Any new stuff?
Rutherford Exposed: The Story of Berta and Bonnie
by Farkel 747 Replies latest watchtower scandals
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Leolaia
Back to the thread. I checked the name "Braunda Thurman," or "Braunda" per se as it is an unusual name. In the 1930 census, there were only 8 Braundas listed for the United States. One of them (Braunda Martin) lived in Taylor, Abilene, Texas and another (Braunda Benson) is from Dunlap, Harrison, Iowa, and either could potentially be relevant, considering that Bonnie is from Iowa and has ties to Texas. However, I do believe that neither are our Braunda, for I found the obituary of Braunda Thurman Gamette, 86, who died in Las Vegas, Nevada on March 18, 2004. Since she was still living in Las Vegas, and since the name is a pretty good match, it looks like perhaps this witness to the wedding was a local of the area and possibly worked for the wedding chapel -- and was not a family relation to Bonnie. Since she was 86 when she died, she would have been born around 1918 -- whereas Braunda Martin was born around 1925 and Braunda Benson was born around 1927. The SSDI states that she was born on March 28, 1917.
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MerryMagdalene
Nice to see you, Leolaia! I sure hope this thread can be resuscitated...
You have me scrambling through my old notes now as I, too, tried to track down Braunda Thurman and Margaret Hinson a while back.
All I have on Braunda Thurman of Las Vegas, Nevada is that she married Wayne A Gamette, 7 October 1941 in Mesa, Arizona, Maricopa County.
As to Margaret Hinson... there was a daughter of this name born in 1897 to Shelton Hinson and Mattie Daisy Fletcher of Memphis, TN; in the 1880 census there was a Margaret, age 22, married to James Hinson and they lived in Fairfield, Iowa; a Maggie Hinson died in Fort Stockton, Texas in October 1972; in the 1930 census there was a Margaret Hinson in Angelina County, Texas, born in 1915. I was also sure I learned that the Bonnie Boyd you found in Texas had a sister named Margaret, but I can't find my notation on that at the moment and was never able to discover who that Margaret married (looking for a Hinson).
That's all from this corner...
--Merry
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Leolaia
Wayne A. Gamette died in 12/2/1994 in Las Vegas, Clark, Nevada, according to the SSDI. Moreover, an article in the Reno Evening Gazette (12/3/1951) mentions "Wayne Gamette" as a member of a musical quartet that provided music at a wedding.
I'm pretty sure the trail has gone cold with respect to Bonnie's origins; unfortunately all I got from the Las Vegas Recorder was the same certificate which is not the license and has no info on the spouses' families. Maybe if we have an apostofest in Vegas, some of us could go to the Recorder's office and try to see if the license info is extant.
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MerryMagdalene
OK, I went back to p17 of this thread, looking for a new wild hare to chase on the off chance it might lead somewhere important (or, at least, interesting)...
Decided to check out the Treseders with whom the Susette Heath Black (JW and sister of William Pratt Heath, Jr) and George Black, Jr lived in 1930 (as found by Leolaia). Nothing of any great importance yet, but I did want to share the interesting similarity beween the early Coca-Cola company and the WBTS company around the time when William Heath II and Ross Treseder were both salesmen for the former...
An article at http://www.businessweek.com/chapter/tedlow.htm quotes Ross's remembrance of Asa Briggs Candler (Coke Daddy and devout Methodist) who would have the salesmen sing Onward Christian Soldiers with him at the close of the sales meeting. But here's the words that really stood out, making me wonder how much the Coca-Cola sales methods influenced the development of the JW door-to-door work?...just a thought... [red highlights mine]
The sales force was of critical importance in achieving national distribution for Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola under Candler relied heavily on a personal, face-to-face selling approach. Although there are other ways to reach the customer--such as mass-media or direct-mail advertising-- personal selling has the advantages of high impact on the customer and flexibility. The salesperson can tailor the message to the individual customer, answering questions and responding to objections. At Coca-Cola, management worked to maximize sales force performance in such subtle exchanges. "Sales demonstrations can be staged," explained a Coca-Cola vice-president at a 1923 bottler convention, "one salesman taking the part of a merchant and the other taking the part of a salesman. Questions can be asked, ideas can be brought out, and a general discussion of territories can be gone into."
Sound familiar? All those staged demonstrations at the meetings and assemblies?
--Merry
edited to add, for clarity, that the above quote was from the writer of the article, not from Ross Treseder.
