The vast majority of the somewhat incomplete information I have regarding the Turner children (other than my grandmother Rose) comes from census and other online records, my mother's 1942 notes, and the Jerome, ID obituaries of Martha, son Edward, and his wife. In addition, cancelled checks contained in E.J. Turner's probate case file have proved useful in determining the whereabouts of his children during the period from 1917 to about 1924. The 5 children, all who's childhood home was in the Gentile Valley, were born more-or-less evenly spread out over a period of just over 19 years. During her Gentile Valley days Martha therefore almost always had young children at home to care for. The youngest and oldest children were separated by significant differences in age as they grew up. When Rose was married and left home at age 21 in 1896 her youngest brother, Frederick, was only 2 years old. It's likely that these two siblings never knew each other all that well. After Edward and Martha's 1903 divorce Percy was the only child who remained in the Gem Valley to witness the vast changes brought on by his father's efforts to complete the Last Chance Canal. Even Percy would later leave the Gentile Valley. It is not known if or how often the other children visited their father at their childhood home in later years.
Rose Belle Turner (1875-1967) Rose was born February 18, 1875 at Walla Walla, the Washington Territory. At age 2 her parents settled in what became known as the Gentile Valley of southeastern Idaho. Rose attended the New Jersey Academy, a Presbyterian boarding school in Logan, Utah for perhaps as long as 8 years in the mid to late 1880's and early 1890's. According to notes taken in 1942 by my mother she then taught pump organ at ranches in rural southeastern Idaho earning 25¢ per hour. (Note: I always knew my grandmother as Rose though in her early years she apparently was also known as Rosa, Rosie, Rosy, and Rosabel.)
My mother's notes suggest Rose was first married in Idaho Falls but Idaho marriage records clearly show that Rose married Guy B. Higgins on June 25, 1896 in the Gentile Valley (perhaps at the Turner Ranch or a small nearby church). My mother's notes then read "newspaper at Pocatello Idaho. Then to Boise - then to Seattle. 1st husband died on hunting trip........" Little is known about Guy Higgins but perhaps he and Rose spent time in Pocatello, then Boise, and finely ended up in Seattle. Rose's obituary indicates she came to Seattle in 1902 however census records show the couple there in 1900 and Mr. Higgins' obituary also suggests that the couple came to Seattle around 1900. His obituary indicates that he was employed in the composing room of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper. Family oral history records confirmed by his obituary indicate that Guy Higgins passed away from appendicitis on Sept. 22, 1909 while on a hunting trip with my grandfather, Homer Henry Hine. Rose and Guy had been married for a little more than 13 years and had no children.
Homer Hine, who had grown up in Ohio and settled in Seattle around 1900, would marry the widow of his hunting partner less that a year after Guy Higgins death. Homer and Rose were married on June 3rd, 1910 in Spokane, Washington. Why Rose and Homer were married in Spokane is a mystery as both had lived in Seattle for some years. Their Wedding Certificate indicates that both Rose and Homer were residents of King County (in which Seattle is located) and that they even apparently obtained their wedding license there on May 31 before going to Spokane where the actual wedding took place on June 3, 1910. Perhaps the couple had chosen to honeymoon there or perhaps it was a midpoint easily accessible by both the bride & groom and Rose's Turner relatives who were still living in southern Idaho. I have no information about whether any guests may have attended the wedding.
Rose would spend the rest of her life in Seattle with the exception of a couple of years when Homer temporarily owned an automobile dealership in Mount Vernon, WA where my father was born in 1916 and where canceled checks in her father's estate show she still lived till at least till May of 1918. She would raise her two children in Seattle. Ruth Emma Hine was born in 1911 and Edward Kirtland Hine ("Kirt", my father) was born in 1916 when Rose was 41 years old. Homer passed away in 1958 and Rose spent the last years of her life with a full time live-in caregiver in the large home in an exclusive Seattle residential community that the Hines had purchased in 1927. The later years of Rose's life were lived in stark contrast to the childhood she had spent on the Idaho frontier. Rose passed away at age 92 on April 26, 1967 in Seattle. She is buried with her husband in his ancestral Hine family plot in the Riverside Cemetery in Poland, Ohio. Her Seattle obituary reads: "Mrs. Rose B. Hine, 92, of 1204 Parkside Drive, died Wednesday. Born in Walla Walla, she was raised in Soda Springs, Idaho. She came to Seattle in 1902. Her husband, Homer Henry Hine, died in 1958. Survivors include a daughter, Mrs. Thomas K. Darling, Leavenworth; and a son, Edward Kirtland Hine, Garrison, NY. Services: Private Friday, 11:00am, Bonney-Watson Central; cremation, with internment in the family plot, Poland, Ohio."
