pendleton on March 25, 1883, and was a Private in Company F, 30th Infantry, from 1901 until his honorable discharge in 1905.
William and Annie obtained their license on June 13, 1922, and were married on June 17 by Rev. Henry Gross, pastor at All Souls Catholic Church at Alhambra. It seems that Annie had lost a year of age, when filling out the license. Her Minnesota birth record clearly shows a date – February 3, 1878. Annie was 44 on the day of her wedding, not 43 as listed on the marriage document. William and Annie first lived in Los Angeles at 1325 DeLong, according to the 1923 Los Angeles city directory. He was painter, according to the listing, and his marriage license application says that he was an interior house decorator. By the time of the 1930 census, the couple rented for $35 a month at 1455 W. 53rd Street. In those days, the enumerator asked where the parents of each person were born. We can’t be sure which of the two answered the questions – it might’ve been William, or Annie, or even a neighbor – but the responses are interesting. Only William’s mother’s birthplace, Oregon, was correctly given. His dad’s birthplace was listed as “United States,” instead of Oregon. Likewise, the same vague “United States” reply was offered for Annie’s parents, as opposed to Luxembourg for both. The couple moved rather often and by the summer of 1933 lived at 541½ N. Heliotrope Avenue. They lived there on August 28, 1933, when William put a gun to his chest and squeezed the trigger. William H. Leasure died shortly afterward at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Annie identified his body and provided the information given on his death certificate. William’s military records include a disability pension claim filed on October 7, 1927. That claim noted that he had an alias, Harry Franklin, but we don’t know why he used it. He got the pension, but we may never understand the extent to which his physical condition played in his suicide. Because he’d served his country from 1901 through 1905, he was buried in section 62, row A, lot 7 of Los Angeles National Cemetery.
On October 5, 1934, Annie married Howard Payne Davis of Alhambra. She was his fourth wife. Howard was a son of Francisco (Frank) Davis and Frances Ellen Thaxter. He was born December 31, 1879, at Carson City, Nevada. As an 18-year-old, on May 4, 1898, he enlisted in Troop A, 1st Regiment, of the Nevada Volunteer Cavalry. His troop was sent to the Philippine Islands in June, during the Spanish-American War. He returned home and was honorably discharged at the Presidio in San Francisco on November 15, 1899. On March 27, 1925, he applied for and subsequently received a disability pension for his military service.
On January 7, 1900, at Oakland, Howard married Estella Mary Ashley. They had two children, son Carroll Payne Davis and daughter Ethel Ashley Davis, and made their home in Berkeley during the early 1900s. Howard was electrician by trade. But his relationship with Estella finally soured, and she divorced him by 1917. She took the children, and he moved in with his mother. On September 12, 1918, as the end of WWI drew near, Howard registered at his local draft board in San Francisco. He gave his occupation as a ship builder at the Union Iron Works on 20th and Illinois Streets. His nearest relative was his mother, Mrs. F. E. Davis, who lived with him at 2059 Market Street. He was described as a tall man with medium build, blue eyes, and light brown hair. The war ended about a month later, but Howard had already served his country, so he wasn’t called to duty.
In 1919, Howard married 26-year-old Geraldine C. Bishop of Los Angeles. She was born at Redlands on July 12, 1893, and was the daughter of L. H. Bishop and Lena Stone. By 1920, Howard and Geraldine lived at Knights Ferry, a town established during the California gold rush of 1849. This speck of a community lies along the Stanislaus River, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Stanislaus County. They had no children, and Howard owned his home free of mortgage, while working as an electrician. They’d come south to Alhambra by the time of the 1930 census, taken in April. The couple lived in a home they owned, worth $4,000, at 2608 Ramona Blvd. They answered yes, when the enumerator asked if they owned a radio. At the onset of the Great Depression, a radio was a most treasured household item! Howard worked for the Edison Light Company as an electrician. Four months later, Geraldine Bishop Davis died in National City, near San Diego. The August 27, 1930, edition of the Evening Tribune ran a small announcement of her death.
Howard wasted little time in finding his third wife. She was Frances Celeste Kirk, who taught art in local high schools. Frances was born in Illinois on March 13, 1884, and was a daughter of Orlando Kirk and Mary Cummings. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the early 1920s, she was in Los Angeles, teaching the subject in public schools. She and Howard married on December 11, 1931, as proclaimed by The Van Nuys News on December 24. But this union was doomed to fail, and they divorced soon afterward. Even so, city directories of Alhambra from 1928 through 1935 list Geraldine as Howard’s wife – despite the fact that she’d died in 1930! Frances kept her maiden name and became a well-known artist in the San Fernando Valley art circles. Frances Celeste Kirk died in Los Angeles on August 6, 1984, at the age of 100.
