Photo of Lucille Rice on a bike

It is amazing what appears in old newspaper clippings. For example, at the left in the photo below, was Lucille Rice in 1949 in Victoria BC.

Lucille Rice at left with Victoria Cycle Club

From the Times Colonist of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada · Friday, May 20, 1949, page 7.

Passing of Rhoda Rice

William and Rhoda Rice around 1920

When asked, mom said that Rhoda Rice was looney & passed away by her own actions. I passed that off as "just another story," much like the "indian princess" and the "three brothers" stories that abound in genealogical circles. At one time, even Elizabeth Warren claimed indian descent. Well, the Rhoda story appears to be absolutely, totally, and even mostly, true. Here's the story of Rhoda:

Photos of Rhoda and her husband, William Rice may be found here. Well, the story of Rhoda's later years is involved, but we do know that she came with William in 1930 to visit their son, TR Rice and family, and also went to Detroit to visit Rhoda's older brother, Seth Ibbotson. Records of that visit show that they came over on the Duchess of Bedford, a sister ship of the one shown at the left.

Their entry at Quebec is shown below:

In the same visit, they went from Ontario to visit Rhoda's brother, Seth. Seth came to the US around 1912 and lived in Detroit, where he made his living as a machinist in the auto industry. Seth had seven children, the last of which passed away in Florida in 1982. Seth himself, passed away later in the year that Rhoda and William visited.

Anyway, the first evidence I got that Rhoda passed away in February 1938 other than by purely natural causes came from the newspaper clipping I found some time back, shown below:

Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, 28 February 1938

Lately, however, I've gotten better at searching old British newspapers and the 2 articles below seem pretty definitive:

First, from the Sheffield Daily Independent of 23 February 1938:

Sheffield Daily Independent
23 February 1938

Before long, an official search found Rhoda after they drained the water behind the dam.

Sheffield Daily Independent
1 March 1938

After Rhoda was found, a coroner's inquest found that she died while not in her right mind. Searching for Wood's Dam, what I was able to come up with was at a site talking about dams & weirs along River Loxley. That is here. A clue suggesting it is the Wisewood Weir states: "...Both premises at Wisewood were subsequently purchased by the Wood family, who were still there in 1958. Both water and steam power were in use in 1907. " Kath Whitworth contacted a relative in Sheffield, and he provided the item below. Barry Mawhood marks up the map! In summary, it appears that Rhoda, on leave from the South Yorkshire Mental Hospital, got confused and fell or jumped in to the Wisewood reservoir near where she grew up.

Geograph, located here, has many photos of the area, such as the one below.

Photo from "Geograph" Go here

Averill Mystery Girl

Looking through the Whitworth photo collection, I ran across the photo below:

Is that mystery girl on the left, next to Martin, Linda Averill?
It looks more like her than Laura or Carol

It was labeled as a Rice/Whitworth picnic in the 1950's. However, I think that the photo was actually taken sometime around August 1966. Besides Granny and Grandad Rice smooching for the camera, there are a number of other clues and there are a few unanswered questions as well. I'll start from the left.

• Martin O'Callaghan would have been 17 in August 1966. That is definitely a teenage Martin at the far left. Whether he'
• The girl next to Martin was, I'm guessing, Linda Averill. That girl is our first mystery girl. What thinks our Averill group? Linda would have been 7 on the date in question.
• I have no idea who the woman next to our mystery girl was.
• That'd be Ian between the woman and Lucy Rice. He'd have been 10 in August 1966
• Then, there's that man with a movie camera. Could that be anybody OTHER than Robert Averill?
• To the right side are Sam and Rose Whitworth.
• Then we have a final mystery woman, with her hand on Sam's shoulder. If the mystery girl is Linda Averill, and the man with the camera was Robert Averill, that'd have to be lovely Lu.

Now about the date: The photo was definitely taken sometime in the summer, since everyone is wearing summer clothes and so August would be a likely month. There's more of a clue with the birthday cake in front of Granny and Grandad Rice. Conveniently, Lucy Rice had her 70th birthday on Tuesday, August 23, 1966.

For comparison, the picture below has Laura and Linda with "the green truck" in 1963.

Laura at Left and Linda in the Middle.
Photo taken in New Orleans in 1963

And the "Easter Picture"

Left to Right were Linda, Laura, Carol, and Steve.
Photo taken Easter 1965 or 1966

Before the War

This is a post about the Whitworth and Hopkinson family. More specifically, it was prompted by a comment made by Kath Whitworth about a mysterious newspaper clipping. Her comment and the clipping itself are below.

