13151.Howard Earl Fisher, Sr., was born , in Forestville, Sonoma County, California, the first born son of Theodoric Leathe Fisher and Cora Ethel Miller. He married Mabel M. Bors on , in Santa Rosa. They had four daughters and one son, all born in Calistoga, Napa County, California:
Earl's father died just days before his 12th birthday. He left school and began working at age 12, and was a Jack of all trades doing blacksmithing, carpentry, pruning, and plowing throughout the years. His mother remarried just days shy of the third anniversary of his father's death to Al Williams, whom he fiercely hated.
Earl, as were many Fishers, was a very tall man, well over 6 feet tall, and was known as a real hell-raiser when he got to drinking.
Earl and Mabel started their family in Calistoga. By 1930 they moved back up into the hills between Calistoga and Santa Rosa to Rincon Hill Road. There they rented nextdoor to Earl's mother and younger siblings, and nearby his sisters' Malugani and Fechter families. Mabel's 15-year-old brother William Bors worked with Earl as a farmer.[Cen 1930]
Mabel & Marjorie Fisher, 1928
Earl and brothers-in-law, Dick Hopper and Bud Clarke, were out cutting wood for Earl's back porch alcohol still when the still sparked a fire on April 2, 1932. Youngest brother Ed saw the fire and called them down but it was too late—the house burned down. After the fire, Earl and his family moved in with his mother at the 115-acre Gill place just over the Buchi grade. They lived there as late as 1934[Vote 1928-1936] before moving to Kellogg Precinct in Knights Valley, 7 miles north of Calistoga, over the Sonoma County line, when Earl entered into a five-year lease on a ranch owned by the widow Mrs. Jennie (Fisher) May in December 1934[News 1934, Vote 1936-1940].
The Fishers returned to Calistoga by 1940 where they rented on Main Street[Cen 1940] until they made their final move back up into the hills to a ranch at 3550 Calistoga Road, just past Chalfant Drive, in 1944, and they lived out the rest of their days.[Cen 1950] Mabel worked at the walnut plant in Calistoga.
Earl and nephew Everett Fechter were elected as president and first vice president, respectively, of the Native Sons of the Golden West (Calistoga Parlor No. 86), on June 4, 1951.[News 1951] Two years later, Earl had the honor of playing the part of the “Father” on a prize-winning parade float that the Native Daughters of the Golden West (Calistoga Parlor No. 145) built to replicate the Donner Monument in the Fourth of July Silverado Parade in Calistoga, 1953.[News 1953]
Howard Earl Fisher, Sr., suffered a light stroke on Monday, , and was hospitalized at the Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital.[News 1965] He died 19 days later, on , in Santa Rosa. He was just two weeks shy of his 67th birthday. Earl was buried at St. Helena Cemetery next to Mabel's parents in the Bors family plot.[Grave]
Mabel (Bors) Fisher died 21 years later on , at the age of 89. She was buried next to Earl and her parents in the Bors family plot at St. Helena Cemetery.[Grave]
Pearl Elizabeth (Fisher) Malugani5 (1901-1941)
13152.Pearl Elizabeth Fisher5 was born on , in Lockeford, San Joaquin County, California. She married Charles Aurelio Malugani3, a Swiss-Italian immigrant, in , in San Rafael, Marin County. She was only 14 at the time but said she was 18. Charles was 24.[Mar 1915] They had three sons and five daughters:
Pearl & Judy Goss Residence on Barham Ave., September 1941
The Maluganis first lived at the Old Gemmet place up Calistoga Road and then moved over the hills toward Calistoga, Napa County, to the Peterson ranch about halfway down the Calistoga grade (Petrified Forest Highway), where their first son Alvin was born in 1917. By 1918, they moved over to the Sonoma County side to Gates Road, just over the “Buchi Grade.” It was then that the “Spanish Flu” pandemic struck toward the end of World War I. Pearl, then pregnant with daughter Hazel, fell ill but managed to pull out of it before giving birth in January, 1919.
Later in 1919, by the 1920 census, the Maluganis moved down Calistoga Road to Alpine Road where they lived on Alpine Road (then recorded as “Rincon Hill Road”) near Charlie's parents and aunt, Caterina (Malugani) Paroli, who lived at the top of Alpine Road.
