SMITH Family: Mary Adaline Smith Hoard Albert Burgos Albert (1890-1949)

The old Fort Jones est. 1852

My paternal grandmother, Verlie Smith, was one of 11 brothers and sisters. She was third from the 

youngest. Her sister, Mary, was the first child, born in 1890. She was married to her first husband Edwin Hoard and gone before my grandmother was even born. No one in the living family remembers her as she had passed away before we were all born in the 1960s. 

I tell the story of how I discovered so much about Mary here. The last time I wrote, I did not know what Mary looked like. My Uncle Harold, who sort of helped me unwind the story and who did know her, has since passed away. I still had questions even though the story was mostly told. Today, in a routine records update for her, I opened an entire new part to the story. 

Mary was married four different times to three different men. I think she had a bum picker or maybe she was no prize herself, who knows. Her second/fourth husband Donald Lee "D.L." Albert was the husband I had the least amount of information on, but now I think I have a full picture of him and tracked a total of three wives and four marriages, just like Mary. 

The Edwin Smith Family Late 1920s (Click to enlarge)

Mary's third marriage was to Greek immigrant Peter Burgos. She is living in Michigan with him as early as 1925. They married in Lake County, Indiana in 1937. Mary returned to Iowa in 1942 and stayed with her mom, Kate Smull Smith on Main St. in Plainfield. She worked in Waterloo for a while. Her husband, Peter Burgos, who operated the Metropole Cafe in Mount Pleasant, Michigan died in 1943. I believe they were just separated then.  In 1943, she had a small apartment over a store on the on the west side of Main St. when on 06 Nov 1943, a major fire broke out in an empty restaurant on the east side of Main and ended up burning down the entire block of businesses. Mary was the one who called in the fire at 3:45 am that morning. The Plainfield and Shell Rock fire departments could due little due to a water shortage, but were able to protect the other side of the street. This was THE big news of the year in tiny Plainfield and impacted the entire community. It's believed that a faulty electrical switch in the Grover Mabb cafe started the fire. The Tourist Cafe and Hotel operated by Mrs. Gertrude Smith, the Dinilli Barber Shop, post office, R. L. Cagley residence, William Gritzner apartments, and Mabb Cafe were reduced to ash. 

I wondered these past years, why D.L. and Mary were in Yreka, California. I've been there - you would need a reason. D.L.'s first wife went to Los Angeles after the divorce, with their daughter Ruth. There was a lot of movement to the great Los Angeles area during this time. Jobs were plentiful and the weather was great.  In 1923, D.L., while married the first time to Mary, made an exploratory visit to Long Beach, Los Angeles County, California. D. L. and Mary moved to Long Beach in Los Angeles County, where D. L. worked as a oil worker. That was in 1924. By 1925, Mary was no longer in California. D. L. stayed in Long Beach.

Third wife third wife Cora Clark Jones, mother of six, moved to California in 1931, two years after the death of her first husband, B. F. Jones, an auctioneer.  She came from D. L.'s home town in Ladora, Iowa. They married, and in 1931 moved from Long Beach to Fort Jones, in Siskyou County. D.L. farmed and worked as a fireman. D. L. sold baled alfalfa and hay by the ton to area farmers.

Downtown Fort Jones Late 1930s/Early 1940s
Mount Shasta in the background (summer)

Fort Jones was at that time, an old western town at the base of Mount Shasta in very far north California, near the Oregon border. It's incredibly picturesque. The first structure was built in 1851 and the town primarily served as a trading outpost, supporting Fort Jones soldiers and miners. Other businesses included a bar and brothel. The Fort itself had been established in 1852 and closed in 1858.  Some of the more famous officers who served at Fort Jones included Phil Sheridan (Union), George Crook (Union), John Hood (Confederate), Ulysses S. Grant (Union), and George Pickett (Confederate). 

  

Cora died at Fort Jones in late 1936. Soemhow reconnected, they remarried in 1944 and Mary lived back in California with D.L. They lived in Siskyou County for the remainder of both of their lives. Mary died in Yreka in early 1949 and he died at the end of 1949.

Photos Courtesy of the Office of War Information 1945
Downtown Yreka, California

His daughter also ended up living there with her second husband. Ruth Albert Kuebler Trent died in Yreka in 1877.

Mary's Marriages

Husband 1: Edwin Church Hoard m. 1907-div. bef. 1915

  Wife 2: Carla Hansen m. 1915-until his death in 1953

Husband 2: Donald Lee "D.L." Albert m. abt. 1915-div. around 1925 or so

  Wife 1: Mary Hope "Mollie" Nicholson m. 1900-div bef. 1915 (1 daughter, Ruth)

  Wife 3: Cora Clark Jones m. 1931-at her death 1936

Husband 3: Peter Burgos m. 1937-at his death in 1943 (they separated in 1942). She is referred to as Mrs Burgos starting in 1925, but their marriage license was issued in 1937.

Husband 4: Donald Lee "D.L." Albert m. 1944-until her death in 1949