OBITUARY
Sent by Pat Murphey through the internet, 6 Oct 2000.MRS HIATT, 87 DIES IN HER HOME
Cloverdale Reveille, December 31, 1959
Funeral services were held in Cloverdale on Tuesday, December 29 for Mrs. Mary Lee WALLACH HIATT, member of a pioneer family. Her husband, the late E. Bowlin HIATT, was also a member of a family of early settlers in this area. Mrs. HIATT died on her 87th birthday, Saturday, December 26th at her home, the historic Mountain House, eight miles west of Cloverdale on Highway 128. There was a service for her at 2 PM on December 29 at the Cloverdale Chapel of Fred Young and Company. Internment was in Cloverdale Cemetery.
Mrs. HIATT was born in Bell Valley near Boonville in Mendocino County on December 26, 1872. She was the daughter of William and Gertrude WALLACH, who came to Mendocino county in 1869. She was married to Mr. HIATT, a northern Sonoma County Rancher in 1894. He passed away in 1929, survivors of Mrs. HIATT include two sons, Herbert M. HIATT, San Francisco adn G. W. (George Washington) HIATT Mountain House; a daughter, Mrs. Gertrude H. FLYNN, Mountain House, a brother Guss V. Wallach, Ukiah, two granddaughters, Mrs. Marilyn HEITZ, San Mateo, and Mrs. Mabel IVERSON, Ukiah, and five great grandchildren, Bonnie Jean, Michael Louis and Sara Ann HEITZ, all of San Mateo, and Evelyn Christine and David Glenn IVERSON, both of Ukiah.Santa Rosa Press Democrat, December 26, 1959
MARY LEE HIATT
Mary Lee HIATT daughter of Mendocino County pioneers, died yesterday at her home, Mountain House, eight miles west of Cloverdale on Highway 128, Mrs. HIATT was born in Bell Valley, near Boonville, December 26, 1872 and died on her 87th birthday. She was the daughter of William and Gertrude WALLACH marreid E. Bowlin HIATT, a northern Sonoma County Rancher. Mr. HIATT died in 1929. Mrs. HIATT is survived by two sons, Herbert M. HIATT, San Francisco George Washington HIATT, Mountain House, her daughters Mrs. Gertrude H. FLYNN Mountain House, her brother Guss V. WALLACH, Ukiah, two grand-daughters and 5 great grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held at 2 PM, Tuesday at the Chapel of Fred Young and Co. Cloverdale. Burial will be in Cloverdale Cemetery.Of these so far, cannot figure the parent of the grandchildren, no give info so far. The grandchildren are named at least in part, in the obituary but need to assign parent to them. LA
Z. P. Millington was a Methodist preacher. His first pastorate was atBoonville, Mendocino County, CA.
Lineage of Roger Woelfel of Lakewood, Calif. dated Mar. 1990.
Tribute of a Pioneer
Harold Herman Hiatt, a native of Mendocino County, Calif. passed away
early Sunday Morning April 30, 1978 in Hemet, where he had resided for the past 11 years.
Mr. Hiatt came from a long and distinguished pioneer family from Virginia, Kentucky and Missouri. He could count among his ancestors 2 Revolutionary War Veterans, as well as a host of early settlers who were at the fore front of the Westward Movement. His grandfather, Elijah Monroe Hiatt, crossed the Plains to California during the Gold Rush. In 1867 he established a ranch along Dry Creek in Southern Medocino County at a place later called Yorkville, where he also operated a stage depot and served as postmaster for many years. E.M. Hiatt was twice elected to the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. Among his 11 children was Theophilus "Lee" Hiatt, who operated a ranch and vineyard in the Hopland area for many years and retired in Ukiah in 1934.
Harold H. Hiatt, the son of "Lee" Hiatt, was born December 18, 1895 at
Hermitage, a post-hamlet in Southern Mendocino County. He took his stagecoach ride at age 9 aboard a Concord Coach on the Mendocino to Cloverdale run. A second early recollection in his life was the San Francisco Earthquake. On April 18, 1906, he was awakened at daybreak by what sounded like " a dozen freight trains crossing a trestle at the same time." On the horizon, he could see tremors coming from the South "like ocean waves," as giant pines waves back and forth and a yawning fissure raised a portion of the ranch several feet above the rest. That night, and for 3 consecutive nights following, the southern horizon was brillantly aglow from fires burning at Santa Rosa and San Francisco. Harold slept in the grainary for 2 weeks while the house was being repaired.
After completing grammer school in 1911, Mr. Hiatt removed to Healdsburg, in Sonoma County, where he attended high school for 5 months. He was then employed as an electricians apprentice and then journeyman electrician by Moore, Rose and Emerson, electrical contractors, and thereby began climbing poles and handling hot juice at the age of 15--befor insulators in down guylines were used for safety. At this time he also began driving his first automobile: a 1910, two-Cylinder, friction-cluth Blackburn which could get up to 50 MPH on a long downhill slope.
In August of 1914, Harold Hiatt returned home to help his folks move from Yorkville to Hopland. That winter he contacted a severe case of pneumonia. His life was saved by his mother's mustard plaster, the formula for which had been in her family for generations.
In the Spring of 1915, Mr. Hiatt was employed as a lineman for the San
Joaquin Light and Power Company in Bakerfield--later being transferred to
Fresno as electrical troubleman, and, by early 1917, as fire electrician.
After a short period with Western Union near Tombstone, Arizona, he joined the Army Air Corps at the outbreak of the First World War. He began duty in charge of guarding oil storage depots in Waco, Texas, but soon found himself climbing poles again. Severely injured in that capacity, he was discharged for disability in September 1918, received vocational training as a disabled vetern and worked for the next few years for a number of electrical contractors. On one occasion he was called to do some wiring at a house on North Lake Street in Los Angeles. There he met Christina C. Erickson. They were married November 22, 1920 and, after short stays in Fresno and Huntington Park, took up residentce on Sheffield Avenue in Los Angeles, where they lived for nearly 40 years.
Mr. Hiatt was employed as a lineman and pole spotter for the Los Angeles
Bureau of Power and Light (now the Department of Water and Power) from 1924
until his retirement in 1961. He narrowly escaped death on several occasions: especially on one December night during the late "30's when he was blown out of a manhole at 4th and Main by the expolsion of the circuit handling all downtown ornamental lights. He was a strong union man during the union movement's formative years: as early as 1911 he was involed in the "Reid-Murphy War" over control of the electrician's union in the Bay area. He was a member of the Executive Board of Local 161, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, at the time of the Los Angeles strike of 1944.
Mr. Hiatt retired to Ukiah in 1962, then to Hemet in 1967, where he
resided at 980 Marion Avenue until his death on Sunday. He is survived by his wife, Christina, his brother, Raymond of Ukiah; his daughter, Mary Jane Woelfel of Covina, Calif. his sons Harold, Jr. of Arcadia, Calif. and William S. of Memphis, Tennessee; 8 grandchildren and 5 great-grandchildren. His
grandchildren will always affectionately remember his as "Bobo"
Mr. Hiatt born to a pioneer family, carried on the pioneer spirit
throughout his long and active life. He was an upright, independent,
hard-working man who made his own destiny. May his spirit live on in those who follow him.
Sent by Roger Woelfel. D/o August Erickson and Anna Christina Wilhelmina
Nystrom. Place of death also given as Arcadia, Los Angeles Co., CA.