Some final observations: Rose had married and left home 7 years before the divorce of her parents and before her father's most famous accomplishments involving the Last Chance Canal. Long distance communications in the late 1800's would have been almost entirely via letter and it is thus possible that Rose was never much involved in, or informed about, the specific circumstances leading to the divorce of her parents nor her father's role in transforming the economy of the Gentile Valley. In any case Rose apparently didn't pass along a lot of information to her children regarding her parents and thus not a lot was passed on to my generation. I never recall my father talking about his Turner grandparents and/or cousins and thus I think it possible that he never visited or knew them. On the other hand, my aunt, Ruth Hine-Darling, does have some vague recollections of visiting her Turner grandparents as a very young child. Ruth was born in 1911, 8 years after her grandparent's divorce and the year her grandfather, Edward J. Turner, re-married. E.J. Turner only lived till Ruth was 5 years old and my father was born the year E.J. died. Ruth would have visited her grandfather in the Gentile Valley and her grandmother in Weiser and/or the Jerome/Shoshone area of Idaho. Edward Hugh Turner (1877-1949) Edward was born January 18, 1877 at Spokane (Post Falls), the Washington Territory and came to the Gentile Valley, Idaho with his parents as an infant. His middle name, Hugh, likely came from his father's brother, Frederick Hugh Turner and or his great grandfather Hugh Jehu. I know nothing about Edward's childhood. His absence from the Turner family's 1900 Gentile Valley census record suggests that he had left home by then when he would have been 23. He married Mary Elizabeth Clabby on November 24, 1908 in Weiser, Idaho. Edward and Mary would have 5 children: John Edward Turner (b. April 23, 1910, d. 1946), Catherine R. Turner (b. abt. 1912), Elizabeth E. Turner (b. abt. 1917), Dorothy M. Turner (b. abt. 1919), and Richard D. Turner (b. 1926). Mary's 1970 obituary indicates that the family had lived in the Jerome area of Idaho for 54 years suggesting that they moved to south-central Idaho around 1916. World War I draft registration records show that Edward registered in 1917 or 1918 in Lincoln County, Idaho (in which the town of Shoshone is located about 18 miles north of Jerome). Canceled checks from his father's estate file show that he was in Shoshone in February of 1917 and in May of 1918 but in Jerome in and after October 1918. 1920 and 1930 census records show that Edward and his family were living in Jerome where, according to his obituary, Edward was employed as "city street commissioner, highway engineer, and county highway supervisor". These positions suggest that Edward may have received a good education in his younger years and its therefore possible that his parents sent him to boarding school as they had his older sister Rose and that he had completed at least some college. Edward's mother, Martha Catherine Turner, apparently lived with Edward and his family in the Jerome area for a time prior to her 1935 death. Edward passed away on May 4, 1949 at the age of 72 near Jerome and is buried in the Jerome Cemetery (grave # 2-L-32) near, but not adjacent to, his mother. Records show that both Edward and his son John Edward Turner who proceeded him in death in 1946 passed away in the tiny town of Wendell, Gooding County, Idaho. Wendell is about 10 miles northwest of Jerome and it is likely that this was their home during this time period. Edward's Jerome, ID obituary (North Side News, Jerome ID, May 12, 1949, Page 9) obtained at the Jerome County Historical Society Museum reads: "Services Held For Edward Turner on Friday Afternoon - Final rites were held for Edward Hugh Turner on Friday, May 6, 1949 at St. Jerome's Catholic Church. Father E. A. Schermanson officiated. Mr. Turner was born January 18, 1877, at Spokane, Washington. He was the son of Edward J. and Martha H. Turner. In 1908 he was united in marriage to Mary E. Clabby at Weiser, Idaho. Mr. Turner came to Jerome from Shoshone 31 years ago. He has served as city street commissioner, highway engineer, and county highway supervisor. Mr. Turner belonged to the Holy Name Society, and organization of the Catholic church. Survivors include his wife, Mrs. Mary E. Turner; three daughters, Mrs. Gordon Gray, Twin Falls, Mrs. James Crow, Spokane, Wash., Mrs George Hulbert, Gooding; a son, Richard D. of Jerome, another son, John, preceded him in death in 1946. Two sisters, Mrs. Homer Hine, Seattle, Wash. and Mrs. E.V. Jefferson, Weiser, Idaho; Two brothers, Fred Turner, Ketchum, and Percy Turner, Spokane, Washington. Pallbearers were: Emmett Conner, M.V. Wolf, Nick Trappen, John Hosman, Emmett Smith, and James Gladowski. Burial was in the Jerome Cemetery and the funeral arrangements were under direction of Frazier's Mortuary." Edward's wife Mary passed away on January
24, 1970 in Jerome. She is buried in the Jerome Cemetery (grave # 2-L-31)
with her husband and next to their son, John Edward Turner who preceded both his
parents in
death. Mary's obituary in the North Side News, Jerome ID, January 29,
1970, Page 5 reads:
