Whitmarsh, Mrs. Ruth {letter}

DEAVER, FIRESTONE, RITCHIE, SHUFFLETON, WHITMARSH

Posted By: Deborah Brownfield - Stanley (email)
Date: 1/25/2005 at 10:13:55

Letter from MRS. RUTH WHITMARSH, 1283 Hobart St., Chico, California, April 11, 1963:
“DANIEL DEAVER’S widow was CATHERINE RITCHIE, born 1808 in Virginia, daughter of MICHAEL RITCHIE and his wife MARIA FIRESTONE; MARIA born 1785, died 1865 in Ohio. Catherine Ritchie married DANIEL DEAVER in1834.
“In the late 1890s CATHERINE DEAVER went to California to live with her son-in-law and daughter—JOHN HENRY SHUFFLETON and MARGARET ANN DEAVER, who were married in Fairfield March 27, 1867; MARGARET ANN oldest daughter of DANIEL and CATHERINE (RITCHIE) DEAVER. CATHERINE (RITCHIE) DEAVER died in February, 1902, at 94 yrs. of age. She is buried in the little mountain cemetery at Forest Ranch, 16 mi. from Chico, in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, with other members of the family. “When Grandfather (JOHN HENRY) SHUFFLETON ordered the stone for her grave he had the following verse chiseled on the stone:
“Dear Mother when life shall have ended,
Its joys and its vanities gone
We would meet thee by angels attended
To welcome eternity’s dawn.”
“The reason Grandpa SHUFFLETON had this verse put on Grandma DEAVER’S stone was because this verse was on his own mother’s stone (in Fairfield Cemetery.)”
“My grandmother, MARGARET ANN DEAVER, was the eldest child of DANIEL and CATHERINE DEAVER. She was born May 20, 1836, in Ohio and later moved with other members of her family to Fairfield…HENRY DEAVER was my grandmother’s younger brother, and ELIZA E. (ELLEN) her youngest sister.”