Relationship 7: George Washington Samuels & Lucy Mildred Coleman

Relationship Record 7

Male/Husband} Samuels, George Washington (Geo)

Family History} Hancock

Female/Wife} Coleman, Lucy Mildred

Relationship Type} Marriage

Marriage: Date} Exa 14 Mar 1883

Place} Napa, Napa, California

Ended: On Date} Exa 8 Dec 1913
By} Death of wife

Source 1}	51 = Newspaper
Source 2}	211 = Marriage rec
Source 3}	19 = 1900 USA cen
Source 4}	24 = 1910 USA cen
Source 5}	776 = Death certif
Source 6}	43 = Obituary
Source 7}	751 = Photographs
Source 8}	735 = Photographs
Source 9}	1070 = Photographs

1st Household No.} 84 = Blue Mountain, Napa County, Calif.

Photos} See below

Last Updated
by} Karen Hancock

Date Updated} 24 Mar 2023
Date Created} 17 Jun 1994

Notes: Party at the Canyon House 27 Oct 1882, Napa, California
"Our correspondent at Capall valley writes as follows: A social party was given at the Canyon House, Friday enening, by the proprietor, which all in attendance pronounced a grand success. At an early hour wagons and buggies began to arrive from all parts of the surrounding country. At midnight the guests sat down to a sumptuous repast. Music was furnished by the Monticello string band. Dancing began at an early hour and was kept up until broad daylight. Among those present we noticed the following ladies and gentlemen: . . . . Lucy Coleman . . . George Samuels . . ."

George was 20 years old and living in Gordon Valley in March 1883 when he married Lucy, age 18, of Cherry Valley in Napa County. Their wedding photo is at the right. Neither had been married before. Lucy was small, thin, and weighed about 95 pounds.

George and Lucy's marriage occured 13½ months after the marriage of George's brother Henry Samuels to Irene Colemen, Lucy's sister. Henry and Irene were the witnesses at George and Lucy's marriage.

Using a dowry from Lucy's parents, George and Lucy homesteaded and built a 4-room house at Blue Mountain in Napa County. Their eight children were born there between 1883 and 1901. The daughters lived in the big attic.

In the 1900 U.S. census, George, 36, was living in Vacaville, Solana, and Lucy, 35, was living on Blue Mountain, Knox Twp., Napa. They were counted in both places. According to the Napa census, their children were Walter, 16, Edith M., 14, Alma C., 12, Bessie E., 10, Nora A., 8, Millie, 5, and Gerna B., 2. Their daughter, Gerna Belle, died on 13 Nov 1900 at age 1 year and 4½ months. Their son Osmond was born about 1902.

Lucy didn't want to come down off the mountain; however, the land was rocky and unfarmable. George needed to make a living — so he moved down to Vacaville and visited her at Blue Mountain periodically. In the Fall of 1905 George moved his family down from Blue Mountain to a one-story house with basement on North Street (now Behrens Street) in the town of Napa. Lucy and their children stayed there while he worked in Vacaville. He periodically visited.

The photo at the right shows the family in 1908.

In the 1910 U.S. census, George W., 47, and Lucy M., 43, were listed at 113 North St., Napa. George was a foreman for a fruit farm, presumably in Vacaville. The children still at home were Walter R., 26, a laborer doing odd jobs, Bessie E., 20, an office stenographer, Norah A., 17, By 1910, after 27 years of marriage, Lucy had become very unhappy and wrote the following:

"Many men are like that. They use a woman as if she were a rose to be worn on their breast for an hour and then thrown aside. Little things gave me joy: a book, a picture, a new dress, a cheap jewel, a little journey. It would have taken so little to make me happy and yet I have not had that little. Because he did not enjoy the things I did, I was never permitted to have them. I have had nothing in all these 27 years but hard work, a ceaseless heart-breaking struggle to keep the mantle of wifely duty pinned around my skeleton to keep the world from seeing or hearing that I am unhappy. I weep for the love that he killed. Poor little fool that I was! When you take a woman's love away from her there is nothing else left in life for her to hope for. Nothing. That is the end and the end came for me long ago."

Lucy became ill with tuberculosis in 1912 and passed away in December of 1913. She is buried in the Samuels plot in Tulocay, Napa, Napa, California.

(To view George and his surviving children in later years, click here.)

Children:

Total # of Children} 8

Seq. # of Primary} 5

1st Child}	Samuels, Walter Rodney
2nd Child}	Samuels, Edith Margaret
3rd Child}	Samuels, Alma Claire
4th Child}	Samuels, Bessie Edna (Bess)
5th Child}	Samuels, Nora Agnes
6th Child}	Samuels, Mildred Mary (Millie)
7th Child}	Samuels, Gerna Bell
8th Child}	Samuels, Osmond Lloyd

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