The fourth of Howard’s wives was Annie Traufler. It seems the couple slipped away quietly to be married in Carson City, Nevada, at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They were married on October 5, 1934. The 1935 Alhambra city directory lists Howard P. Davis and wife Geraldine at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. This was incorrect, as mentioned, because Geraldine had died five years earlier. However, the 1937 Alhambra directory shows Howard P. Davis and wife Ann at the same address.
When the 1940 census was enumerated, the Davises were at 2608½ W. Ramona Blvd. They owned their $2,000 home, and both had lived in Alhambra as of April 1, 1935. Howard also informed the census taker that he’d completed one year of college and that his wife had finished four years of high school. At age 61, Annie did the housework, but her 60-year-old husband was unable to work. It appears that they had another home 500 miles north and were splitting time between it and their home in Alhambra. Here’s why. The June 1940 obituary for Margaret Mohs mentions her sister, Mrs. Howard P. Davis of Belden, California. Belden is a small town (population 22 in the 2010 census!) in Plumas County, forty miles northeast of Chico. Also, the Davises aren’t recorded in Alhambra’s 1939 and 1941 directories.
Howard developed arteriosclerosis in his 60s. His doctor, O. H. Hanson, initially saw him and began monitoring his condition in June 1940. Despite the occasional symptoms, he continued to work as an electrician at the utility company. At home on Thursday morning, December 26, 1946, Howard Payne Davis suffered a massive heart attack. He died within ten minutes, five days shy of his 67th birthday. Like Annie’s first husband, Howard was a military veteran. As such, he was eligible for burial in the same Los Angeles National Cemetery. He was laid to rest in section 243, row A, lot 14.
After Howard’s death, Annie returned to home to Alhambra. She never remarried. Once again, Alhambra city directories can help determine her whereabouts. In 1949 and 1952, she remained in her house at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. (Today, her front yard would face a congested Interstate 10!) In the 1954 directory, she was listed at two locations: 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. and 109 Bushnell Ave., less than three miles north and a block away from All Souls Catholic Church. By 1956, she lived only at the Bushnell address. In 1964, she lived at 36 N Bushnell Avenue, apartment F.
Annie returned to St. Cloud to attend the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the ordination of her brother, Fr. Louis Traufler. She was in her early 70s when she posed next to him in 1948, and she was 80 years old when she attended the June 1958 celebration.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s – after a nursing career spanning 35 years – very little is known of Annie’s life. But she began developing symptoms of dementia while in her seventies. Her niece, Dorothy Traufler (a daughter of Annie’s brother, Mike), was a hospital nurse. At age 28 in 1940, she rented a place in Minneapolis with her widowed mother and adult siblings, but she soon headed toward California. In July 1944 at Denver, Dorothy married an automobile salesman, Morgan E. Everett of Long Beach. They made a home in California and had a baby the next year. But they divorced after a few years, and she eventually moved to Alhambra. By the 1970s, Dorothy had a home at 2212 W. Alhambra Rd. She supplied the information on Annie’s death certificate, so it appears that she was responsible for her aunt during the final decades of her life.
Eventually, Annie was placed in St. Ann’s Home for the Aged, an L.A. nursing home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The old building is shown below. Built by the nuns at First and Mott Streets in 1908, it served the needs of the elderly poor for nearly seven decades. But by 1976, the old building no longer met fire code requirements. A new site was chosen at 2100 S. Western Avenue in San Pedro, less than a mile away from the Pacific coastline. Ground was broken on October 26, 1977, and on August 7, 1979, the Little Sisters moved their 120 aged residents into a modern new home, the Saint Jeanne Jugan Residence. Annie was among the elderly patients who made the big move, and she stayed there until her death.
In November 1979, 100-year-old Anna was assigned a female physician, Pacita C. Tan. The young doctor last attended her centenarian patient, who’d suffered from dehydration for two days, on November 16, 1982. Anna Traufler Davis passed away peacefully at 6:10 a.m. the next morning. Her death certificate incorrectly cites a birthdate of February 3, 1879. Yet her birth record proves that she was born on that date in 1878. Therefore, Annie was 104, rather than the 103 listed. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
Anna Margaret Traufler (Sister Mary DeSales, O.S.B.) was born February 3, 1878, at Luxemburg, Minnesota. Anna, like her brother, received a religious calling. By 1897, she’d entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph’s, outside St. Cloud. She’s pictured here in an 1896 portrait. A bit of history helps explain some of the moves she made in the first half of her life.
