Edwin Henry Curtiss (Part 1)

For the last 5 years I have been trying to discover the birth and death information for my family tree. This is not always easy for me as most all my elder relations have passed. (I wish I would have begun this genealogy quest in my early 20s) All my grandparents, and most of my aunts and uncles are gone now and the few that remain were too young to remember events in their past with any clarity. But, occasionally I get a fact or hint from someone that leads me to a find.

At my families first ever Family Reunion this last summer I asked my 85 year old father if he remembered anything about his Uncle Edwin. He was only 8 years old when Edwin died and I was having a very hard time finding the facts attached to his life and death. Dad said he remembered his mother receiving a phone call and crying and crying, saying "Uncle Edwin is dead".

Uncle Edwin H. was the oldest brother of Dad's father, Arthur D. Curtiss. Born in Laurel, Maryland 30 June 1879.  He was the first child (to survive) of  Alfred Leroy and Mary Ella (Darby) Curtiss. They moved to St. Joseph, Missouri when he was one 1 yr. old and had the rest of their 6 children there.  He married Norma A. Tisher in 1903, but she passed in 1908 leaving Edwin a childless widower. In 1911 he married his second wife Alice Leota Reeder.  He worked for Richardson D G & Co. first as a trunk-maker and then became a photographer. They moved to Omaha, Nebraska around  1918 and then to Los Angeles about 1921 when his brothers family moved there. He worked as a carpenter, was divorced from Alice L. and had no children. He died at age 52.  My father and Aunt both said that they believed he had committed suicide. I had collected all the facts I could about him searching every possible lead in discovering his death certificate to no avail.

At the Family Reunion I asked my Dad if he could remember anything else about Edwin concerning his death. He remembers he heard Uncle Edwin was in Bakersfield when he shot himself.  Since I had searched every possible option in Los Angeles, his last residence this was a new lead.

Bakersfield is in Kern County so I began to check out the online death indexes for California looking for anything in Kern County between 1930 - 1940. I found one that I thought was possibly his. Recorded May 5, 1932 with the name Ed Curtiss, age 41. Spouse initial listed as "L".  I knew that Alice Leota some times went by A. Loeta , so this was possibly his death certificate. I sent for it.

When the certificate arrived I found that this was a "white man, possibly Ed Curtiss", a suicide victim shot to the head and found in a car on the hwy. Spouse name "Lata" (coincidentally, my grandmothers' name) and divorced. Buried in Delano, CA. No other records stated. I had enough information to conclude that this indeed was Edwin Henry Curtiss' death certificate.

I was very happy with my discovery, but it left me with another question. How did the suppliers of facts on the certificate know that he was "divorced"? Did he leave a suicide note? Did he have his divorce papers with him in the car? Did he write the note to my grandmother, Lata Lavesta stating he was distraught over his divorce from Alice? It did state there was an inquest held. This will be my next search.

Edward H. Curtiss Family History Book Published

I just finished the family history book I've been working on this year and it's being published for our Curtiss Family Reunion in July. I'm proud of how it came out.
Here is a link to view the finished book:

http://www.bookemon.com/book-profile/edward-curtiss/147297

Edward H. Curtiss EM2/c USN

October 16, 1942. Swearing in ceremony on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall.

We then traveled by bus to the Naval Training Station in San Diego California and started “boot camp” by removing all or civilian clothing, which the Navy mailed to our homes. All our hair was removed and we received several shots. We got a sea bag and a whole outfit of navy clothing and gear including a mattress, hammock, towels, toiletries and puttees for our ankles which identified us as “boots”. We were fed a cold meal and told to hit the sack. It was about 2000 hours (8PM).

I will never forget that first night laying there in that bunk which was fine with me because I had spent every summer since I was 12 years old in summer camp and slept on cot type bunks just like these. All around the room I could hear whimpering, moaning, outright sobbing from some individuals that sincerely wished they were back in bed at home and had never even heard of the navy.

At 0400 hours we were rousted by the nastiness, meanest, loudmouthed chief petty officer in the world and mustered on the grinder. We were marched in parade order until 0500 then directed to the mess hall for breakfast. The entire day every day for 3 weeks was spent training for the various situations to be faced aboard ship including survivor skills, first aid and damage control. After 3 weeks we were tested to determine what type of jobs we were best suited for to perform aboard ship. I was sent to electrical school which lasted 16 weeks. This made me very happy. I knew this was my niche and I would become a good electrician.

