Ruby (Baker) Finney as a Young Woman

A portrait of Ruby (Baker) Finney.
There is no date on the photo, but it is likely from around 1915,
When she would have been in her mid-teens.

Ruby (Baker) Finney, as a young woman.
This photo is undated, but judging from the clothing, her hair and age,
it is likely from around 1918.

Ruby was the youngest child of Fred Baker and Martha (Woodside) Baker.  She married Bedford Finney with whom she had two children -- Barbara and Bedford Jr.  Though I am not certain of her exact age, I estimate she was born around 1900.  My grandfather, Delbert Marion Saunders, describes his Aunt Ruby as "like a sister to me."  Ruby and Bedford originally lived in Long Beach, but moved to Oakland when my Delbert was in Junior High School.  At the age of 14, Delbert had quit school to work in a wire factory, in order to support his family.  Ruby and her husband talked him into quitting work and returning to school.  They tried their best to support him.  He says of her, in a letter to us the year before he died, "Ruby was so good to me, I hope that where ever she may be, that she will know how much I love and always appreciated what a fine person she was."

Ruby died early in life.  She had joined a fundamentalist church that persuaded her to give up all medications.  In an advanced stage of pregnancy, she was rushed to the hospital with uremic poisoning.  Unfortunately, she did not survive. 

Ruby (Baker) Finney Nursing Photos

Ruby (Baker) Finney, training as a nurse at Alta Bates Sanitorium.
Ruby was my great grandmother Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders's sister,
and my grandfather Delbert's aunt.
The photo is dated February 6, 1920 with a greeting in her own hand on the back:
"Love to all, from Ruby."

Ruby (on the right) with a nursing school classmate, Eng Daniels,
at Alta Bates Sanitorium.  This photo is dated May 1920.

Ruby in training at Alta Bates Sanitorium.
This photo is dated March 11, 1923.

Ruby's nursing school graduation photo.
Unfortunately, this photo is not dated, but it is likely from the mid-1920s.

Another of Ruby's nursing school graduation photos,
Likely from the mid-1920s.

Alta Bates Sanitorium, now called Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, in Oakland, CA, was founded  in 1905 as an eight-bed hospital for women and their infants, by Nurse Alta Alice Miner Bates.  Alta was a prominent early California Nurse Anesthetist, having been one of the first graduates of a nurse's training program out of Eureka, CA.  Alta administered over 14,000 anesthetics during a career lasting more than fifteen years.  Early in the 1900s, she opened her family's home to women and children medical needing care.  Soon after that, with about one hundred dollars, a building design from her father and credit from local merchants, she founded the eight-bed hospital that came to bear her name.  Throughout her career, Alta was active in the nurses' training program at her hospital and likely taught Ruby and her classmates during the early 1920s, while the hospital was expanding its capacity and services.

Delbert Saunders's High School Year Book Page

Delbert Marion Saunders's Senior high school year book page.
He attended Fremont High School, in Oakland, CA.

Grandpa was due to graduate from high school in June 1930.  Sadly, he never finished.  Times were hard and he dropped out of high school to work full time, in order to support his grandmother, with whom he was living.  In his own words (from a letter he wrote to us the year before he died):

"I studied hard in school and managed to skip a grade. I worked as a house boy for a family in Piedmont. Then I worked in a boarding house... They treated me like a slave. From there, I got a job working at an auto laundry, on Fridays and Saturdays, and also ran some poker games on the side. My problem holding that job was the extensive lying I had to do to my school counselor, regarding reasons that I was missing all my Friday classes. This had to end, so I managed to get a job driving for the Manila Meat Market, after school and all day Saturday. The job was punishing because of the long hours involved, and the difficult transportation getting to 82nd Avenue from High School. I had to do my homework on the street car and sometimes fell asleep on the way home, waking up at the end of the line in San Leandro. Never the less, I enjoyed it very much. The people I worked for, a nice German family, treated me just like a member of their own family.  As would be happening all over, the depression was building up and the company went broke; and with it went my job. That ended my chance of going to college. But not all was lost. I had found the love of my life -- your Grandmother.  Of this good fortune, I have been very blessed."

Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders in his Late Teens

Delbert Marion Saunders.
This photo is actually a small proof, about 1-inch in size,
that I scanned at 300% to make it larger.
It appears to be from a sitting he took as a Senior, for his high-school yearbook.
The photo is not dated, but it is probably from 1930.