From the website of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota: In 1852, three Benedictine nuns from St. Walburg’s Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria, arrived in the United States. Not only were they the first Benedictine women to come to the New World, they would eventually create a whole new way of life for most American Benedictine women by accepting ministries outside of their own convent walls. They opened a school for German-speaking immigrant girls in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Their numbers grew and, within a very few years, they had established several new foundations, among them one in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1857. This group moved to St. Joseph, Minnesota, in 1863 to become St. Benedict’s Convent. The fourth prioress of that community, Mother Scholastica Kerst, took on ministries in Duluth, Minnesota, beginning in 1881. By the end of that decade, the sisters were staffing several parish schools and a hospital in Duluth. When the Diocese of Duluth was established in 1899, its new Bishop, Rev. James T. McGolrick, desired a community of Benedictine Sisters for his very own. Eventually, in 1892, 32 sisters from St. Benedict’s chose to join a new and independent foundation, headed by once-and-future prioress, Mother Scholastica. The sisters continued in all of the schools and hospitals they had previously staffed, and immediately also opened Sacred Heart Academy for girls in Munger Terrace. By 1894, they had constructed their first permanent home in Duluth, Minnesota: Sacred Heart Institute on 3rd Ave. East and Third Street. In 1898, they completed a new building for St. Mary’s Hospital on its present site.In 1899, 80 acres of farmland in the Kenwood neighborhood were purchased, with an eye to the construction of a motherhouse large enough to house both sisters and students. The property continued to be farmed by hired laborers, providing produce and dairy products for sisters and students. Eighty adjacent acres were purchased by 1907, and construction began on the site. By the fall of 1907, the building was ready for occupancy by the sisters and students of Villa Sancta Scholastica Academy. In 1912, a junior college division was added, and shortly after World War I ended, a free-standing combination gymnasium and assembly hall was constructed, and the main building was enlarged with a wing extension and a tower, giving ‘Tower Hall’ its name.
Annie Traufler chose the same Benedictine order as that of her brother, Rev. Louis, and her mother’s cousin, Bishop John Joseph Koppes of Luxembourg. In the 1895 Minnesota state census, Annie was seventeen and with her parents and 15-year-old brother, Mike, at Aldrich in Wadena County. Soon afterward, she entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph, northwest of St. Cloud, not far from the Trauflers’ former home at Luxemburg. She received her religious name, Sister Mary DeSales, after the French saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622). It’s very possible that Sr. DeSales received nurse’s training at St. Benedict’s Hospital on 9th Avenue North in St. Cloud. The facility was run by the Benedictine sisters and had opened in 1886.
It’s apparent from the history of the St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth that sisters from St. Benedict’s in St. Joseph had begun transferring to Duluth around 1892. Sr. DeSales followed them and lived at the Sacred Heart Convent when the 1900 census was taken. At the time, she was a 22-year-old nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, on East 3rd Street, several blocks north of the shores of Lake Superior. She was still nursing at the hospital when Minnesota’s 1905 state census was taken.
The Trauflers received a scare in 1907. Sr. DeSales was at Bemidji, where St. Anthony’s Hospital was run by the Benedictine sisters. Elisabeth Mongoven and Mike Traufler, who lived in East Grand Forks, received news in June 1907 that their sister was experiencing heart problems. The Evening Times (June 29) stated that Elisabeth and Mike had gone to Bemidji to attend to their ailing sibling. Another Evening Times article (July 10) announced that Mike had returned to Bemidji, as Sister DeSales condition had deteriorated. Elisabeth and Mike traveled back and forth by train to offer comfort and support. Yet the 29-year-old nun didn’t succumb to her heart condition. Instead she rallied and lived to enjoy another summer – and numerous others – before her death in 1982 at the age of 104!
When the 1910 census enumerator came to Duluth at the end of April, he found 32-year-old Sister DeSales at work as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. During the 1910s, Sr. DeSales was transferred 120 miles west to Brainerd. When the 1920 census was taken that January, 41-year-old Sr. De Sales was the superintendent (head, superior) of nursing at St. Joseph’s Hospital, seen here in a 1920’s postcard. In 1898, the Benedictine Sisters of Duluth had come to Brainerd to take charge of the large hospital. It was sold two years later to the Benedictine Sisters Benevolent Association and was christened St. Joseph’s Hospital. Sister Christine Johnson was its first supervisor.
A Traufler descendant said in a telephone interview that “after a while, Annie had had enough of the religious life, and she hit the road.” Indeed, she had. In her early 40s, she was released from her vows, packed her suitcases, and took a train to California, settling quickly in Los Angeles. Around that time, a house painter named William H. Leasure arrived in L.A. from Oregon. He was a son of the prominent Oregon attorney, John C. Leasure (the mayor of Pendleton, Oregon, in 1885), and his wife, Anna Blakely. William was born at Pendleton on March 25, 1883, and was a Private in Company F, 30th Infantry, from 1901 until his honorable discharge in 1905.
