An Unexpected Find

One of my longest and fruitless on-going searches has been for information regarding my father's father.

The family story was that my grandmother, Pearl Ford, met and married Charles Budavich, an immigrant from Lithuania in 1926.  My father, Eugene, was born in November, and his brother Charles followed in 1927.  By 1930, Charles Budavich was gone.  Grandma had said he died young, possibly in a mining accident.

I found a Budavich family in Pennsylvania, and they originated in Lithuania, but all their members seem accounted for.  There is no Charles who disappeared to the West Coast and was never heard from again. Besides, the family immigrated in the 1880s, while Charles was (presumably) of Pearl's generation, too young to be their offspring born abroad.

The only record I could find that Charles existed is the record of his marriage to Grandma in the Washington State digital archives, where he is listed as "Charles K. Budavick."  The couple married in Tacoma, Washington on June 23, 1926--four-and-a-half months before my father was born.

I noticed when I reviewed the search results that records also showed a marriage for Pearl M. Ford that occurred in 1924.  I clicked on the linking, finding it amusing that there was someone of a similar name in the area at the time.  Apparently on July 21, 1924, Pearl M. Ford had married William H. Clark in Tacoma, Washington.  What made it odd was that one of the witnesses to this marriage had the same name as Grandma's mother: "Mrs. W. G. Ford."  So, maybe there was another "Pearl M. Ford" in Pierce county in the early 1920s, but one whose mother "Mrs. W. G. Ford?"  The other witness was "Mrs. Minnie Clark," undoubtedly William's mother, and it sounds crazy but as I read her name and imagined myself at the scene--a witness myself--felt that Minnie had not approved of this marriage at all and that she was protective of her son (turns out he was her youngest.)  Grandma Pearl married again less than two years later and as far as I know never mentioned this earlier marriage to her children at all.

I was hesitant to bring this information to my father--essentially telling him that Charles Budavich may not have been his father--but Dad seemed to be relieved, as if what I was telling him was something he had felt most of his life.  I would like to be able to tell him something more about this William Clark who may have been his father but a name like "William Clark" makes it easy to disappear.

 The Clark family left the state for California in the late 1920s.  I don't know if there was any further contact with Pearl but when I discovered that my father had started grade school in San Diego, I had to wonder if Pearl's travel to Southern California had been connected to the Clark family.

I am still puzzling this one out.

My Father's Story

My father recently sat down to write his memories from childhood.  These are his words:

The Beginning

by Eugene R. Rutland

I do not know when Gholson and Annie Ford moved with their family, Pearl, Delpha and Harry, from Oklahoma to Tacoma, Washington.  Gholson Ford was quite a bit older than Annie and was unable to work.  I do not know how or when he was injured.

Annie had a brother, Elmer Barnhart, who had a small fuel distribution business in Tacoma.  I suspect that hope of financial support from him was the basis for this migration.

In Tacoma they lived in the south end of town.  Mom (Pearl), their oldest child, dropped out of school at the age of sixteen, and went to work at Seiyers Lumber Mill in the Tide Flats area of Tacoma.

Nostalgia

The doily was crocheted by my father's mother, Pearl Ford Rutland. That's her in the photo with my Mom sometime around 1950. Our family's roots are in Washington state, where my family names turn up in books on local history.