While the reproduction quality is poor, her comments starts out with "This a hoot!" and then she wonders who this is. Partly that's because the clipping never mentions what Quarter-Master Sergeant Hopkinson's first name. What's more, it doesn't mention his wife's name, nor his father's name, nor is there any date on the clipping, much less what newspaper it was snipped from back in the day. All we really know is that he had a brother named "A Hopkinson," he had 8 children, and he was buried in the Sheffield Intake Cemetery with military honours. The gauntlet had been tossed down. Foolishly, Steve volunteered to see what more could be discovered.

The first clue was in the photo. The gentleman in the photo (presumably QMS Hopkinson), was wearing a uniform such as those worn in the late 19th Century. That suggested we'd be looking for somone who died sometime between 1890 and the start of the World War in 1914. After that date, everything changed and such military funerals, with 40 men from the unit and a 14-man firing party, no longer could be conducted. This notion was furthered by noting there was nothing in the clipping that mentioned any wartime service. A future post will show how deaths were reported during the War. However, as it turns out, QMS Hopkinson was a member of a volunteer unit (sort of an army version of a volunteer fireman) that men joined out of a sense of patriotic duty and served in addition to their normal jobs.

The second clue was that he had a brother named "A Hopkinson."

I first tried looking for any Hopkinson's buried at the Sheffield Intake Cemetery. Well, Findagrave couldn't even find the cemetery. Going to Wikipedia revealed that the Intake Cemetery is also known as the "City Road Cemetery." Unfortunately, Findagrave didn't have any Hopkinsons or Whitworths listed at City Road. Crooke's Cemetery was also listed in findagrave. Hopkinsons buried there included an Ada Hopkinson Dey. She might or might not be a relative, but wasn't the sister of anybody I might be looking for. There were also 4 Whitworths listed, but none of them look closely related to anybody as recent as Sam's Grandfather. I also looked at Norton Cemetery, which had a single Whitworth, who died in 1905 at the age of 4. But I digress.

Next, I went through my genealogy database to look for male Hopkinsons whose first name started with an "A." Sure enough, Albert Hopkinson, an older brother of Lucy (Lucy Rice's mother) popped up. Albert was born in early 1868 and died in 1926, both of which would have been appropriate for a brother of QMS Hopkinson. Checking further, Albert's father, Marshall, died in 1917 which would have been perfect for someone still alive for a QMS Hopkinson that died between 1890 and 1914. Things were looking good, but I still didn't know QMS Hopkinson's first name, though I had a strong suspicion from names in the database.

The next step was really simple. From census data, I knew that Marshall had at least 2 sons and 6 daughters. Since we already had Albert accounted for, it looked like QMS Hopkinson would be Marshall Hopkinson's other son, Charles. Now we had a real person of interest.

After that, it was simply a matter of gathering corroborating evidence. I knew from census, birth, death and marriage registrations, that Charles Hopkinson was married to Mary Wilkinson and had 8 children. Both of those items matched the obituary. What's more, Charles died in the 4th Quarter of 1908 which would have fit the timeline. Charles had gone from being a "person of interest" to a prime suspect. Checking the mourners:

• Sister Ada Elizabeth  married Harry Siddall and hence "Mr. and Mrs. H. Siddall"
• Sister Lucy married Sam Whitworth Sr and hence "Mr. and Mrs. S. Whitworth"
• Sister Minnie Mary married Ernest Morton which actually matches "Mr. and Mrs. E. Morton"
• Brother-in-law William Wilkinson or Walter Wilkinson could be "Mr. and Mrs. W. Wilkinson"
• Among the wreath donations: AE and H Sidall were probably "Mr and Mrs" rather than 2 brothers of his
• Ernest and Minnie were probably "Mr and Mrs" rather than a brother and sister. Lucy and Clara were both sisters of Charles. Overall, it's looking like we have our man, or more specifically, our Charles.

But WAIT, there's MORE!
I was able to get a free trial subscription to The British Newspaper Archive, where it will bring up four articles before it wants money. The first article, from the Thursday, 10 December 1908 issue of the Sheffield Daily Telegraph (Page 9, Column 3), shows a photo of QMS Hopkinson's funeral cortege. It uses the "City Road Cemetery" rather than "Intake Cemetery" of the original clipping. I thought it a real coup to find another photo of the funeral in Sheffield.