William and Annie obtained their license on June 13, 1922, and were married on June 17 by Rev. Henry Gross, pastor at All Souls Catholic Church at Alhambra. It seems that Annie had lost a year of age, when filling out the license. Her Minnesota birth record clearly shows a date – February 3, 1878. Annie was 44 on the day of her wedding, not 43 as listed on the marriage document. William and Annie first lived in Los Angeles at 1325 DeLong, according to the 1923 Los Angeles city directory. He was painter, according to the listing, and his marriage license application says that he was an interior house decorator. By the time of the 1930 census, the couple rented for $35 a month at 1455 W. 53rd Street. In those days, the enumerator asked where the parents of each person were born. We can’t be sure which of the two answered the questions – it might’ve been William, or Annie, or even a neighbor – but the responses are interesting. Only William’s mother’s birthplace, Oregon, was correctly given. His dad’s birthplace was listed as “United States,” instead of Oregon. Likewise, the same vague “United States” reply was offered for Annie’s parents, as opposed to Luxembourg for both. The couple moved rather often and by the summer of 1933 lived at 541½ N. Heliotrope Avenue. They lived there on August 28, 1933, when William put a gun to his chest and squeezed the trigger. William H. Leasure died shortly afterward at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Annie identified his body and provided the information given on his death certificate. William’s military records include a disability pension claim filed on October 7, 1927. That claim noted that he had an alias, Harry Franklin, but we don’t know why he used it. He got the pension, but we may never understand the extent to which his physical condition played in his suicide. Because he’d served his country from 1901 through 1905, he was buried in section 62, row A, lot 7 of Los Angeles National Cemetery.
On October 5, 1934, Annie married Howard Payne Davis of Alhambra. She was his fourth wife. Howard was a son of Francisco (Frank) Davis and Frances Ellen Thaxter. He was born December 31, 1879, at Carson City, Nevada. As an 18-year-old, on May 4, 1898, he enlisted in Troop A, 1st Regiment, of the Nevada Volunteer Cavalry. His troop was sent to the Philippine Islands in June, during the Spanish-American War. He returned home and was honorably discharged at the Presidio in San Francisco on November 15, 1899. On March 27, 1925, he applied for and subsequently received a disability pension for his military service.
On January 7, 1900, at Oakland, Howard married Estella Mary Ashley. They had two children, son Carroll Payne Davis and daughter Ethel Ashley Davis, and made their home in Berkeley during the early 1900s. Howard was electrician by trade. But his relationship with Estella finally soured, and she divorced him by 1917. She took the children, and he moved in with his mother. On September 12, 1918, as the end of WWI drew near, Howard registered at his local draft board in San Francisco. He gave his occupation as a ship builder at the Union Iron Works on 20th and Illinois Streets. His nearest relative was his mother, Mrs. F. E. Davis, who lived with him at 2059 Market Street. He was described as a tall man with medium build, blue eyes, and light brown hair. The war ended about a month later, but Howard had already served his country, so he wasn’t called to duty.
In 1919, Howard married 26-year-old Geraldine C. Bishop of Los Angeles. She was born at Redlands on July 12, 1893, and was the daughter of L. H. Bishop and Lena Stone. By 1920, Howard and Geraldine lived at Knights Ferry, a town established during the California gold rush of 1849. This speck of a community lies along the Stanislaus River, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Stanislaus County. They had no children, and Howard owned his home free of mortgage, while working as an electrician. They’d come south to Alhambra by the time of the 1930 census, taken in April. The couple lived in a home they owned, worth $4,000, at 2608 Ramona Blvd. They answered yes, when the enumerator asked if they owned a radio. At the onset of the Great Depression, a radio was a most treasured household item! Howard worked for the Edison Light Company as an electrician. Four months later, Geraldine Bishop Davis died in National City, near San Diego. The August 27, 1930, edition of the Evening Tribune ran a small announcement of her death.
Howard wasted little time in finding his third wife. She was Frances Celeste Kirk, who taught art in local high schools. Frances was born in Illinois on March 13, 1884, and was a daughter of Orlando Kirk and Mary Cummings. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the early 1920s, she was in Los Angeles, teaching the subject in public schools. She and Howard married on December 11, 1931, as proclaimed by The Van Nuys News on December 24. But this union was doomed to fail, and they divorced soon afterward. Even so, city directories of Alhambra from 1928 through 1935 list Geraldine as Howard’s wife – despite the fact that she’d died in 1930! Frances kept her maiden name and became a well-known artist in the San Fernando Valley art circles. Frances Celeste Kirk died in Los Angeles on August 6, 1984, at the age of 100.