Delbert Marion Saunders,
looking strikingly handsome in a tux.
This photo is also a small proof, about 1-inch in size,
that I scanned at 300% to make it larger.
These photos would have been taken while he was and a senior at
Fremont High School, in Oakland, CA.

Delbert Marion Saunders, at the beach.

Two things I love about this photo are the old fashioned swim suit he is wearing and the fact that whomever he was there with is cropped out of the photo. I found this in the front of my grandmother's teen-age photo album, along with the torn photo below.  Clearly, she wanted to save a photo of him, but not of the girl he was with at the time.  How adorable.

Delbert Marion Saunders wearing some dandy knickers.
He on a beach and, from his stance (and knowing what Grandpa loved most),
I'm guessing he was fishing.
Scroll down to reveal the mystery of who is cut out of the photo on the left.

Delbert Marion Saunders, on a beach picnic with a girlfriend.
Looking through my grandfather's High School yearbook,
I found a photo of someone who looks like this girl, who also signed the year book.
Her name was Geneva Proctor.  She may have been his High School sweet heart.

Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders as a Toddler

Delbert Marion Saunders, as a toddler.
This photo and frame are tiny -- only about 1x1.5 inches.
I found it way down in the bottom of my grandmother's photo box.
My guess is that this is "Bud" at about age 3, in 1913.

Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders

My paternal grandfather, Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders, as a small child
with his aunt, Ruby (Baker) Finney, who was Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders's sister.
The back of the photo indicates it was taken in Dillon, Montana, but there is no date.
Judging from the approximate age of Delbert (2-3 years), this photo is probably around 1912-1913.

My paternal grandfather, Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders,
with his grandmother, Martha (Woodside) Baker.
The back of the photo says it was taken in Bannack, Montana.
There is no date on the photo but it is likely from around 1915.

My paternal grandfather, Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders
(standing with his hand shading his eyes).

The others in this third photo include Delbert's grandmother, Martha (Woodside) Baker (standing) and her second husband Dan Dwight (standing, cropped) whom she married after her first husband, Fred Baker died.  The younger woman sitting in the center of the photo is Delbert's aunt, Maime (Baker) Myers, who was Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders's sister.  The child on he lap is her son Kenny Michaels, who was a child of her first marriage to Joe Michaels.  Kenny died in childhood and was not spoken of after Mamie remarried Henry Myers, whom she remained married to until death.  The man in the lower right corner is Frank Baker, my grandfather's uncle and Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders's brother.  There is an unknown boy poking his head into the frame of the photo on the left.  There is no indication on the photo who this child is, but I love the expression of curiosity on his face.  There is no location or date indicated on the photo, but it is likely from around 1918.

Dotson Seybold & Mary "Polly" (Hardisty) Seybold

This is Mary "Polly" (Hardisty) Seybold, the mother
of my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders)

great-grandmother, Nancy Jane (Seybold) Woodside.

These are six of Polly's seven sons,
William, John, Henderson, Charles, Joseph, Marion and Luther,
brothers of my paternal grandfather's (Delbert Saunders)

great-grandmother, Nancy Jane (Seybold) Woodside.
(Unfortunately, I don't know which brother is missing from the photo
or which names belong to which brothers.)

These photos comes by way of the Glendale, Montana historical website, which has proven to be a veritable treasure-trove of information on my family's Montana pioneers.  The site features a lengthy biography of Dotson, Polly and their offspring, which I repeat below, with gratitude to those in Glendale who went to the effort of compiling it:

Dotson Seybold was born February, 1802 in Washington, Kentucky.  He was the third of four children born to Jesse and Margaret Seybold.  He moved to Macomb, Illinois  possibly as early as 1817.

Mary "Polly" Hardisty was the second of 12 children born to Dr. John Hardisty and his wife Elizabeth Hungate. Polly was born June 6, 1814 in Washington County, Kentucky, and moved with her family to Blandinsville, McDonough County, Illinois, around 1815 or 1816, where the other ten children were born.

Polly and Dotson were married March 23, 1831, in McDonough County, Illinois. Over the next 27 years, they had 12 children, all born in McDonough County; Elizabeth Margaret born November 13, 1832; William Washington born December 18, 1834; Nancy Jayne born October 17, 1836;  John Vinson, born 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.

