A Different Slant of Light

Family History

Grandparents

Adelaide's paternal grandfather, Isaiah Hanscom, was born in Maine of a long line of seamen and boat builders. During the Civil War he was stationed at Mare Island in the San Francisco bay to build the naval shipyards.

Her mother's parents were from Connecticut. Her grandfather, Munson Hinman Hyde, was a merchant who was widowed when his daughter Louisa was very young. He lived with Adelaide's family in Oregon and in Berkeley until his death in the early 1880's.

Parents

Meldon came to Mare Island as a teenager and returned to the east where he attended Harvard. It was during these years he met and married Louisa.

Louisa, Adelaide's mother, attended finishing school in New York.

Meldon Hanscom's Harvard graduation class. Meldon is on the far right.

Siblings

Adelaide was the fourth of six children. The first two were boys, Meldon and Edmond and the third was May. These three were all born in San Francisco. Adelaide was born in Empire City, Oregon (now Coos Bay) and her two younger sisters, Sarah and Gertrude, were born in Parkersburg, Oregon, a settlement on the Coquille River that no longer exists.