By 1922, the Maluganis were given P.O. Box 297 in Rincon Valley. From there they moved to a converted chicken house on Alpine Road where Cora was born in 1923. Later they removed to a plot later dubbed the Derby Ranch, just below where Alpine Road breaks from Calistoga Road and across the road from Charlie's sister Serena (Malugani) Magatelli. The Derby Ranch address was noted as P.O. Box 282 in 1924 and 1928. Charlie farmed the plot and cut firewood along Mark West Creek to take down into town to sell. The rest of their children were all born while living at the Derby ranch, where they were enumerated in the 1930 census near the Hitchcocks, Fechters, Sharps, Magatellis, Stewarts, Parolis, Fishers, and Williams, and on through at least 1932, when youngest son Bud was born. The Maluganis had worked to buy the Derby Ranch place but they lost it when a handshake deal fell through.
In the early 1930s, the Maluganis briefly moved north of Santa Rosa to Healdsburg, near the Madrona Manor (then known as the Madrona Knoll Rancho) at the junction of Dry Creek Road and Westside Road.
In the 1930s, the Maluganis settled in the Fulton area at a fruit orchard at 1689 Fulton Road, on the east side of the road near the creek that cuts through the northeast corner of today's Piner High School. There, Pearl's paternal grandmother, Harriet (ChapmanFisher) Williams, lived with the Maluganis for a while about 1935 before her death in 1936.
Pearl Elizabeth (Fisher) Malugani had a heart attack on , while preparing a Halloween party for the L. B. Burton family at 300 Doyle Park Drive in Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, California. Dr. Alexis Maximov attempted to resuscitate her but without success. She was inurned the following Monday, , at the Chapel of the Chimes in Santa Rosa. She was only 40 years old.
Mildred May (Fisher) Fechter (1902-1989)
13153.Mildred May Fisher was born December 27, 1902, in Forestville, Sonoma County. She and her family moved to Calistoga when she was 8 years old. Mildred married Raymond Earl Fechter, Sr., on , in Napa, Napa County, and had four children. A few years later they adopted Mildred's niece, Carol Ann, when Mildred's sister Carrie died after giving birth:
The Fechter family started in St. Helena, Napa County, with the birth of son Raymond, Jr., in 1922. They next moved 8 miles north to Calistoga where the next two children were born.
The Fechters finally settled next to Raymond's father up Petrified Forest Road after they wed.[Cen 1930,1940]
Raymond Earl Fechter, Sr., died on , at the age of 83 in Napa, Napa County, California. He is buried at the St. Helena Cemetery.
Mildred May (Fisher) Fechter died 11 years later on , in Calistoga. Services were held on at the Morrison Funeral Chapel in St. Helena and she was entombed at the St. Helena Cemetery.
Carrie (FisherShelly) Hopper (1904-1936)
13154.Carrie Truett Fisher was born on August 12, 1904, in Sonoma County, California, at either the Asti Winery near Asti or the Truett Ranch in Cloverdale, from where her middle name was taken. She married Howard John Shelly, a native of Minnesota, about 1923 in San Jose, Santa Clara County, California. She was about 19 years old and he was about 34. They had two sons before their marriage dissolved, after which Carrie later married Richard “Dick” Klondike Hopper and had four daughters. All together she had six children:
Shelly and Hopper Children
Name
Birth
Death
Age
131541.
James Howard Shelly
3 Jun 1924
29 Aug 1992
(68)
131542.
Jerrold Owen Shelly
28 Aug 1927
8 Sep 1994
(67)
131543.
Gwendolyn Jean Hopper
2 Aug 1932
10 Mar 2015
(82)
131544.
Dixie Lee Hopper
4 Nov 1933
13 Aug 1982
(48)
131545.
Audrey Hopper
--
--
--
131546.