The war was going on and we knew it wouldn’t be long before we would be assigned to a ship and headed out to sea. I could hardly wait. All during my youth my primary interest in books and reading was of sea stories. I spent every hour I could on a boat no matter what kind. If it could float I wanted to be on it.

After graduating from electrical school we were ordered to report for duty at the destroyer base in San Diego, where I was assigned to the USS Edgar G. Chase (DE16) Destroyer Escort. A destroyer escort is designed specifically to hunt and kill submarines in its effort to protect convoys of helpless freighters and tanker ships. It is also equipped with anti aircraft weapons.

The ‘Eddy G’ as we dubbed her was brand new. She had been built and outfitted at the Vallejo naval shipyard near San Francisco. The crew already aboard was almost all new to the navy. Some had been aboard ship before but not many. The trip down from San Francisco showed up a lot of problems so it was really important to get into the ‘Shake-down’ cruise and get us all trained before we had to face battle conditions. We spent every hour, day and night in intensive training. We knew how important this period was and made the extra effort to be the best ship in our squadron. Strangely there was very little complaining or griping from the crew during this time.

We went down the coast to Panama, went through the canal and out into the Caribbean Sea then on to Hamilton, Bermuda. We operated out of Hamilton for about three weeks then up to Charleston SC for some revisions to the ship. We slipped in there on July 21, 1943 which just happened to be my 19^th birthday. We were then assigned to Miami Florida to patrol the coast and train brand new, 90 day wonder officers just starting their naval careers. During this time we had two encounters with German subs but no surface action. We dropped a lot of depth charges and were pretty sure of one kill but couldn’t prove it. No bodies or other hard evidence came to the surface. It was pretty exciting for a while. There was a lot of activity on our ship which lasted from about 2100 hours to just after dawn. But no cheers for a confirmed kill.

We spent a little over a year operating like this out of Miami when we got the call to escort a “baby” flat-top (undersized aircraft carrier) to Recife, Brazil. She was going down to relieve a sister ship that had been operating in that area for a full year patrolling the south Atlantic. On the way down we crossed the equator and spent a whole day initiating all us ‘Pollywogs’ into ‘Shellbacks’. On another day we had a torpedo from a German sub pass just ahead of our bow and just aft of the stern of the flat top. One of the ships in our escort group the USS O’Toole made contact and started dropping depth charges. We never did make a contact so our skipper just stood by ready to assist the O’Toole. She threw every depth charge she had aboard with no results and even asked us to step in and throw what we had but our skipper was so angry at this futile effort that he just said ‘no’ and went back into our assigned escort position. For ever after that, every time our skipper saw the O’Toole he would mutter “Damn the O’Toole”. I’m sure if he were alive today he would still be saying it.

In early August 1944, we were directed to report to New York. We anchored just a little ways off from the statue of liberty and swung with the tides until the skipper was ordered to proceed to Brooklyn navy yard and provision for 60 days. We knew something was up and we were excited to find out. We were informed a hurricane was headed for the coast and to make preparations to ride it out at the dock. We didn’t get the chance. We left port and headed out toward the gulf stream. To say the ocean was rough doesn’t even begin to describe the conditions we were headed into. The seas were running to 30 feet in height and a man could not walk the deck but had to make way through inside passages to go anywhere in the ship. We were assigned to escort a convoy of tugs towing barges to England. This group was called “convoy NY119”. Top speed of this gay little group would be 6 knots. The tugs were of sea going capability but the conditions of the sea far exceeded their design. They were pulling huge railroad type barges. We had no clue to the nightmare we were heading into. We wondered why it was so important to go out into such dangerous conditions with a bunch of rusty old railroad barges. We found out later that these barges were to be filled with sand and sunk near the coast of Normandy, France providing quickly ready-made docks for the ships involved in the Normandy invasion.