The fourth of Howard’s wives was Annie Traufler. It seems the couple slipped away quietly to be married in Carson City, Nevada, at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They were married on October 5, 1934. The 1935 Alhambra city directory lists Howard P. Davis and wife Geraldine at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. This was incorrect, as mentioned, because Geraldine had died five years earlier. However, the 1937 Alhambra directory shows Howard P. Davis and wife Ann at the same address.
When the 1940 census was enumerated, the Davises were at 2608½ W. Ramona Blvd. They owned their $2,000 home, and both had lived in Alhambra as of April 1, 1935. Howard also informed the census taker that he’d completed one year of college and that his wife had finished four years of high school. At age 61, Annie did the housework, but her 60-year-old husband was unable to work. It appears that they had another home 500 miles north and were splitting time between it and their home in Alhambra. Here’s why. The June 1940 obituary for Margaret Mohs mentions her sister, Mrs. Howard P. Davis of Belden, California. Belden is a small town (population 22 in the 2010 census!) in Plumas County, forty miles northeast of Chico. Also, the Davises aren’t recorded in Alhambra’s 1939 and 1941 directories.
Howard developed arteriosclerosis in his 60s. His doctor, O. H. Hanson, initially saw him and began monitoring his condition in June 1940. Despite the occasional symptoms, he continued to work as an electrician at the utility company. At home on Thursday morning, December 26, 1946, Howard Payne Davis suffered a massive heart attack. He died within ten minutes, five days shy of his 67th birthday. Like Annie’s first husband, Howard was a military veteran. As such, he was eligible for burial in the same Los Angeles National Cemetery. He was laid to rest in section 243, row A, lot 14.
After Howard’s death, Annie returned to home to Alhambra. She never remarried. Once again, Alhambra city directories can help determine her whereabouts. In 1949 and 1952, she remained in her house at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. (Today, her front yard would face a congested Interstate 10!) In the 1954 directory, she was listed at two locations: 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. and 109 Bushnell Ave., less than three miles north and a block away from All Souls Catholic Church. By 1956, she lived only at the Bushnell address. In 1964, she lived at 36 N Bushnell Avenue, apartment F.
Annie returned to St. Cloud to attend the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the ordination of her brother, Fr. Louis Traufler. She was in her early 70s when she posed next to him in 1948, and she was 80 years old when she attended the June 1958 celebration.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s – after a nursing career spanning 35 years – very little is known of Annie’s life. But she began developing symptoms of dementia while in her seventies. Her niece, Dorothy Traufler (a daughter of Annie’s brother, Mike), was a hospital nurse. At age 28 in 1940, she rented a place in Minneapolis with her widowed mother and adult siblings, but she soon headed toward California. In July 1944 at Denver, Dorothy married an automobile salesman, Morgan E. Everett of Long Beach. They made a home in California and had a baby the next year. But they divorced after a few years, and she eventually moved to Alhambra. By the 1970s, Dorothy had a home at 2212 W. Alhambra Rd. She supplied the information on Annie’s death certificate, so it appears that she was responsible for her aunt during the final decades of her life.
Eventually, Annie was placed in St. Ann’s Home for the Aged, an L.A. nursing home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The old building is shown below. Built by the nuns at First and Mott Streets in 1908, it served the needs of the elderly poor for nearly seven decades. But by 1976, the old building no longer met fire code requirements. A new site was chosen at 2100 S. Western Avenue in San Pedro, less than a mile away from the Pacific coastline. Ground was broken on October 26, 1977, and on August 7, 1979, the Little Sisters moved their 120 aged residents into a modern new home, the Saint Jeanne Jugan Residence. Annie was among the elderly patients who made the big move, and she stayed there until her death.
