Their eldest brother, Byron, got his teaching certificate when Welles and Ray were infants; they would have been young men when Byron left his wife and headed west to the "Badlands" to teach in South Dakota. Their war hero father surely influenced them to pursue their educations; their brothers enticed them to seek adventure; their mother sought to keep them safe. And each chose to go their own way - for the most part.
Welles Monroe Callin (1889–1921) was born on April 19, 1889 in Bowling Green, Ohio. He grew up there until 1902, when the family moved to Fostoria. Welles attended Fostoria High School where he was the captain of the Ohio State Championship football team in 1907.
After his high school graduation on November 10, 1908, Welles married Florence, daughter of a local Fostoria city councilman, George B. Stone. They eloped to Windsor, Ontario, Canada and moved to Detroit. Welles’ brother Prentice was living there also, and they may have moved in with him. This marriage didn't work out and they were divorced shortly thereafter; they had no children.
Welles and Prentice then seem to have left for Edmunds County, South Dakota where their brother Byron was living. He held a number of degrees, including at least one in theology, and had been a traveling preacher for a time in South Dakota, as well as teaching school at nearly every level.
It was around this time that Byron began calling himself “Herbert”, his middle name. Welles evidently thought this was quite elegant and is listed in the 1910 census as “Monroe Callin”, though nobody ever seemed to call him that. In Baker, Montana, he met Marion Elizabeth Silvernale (1892–1972), the daughter of Baker's blacksmith, Charles Silvernale. The couple eloped in 1911. It was quite a scandal, and there was even an article in the local paper.
Her family was not exactly smitten with the idea of their little girl seeing a divorced man, but after having a son in Fostoria, the young couple settled in Whitefish, Montana where Welles went to work for The Great Northern Railroad.
On September 21, 1921, one year and one day after the birth of his youngest son, Welles was on a short run from Troy to Libby, Montana. He was standing on the platform between the locomotive and the tender when a heavy coal rake, that was sticking out beyond the side of the locomotive, struck a trestle and knocked him off of the train and into the riverbed. He landed on his head and died instantly. He was 32 years old. He is buried in the Missoula Cemetery in Missoula, Montana.
I. Cameron Welles Callin Sr. (1912–1968) was born in Fostoria, Ohio, and arrived with his parents in Seattle around 1924. He graduated from Franklin High School in 1933 and was an all-city football half-back two years. He played three years with the West Seattle Yellowjackets, a semi-pro football team. He was with The Boeing Company for 28 years, rising to become a senior supervisor for the Airplane Division. He died of a heart ailment in a Seattle hospital at 58 years of age.
Cameron married twice, and had a child with each wife. He married Theresa L Taylor (1914–1996) on 14 April 1934 in Seattle. They were together at least through 1940, but Cameron remarried in 1944, and Theresa remarried in 1949. Cameron's second wife was Alyce Annetta Risdon (1921–2000).
A. Cameron Welles Callin Jr (1936–1990) was a native of Seattle, and he moved to Salem, Oregon, in 1975 from Vancouver, Washington. He owned and operated The Ranch restaurant in Salem for many years, and owned the Tom-Tom and Cameron's restaurants in Albany, Oregon. He married his first wife in 1958; she and their two sons and two daughters survive him.
In 1981, Cam divorced his first wife and married Pamela Rae Dillon (1957–2004) in 1982. Cam and Pam owned and operated the Ranch Restaurant and Bar for seven years, but he died in 1990, just after they bought the Tom-Tom Restaurant and Westbrooks in Albany. Pam continued to own and operate the Tom-Tom Restaurant for about 15 years. She died at only 46 years of age.
B. Linda Callin (1945–2013) was Cam, Jr.'s half-sister. She married David O Monton (1948–2013) on 11 November 1972, and they died only a few months apart in 2013.
II. Charles Silvernale Callin (1913–1976) enlisted in the U.S. Army from 2 July 1943 to 18 March 1946, and after the war he married Golda Hrederig Thomsen (1910–2001) on 3 May 1948. Golda was an army nurse he met during the war. They had two sons, one biological and one adopted, both still living.
Chuck was a school teacher, and like his brothers, he died far too early from heart ailments.
