Moses S. "Mose" Springer
Moses S. "Mose" Springer
This is really the story of Mose and his wife, Tottie--well, mostly her, because my great-grandfather, Mose, died young.
Orphaned as a young girl, Tottie Clarabelle Moyer, according to her own account, was born in England in 1873. (More on that in the Random Stuff I Learned tab.) She was taken into the home of Cyrus Moyer and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Springer, where she grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario.
I haven't been able to locate guardianship records for Tottie and I don't know how old she was when she joined her new family, but she was living with the Moyers when she was 8 years old, according to census records. Tottie had a difficult relationship with Cyrus and Lizzie, especially as she grew older. At one point, probably as a teenager, she ran away and worked for awhile in a department store in Toronto before being brought back home.
Lizzie was Mose Springer's older sister, so Mose and Tottie probably knew of each other from the time she first entered the Moyer household. However, their age difference makes it unlikely that they would have known each other well. According to the 1900 U.S. Census, Mose immigrated to the United States in 1879 (seventeen years before Tottie would emigrate from Canada in 1896), where he worked as a telegraph operator for the Associated Press in California.
Mose and Tottie were married in 1896, in Sacramento, California. He was 36 years old; she was 23. In 1897, their first child was born, a son whom they named Lawrence Moses. During this time, Mose and Tottie moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles. A second son, Charles "Charlie" Christopher, was born in 1898. Their third son was born in 1900: Leonard Wood.
Photographs from this period and information in the 1900 U.S. Census (which states that Mose and Tottie had a live-in servant, Jinnie Bankhead) show a family living with comfortable economic means. However, all of this soon changed. Mose and Tottie were only married for six years before he died in 1902. He had been a heavy binge drinker for many years and died of what was thought to be a heart attack.
Upon the death of her husband, Tottie took her sons back to Canada, where they all lived for a time with the Moyers in Berlin. At some point, Tottie's strained relationship with Cyrus and Lizzie caused her to return to the United States, leaving her children behind in their care. However, the three young boys missed their mother and their native California and soon returned home to Los Angeles, despite the Moyers' attempts to keep them in Canada.
It was undoubtedly a difficult time for Tottie, a young widow and mother of three small children. She became involved with spiritualists who encouraged her to make unsound investments in dubious enterprises and the money that Tottie had been left upon Mose's death quickly disappeared. As a result, perhaps around 1908, she temporarily placed her sons in a Catholic orphanage in Los Angeles, managed by the Sisters of Mercy, called Home of the Guardian Angel, while she went to work in states as far away as Colorado and Washington for the Sunset Telephone Company as a chief long distance operator. In 1909, at the age of 12, Lawrence contracted polio and was nursed back to health by the sisters. All of Tottie's children stayed at the orphanage through 1910, although letters show that Lawrence and Leonard stayed on into at least the early part of 1911.
Tottie was unemployed in 1920, according to the U.S. Census of that year, but all three of her sons were still living at home with her. She never remarried. Voter registration records from 1922 to 1936 show that her occupation alternated over the years between "housewife" and housekeeper/hotel maid. She later worked for the Pacific Building Company for many years and lived with her son, Charlie, until she was 91 years old.
My great-grandmother died in 1966. Shortly before she died, Tottie is reported to have said, "How beautiful it is, and there's Mose."
Orphaned as a young girl, Tottie Clarabelle Moyer, according to her own account, was born in England in 1873. (More on that in the Random Stuff I Learned tab.) She was taken into the home of Cyrus Moyer and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Springer, where she grew up in a well-to-do neighborhood in Berlin (now Kitchener), Ontario.
I haven't been able to locate guardianship records for Tottie and I don't know how old she was when she joined her new family, but she was living with the Moyers when she was 8 years old, according to census records. Tottie had a difficult relationship with Cyrus and Lizzie, especially as she grew older. At one point, probably as a teenager, she ran away and worked for awhile in a department store in Toronto before being brought back home.
Lizzie was Mose Springer's older sister, so Mose and Tottie probably knew of each other from the time she first entered the Moyer household. However, their age difference makes it unlikely that they would have known each other well. According to the 1900 U.S. Census, Mose immigrated to the United States in 1879 (seventeen years before Tottie would emigrate from Canada in 1896), where he worked as a telegraph operator for the Associated Press in California.
Mose and Tottie were married in 1896, in Sacramento, California. He was 36 years old; she was 23. In 1897, their first child was born, a son whom they named Lawrence Moses. During this time, Mose and Tottie moved from Sacramento to Los Angeles. A second son, Charles "Charlie" Christopher, was born in 1898. Their third son was born in 1900: Leonard Wood.
Photographs from this period and information in the 1900 U.S. Census (which states that Mose and Tottie had a live-in servant, Jinnie Bankhead) show a family living with comfortable economic means. However, all of this soon changed. Mose and Tottie were only married for six years before he died in 1902. He had been a heavy binge drinker for many years and died of what was thought to be a heart attack.
Upon the death of her husband, Tottie took her sons back to Canada, where they all lived for a time with the Moyers in Berlin. At some point, Tottie's strained relationship with Cyrus and Lizzie caused her to return to the United States, leaving her children behind in their care. However, the three young boys missed their mother and their native California and soon returned home to Los Angeles, despite the Moyers' attempts to keep them in Canada.
It was undoubtedly a difficult time for Tottie, a young widow and mother of three small children. She became involved with spiritualists who encouraged her to make unsound investments in dubious enterprises and the money that Tottie had been left upon Mose's death quickly disappeared. As a result, perhaps around 1908, she temporarily placed her sons in a Catholic orphanage in Los Angeles, managed by the Sisters of Mercy, called Home of the Guardian Angel, while she went to work in states as far away as Colorado and Washington for the Sunset Telephone Company as a chief long distance operator. In 1909, at the age of 12, Lawrence contracted polio and was nursed back to health by the sisters. All of Tottie's children stayed at the orphanage through 1910, although letters show that Lawrence and Leonard stayed on into at least the early part of 1911.
Tottie was unemployed in 1920, according to the U.S. Census of that year, but all three of her sons were still living at home with her. She never remarried. Voter registration records from 1922 to 1936 show that her occupation alternated over the years between "housewife" and housekeeper/hotel maid. She later worked for the Pacific Building Company for many years and lived with her son, Charlie, until she was 91 years old.
My great-grandmother died in 1966. Shortly before she died, Tottie is reported to have said, "How beautiful it is, and there's Mose."