Dotson's and Polly's sons, John, Henderson, Charles, Joseph, Marion and Luther, along with their widowed sister, Nancy and her children, moved to Glendale by wagon train along the Old Oregon Trail.   They took the Montana Trail north to the gold fields of Montana Territory, ending up in Glendale working in the Hecla silver mines and smelter for over a decade.

Dotson and Polly soon followed. On the 1880 census, Dotson is listed as working as a laborer  in Glendale's Hecla Mines, at age 78. By 1885, he had quit working at Hecla and moved to Hubbell, Nebraska where he and Polly stayed for a few years until his sons convinced them to return to Montana where they lived on land that five of their sons had homesteaded between Dell and Lima. 

Dotson died February 15, 1888 in Dillon at the age of 86. Polly died November 2, 1895 in Dillon at age 81. They are both buried in the Lima Cemetery in the Seybold family plot.

Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders

Three portraits, at different ages, of my paternal great grandmother,
Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders,
my grandfather Delbert Saunders's mother.

Nora Belle married my father's namesake, George Marion Saunders, on May 6, 1908 in Blackfoot, Bingham County, Idaho, when she was just 17 years old.  Their first son, James "Jimmy" Robert Saunders was born when she was 18.  My grandfather, Delbert "Bud" Marion Saunders, was born in Roundup, Montana, in 1911, when Nora Belle was 19.  Though she loved George Marion very much, he was (in the words of my grandfather), "a failure as a husband and father, " and the marriage ended in divorce. Nora Belle later married George Carston, a native of California and a switchman on the railroads.  With George Carston, she bore another son, Arnold.  She, George, Jimmy, Bud and Arnold eventually moved to California and settled in Tracy, CA, along with the families of Nora's sisters (Ruby, Nellie and Mamie).  Nora remained married to George Carston until her death.

Nora became diabetic and, as my grandfather describes, "had it under control by way of a new drug -- insulin -- and her diet."  Unfortunately, she died quite early in life, on January 1, 1925, at the age of 33 after a friend talked her into joining a fundamentalist church that practiced faith healing and she stopped taking her insulin.  This incident, as well as the death of Nora's sister Ruby, who also fell under the influence of the fundamentalist teachings and died from uremic poisoning after a difficult pregnancy, caused my grandfather to reject all forms of organized religion and live by his own philosophy of "trying not to make too many trespasses or hurt anyone."  Ironically, thought I never saw him attend church, I consider my grandfather to be the most Christian person I have ever had the privilege of knowing.

Nora Belle & Nellie Baker

Nora Belle Baker (standing) and her younger sister, Nellie Baker.
Daughters of Fred Baker and Martha Emily (Woodside) Baker.

Nora Belle is my paternal grandfather's (Delbert "Bud" Saunders) mother and my great grandmother.  She was born May 2, 1892 in Glendale, Beaverhead County, Montana.  The photo was taken in Dillon, Montana, but there is no date on it.  Judging from the age of Nora Belle, it was probably taken around 1907 when she was about 15. I'm lucky enough to have been passed down the locket that Nora Belle is wearing around her neck.  My grandmother, Irma D'Angeli (Delbert's wife), gave it to me the Christmas I was 13 years old.

Martha (Woodside) Baker

My great-great-grandmother, Martha (Woodside) Baker,
around the time she was in her late 60s (the early 1930s).

This was my paternal grandfather's (Delbert "Bud" Saunders) grandmother.

A hearty pioneer, she lived much of her life in the wilds of Montana and played a large role in raising my grandfather as a child.  Family lore has it that she traveled to Montana with her husband, Fred, from Illinois, by covered wagon.  As with many pioneer women she was reputed to be very capable and strong, but also extremely tenderhearted and generous.   If my grandfather's ways were any imitation of hers, she must have been an amazingly compassionate soul.  My grandmother Irma (D'Angeli) Saunders, Bud's wife, always told the story of how astoundingly tall she found Martha to be, when they first met.  Being that Irma measured in just barely above five-feet, that might not have been saying much except that Martha  stood near the same height as my grandfather, who was himself about six feet tall.

I love the beautiful serenity of her face in this photo.  Her eyes are so gentle and kind.  They are the same eyes I remember from my grandfather's face.

In the bottom right corner of the photo is written the word "Mother" in my great-grandmother,'s (Nora Belle (Baker) Saunders) hand.  My first inclination was to PhotoShop it out, but I quickly thought better and decided to preserve it for posterity.