In November 1979, 100-year-old Anna was assigned a female physician, Pacita C. Tan. The young doctor last attended her centenarian patient, who’d suffered from dehydration for two days, on November 16, 1982. Anna Traufler Davis passed away peacefully at 6:10 a.m. the next morning. Her death certificate incorrectly cites a birthdate of February 3, 1879. Yet her birth record proves that she was born on that date in 1878. Therefore, Annie was 104, rather than the 103 listed. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
From the website of St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, Minnesota: In 1852, three Benedictine nuns from St. Walburg’s Abbey in Eichstätt, Bavaria, arrived in the United States. Not only were they the first Benedictine women to come to the New World, they would eventually create a whole new way of life for most American Benedictine women by accepting ministries outside of their own convent walls. They opened a school for German-speaking immigrant girls in St. Marys, Pennsylvania. Their numbers grew and, within a very few years, they had established several new foundations, among them one in St. Cloud, Minnesota, in 1857. This group moved to St. Joseph, Minnesota, in 1863 to become St. Benedict’s Convent. The fourth prioress of that community, Mother Scholastica Kerst, took on ministries in Duluth, Minnesota, beginning in 1881. By the end of that decade, the sisters were staffing several parish schools and a hospital in Duluth. When the Diocese of Duluth was established in 1899, its new Bishop, Rev. James T. McGolrick, desired a community of Benedictine Sisters for his very own. Eventually, in 1892, 32 sisters from St. Benedict’s chose to join a new and independent foundation, headed by once-and-future prioress, Mother Scholastica. The sisters continued in all of the schools and hospitals they had previously staffed, and immediately also opened Sacred Heart Academy for girls in Munger Terrace. By 1894, they had constructed their first permanent home in Duluth, Minnesota: Sacred Heart Institute on 3rd Ave. East and Third Street. In 1898, they completed a new building for St. Mary’s Hospital on its present site.In 1899, 80 acres of farmland in the Kenwood neighborhood were purchased, with an eye to the construction of a motherhouse large enough to house both sisters and students. The property continued to be farmed by hired laborers, providing produce and dairy products for sisters and students. Eighty adjacent acres were purchased by 1907, and construction began on the site. By the fall of 1907, the building was ready for occupancy by the sisters and students of Villa Sancta Scholastica Academy. In 1912, a junior college division was added, and shortly after World War I ended, a free-standing combination gymnasium and assembly hall was constructed, and the main building was enlarged with a wing extension and a tower, giving ‘Tower Hall’ its name.
Annie Traufler chose the same Benedictine order as that of her brother, Rev. Louis, and her mother’s cousin, Bishop John Joseph Koppes of Luxembourg. In the 1895 Minnesota state census, Annie was seventeen and with her parents and 15-year-old brother, Mike, at Aldrich in Wadena County. Soon afterward, she entered St. Benedict’s Convent at St. Joseph, northwest of St. Cloud, not far from the Trauflers’ former home at Luxemburg. She received her religious name, Sister Mary DeSales, after the French saint, Francis de Sales (1567-1622). It’s very possible that Sr. DeSales received nurse’s training at St. Benedict’s Hospital on 9th Avenue North in St. Cloud. The facility was run by the Benedictine sisters and had opened in 1886.
It’s apparent from the history of the St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth that sisters from St. Benedict’s in St. Joseph had begun transferring to Duluth around 1892. Sr. DeSales followed them and lived at the Sacred Heart Convent when the 1900 census was taken. At the time, she was a 22-year-old nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth, on East 3rd Street, several blocks north of the shores of Lake Superior. She was still nursing at the hospital when Minnesota’s 1905 state census was taken.
The Trauflers received a scare in 1907. Sr. DeSales was at Bemidji, where St. Anthony’s Hospital was run by the Benedictine sisters. Elisabeth Mongoven and Mike Traufler, who lived in East Grand Forks, received news in June 1907 that their sister was experiencing heart problems. The Evening Times (June 29) stated that Elisabeth and Mike had gone to Bemidji to attend to their ailing sibling. Another Evening Times article (July 10) announced that Mike had returned to Bemidji, as Sister DeSales condition had deteriorated. Elisabeth and Mike traveled back and forth by train to offer comfort and support. Yet the 29-year-old nun didn’t succumb to her heart condition. Instead she rallied and lived to enjoy another summer – and numerous others – before her death in 1982 at the age of 104!
When the 1910 census enumerator came to Duluth at the end of April, he found 32-year-old Sister DeSales at work as a nurse at St. Mary’s Hospital. During the 1910s, Sr. DeSales was transferred 120 miles west to Brainerd. When the 1920 census was taken that January, 41-year-old Sr. De Sales was the superintendent (head, superior) of nursing at St. Joseph’s Hospital, seen here in a 1920’s postcard. In 1898, the Benedictine Sisters of Duluth had come to Brainerd to take charge of the large hospital. It was sold two years later to the Benedictine Sisters Benevolent Association and was christened St. Joseph’s Hospital. Sister Christine Johnson was its first supervisor.