Next, I found an article from the Thursday, 10 December 1908 Sheffield Daily Telegraph (Page 4, Column 3). It is shown below, but apparently the Daily Telegraph was not so shy about naming names. It confirmed Marshall Hopkinson as the previously unnamed father, and named Charles's eldest son and daughter, George and Florence, as well. The final article, from the Wednesday 9 December 1908 Yorkshire Telegraph and Star (Page 6 Column 4) is also below, and has a photo that looks just like the original clipping, though it is cropped differently and has more information in the clipping. I did find a 4th clipping, but it was shorter and had no added information not already in the other clippings shown in this post.

Row:1 Cell:2

As with many family history investigations, every mystery solved raises new questions. Like checking up on other spouses and people like "Mrs E Gray, Mrs F Butler, and Mrs Barnes." In addition, there is more work to be done with QMS Hopkinson himself. Was his service entirely local in England or was he posted overseas? In any event, he would have been a Great Great Uncle of Laura, Linda and Steve or a Great Uncle of Paul Whitworth and Lucille Averill. Click here to see how he was an older brother of Lucy Whitworth (nee Hopkinson), Sam and Lucy's mother.

As far as I can tell, the Sheffield Artillery Brigade was part of the West Riding Artillery; in turn a Volunteer Corps of the British Army. The Volunteer Corps were established after 1860 to provide a volunteer backup to the regular army. For many years, volunteers made uniforms to their own design, and there were typically 3 batteries in each brigade. As noted in the first clipping, QMS Hopkinson was a member of the 7th Battery. Also attending were representatives of other volunteer units, including the Hallamshire Rifles and the 3rd West Riding Brigade (RFA stands for "Royal Field Artillery"). These volunteer units have a long history in England and continue today. Yorkshire Volunteers later fought in France in both World Wars. You can read about the Yorkshire Volunteers Regimental Association here.

Following is a photo, from Wikipedia, that shows artillery volunteers in 1902. As you can see, there are quite a few variations on the basic uniform, including several that look like the one QMS Hopkinson wore in the obituary clipping.

Photo by HantsAV in Wikipedia Article on West Riding Artillery

Rice Puzzle

Rhoda Rice with Thomas Rawson Rice - the ONLY Labeled Photograph

Scanning various photographs, one has to see various similarities and differences. Such has been the case with one series of photographs, that look as if they are photos of other photos. Only the first one was labeled, that one is shown at the beginning of this page. Since Rawson was born in May of 1896, this would make the photo sometime in late 1896 or early 1897. At that time, Rhoda would have been around 30. Her Maiden name was Ibbotson, but that doesn't enter into this series of photos.

The second photo, shown below, appears to be either the same woman or someone with similar features with a man. Stretching things only a little, I'd guess this is Rhoda with her husband, William Rice. William was Thomas Rawson's father. Assuming the photo was taken only a few years after the first one, that'd make him about 35.

Is this William Rice with Rhoda?

Stretching things further, there appears to be yet another photograph of the woman in the second picture; this time with an older woman. That photo is below. I think it is unlikely that the older woman was her mother since Rhoda was born when her mother was nearly 40. That'd make her 70 when Rawson was born. Rhoda did, however, have three older sisters, who were between 3 and 15 years older. Alternately, it might have been either one of William's sisters or even his mother, who was Sarah Ringrose before she married. Sarah was ten years younger than Rhoda's mother - William was one of the older children and Rhoda was only two years ahead of the baby of the Ibbotson family. Inquiring minds want to know!

Is it Rhoda on the Right and Who is With Her?

However, the mystery isn't over yet. In the same series of photos is one that is shown below.
That photo is taken much later - note how the styles had changed. I wonder if that last photo is of Rhoda and William ten or even fifteen years later. You tell me!

For extra credit, come up with the name of the cute little dog in the last picture...

Rhoda and William Rice in Later Years?

More on Family Silver

Family Silver - Grandad Rice worked in Seattle for Linstead Silversmiths
Older Family Silver - Grandad Rice as a silversmith in Victoria BC
More on Family Silver - this post

I reported before on Grandad Rice. As noted here, he worked as a silversmith in Victoria, and later moved on to work at Linstead Silver, as discussed here. However, there is still MORE to the story.

As you may see from the photo below, Linstead Silver had more than one name. In fact, Grandad Rice appeared in an ad from it in 1959.

The ad was from the November 22, 1959 issue of The Seattle Sunday Times, page 78. In another issue, the Times interviewed Carl Linstead and he talked about some of the various jobs the shop had. He didn't say if the hamburger they were asked to silver plate was from Dick's Hamburgers or some other outfit. Inquiring minds want to know!

The interview with Linstead is also included. If you run across an old set of bronzed baby shoes at a garage sale, there's a good chance it came from Linstead Silver.

