Hess & Harry Wedding Photo Explained

My July 31, 2014 web post carried a photo of the McIntosh wedding in 1913 where I misidentified some of the wedding party members, particularly and most importantly where the groom and the bride were standing.

Cousin Catherine McIntosh was kind enough to point out to me in a comment that she thought that her grandfather, Harry McIntosh, was the man on the left in the photo with his bride, Hess, standing next to him and not Dutch Coronado.  She is right.  I did a little more research (with a pronounced red face) and hope to now correctly identify the people in the wedding photo.

The McIntosh wedding party posed for this photo on the steps of St. Vincent’s Church in Vallejo.  It was just after noon on July 14, 1913.  On the steps from left to right is Harry McIntosh; Jesusita (Hess) Coronado McIntosh; Marion (Dutch) Coronado, the best man; and Hallie Osborne, maid of honor.  The flower girls in the front are from left to right: Marian (Toots) Coronado and Cecelia Coronado.  The girl on the fourth step on the right is Alice Anderson.[1]

Hess Coronado was born in 1888 and was the oldest surviving daughter of Mariano and Louisa Coronado.  My mother, Cecelia Coronado, born in 1906, said that Hess helped raised her and her sister, Toots (born 1905), in the large Coronado family.

Harry McIntosh came with his mother, and his sister, Isabella, and brother, Walter, from Quincy Massachusetts around 1910[2].  Harry was a piano tuner[3] and piano player.   He played the piano for Mariano at the Coronado Inn and spent a lot of time with his good friend, Dutch Coronado, at the Coronado property on the rural Napa Vallejo Highway.

“Harry always admired our oldest sister, Hess”, says Cecelia.  “She was tiny.  In fact he found her at the stove most of the time where she was even too small to reach the kettles to stir.  Mama put a little stool there for her.  That’s where Harry discovered his future bride.”[4]

Since Dutch was a good friend of Harry, he was a logical choice for best man at the McIntosh wedding.  The maid of honor, Hallie Osborne, is a mystery to me.  She may have been a good friend of the bride, but I could not find any reference to her in family records or census records.  Any help from family members would be welcome.

Flower girls and sisters, Cecelia and Toots, were born about 15 months apart and look like they could be twins in the wedding photo.

The girl high up on the steps in the photo on the right side is 13 year-old Alice Anderson.  She was the niece of Harry McIntosh.  She came with her mother, Isabella, her grandmother and her Uncle Harry from Massachusetts and settled in Vallejo where Alice and her mother, “Belle” lived.  Her mother ran a rooming house on Georgia Street.[5]

Cecelia says that “since Harry had a job with Papa playing the piano, Alice used to stay with us a lot and I think one time stayed all summer long.  Alice remembers staying with us during the school year too and riding the buggy to school.  Mama used to say to Toots and me, ‘You two girls are fine.  But let Alice come around and she gets you two in mischief’.”[6]

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[1] Coronado Newsletter, Vol 1, No 3, May 1994, page 8.

[2] I don’t think that all members of the McIntosh family came to Vallejo at the same time.  Harry was listed as a boarder living at 332 Georgia Street in Vallejo in April 1910.  According the 1910 Federal Census he was a piano tuner working for a piano manufacturer.  Isabella McIntosh Anderson, her husband, George, and her daughter, Alice, were in Quincy Massachusetts in April 1910 living at 76 Rover Street according to the 1910 Federal Census.  Isabella and her daughter, Alice, probably left soon afterwards for Vallejo because Harry and Alice were closely associated with the Coronado family as Harry was courting Hess.  Isabella remarried in 1916, so either George Anderson died or they were divorced by then.  Ancestry.com database online. 1910 United States Federal Census, California, Solano, Vallejo Ward 2, District 0190, page 3.  1910 United State Federal Census, Massachusetts, Norfolk, Quincy Ward 2, District 1140, page 30.

[3] Ancestry.com database online. 1910 United States Federal Census, California, Solano, Vallejo Ward 2, District 0190, page 3.  By the time of his wedding Harry worked for the Sperry Mill Company in south Vallejo.  Cecelia Coronado Phipps, Coronado Family Memories, Coronado Newsletter, Vol 3, No 3, May – August 1996, page 3.

[4] Cecelia Coronado Phipps, Coronado Family Memories, Coronado Newsletter, Vol 3, No 3, May – August 1996, page 3.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

Remembering My Childhood (Cecelia Coronado) - Part Five

(This is the fifth in a series of posts based on audio recordings made by my mother, Cecelia Coronado Phipps in 1983.  Here she remembers her brother-in law, Harry McIntosh, and her brother, Dutch.)

Harry McIntosh

Dutch told me years later that he and Harry McIntosh, who married my sister Hess, became good chums, good friends.  They would sleep in the garden in the summertime.  In those days the summertime was real hot.  Hess and Harry were going together at that time and he played the piano for my father.

Let me tell you a little story about Harry. Dutch always had a motorcycle.  Harry was inclined to be rather slow moving.  He was a swell guy.  We all loved him. ... Dutch had the motorcycle going in the back yard and said, "Jump on Harry.  Get on, we're going into town."  Well he thought that Harry had jumped on.  By the time he got into town, which was three miles away, there was no Harry! ...

Harry's mother brought him and his sister from Massachusetts.  She was a widow and ran a boardinghouse in Vallejo.  Alice, his half-sister, was practically raised with us; she spent so much time with us.  One time, Mama said, "Pick a few apples, Alice."  Well, she not only picked a few, she took every apple on the tree.  So there were no apples left on that tree.  We have fond memories of Alice, who grew up almost like our own sister.

Harry & Hess Wedding Day 1913.  Dutch in center with light-colored hat as best man.  Sisters Toots & Cecelia as flower girls.  Alice on steps at far right. (Revised 8/21/2014)

Dutch

Let me go back and tell you a little "ditty" that Dutch talks about.  He was sent to school when he was four years old.  He was a very large boy, big boned. ... He was just not ready for school at all.  Apparently they wore these little sailor hats at that time.  All he wanted to do was hit the teacher with his sailor hat.  He just provoked her so much, that finally she sent for my father.  He came and the teacher said, "He is just not ready for school yet.  All he wants to do is fuss."  The teacher said to let him come back in a year's time, so Papa took him home.  Well, when the year was up, he was certainly ready for school.  Everything then came so easy for him.

Dutch Coronado driving the beer truck in 1914.  Man standing on the truck bed holding the child may be his brother, James.

Dutch, as a beer truck driver, in front of The Coronado Inn