III. John Kenneth Callin Sr. (1920–1976) joined the Army in July 1943, and married Mary Ellen M Jacobsen (1925–1995) that December. Because he couldn't get the hang of Morse Code, he washed out of radio school and was assigned to the Air Corps as a tail gunner. He never saw action, though, because he was hospitalized with pneumonia which turned into pleurisy. He needed tubes inserted into his back, to the pleural cavity to drain the fluids. After that, he had his wings clipped and was no longer able to fly. So he spent the remainder of the war in England, guarding POWs. He received disabled veterans benefits for the rest of his life due to the pleurisy and the surgery. (Not a large amount - about 28 bucks a month.) John worked as a mail carrier until his death in 1976.
They had three sons, two of whom are still living.
A. John Kenneth Callin Jr. is a traveler, a maker, and a family historian. He and his wife raised a daughter and a son, and have four grandchildren. I credit him with providing the details about this branch of the family - of course, I'll claim any errors you find in the writing!
i. Thomas John (Tom) Callin (1973-2002) was born in Sun Valley, California, and struggled with bipolar disorder. He lost that struggle in 2002, and died in Overland Park, Kansas, where he left behind a wife and young daughter.
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| In Memory of a Bluesman |
He was predeceased by his beloved Dotti,
Dorothy Kay (Chamberlain) Delaney (1946–1994), and survived by their daughter. Jeff was cremated and his remains were placed inside of a guitar that his brother, John, built for him. They will be kept at home with Jeff's daughter.
Ray Callin (1890-1965) was born 26 August 1890, and unlike his brothers, he seems to have remained in Ohio and attended school rather than exploring the northwest of the country. Not to say he didn't have any adventures; he's one of our few ancestors who actually saw action during World War I.
Ray enlisted in the National Army from Sandusky, Ohio, on 1 October 1917, when he was 27. He served as an engineer, and was assigned to three units which were part of the American Expeditionary Forces from 4 March 1918 to 4 August 1919. He served in Company A, 308 Engineers until 20 May 1918; 116 Engineers until 21 June 1918; and in Company B, 2 Engineers until his Discharge. He was promoted to Corporal on 18 October 1917. He was involved in several major offensive campaigns: Aisne-Marne; St Mihiel; and Meuse-Argonne. He received his honorable discharge on 14 August 1919.
After the war, Ray lived with his widowed mother in Vermillion, and worked as a carpenter and woodworker. He did not marry until 11 September 1928, when he wed Mary Delcamp (1893–1974). Mary was the middle daughter of Emanuel J Delcamp (1862–1900) and Mary Ann Griffiths (1868–1939), of Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Mary's father died abruptly at 37, and her mother remarried John Wanner. After John's death in 1915, the twice widowed Mary Wanner moved with her daughters to Cleveland.
Ray and Mary were both in their mid-to-late thirties when they married, and while had a son soon after their marriage, they also took in a few children over the years. One of these was Jack Hopkins, whose son came down with polio in 1950, when he was only four years old. Ray and Mary were reported in the paper as visiting their grandson, Jerry Hopkins, in the hospital, which shows how close they were to their foster children.
Another of these foster children remembered Ray's mother, Amanda, very well. He said she loved ice cream and would send him to the store to buy it for her. He recalled that she was a kindly lady, but stingy with her ice cream. (We researchers seem to share that ice cream gene.)
Ray farmed in the Sandusky area for many years, eventually selling the family farm in the early 1950s and buying a winter home in Florida, as his brothers Byron and John had done. Ray and Mary both died in Florida, and were survived by their son and four grandchildren - all of whom are still living.
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That's going to do it for "my" branch of the family - we've finished our swing through the John H. Callin solar system, and when we pick things up again, we will start with his brother, James Monroe Callin. We've still got a long way to go before we have covered all of James Callin's descendants, so I hope you're in this for the long haul!
As I write this last post-script, it is Thanksgiving Day, 2016, and I've decided to give myself a holiday break for the month of December. I have some non-Callin research to catch up on, and may post some non-regular information between now and the end of the year, but I want to give the rest of the family my full energy in the New Year.
I'm getting better about reaching out to the surviving family members as I go, so hopefully more of them will start finding their way to the blog and to the Facebook group. If you're a member of this, or any of the families I've written about, and you have corrections to suggest, I'm happy to include them. I'm also happy to include your stories and memories, though I won't do so without your permission.
I hope you're all well, and I hope to hear from you in the comments below, at my "callintad" gmail address, or on the Callin Family History Facebook group.
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