The second article was from The Seattle Times issue of Wednesday, April 4, 1956, on page 23. FWIW, Seattle Times archives dating back to 1895 are available from the Seattle Public Library.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linstead's First Store on 1020 Pike Street

On August 13, via "Blogger Contact," Lucille Averill suggested: 

"The shop was on about 9th?  which was torn down to become part of the  

freeway. From there the store moved to the newer location in downtown  

Seattle.  It's now on Aurora Avenue"

Actually as shown in the ad above, the shop was on 1020 Pike. It was, indeed, torn down when I-5 was built. The site today is shown in the photo at left. Across from the site today are multi-story apartment buildings. The earlier post, here, shows the newer location, including a virtual tour of the interior.

The place on Aurora has nothing to do with Linstead. Instead, it is the current incarnation of his competitor, Zapffe Silversmiths. Their website is here.

Separately, on January 4, 2017, Steve A received the following email from Zapffe Silversmiths:

"Hello. We know we had a Linstead (possibly Carl) who worked here in the late 40's and early 50's. He worked alongside Carl Zapffe and his successor Don Thompson before opening his own shop in downtown Seattle which was then taken over by a son. It shortly closed after his succession. That is all the information we have.

Store Hours:
Monday thru Friday 9:00 am to 5:30 pm
Saturday                9:00 am to 1:00 pm
Store address:
Zapffe Silversmiths
12004 Aurora Ave North
Seattle, Washington 98133
206-364-1919  Phone
800-544-9313  Toll Free
206-364-1782  Fax"

Linstead and Zapffe in Later Times

Prompted by an inquiry from Kath Whitworth, I did a bit more digging in archives of the Seattle Times. There, I found that Carl Linstead and Carl Zapffe both passed away within a couple of years of Grandad Rice. Both articles shed more light on the silver business in Seattle in the mid 20th Century.

First, I ran across an obituary for Carl Linstead in the June 15, 1971 issue of the Seattle Times on page 39.

As you can see, he is a fellow alumnus of Roosevelt High School - GO ROUGHRIDERS, BEAT HALE! More relevant to our story, however, is that he went to work for Zapffe around 1923 when that firm was only about 7 years old, and worked there until 1946. The article didn't mention that, during his career, Linstead created such things as a silver crown for the 1959 Seattle Lucia Festival that was modeled after a medieval example. Golly, perhaps we ARE turning Swedish, after all!

That brings us to Carl Zapffe himself. As I understand it, he turned over management of the firm to Don Thompson in mid 1968, after 43 years in the business. Zapffe Silver has been around since around 1919 (their web site), and Don was the third owner, so it is unclear if Carl was the founder or took it over shortly before they hired Carl Linstead. According to their web site, the firm is still operated by the Thompson family. Carl's obituary may be seen below. It was in the June 6, 1973 Seattle Times, page 52.

Rice Ancestors

Reading an Ancestor Tree

This is a post in which  I summarize what I have found out about the Rice Family. As near as I can tell, the people known as "Rice" originated from Nottinghamshire. Most of them were born in "Barton in Fabis," though it appears another Rice family lived about a mile away in "Clifton in Glapton."

About 1825, John Rice moved to Great Grimsby got married, and then on to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. They stayed there for another generation.

Some time around 1875, Thomas Rice moved the family from Gainsborough to the Sheffield area. At the time, this was part of Yorkshire West Riding (the other two parts of Yorkshire were North Riding and East Riding). Today, that'd be in South Yorkshire.

It was while in Ecclesfield (near Sheffield), that William, Thomas's son, met and married Rhoda Ibbotson. Pretty much the entire Ibbotson family was from the West Riding. With one exception, they were all from less than ten miles from Ecclesfield, where Thomas Rawson was born in 1896. Rhoda Ibbotson's mother's side of the family were all from High or Low Bradfield, going back to at least around 1500. In fact, the farm where Rhoda's mother and paternal grandfather was born was called "Smallfield," and it still exists. A photo of it from Wikimedia may be seen here. Her grandfather's wife's Bramall side of the family historically lived at "Rocher End" and "Rocher Head." There is a photo of the ruins of Rocher Head here.

Anyway, the first three generations going back are shown below. After that, click on any of the images or links to bring up a large ancestor tree for each ancestor family branch.

At this time, I haven't chased back the Whitworth and Hopkinson family, though there's probably more info due to the efforts of the Whitworth cousins of Eileen and Audrey. More on THAT later!