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MerryMagdalene
Well, here's another longshot if anyone wants to check it out--
In the SSDI there is a Margaret Hinson (name of one of the witnesses to Bonnie Boyd's wedding) listed as born 24 May 1901, died September 1981. The minor coincidence that caught my attention is that at Familysearch.org Bonnie Bell Boyd (of Texas) has a sister named Margaret Louise who is listed as having been born 24 May 1912 and died August 1981. Even if it doesn't pan out, I thought it too close to ignore. Or not. You decide. I can't take it any further than this.
~Merry
PS-- Bonnie Bell Boyd's brother, Archie Thomas Boyd (born in Texas 17 December 1904, died in 1985) appears to match up with an Archie Boyd in the SSDI who is listed with that exact birthdate, death in December of 1985, San Francisco,CA.
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Gill
This story reminds me of the story of King David when he was getting old and his associates found him a young and very beautiful girl to keep him 'warm'.
Perhaps that's what he thought he was doing and why his contemporaries overlooked his 'sins'. They can usually fiddle the scriptures to their own benefit.
Dirty old men, all of them!
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Leolaia
Calling Merry and other fellow research-philes!!
I JUST FOUND BONNIE BOYD'S MOM!!
She was under our nose the whole time. Well, I took another look at Bonnie's testimony in the Olin Moyle case, and she said that she came to Bethel in 1923 with her mom (at the invitation of W. E. Van Amburgh) and her mother remained with her until her marriage in 1938. So that meant that Bonnie's mom was with her at Bethel during the 1930 census. And so all it took was a quick look and there she was:
Victoria R. Boyd was 56 years old, thus born in 1873-1874 in Iowa, whose father was born in Scotland and whose mother was born in Canada (of English descent). She was widowed by 1930, and was 17 years old when she first was married (i.e. in 1890-1891). We know elsewhere that Bonnie Boyd was born in 1898-1899 (as she was 31 years old in 1930) in Iowa, so this makes her mother a native of Iowa as well. This finding will hopefully open the door to new avenues of research on Bonnie's family history....
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Leolaia
More:
According to the 1900 census, the following family lived in Waterloo, Black Hawk, Iowa: John R. Boyd, father, 33 years old, born in May 1867 in Iowa (whose father was from Ohio and whose mother was from Indiana), Victoria Boyd, mother, 28 years old, born in May 1872 in Iowa (whose father was born in Ireland and whose mother was born in Canada), Gen Boyd, son, 9 years old, born in January 1891 in Iowa, Marjorie Boyd, daughter, 3 years old, born in July 1896 in Iowa, Jean Boyd, daughter, 6 months old, born in December 1899 in Iowa, and Lenore Rankine, son-in-law of John R. Boyd, 24 years old, born in March 1876 in Iowa. I think this is probably Bonnie's family. As stated in the 1930 census, Bonnie's mom was born in Iowa, with her father being a native of Scotland and her mother a native of Canada. This matches the 1900 census data, except that Scotland replaces Ireland, which may reflect the fact that Ireland was partioned out in the 1920s and the Northern Ireland territory was populated with Ulster Scots. The rare combination of father=Scots/Irish nativity, mother=Canadian nativity, self=Iowa nativity lends itself to a fairly secure identification, along with the chronological information. Victoria Boyd, in the 1930 census, indicated that she was married when she was 17 years old, and if she was born in May 1872, then she would have been married in May 1889-May 1890. As it turns out, "Victoria Boyd" in the 1900 census stated that she had been married for 11 years. From June 1900, this points to a date between June 1889 and June 1890 -- exactly what is expected. Finally, Victoria was 56 years old at the time of the 1930 census in April 1930, which points to a birth in 1873-1874 -- just one year off. Moreover, she did say that she was first married at age 17 in the 1930 census, and if she was born in May 1872, this means she would have married in 1889-1890, exactly the same result obtained from the 1900 census. One final piece of evidence is that of John's son-in-law (Victoria's brother), whose last name was "Rankine". This means that Victoria's maiden name was Victoria Rankine, and this fits perfectly with the name Victoria R. Boyd in the 1930 census. This thus appears to be the right family. As a collorary of this, Bonnie Boyd would have thus been born as Jean Boyd in December 1899.
Incidentally, John Boyd was employed as a "house painter" and his son-in-law was a stenographer.
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MerryMagdalene
I couldn't be more surprised ! ! ! Didn't expect to see this up and running again. Nice work, Leolaia. One bit of mystery solved. WOOOOOHOOOOOO
~Merry