THE MCURDY LOVIE FAMILY

By Eleanor Engstrand 1992; and provided to Doug Dempster

Mother [Eva]'s father, Samuel McCurdy, was born in New Brunswick in

1834. His parents (or grandparents?) had come to what is now Canada

from Northern Ireland. They thought of themselves as Scottish although

they had lived in Ireland for I don't know how long. There was one

Irish woman by the name of Byrd in the family genealogy. In other

words, Samuel was Scotch-Irish. His family had move west to Seattle,

or was it British Colombia, by the time he was a young man. He came

to California and studied medicine at Lane Medical School (or hospital?)

which later became the Stanford Medical School. He did well, and

when he was offered the job of ship's surgeon on a ship plying between

San Francisco and Central America before his last term was complete,

he was allowed to take special examinations and received his MD

ahead of the rest of his class. He married my grandmother, Cora

Bene? Lovie in 1875? and they went to live in Cambria, California.

Cora was born in Nevada City, the third child in a family of

six children. Her father, William? Lovie, was said to have been a

medical student in Scotland before he came around the horn to California

in the gold rush. He married "the little English lady" and was

working at I don't know what, in 1858 when Cora was born. He had

not gotten rich as a miner. Cora had an older sister and brother

and three younger siblings, two of them twins, One of the three was a

girl named Tessie?. Cora's mother died when she was young enough

that she had to stand on a chair to knead bread. Her sister took

charge of the household and Cora helped. When she was nine and her

sister eighteen, her sister left to get married and Cora was left

to manage as best she could. Her older brother was fifteen and

putting up lunch for him and her father before they went to work

was one of her duties. She was the cook and housekeeper and in

charge of the younger children. One story that has come down, was

was that one of the twins had colic or trouble with his/her stomach.

Cora looked in her father's medical books, which he had brought in

his trunk from Scotland, and decided that cold compresses were called

for, so she took the unfortunate child to the creek in the backyard

and applied them. The water in Nevada City creeks is cold!

The next thing I know about Cora is that she was living with

her brother? who was District Attorney? for San Mateo County. It was

while she was there, that she met Samuel and they were married when

she was seventeen. He must have been twenty-four years older than she.

Their first child Belle was born in 1877? followed two or three

years latter by Samuel Jr. and then, on November 13, 1882, by Eva

Lovie McCurdy, my mother. After Cambria they lived in Azusa. Eva

was born there. There was a family story about a storm which brought

rocks arid mud from the San Gabriel mountains flowing down through

their yard in Azusa. Cora put on Samuel's boots and worked all

afternoon to divert the flow from the house. She was successful

but Samuel was angry when he came home. She should not have risked

her health. He was probably right. She had had one or more bouts

with tuberculosis before this, and he was very concerned that she take

care of herself. It seems so self evident that this kind of heavy

work was a possible danger, that I have wondered if life with Samuel

was difficult enough that she did not care. Eva remembered many

times when her father stormed at her mother. She accused him of it

after she was grown and he was very surprised. He had adored Cora

and was never angry with her for anything but disregard of her health.

That he could not stand. Eva, thinking it over, decided that that was true.

Cora's tuberculosis became more active while they lived in Azusa.

Samuel took a job as railway surgeon for the Southern Pacific and

they moved to Truckee, in the hope that the mountain air would help

her. While they lived in Truckee she coached Samuel's assistant

to help him pass the examination to become a pharmacist. In winter,

they laid in supplies to live on when snowed in and worked to keep

a tunnel open between their house and the drug store. Did Samuel

own the drug store? Is that why he wanted a pharmacist? He was

called from home frequently to attend people injured in train wrecks

and accidents on the line over the mountains from Sacramento to Reno.

Was he responsible for that large an area or did he have just the high

mountain section?

When Eva was eight the family moved to St Helena. Samuel bought the

practice of a Dr. Pond who was going to Germany to study, and settled

his family in a big vine covered house that was still there in the 1950s.

For mother [Eva] this meant starting to school. Her father had kept her

home, afraid that she would get TB. He did not want her shut up in

school. Her mother had taught her to read and write but she was

required to start in the first grade- very humiliating. She caught

up with the students her age and was valedictorian when she graduated

from grammar school. Grammar school graduation meant more then than

now. It was the end of school for most people. Samuel had been a

leader in getting a high school for St. Helena. It was there for

Eva when she was ready for it.

Life in St Helena was not too smooth. Cora was not well, though

she made close friends and was active in the Presbyterian church.

She was quiet and gentle and determined that her children should

grow up to be good and well mannered people. There were stories about

the time Sam had to wear his sister's sunbonnet, as punishment for

throwing rocks at a Chinaman with the other boys. Of the time she

took the children to a toy store, telling them to keep their hands

clasped behind their backs. They did so, and the storekeeper was so

favorably impressed that he gave each of them a small gift. The

time she dressed a small doll for the church bazaar. An elderly

man was delighted with Eva's performance in the program and told her

to choose whatever she wanted and he would buy it for her. She chose

the doll her mother had dressed, rather than the large expensive doll

Sam and Belle thought she should have chosen. The time when Eva was

four and Belle taught her a rhyme for a performance the children were

planning:

I'm yet a sinner

Who loveth dinner

Arid fain would see you gay.

I care not -----

But would be merry

Nor work when I can play.

Their mother told them that they would be sorry if Eva were to repeat

it outside the family. "You would not do that, would you, Eva?"

No. She would not do that. Then when the Sunday school teacher

was planning for the next bazaar, asked if anyone knew a new song or

poem, Eva did and she recited it. Belle and Sam were disgraced and

they came home scolding her with her crying. Their mother told them

that it was their doing and they should not blame the baby. The fact

that the sentiments of the rhyme were considered so shameful, gives

a picture of the prevalent moral atmosphere. When I read Laura Ingles

[Ingalls] Wilders Little House series, based on her growing up, I felt that

her mother's insistence on high moral standards, gentility and

decorous behavior for girls were just what I had heard from mother

about her mother, and Eva had quite a bit of it herself.

(Note that these stories may all ante date St Helena).

Samuel lived with the worry of Cora's health. He was an intellectual

with a passionate interest in politics. Mother said he paced the

floor when McKinley annexed the Philippines, making the US a colonial

power. He was public spirited and active in getting people of note

to come to St Helena to speak. They often spent the night and the

conversation at home was interesting. However, Samuel "had his little

ways". He had a terrible temper, which he made little effort to

control. There was the spot on the wall where he had thrown a soft

boiled egg and the time he threw a bottle of ink which ruined a book

that Belle had borrowed from school. He was hard on Belle and Sam.

Belle loved school and was very good at it but she was kept home to

help every time her mother was sick. It was particularly unfair that she

was kept home additional times as punishment for minor offenses.

This was her father's doing. Sam and his father always had a difficult

relationship. Eva, the baby, was his favorite. Cora grew worse and

they knew she could not recover. She died in June? 1894 when Eva