NOTE: ​This added E. H. Mitchell Family Biographical information, was Emailed to Walt 2-28-2008

I have a picture of my great-grandfather, John Samuel Mitchell (older half-brother of Edward H. Mitchell, my great-great Uncle), sitting on the porch with his first son Mowatt Merrill Mitchell. My great-grandfather is holding my father Standish Mowatt Mitchell on his lap. My father looks to be about only eighteen months old. I would very much like to be put in contact with Stafford Buckley, who seems to be a 3rd (?) cousin of mine, according to your interesting account of "Edward H. Mitchell, himself". It is interesting for me to read that "EHM" moved to Palo Alto to late in his life, as that city is where my grandparents settle down when they came back to California (my grandfather, E. H. Mitchell’s nephew, was overseas in the U.S. diplomatic service). My grandfather was only 19 years younger than EHM, being born in San Francisco in 1886. I have a small treasure-trove of San Francisco stories from my grandfather, who wrote an unpublished autobiography.

One slight and relatively meaningless correction to E. H Mitchell story: John Samuel ("J. S.", as he was known in our line of the family) Mitchell indeed had a daughter Ruth Comfort Mitchell, who was his first child, but he had a total of three sons after that, not just two. First came my grandfather Mowatt M. Mitchell, an aviator in WW1 and diplomat thereafter; then Standish Low Mitchell (my father's namesake), who was an early executive of the Automobile Association of Southern California; and finally a third son (and fourth child), Douglas Chapin Mitchell. Another item of note is that according to the "Genealogy of the Dodge Family of Essex County, Mass. 1629-1894", John Samuel Mitchell was born in Sacramento, CA in 1855, to John H. Mitchell and married San Francisco native Florence Standish Mowatt. Florence had grandfathers on both sides of the American Revolutionary War: Commodore Mowatt of the English Navy, and Shadrach Dodge, a private in the New Hampshire Line formation of the Continental Army. Family oral tradition has it that "J. H.", the J. S. family and E. H. Mitchell’s father, came to Sacramento and made his first fortune selling supplies to gold miners. Then he had enough money to get into hotels in a very big way, which thereby became the acquired profession of some of children. The name "Standish" of my great-grandmother's middle name supposedly came down from Myles Standish, and the name has been carried along in successive generations: her son Standish Low Mitchell; his nephew (my father) Standish Mowatt Mitchell; Standish Low Mitchell's grandson by his daughter Barbara Mitchell Fleming, Standish Fleming; Standish Fleming's sister's son Myles Standish Thompson; and my nephew Thierry Standish Maurel, and so on, perhaps. In any case, thank for the additional parts of my family history; I hadn't known about J. H's two other families and I hadn't known that his father was a Methodist minister in Illinois, although I do believe he's in Florence Standish Mowatt Mitchell's family Bible, in which I think she listed back a couple of generations on both her side and her husband's, E. H. Mitchell's half-brother.

I wonder if EHM was in contact with his niece, Ruth Comfort Mitchell (Young). She was quite a celebrity in her day her writing career was very, very profitable, from a young age. Her little brothers, no matter how successful and accomplished they became, could never shine as brightly as she, with all her earned income and quite substantial not-quite-behind-the-scenes political power. As the decades wore on, she always managed to be the most accomplished amongst her siblings. Only once did I see this through my grandfather eyes. He was normally a very reserved, almost Victorian-era, gentleman, but he let slip out a bit of his feelings about his sister in response to a gush of praise about her from one of her dearest fans, my grandmother. He barked (not something he did), "romantic drivel!" in reference to her writing. Then he gave me a very quick little grin.

Thank you very much,

Courtney Mowatt Mitchell mowatt@pacbell.net

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