Ruth Thornton and Eva Whinery
Hazel Netherton was close friends with her aunt, Ruth Thornton, who was
just two years older that she was. Ruth moved to Santa Cruz shortly after
she finished high school. She lived for a while on Campbell street, around
the block from the Nethertons, and by 1920 was living across the street
at 78 Riverside, in a house that looks very similar to the Nethertons'.
Mrs. Epstein provided me with this
photograph taken under the Santa Cruz Wharf abut 1914. Hazel is the girl,
left rear, Ruth's sister Minnie is next to her, Ruth is kneeling in front,
with Minnie's daughter, Genevieve McNamara.
Through the Nethertons, Ruth became friends with Mr. Netherton's stenographer, Eva Whinery.
Eva was almost 20 years older than Ruth, who was 19 or 20 years old when they met. In a newspaper obituary for her mother, Eva is referred to as "the very popular secretary" for Mr. Netherton, but I have yet found no other public notices of her or Ruth's life events.
According to Mrs. Epstein, Eva and Ruth moved to Oakland in the 1930s, and it is to be cared for by them that the Netherton's moved to Oakland during the Depression. Eva and Ruth both worked for Montgomery Wards, in clerical jobs. Mrs. Epstein lamented that although they worked all their lives, they were never able to put anything away for old age, and worked until they were quite old. Ruth died in September 1972, and Eva a few years later, in December 1974.
Eva was the daughter of Henry and Amelia Whinery who lived at 118 Otis St. on Mission hill, near the High School. Henry was a member of F.A. Hihn's "Society of California Pioneers." The Santa Cruz history journal devoted to that society says he arrived in California in 1850, had something to do with early government in San Francisco, and went into stagecoaching with "Mountain Charley" Charles McKiernan. Later he was the janitor at Mission Hill junior high.
In the diptheria epidemic of 1876-78, many families lost multiple children, and the Whinerys were among them. Many families published memorial poems in local newspapers. Phil Reader has collected these poems in "Voices from the Heart" [Cliffside Publishing, 1993]. The Whinerys lost two children, Harry age 5, and Martha age 7, and this is their poem:
Quiet the little feet that trod
So merrily the floor
The little hands that clasped my neck
Will clasp my neck no more.
Ah! Children mine and yet not mine
For a few years were given
And recalled to draw my heart
Nearer to God and heaven.
Eva was born two years later, which must have been a happy event after such a tragic loss. Another brother, "G. W." and age unknown, died in 1908, in Santa Cruz, although no death notice is indexed in the Surf.
Henry Whinery's entry in the Pioneer issue of The Journal also notes that their wedding picture and Mrs. Whinery's wedding dress are in the Santa Cruz Natural History Museum's garment collection.