Lillian Turner (1883-1963) Lillian was born in June of 1883 in the Gentile Valley of southeast Idaho. The fact that all her siblings had middle names suggests that Lillian likely had one also but I haven't run into it. While not a minor at the time of her parents 1903 divorce she apparently moved with her mother to Weiser, Idaho as she shows up there in the 1910 census living with her mother and younger brother Frederick. Lillian likely spent a number of years living with her mother, Martha, who is believed to have lived in the Weiser area till sometime from around 1917 to 1920 when she moved to the Shoshone/Jerome area. At the age of 35 Lillian married Elvin V. Jefferson, a dentist, on August 05, 1918 at Payette, Idaho which is about 10 miles from Weiser. Lillian and Elvin had one child that I'm aware of, George F. Jefferson who was born in about 1922 when Lillian would have been about 39 years old. (Both Lillian and her older sister Rose had children late in life). Dick Turner has confirmed to me that his aunt Lillian had a child named George. Lillian and Elvin Jefferson apparently spent the rest of their lives in (or near) Weiser as records show that they are both buried in Weiser's Hillcrest Cemetery. Elvin passed away in 1952 and Lillian in 1963 at the age of 80. Cancelled checks in her father's estate file confirm that she was in Weiser from 1917 till 1924. Percy George Turner (1888 - ?) Percy was born in June of 1888 in the Gentile Valley of southeast Idaho. His middle name, George, was likely a family name as Percy's father had a brother with the name and his mother's father may have been named George. I've uncovered nothing regarding his early childhood. Percy's parents divorced when he was 15 years old and the divorce case file indicates that his father, Edward J. Turner, got custody of him suggesting that he stayed at the Gentile Valley ranch after his mother, sister Lillian, and younger brother Frederick moved to Weiser, Idaho. Perhaps Percy showed the potential for, and/or an interest in, someday taking over the ranch. Idaho marriage records show that Percy married Myrtle Pond (b. abt 1888 in Thatcher, Idaho not far from the Gentile Valley) on December 15, 1915 in Pocatello, ID. Myrtle's maiden name (Pond) appears more than once in Grace area historical records so I suspect that she probably had known Percy for some years prior to their marriage. Percy and Myrtle had no children indicated in the 1920 census and I haven't found 1930 or 1940 census records for them. They did have at least one child who I've found a death record for. Daughter Marilyn Turner was born on Feb. 10, 1922 in Pocatello, Idaho and died at age 26 in Utah having been married to K.C. Lavine. Dick Turner believes his cousin Marilyn died from typhoid fever. I haven't been able to determine if Percy and Myrtle had any other children. Dick Turner also believes that his uncle Percy was married a second time. A 1917 World War I draft registration record shows that Percy registered on June 5th and it shows Grace, ID as his address. Having registered for the draft doesn't mean that he was ever drafted or served in the military and I have found no record that he did. His age of 29 in 1917 suggest that he probably didn't serve in the military. Also in 1917 Percy became the administrator of his father's estate and is regularly shown on legal documents in the probate case file as living in Grace around this time. In November of 1921 he is shown as living on his "homestead near Grace". 1920 census records show Percy (a "farmer") and Myrtle living in Grace, Idaho (possibly the Gentile Valley). This was 4 years after his father had passed away and since his father had sold most or all of the original Turner Ranch prior to his death, Percy was apparently not living on his father's land but had acquired some of his own. 1920 was the last census I could find Percy in but he apparently left the Gentile Valley sometime in the next 15 years. Regardless of exactly when he left he was the last of children of Edward and Martha Turner to leave the Gentile Valley. On January 5th, 1929 a notary-public
witnessed Percy's signature on an estate document in Pocatello. However, Percy signed the Petition for Discharge as
administrator of his father's estate on February 4, 1929
as witnessed by a notary-public as "Notary Public for Idaho - Residence,
Gooding, Idaho" and another document on January 22, 1929 with the same
notary-public notation. It is not clear whether the word "Residence"
refers to the notary's home or Percy's nor whether Gooding refers to the town or
the county. The town of Gooding is about 12 miles due west of Shoshone. The town of Wendell
(in Gooding
County, ID) is closer to Jerome then Gooding and was possibly the home of
Percy's brother Edward at this
time. I have no idea whether Percy had moved from the Grace area to
central Idaho by 1929 or whether he may have just been visiting his brother