Carol Ann Hopper-Fechter
Aug 1936
12 Nov 2016
(80)
Howard enlisted on October 1, 1918, in Minneapolis, five weeks before the end of World War I. He deployed to Camp Sevier, Greenville County, South Carolina, where he apparently served at the base hospital when the war ended. Private Shelly returned to Camp Grant, Winnebago County, Illinois, where he was discharged from the 1st Company, Discharge Detachment, on January 2, 1919.[Vet, WWI] After his discharge he returned home to his mother and siblings in Minneapolis where he worked as a dispatcher in steel manufacturing.[Cen 1920B]
Carrie and Howard married around 1923, reportedly in San Jose, Santa Clara County. Howard's Veterans Administration recorded noted that at some point in time he lived at 642 South 2nd Street in San Jose.[Vet]
Carrie and Howard split up by 1930 when Howard worked as road construction surveyor at California Highway Camp 11, in Township 2 of Lake County, California. It was a prison camp, but Howard was enumerated as a boarder (not as one of the 57 inmate laborers).[Cen 1930]While Howard was recorded as married, Carrie and their two sons have yet to be found in the 1930 census. That same year Carrie registered to vote as a Republican in Calistoga.[Vote 1930]
Howard later moved north to Yuba City, Sutter County, by 1942 and worked with the State Division of Highways in nearby Marysville. He died on August 11, 1950, in Yuba County, at the age of 61.[Dth 1950] Howard was buried at Sutter Cemetery in Sutter, Sutter County. His sons were later buried there as well.[Grave]
Carrie remarried to Richard Klondike Hopper, a native of Calistoga, by 1932.[Vote 1932] She was about 27 years old and he about 35. They had four daughters together.
Carrie Truett Fisher-Hopper died on August 18, 1936, a few days after giving birth to her sixth child, Carol Ann, and a week after her 32nd birthday. Carrie was buried in Sunset View Cemetery in El Cerrito, Contra Costa County, California.[Grave]
Richard remarried to a woman named Minnie by 1940 and they and his four daughters moved to a rented home at 1009 56th Street in Oakland, Alameda County. There Richard worked as a truck driver for a petroleum company.[Cen 1940A] Daughter Carol Ann was enumerated a second time, weeks later, with Carrie's elder sister, Mildred (Fisher) Fechter, and recorded as her daughter.[Cen 1940B]
By 1950, Richard was enumerated on his own, but still recorded as married, in Sacramento, working as a truck driver for an oil company.[Cen 1950A] By that time, daughters Gwen and Dixie had married, Audrey was an inmate at the Los Guilicos School for Girls on the outskirts of Santa Rosa[Cen 1950B], and Carol Ann continued to live with her aunt and adoptive Fechter family[Cen 1950C].
Richard “Dick” Klondike Hopper died on July 14, 1961, in Imola, Napa County. He was 64 years old. Dick was buried at Calistoga Pioneer Cemetery in Calistoga, along with his mother and elder sister.[Grave]
Merle Everett Fisher (1906-1990)
13155.Merle Everett Fisher was born February 23, 1906, at the Asti Winery near Asti, Sonoma County, California. He married Ruby Mae Baker on October 26, 1925, in Sacramento, Sacramento County, California. He was 19 years old, she 18. They had three children:
Fisher Children
Name
Birth
Death
Age
131551.
Wayne Fisher
--
--
--
131552.
Phillip Merle Fisher
4 Apr 1935
Sep 1989
(54)
131553.
Joan Fisher
--
--
--
Merle & Ruby's 60th Anniverary, October 1985
After their marriage, the Fishers settled in San Francisco where they resided at 584 Jersey Street in the Noe Valley district by 1930. There Merle worked at a Ford factory as a mechanic.[Cen 1930]
By 1935, the Fishers moved to across the bay to San Pablo, Contra Costa County, where Merle worked as a specialist machinist in the shipbuilding industry.[Cen 1940]
Brother Ed hosted a 60th wedding anniversary celebration for Merle and Ruby in October 1985 with their children, Merle's surviving siblings, and many nieces and nephews in attendance.
Merle Everett Fisher died on August 18, 1990, in Contra Costa County, California, at the age of 84.
Ruby Mae (Baker) Fisher died on March 28, 1997, in Contra Costa County, at the age of 90. She is buried in Richmond, Contra Costa County.
