Meldon LeRoy Hanscom (Father)
Adelaide
Marquand Hanscom Leeson
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Family Background
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Importance to AdelaideMeldon L. Hanscom was not just her father, he was her friend and supporter. She loved him deelply and his death was very hard on her, probably making her growing mental problems worse. He nurtured in her a love of the mountains, camping, and tramping. He was probably the most supportive person in the family around her professional career and her artistic differences from the rest of family. Biographyxxx add two Carey letters Meldon Isaiah Hanscom was the third son of Isaiah and Sarah. He was
born on February 11, 1843, in Kittery Maine. At the age of eleven he moved
with his family to Mare Island in the San Francisco bay. While there,
he produced a few issues of a little paper, foretelling his future in
journalism. In 1867 he graduated from Harvard. Meldon is the young man on the far right of the group. On September 16, 1968 he married Louisa DeForest Hyde, in New York City. They left immediately for San Francisco, via the Isthmus of Panama. The children began arriving while they lived in San Francisco. Meldon Isaiah was born in 1869, Edmund in 1872 and Marion in 1873. In 1870 Meldon Hanscom was listed in the San Francisco directory as a bookkeeper. These years in San Francisco were extremely important. It was during these four to five years that Meldon met many of the men he would later form business relationships with. In addition, the important connections his father and brothers had were to prove helpful to him. In 1872 he gained an interest in AEtna iron works from his brother John. The young family moved to Empire City, Oregon, in 1874 after the birth of May. Prior to this move, Meldon was already involved in editing a newspaper co-published with Dr. Charles Tower. During their first few years in Empire City, a small town only 20 years old when they arrived, Meldon served as a drug store owner, school superintendent, justice or the peace, and newspaper owner and editor of the the Coos County Record. in 1875 he sold the paper to his friend Henry N. Marquand. During 1875 Hanscom took many trips to San Francisco to gain financing for building a lumber mill on the Coquille. He became partners with Captain Judah Parker, whom he probably met earlier when he lived in San Francisco, and Captain Isaac Cook. Cook probably never visited the mill or its town, Parkersburg, but the first steam tug boat on the Coquille, built by Hanscom and Parker, was named after his wife, Katie. The family moved to Parkersburg, on the Coquille river, in early 1876 when Adelaide was a baby. During the five years the family lived in Parkersburg, the mill had active periods of production and dead times. Sometimes the schooners could pass the bar at the mouth of the Coquille to pick up the milled lumber and leave needed goods from San Francisco. Schooling for the children was minimal and life was very difficult. In the fall of 1881 the family moved to their home in Berkeley. During the 1880s Meldon held a variety of jobs: he worked for his brother's company Hanscom and Byron and was a commercial merchant in San Francisco, In 1886 he was the printer and publisher of the West Oakland Home Journal, a weekly and the next year he was a bookkeeper for the West Berkeley Lumber Yard. Finally, in 1900, he became the town clerk of the young town of Berkeley. He stayed with the city, becoming town auditor and finally, in 1909, city auditor. He died in 1919 of a heart attack or of influenza (there was a nation-wide epidemic of influenza in 1919 that killed many people). The city honored him with a resolution.
He was a very scholarly, quiet man, belying his red hair. He walked to the Berkeley City Hall every morning. He was loved by his children. He took the family back to Oregon for several visits, and he also took them camping in the woods and mountains. Probably knew John Muir. The Hanscom family had been Universalists for generations. Meldon's brothers, who lived near Meldon's family in the Bay area, stayed in this faith, becoming Unitarians. Meldon may have converted to Episcopalianism to please his wife. This is unknown. xxxx Check out Beautiful Berkeley, 1889 Berkeley Daily Advocate, 1892 |