The waves kept building and were being measured at 65 feet. This is heavy seas for a large full sized battleship but for our little pint sized DE it was daunting. Then you think of the little, and I do mean little tugs it was just about impossible to cope. After two weeks of this punishment tugs began to capsize and it was literally impossible to help them when they did. The barges were such a drag due to their size and weight that when a wave would overtake a tug he couldn’t rise to go over it and would be twisted over in the effort and capsize. We lost 42 men in this way.

This operation was of such magnitude that it has been recorded in several books. The two that I have read are “Tempest, Fire & Foe” by Lewis M. Andrews (page 34) Also there are two pictures of me (pages 41 and 390). The 2^nd. Book is Shepherds of the Sea by Robert F. Cross.

The return trip to New York was uneventful except the sea was still storm-tossed all the way to Norfolk where we dropped off the tankers we had been escorting from Plymouth, England.

After a few days rest we provisioned for sea and shepherded several tankers to Oran, Morocco. Spent 10 days in port then took them all back to the USA. We repeated this operation two more times over the next few months.

By this time the war was winding down. With no more convoys to escort we returned to Miami, Florida and patrolled the coast in and out of the Gulf of Mexico. The day the war ended we were patrolling along the over-seas highway. We could see cars driving along. The captain announced over the growler that the war had ended, and then ordered all deck guns to commence firing into the air. People on the highway were stopping and hiding under and behind their cars wondering what was happening. We steamed on back to Miami where crowds of people were systematically destroying the town breaking windows, burning and turning over cars and street-cars in their joy.

Shortly after this we were assigned to report to the Navy yard at Charleston, South Carolina decommission the Eddie G. and move all our gear to shore facilities. Most of the crew was mustered out and sent home but I was regular Navy with 3 years to finish out my 6 year hitch. Late in October I was reassigned to Norfolk, VA to wait for new orders. On December 24^th I was given orders to go on ‘30 day delayed orders’ and report for duty on USS Lowry, DD770. Christmas day was spent on the train going to LA and home.

I was having a very difficult time trying to deal with being separated from the Chase and all the guys I had been so close to for two and a half years. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for that amount of time you get very closely attached and it is hard to make the break, but I was looking forward to serving on the Lowry a full blown warship covered with glory and the battle scars to prove it.

Alfred Curtiss - Death of an Old Pioneer

Erie Saturday Evening Gazette - 17 March 1888

Alfred Curtis, who died at his home in Branchville last week at the advanced age of 89 years, was one of the oldest pioneers of Northwestern Pennsylvania. He was born in Stratford, Conn., in May, 1799. When a mere lad, he moved to Whitehall, N.Y. In 1818 he was married to Charlotte Hatch, a sister of the Crawford and Erie County of that name. She was one of those noble women of olden time who was not afraid to brave the perils and privations of frontier life, and proved indeed a helpmate to her husband. In 1822 Mr. Curtis and his family moved from Whitehall and located on the farm now owned and occupied by his son A.N. Curtis. He was a radical abolitionist and for many years he conducted a train and kept a station on the Underground Railroad. While tolerant towards others Mr. Curtis was fearless in his advocacy of the cause of the oppressed. No worthy person ever appealed to his sympathies in vain. In after years he delighted to talk about the thrilling scene, incidents and adventures of those perilous times in which he was an important actor. He was an eloquent stump speaker, and on a certain occasion an anti-slavery meeting was announced in a neighborhood where party spirits ran very high. There had been a logging bee in the neighborhood and in the evening many of the half drunken men came to the meeting bent on breaking up the assembly and having a little fun at the expense of the speaker. Mr. Curtis, who was personally unknown to the audience, took his position on the platform and opened the meeting with prayer. Such a proceeding at a political gathering was unheard of and had a strangely subduing effect on the turbulent settlers, who listened to his thrilling speech with breathless interest. Although he never dreamed that slavery would be abolished in his lifetime, Mr. Curtis lived to see the “sum of all villainies” swept away, and a generation rise and nearly pass from stage of action before he was summoned from “labor to reward”. He was an earnest and effective worker in the temperance field, and a consistent member of the Baptist Church for many years. He was an exemplary Christian, a loyal citizen, a kind neighbor, a true friend, a loving husband and an indulgent father. He died as he lived, in the belief of a resurrection and a future life beyond the grave.

“Uncle Frank”

Frank Henry, an abolitionist and local historian who lived in Wesleyville, PA.