Sonoma C. (FisherDillon) Clarke (1907-1993)
13156.Sonoma C. Fisher was born December 8, 1907, at the Asti Winery near Cloverdale, Sonoma County, California. She married Patrick Michael Dillon, a native of Detroit, Wayne County, Michigan, son of Irish immigrant parents, and veteran of World War I, on April 2, 1925, in Fairfield, Solano County, California. They had two daughters before she and Patrick divorced in the late 1920s. Sonoma remarried to Milton “Bud” Thomas Clarke on November 21, 1931, in Sonoma County. They had another daughter together:
Dillon and Clarke Children
Name
Birth
Death
Age
131561.
Patricia Margaret Dillon
9 Feb 1926
(23) Aug 2010
(84)
131562.
Lois Mary Dillon
9 May 1928
(9) Feb 2005
(76)
131563.
Clara Joan Clarke
20 Dec 1941
13 May 1989
(47)
Sonoma C. Fisher got a job as a waitress at the Veteran's Home in Yountville, Napa County, California, when she was 16 years old. There she met SGT. Patrick Michael Dillon, a veteran of World War I who was over 20 years her senior.
Patrick Dillon's Service, U.S. Army
Patrick enlisted in the U.S. Army at Fort McDowell (Angel Island), Marin County, on April 16, 1917, and served for two years in Company A of the 21st Infantry Regiment, 16th Division, attaining the rank of sergeant. He was discharged on June 30, 1919, and awarded a disability allowance[Mil 1919]. After the war, Patrick worked as a boiler maker in a San Diego foundry.[Cen 1920B] In 1925 chronic pharyngitis and acute rheumatism landed him for a month in the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Sawtelle, Los Angeles County.[Vet 1925]
Seven weeks after his discharge from the veterans home, Patrick and Sonoma eloped on April 2, 1925, in Fairfield, Solano County. Sonoma was 17 years old and Patrick was just two weeks short of his 42nd birthday. Afterward they lived in Livermore, Alameda County.[Wed 1925]
After a few years of marriage and the birth of two daughters, Sonoma and Patrick divorced between 1928 and 1930. Sonoma placed the care of her daughter Patricia in the hands of her elder brother Merle and his wife Ruby, who lived in the Noe Valley district of San Francisco in 1930[Cen 1930P]. Daughter Lois, on the other hand, was placed in the care of the Frank and Edith (Temple) Hanson family[Cen 1930L]. Sonoma moved in with the Stephen and Lillian Marenga family at 1690 Washington Street in the Nob Hill district of San Francisco where she worked as a hotel maid.[Cen 1930]
SGT. Patrick M. Dillon died of tuberculosis a few years later at the Veterans Administration in San Francisco on July 26, 1936[Dth 1936]. He was 53 years old. Patrick had worked earlier that year as a hotel clerk while living at the U.S. Veterans Facility in Livermore[Vote 1936]. He is buried at the San Francisco National Cemetery at the Presidio of San Francisco.
Milton “Bud” Clarke
Sonoma remarried to Milton “Bud” Thomas Clarke, of Yountville, Napa County, California, on November 20, 1931, in Sonoma County, California. After their marriage Sonoma was reunited with her daughters and they lived in Yountville where Bud worked as a truck driver[Vote 1932]. A year and a half later, Sonoma's younger sister Gladys married Bud's brother Bill.
The Clarkes moved up into the hills above Santa Rosa, Sonoma County, by 1942, where they resided at 3675 Calistoga Road.[Vote 1942] They later returned to the Napa valley and resettled in Napa by 1944.[Vote 1944]
Milton Thomas Clarke died on December 23, 1964, in Napa County, California, at the age of 64.
Sonoma C. (FisherDillon) Clarke died 28 years later on July 2, 1993, in Vallejo, Solano County. Services were held at the Skyview Funeral Chapel in Vallejo on July 6, 1993.
Alta Vivian Fisher (1909-1910)
13157.Alta Vivian Fisher was born August 3, 1909, and died six months later on February 21, 1910. She is buried next to her father at the Mount Olive Cemetery, Cloverdale, Sonoma County, California.
While Howard was recorded as married, Carrie and their two sons have yet to be found in the 1930 census. That same year Carrie registered to vote as a Republican in Calistoga.[Vote 1930]
