How come I was born in California?

The picture above is probably the oldest family picture that I have. It is a picture of my mother and her family, the Edwin John Knowlton and Ermina Delphine (Haight) Knowlton family. My mother is the teen-age girl on the left side of the group. It was taken in Sterling, Kansas about 1905. When it came into my possession I was thrilled to see a picture of my mother when she was a girl. I do not have many pictures of my mother. When I was a child all of these uncles and Aunt Marjorie lived in California, and had for a long time. I believe that I met most of them. One was a lawyer, one was a streetcar conductor, one worked for the electric company, and several worked for California oil companies. Several lived in the San Francisco Bay area.

Sterling lies in the southern-central part of Kansas. It is somewhat half way between Wichita and Salina. It is close to the Santa Fe Trail. Christian missionaries reached this area from Mexico before Plymouth.

Wyatt Earp came from this area. It is good farmland. Sterling is a pretty little town. I bet a lot of it looks just like it did in 1905. Scenes for the movie “Picnic” were shot in Sterling. In particular the scenes that were around a lake. The lake is still there with a big swan on it.

My grandfather was from Michigan and my grandmother was from New York. Here they are farmers in Kansas in 1905. And from the looks of the clothes in the picture I would say that they were prosperous farmers. See the suits and ties, and the sailor suit on the youngest boy. They look so settled in Sterling, Kansas. One of my sisters said that Grandpa Knowlton was a gentleman farmer. He lived in town and would ride a fine horse out to his farm to oversee operations.

My Dad was Grandpa Knowlton’s hired man. In the 1900 Census my Dad is listed as living in the Knowlton household. In the 1910 Census he was a Ranch Foreman living in California. On the way to California he stopped at an Uncle’s (Monson) home in Oklahoma so my Mom could give birth to my oldest sister. Mom and Dad had been married in Sterling about 8 months before the birth.

Most of these folks moved to California soon after this picture. Why would they move to California when they looked so well off in Kansas? I never thought much about it until I started getting into genealogy recently. I have made two visits to Sterling.  The visits were a couple of days long. I would drive around the town and the surrounding farmland and think about my Mom and Dad

A Christian College was established in Sterling around 1880. It is still in operation. Sterling College has a few nice buildings and beautiful grounds. A train station that was built around then was built with his and her waiting rooms. You would not want men and women waiting for trains in the same room, would you?

In the 1910 Census all of the Knowltons, six sons and my Aunt Marjorie were living in Long Beach, California. My Mom and Dad and two oldest daughters were living in the Imperial Valley. They were to have nine children. I am number nine.

Here is my deduction from this data. Sterling and America in 1905 were very straitlaced. My Mother became pregnant. Dad and Mom were married and left town. The Knowltons sold their farm and moved to Long Beach, California soon after that. The Knowltons could not live in Sterling after the early pregnancy of my Mom. So they moved. Parents and seven children. It must have been a traumatic time for the Knowltons. And my Mom and Dad.

So that is how come I was born in California. It is because of romance in Sterling, Kansas.