A Traufler descendant said in a telephone interview that “after a while, Annie had had enough of the religious life, and she hit the road.” Indeed, she had. In her early 40s, she was released from her vows, packed her suitcases, and took a train to California, settling quickly in Los Angeles. Around that time, a house painter named William H. Leasure arrived in L.A. from Oregon. He was a son of the prominent Oregon attorney, John C. Leasure (the mayor of Pendleton, Oregon, in 1885), and his wife, Anna Blakely. William was born at Pendleton on March 25, 1883, and was a Private in Company F, 30th Infantry, from 1901 until his honorable discharge in 1905.
William and Annie obtained their license on June 13, 1922, and were married on June 17 by Rev. Henry Gross, pastor at All Souls Catholic Church at Alhambra. It seems that Annie had lost a year of age, when filling out the license. Her Minnesota birth record clearly shows a date – February 3, 1878. Annie was 44 on the day of her wedding, not 43 as listed on the marriage document. William and Annie first lived in Los Angeles at 1325 DeLong, according to the 1923 Los Angeles city directory. He was painter, according to the listing, and his marriage license application says that he was an interior house decorator. By the time of the 1930 census, the couple rented for $35 a month at 1455 W. 53rd Street. In those days, the enumerator asked where the parents of each person were born. We can’t be sure which of the two answered the questions – it might’ve been William, or Annie, or even a neighbor – but the responses are interesting. Only William’s mother’s birthplace, Oregon, was correctly given. His dad’s birthplace was listed as “United States,” instead of Oregon. Likewise, the same vague “United States” reply was offered for Annie’s parents, as opposed to Luxembourg for both. The couple moved rather often and by the summer of 1933 lived at 541½ N. Heliotrope Avenue. They lived there on August 28, 1933, when William put a gun to his chest and squeezed the trigger. William H. Leasure died shortly afterward at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Annie identified his body and provided the information given on his death certificate. William’s military records include a disability pension claim filed on October 7, 1927. That claim noted that he had an alias, Harry Franklin, but we don’t know why he used it. He got the pension, but we may never understand the extent to which his physical condition played in his suicide. Because he’d served his country from 1901 through 1905, he was buried in section 62, row A, lot 7 of Los Angeles National Cemetery.
On October 5, 1934, Annie married Howard Payne Davis of Alhambra. She was his fourth wife. Howard was a son of Francisco (Frank) Davis and Frances Ellen Thaxter. He was born December 31, 1879, at Carson City, Nevada. As an 18-year-old, on May 4, 1898, he enlisted in Troop A, 1st Regiment, of the Nevada Volunteer Cavalry. His troop was sent to the Philippine Islands in June, during the Spanish-American War. He returned home and was honorably discharged at the Presidio in San Francisco on November 15, 1899. On March 27, 1925, he applied for and subsequently received a disability pension for his military service.
On January 7, 1900, at Oakland, Howard married Estella Mary Ashley. They had two children, son Carroll Payne Davis and daughter Ethel Ashley Davis, and made their home in Berkeley during the early 1900s. Howard was electrician by trade. But his relationship with Estella finally soured, and she divorced him by 1917. She took the children, and he moved in with his mother. On September 12, 1918, as the end of WWI drew near, Howard registered at his local draft board in San Francisco. He gave his occupation as a ship builder at the Union Iron Works on 20th and Illinois Streets. His nearest relative was his mother, Mrs. F. E. Davis, who lived with him at 2059 Market Street. He was described as a tall man with medium build, blue eyes, and light brown hair. The war ended about a month later, but Howard had already served his country, so he wasn’t called to duty.
In 1919, Howard married 26-year-old Geraldine C. Bishop of Los Angeles. She was born at Redlands on July 12, 1893, and was the daughter of L. H. Bishop and Lena Stone. By 1920, Howard and Geraldine lived at Knights Ferry, a town established during the California gold rush of 1849. This speck of a community lies along the Stanislaus River, in the Sierra Nevada foothills of Stanislaus County. They had no children, and Howard owned his home free of mortgage, while working as an electrician. They’d come south to Alhambra by the time of the 1930 census, taken in April. The couple lived in a home they owned, worth $4,000, at 2608 Ramona Blvd. They answered yes, when the enumerator asked if they owned a radio. At the onset of the Great Depression, a radio was a most treasured household item! Howard worked for the Edison Light Company as an electrician. Four months later, Geraldine Bishop Davis died in National City, near San Diego. The August 27, 1930, edition of the Evening Tribune ran a small announcement of her death.
Howard wasted little time in finding his third wife. She was Frances Celeste Kirk, who taught art in local high schools. Frances was born in Illinois on March 13, 1884, and was a daughter of Orlando Kirk and Mary Cummings. She studied at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the early 1920s, she was in Los Angeles, teaching the subject in public schools. She and Howard married on December 11, 1931, as proclaimed by The Van Nuys News on December 24. But this union was doomed to fail, and they divorced soon afterward. Even so, city directories of Alhambra from 1928 through 1935 list Geraldine as Howard’s wife – despite the fact that she’d died in 1930! Frances kept her maiden name and became a well-known artist in the San Fernando Valley art circles. Frances Celeste Kirk died in Los Angeles on August 6, 1984, at the age of 100.