	1st gen			2nd gen		3rd gen
						William Rice (click here for ancestor tree)
				Thomas Rawson Rice May Rice
						Rhoda Ibbotson (click here for ancestor tree)
	Audrey Lucille Rice
	Eileen Whitworth Rice
						Samuel Henry Whitworth (click here for ancestor tree)
				Lucy Whitworth Sam Whitworth
						Lucy Hopkinson (click here for ancestor tree)

Most Rice Ancestors Originate in These Places

William Rice Ancestor Tree is below:

Rhoda Ibbotson Ancestor Tree is below:

Samuel Henry Whitworth Ancestor Tree is below:

Lucy Hopkinson Ancestor Tree is below:

Grandad Rice

According to the Notation on the Back of the Card, the Photo was Taken at the Crystal Palace

Recently, I discovered that Thomas Rawson Rice was not just a soldier in the Great War. He was a Royal Marine Medic. His picture is shown at top. I don't know who circled his photo, but it definitely makes it easy to pick him out from the crowd.

According to the British National Archives, he enlisted on January 22, 1916, and was given Register Number 4344 in the Royal Marines Medical Unit. He was demobilized on July 6, 1919.

Yes, I've scanned in a bunch of photos...

Older Family Silver

Family Silver - Grandad Rice worked in Seattle for Linstead Silversmiths
Older Family Silver - this post
More on Family Silver - The story of Carl Linstead and Carl Zapffe in Seattle

Apparently, according to my mom, Grandad Rice worked at Carmichael's in Victoria. He was blackballed for doing silversmith work at home on the side. Apparently, the blackball is what led him to move to America and work for Linstead, reprised here. My mom also wrote the item, below, on the back of the card.

UPDATE: I searched Google for information on Carmichael. There's a good link story, here. Carmichael was born and raised in Victoria. It was rare for a native Canadian to be a silversmith at that time and so he's a "historical celebrity" for that reason. There are some Carmichael pieces in the BC Provincial Museum.

Even MORE amazing - if you look at the embedded Google Streetview image, below, you will see that the building itself looks almost IDENTICAL to the card. In fact, they even use a heraldic lion that looks the same as in the old card. A screenshot is below. One wonders if the Fort Street Cycle building was built later, or if the business card simply omitted it. Certainly, the building to the right looks more modern, in a "retro" kind of way.

Family Silver

Family Silver - this post
Older Family Silver - Grandad Rice as a silversmith in Victoria BC
More on Family Silver - The story of Carl Linstead and Carl Zapffe in Seattle

Business Card circa 1959

It has recently become apparent that there's some confusion amongst family members about our collective grandfather, Thomas Rawson Rice. He came over to North America from the UK in the 20's and worked as a silversmith in Seattle. My mom said:

"Grandad went from Vancouver to Seattle and working for father linstead 1951 or so immigrated from Canada. Worked there awhile then moved to Portland in 1954 and back to Seattle in 1953. That's about when city was making the freeway and they probably moved into store on 5 or 4th ave. The son was around then I think . Grandad worked there until he passed in 1973. So was the store."

After she saw the results of an inquiry to Zapffe Silversmiths, the response (on January 4) of which stated:

"Hello. We know we had a Linstead (possibly Carl) who worked here in the late 40's and early 50's. He worked alongside Carl Zapffe and his successor Don Thompson before opening his own shop in downtown Seattle which was then taken over by a son. It closed shortly  after his succession. That is all the information we have."

Clearly the record is gradually getting a bit clouded with time. My sister, "linda bus driver," for example, wondered: 

"That is very cool. I wonder what the address of that shop was. Seems to me it was somewhere around 3rd and Lenora. I remember going there once. That silver that granddad made is beautiful. Hope you will post something on Averill Happenings."

Well, y'all, THIS is that post. As you can see from the ad shown below, the shop was at 2323 3rd Avenue in 1965. I DID try to call the listed phone number, but nothing worked. Same as if you called our own old phone number of LA2-6760. The ad may be found in Catholic Northwest Progress of December 17, 1965.

The address hasn't really changed all that much over the years, well, other than Linstead eventually closing up. It is near the monorail, as I remember it, and you can see the monorail in the Google Maps aerial shot, shown below.

This is what the building looks like nowadays, from Google Streetview

As far as I can tell, Linstead shut down in 1973 or so. Their last ad appeared in the Seattle Times in October of 1972. I imagine that after Linstead and Rice were both gone, there wasn't enough expertise remaining.

As an interesting side note, according to the Seattle City Directory, in 1925, Carl Linstead lived at 6017 27th Avenue NE, just about 3 blocks from where the older Averill kids grew up. Sadly, that house was torn down and has been replaced by a big rectangular box house.