On this day 114 years ago, Fred Nason and Florence Curtis were killed in the Monarch Slide near Garfield, Colorado. All their children, including my grandmother, Edna Nason, survived the disaster. Read about the Monarch Slide here.
I discovered this sketch with my mother’s papers. I believe it is of the young Fred Nason.
Fred R. Nason
Fred Nason was born on January 27, 1861 in Girard, Pennsylvania. His father was David Nason, who was born in Otego, New York. David Nason married Eunice Godfrey of Girard, Pennsylvania in 1842. They had nine children. “Godfrey” was one of my father’s names: Eugene Nason Godfrey Doherty. Girard is located on the shore of Lake Erie. In 1860, the census recorded a population of 616 people...
The Chinese Wife
My mother told me that Dad, Eugene Nason Doherty, married a woman when he lived in China. Her father sold her to him, and he married her in a “Chinese ceremony.” She was about 13 or 14. Dad was stationed near Peiping, (Beijing) China in 1945-1946. He left the young woman in China when he was shipped backed to the United States. He went home to his wife, Helen Anderson Doherty, who he married...
The Nasons and the Monarch Slide of 1907
My father, Eugene Nason Doherty, was a wonderful storyteller. But not all of his stories were the same. Family stories could be rich and encompassing. They could also be grim with scanty details and trail off to a dead end. One such story was about my grandmother, Edna Nason Doherty, who survived an avalanche that killed her parents and orphaned her brothers and sisters. Family stories about the...
Dad’s China Knife
My father brought this knife home from China. He was a U.S. Marine stationed in China in 1944 and 1945. The Marine base was near Peiping (Beijing). Dad hired a man to cook, shop and keep his place neat. His name was Hun Yen Kai. Dad met him when he came to the Marine base looking for a job. This was the knife he used for cooking. Dad told me the knife was Japanese. At the time, I thought that...