The fourth of Howard’s wives was Annie Traufler. It seems the couple slipped away quietly to be married in Carson City, Nevada, at the base of the Sierra Nevada mountains. They were married on October 5, 1934. The 1935 Alhambra city directory lists Howard P. Davis and wife Geraldine at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. This was incorrect, as mentioned, because Geraldine had died five years earlier. However, the 1937 Alhambra directory shows Howard P. Davis and wife Ann at the same address.
When the 1940 census was enumerated, the Davises were at 2608½ W. Ramona Blvd. They owned their $2,000 home, and both had lived in Alhambra as of April 1, 1935. Howard also informed the census taker that he’d completed one year of college and that his wife had finished four years of high school. At age 61, Annie did the housework, but her 60-year-old husband was unable to work. It appears that they had another home 500 miles north and were splitting time between it and their home in Alhambra. Here’s why. The June 1940 obituary for Margaret Mohs mentions her sister, Mrs. Howard P. Davis of Belden, California. Belden is a small town (population 22 in the 2010 census!) in Plumas County, forty miles northeast of Chico. Also, the Davises aren’t recorded in Alhambra’s 1939 and 1941 directories.
Howard developed arteriosclerosis in his 60s. His doctor, O. H. Hanson, initially saw him and began monitoring his condition in June 1940. Despite the occasional symptoms, he continued to work as an electrician at the utility company. At home on Thursday morning, December 26, 1946, Howard Payne Davis suffered a massive heart attack. He died within ten minutes, five days shy of his 67th birthday. Like Annie’s first husband, Howard was a military veteran. As such, he was eligible for burial in the same Los Angeles National Cemetery. He was laid to rest in section 243, row A, lot 14.
After Howard’s death, Annie returned to home to Alhambra. She never remarried. Once again, Alhambra city directories can help determine her whereabouts. In 1949 and 1952, she remained in her house at 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. (Today, her front yard would face a congested Interstate 10!) In the 1954 directory, she was listed at two locations: 2608 W. Ramona Blvd. and 109 Bushnell Ave., less than three miles north and a block away from All Souls Catholic Church. By 1956, she lived only at the Bushnell address. In 1964, she lived at 36 N Bushnell Avenue, apartment F.
Annie returned to St. Cloud to attend the 50th and 60th anniversaries of the ordination of her brother, Fr. Louis Traufler. She was in her early 70s when she posed next to him in 1948, and she was 80 years old when she attended the June 1958 celebration.
Throughout the ’60s and ’70s – after a nursing career spanning 35 years – very little is known of Annie’s life. But she began developing symptoms of dementia while in her seventies. Her niece, Dorothy Traufler (a daughter of Annie’s brother, Mike), was a hospital nurse. At age 28 in 1940, she rented a place in Minneapolis with her widowed mother and adult siblings, but she soon headed toward California. In July 1944 at Denver, Dorothy married an automobile salesman, Morgan E. Everett of Long Beach. They made a home in California and had a baby the next year. But they divorced after a few years, and she eventually moved to Alhambra. By the 1970s, Dorothy had a home at 2212 W. Alhambra Rd. She supplied the information on Annie’s death certificate, so it appears that she was responsible for her aunt during the final decades of her life.
Eventually, Annie was placed in St. Ann’s Home for the Aged, an L.A. nursing home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The old building is shown below. Built by the nuns at First and Mott Streets in 1908, it served the needs of the elderly poor for nearly seven decades. But by 1976, the old building no longer met fire code requirements. A new site was chosen at 2100 S. Western Avenue in San Pedro, less than a mile away from the Pacific coastline. Ground was broken on October 26, 1977, and on August 7, 1979, the Little Sisters moved their 120 aged residents into a modern new home, the Saint Jeanne Jugan Residence. Annie was among the elderly patients who made the big move, and she stayed there until her death.
In November 1979, 100-year-old Anna was assigned a female physician, Pacita C. Tan. The young doctor last attended her centenarian patient, who’d suffered from dehydration for two days, on November 16, 1982. Anna Traufler Davis passed away peacefully at 6:10 a.m. the next morning. Her death certificate incorrectly cites a birthdate of February 3, 1879. Yet her birth record proves that she was born on that date in 1878. Therefore, Annie was 104, rather than the 103 listed. She was buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City.
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