there. I have been unable to find any death records for Percy however Dick Turner believed Percy "died after 1958, maybe about 1960". Frederick Hillman Turner (1894 - ?) Frederick, who is referred to in most records as Fred, was born in the Gentile Valley of southeastern Idaho in March of 1894 according to census records. His World War I draft registration record however shows he was born on March 29, 1895, a year later. Frederick was no doubt named for an uncle as his father had a brother named Frederick Hugh Turner. While his parents divorce case file shows that his middle initial was "R" (I suspect a typographic error), all other references I have uncovered show that it was "H". His draft registration record clearly shows that his middle name was Hillman, his mother's maiden name. Like most of his siblings, I know nothing about his early childhood though he would have spent his early years on the Turner Ranch like his older brothers and sisters. Frederick's parents were divorced in 1903 when he was about 9 years old. The divorce agreement gave temporary custody of Frederick to his father Edward for about 9 months and then permanent custody to his mother Martha. The 9 month delay was possibly to allow him to finish the school year at his current location and allow his mother time to relocate. Frederick would have spent the least amount of time living on the Turner Ranch of all of Edward and Martha's children due to the divorce. 1910 census records show that 16 year old Frederick, his mother, and sister Lillian were living together in Weiser at the far western part of Idaho and hundreds of miles from the Gentile Valley ranch where his older brother Percy stayed in the custody of father Edward. The World War I Civilian Draft Registration (1917-1918) list shows that "Fred Hillman Turner" (and brother "Edward Hugh Turner") registered in Lincoln County, Idaho in 1917 or 1918. The town of Shoshone is located in Lincoln County and is not far from Jerome, ID. The Jerome, ID gravesite of Frederick's mother, Martha Catherine Turner, contains a marker identifying her as a member of the American Legion Auxiliary. I've learned that to obtain membership she would have needed to be the wife, daughter, sister, or mother of a World War I veteran. Since a wife, daughter, or sister relationship would have been unlikely due to age, its therefore likely that one or more of her sons served. Records show that Edward and Frederick registered for the World War I draft in 1917 or 1918 (which doesn't necessarily mean that they served). In 1917 Edward would have been age 40, Percy age 29, and Frederick age 23. Based on his age I think it most likely that Frederick served in World War I and Dick Turner believes that his uncle Fred in fact did serve. 1920 census records for Shoshone, Lincoln County, Idaho show Fred living there with his mother. Martha had apparently followed sons Frederick and Edward to south-central Idaho. She would have been 66 years old in 1920 and her sons were possibly supporting her by then. Cancelled checks in his father's probate case file show that Fred was in Shoshone in February of 1917, at various times in 1918 and 1919, and still in March of 1922 (3-1/2 years after cancelled checks show his brother Edward had moved from Shoshone to Jerome). An index card record in the Jerome County Historical Society Museum indicates that they have a notice which appeared in the Jerome North Side News announcing the marriage of Fred H. Turner to Gladys Bird on June 8, 1925. In July of 2006 the museum caretaker and I could not find the actual article as no issue of the paper was published that day. This suggests that the date on the index card may have been accidentally recorded as the marriage date, not the publication date. 1930 census records for Jerome, Jerome County, Idaho show Frederick (about age 34) and Gladys (age 36, born in Colorado) living with a 4 year old daughter named Elaine. Frederick's occupation is shown as "Sheriff", probably of Jerome County. Daughter Elaine is the only child I have definitely been able to identify in census records for Frederick and Gladys. Dick Turner remembers his cousin Elaine by the name Cherrie (maybe Sherry) and recalls that they were about the same age (which is consistent). He believes his cousin "Cherrie" (Elaine) died of cancer at about age 20. Dick also believes Fredrick and Gladys had another younger child named Dean. The 1930 census no longer shows Frederick's mother living with him. She was probably by then living with son Edward nearby. Martha Turner's 1935 Jerome, ID obituary indicates that son Frederick was still a resident of Jerome at the time. Dick Turner has confirmed that his uncle Fred had been the local Sheriff till perhaps 1932. Dick also indicated that Fred then worked for the Union Pacific Railroad in Ketchum, ID for some years. A 1942 note written by my mother indicates that Frederick was in Ketchum, ID at that time. Ketchum is about 80 miles north of Jerome and 60 miles north of Shoshone. He had apparently moved after living for a number of years in Jerome. His brother Edward's 1949 Jerome, ID obituary indicates that Frederick was still in Ketchum. I could find no later information which I could definitively identify as pertaining to Frederick Hillman Turner. There is a Social Security Death Index record showing that a "Frederick Turner" died in Shoshone, ID in 1980. Frederick was known to have lived in Shoshone in earlier years and both Jerome and Ketchum, other known residences, are not all that far away. However, I have no way to be sure that this is the right Frederick Turner. If it is Frederick Hillman Turner, he would have died at the age of about 86.
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