Mamie (Baker) Meyers and Her Family

 My great aunt Mamie (Baker) Meyers.
She was a younger sister of my great grandmother, Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders.
Mamie was born Jan 1, 1895 in Glendale, Montana,
to Martha (Woodside) Baker and Fred Baker.

There is no date on this photo, but she appears to be in her thirties or early forties.

 This is a photo of Mamie with her first husband, Joe Michels.
No one can remember why Joe and Mamie's marriage ended.

Mamie with her son Kenneth Michels.

Kenneth died in childhood from polio and was never spoken of

after Mamie married her second husband Henry Meyers.

There is no date on the photo.

Mamie again with her son Kenneth.

There is no date on the photo.

Kenneth Michels.
There is no date on the photo, but a note on the back
places the location as Neptune Beach, Alameda, CA.

Another photo of Kenneth Michels, in childhood.

Mamie with my father, George Marion Saunders.

Mamie and her husband, Henry Meyers, owned the house
across the street from my paternal grandparent's house,
at 624 46th Street, in Oakland, CA.
In her long life, she was "Aunt Mamie" to both her nephew (my grandfather)
Delbert "Bud" Saunders, and my father, George Marion Saunders.
There is no date on the phot, but I estimate it was taken about 1944 or 1945,
when my father was three or four years old.
A note on the back of the photo places the location as 46th Street, Oakland, CA.

Mamie and Henry lived well into their seventies.
She was alive when I was a child old enough to remember her.
I can recall visiting their home when I was around five years of age (approx. 1968),
which would have made Mamie about seventy-three.
She made me this sleepy-time puppy which I cherished all my childhood,
and still have tucked away in a memento box.
Once, when I had to sew up a tear in its threadbare cloth,
I discovered that she had stuffed it with her old silk stockings.
No wonder it was so soft.

The Baker Family

The family of Fred Baker and Martha Emily (Woodside) Baker,

my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders) maternal grandparents.

Fred is the man on the right side of the group.  His wife, Martha, is the woman standing in the doorway with her arms folded.  Their children are Nora Belle (in the white shirt, next to Martha), Nellie (standing between Martha and Fred), Frank (the boy standing in front of Martha), Ruby (the girl in white at the left-front of the group) and Mamie (the girl in the dark dress at the right-front of the group).  Nora Belle Baker was my grandfather Delbert's mother - my great grandmother. The photo was taken at their family home in Dillon, Montana.

Fred Baker was born in 1858 in Summit County, Utah.  He died in 1910, in Dillon, the year before my grandfather was born.

Martha Woodside was born January 22, 1866, in McDonough County, Illinois, to parents Nancy Jane (Seybold) Woodside and John Robinson Woodside.  As a young woman, Martha taught school  in Illinois.  She died February 4, 1939 in Stockton, California.  After her first husband, Fred, died, Martha married Dan Dwight.  Because Fred Baker died before my grandfather  Delbert was born, Dan Dwight is whom he called "grandfather."

Martha and Fred had a child who died May 11, 1887 following what the Glendale Gatherings social column listed as "a measles epidemic [that] has been engulfing the neighborhood."  I think the child's name was Bessie.  She would have been the oldest of their children.

Nancy Jayne (Seybold) Woodside

The woman in this photo is my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders)
great-grandmother, Nancy Jayne (Seybold) Woodside.
The child in her arms is her granddaughter, Delbert's aunt, Mamie Baker.
The photo was taken in Dillon, Montana.

Nancy Jayne was born October 17, 1836, in Rockbridge, McDonough County, Illinois, to parents Mary "Polly" (Hardisty) Seybold (born June, 6 1814 in Washington County, Kentucky) and Dotson Seybold (born in February 1802, in Washington County, Kentucky).  Nancy Jayne was the third of twelve children including Elizabeth Margaret (born November 13, 1832); William Washington (born December 18, 1834), John Vinson (born February 12, 1839), Rhoda (born March 22, 1841), Harriet Emily (born September 12, 1843), Henderson Franklin (born February 15, 1847), Lucetta (born October 15, 1848), Charles Harrison (born May 26, 1851), Joseph Lafayette (born May 12, 1854), Marion (born February 10, 1857) and Luther Bush (born October 5, 1859).

Nancy Jayne married John Robinson Woodside on January 4, 1852 in Macomb, McDonough County, Illinois. John was born September 16, 1830 in Rockbridge, Lexington County.  Census records show that he had been working on Dotson Seybold's farm in 1850, where he most likely met Nancy Jane.

Nancy Jayne gave birth to eleven children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.  They were Mary Ellen (born March 12, 1857), Lewis Gregory (born July 28, 1859), David Newton (born May 17, 1864), Martha Emily (my grandfather, Delbert Saunders's grandmother) (born January 22, 1866), Cyrus Dick (born in 1868), Napoleon (born in 1869), Joseph "Doc" Marion (born in 1872), Rhoda Belle (born January 11, 1875), as well as three other children named Adanajah, Charley and Louisa whose birth dates are unknown and who, along with Napoleon, appear not to have survived to adulthood.

Up until at least 1860, the family resided in Blandinsville, McDonough County, Illinois, where John is listed in the Census at age 29, with Nancy at age 22.  Their children at that time included Mary (age 3) and Lewis (age 3 months).  John was working as a mill hand at that time with valuation of $500.

The 1870 Census finds them in Atchison, Nodaway County, Missouri, where John, then age 40, was working as a farmer with valuation of $400-$600.  By that time Nancy was age 33, and her children included Mary (age 13), Lewis (age 11), David (age 6), Martha (age 3) and Napoleon (age 1).  Napoleon was born in Missouri.

By 1880 the family had moved to Nodaway, also in Nodaway County, Missouri, where John (then 50) was still working as farmer.  Nancy (then 43) had seven children, including Mary (age 23), Lewis (age 20), David (age 16), Martha (age 13), Cyrus (age 11), Joseph (age 8) and Rhoda (age 4). Joseph and Rhoda, who are also born in Missouri.

John and Nancy Jayne's marriage ended in divorce, some time between 1880 and 1895.  On June 7, 1895, the Dillon (Montana) Tribune noted in the newsy columns that Mrs. Woodside, her daughter Rhoda and Mrs. Baker (i.e. Martha Emily Woodside Baker) had returned to Glendale, Montana to live.  Nancy Jayne is counted in the 1900 Census as living in Glendale township, Beaverhead County, Montana, at age 63 with her son, Cyrus Dick (age 31) who was at that time a farm laborer.

Nancy Jayne died January 1, 1901, in Glendale, Montana.

Ancient family legend has it that Woodsides came from Scotland and went by the name "Cunningham."  During the reign of the Irish High King, Brian Boru (in the early 1000s), the family departed Scotland for Ireland and changed its name to “Woodside."