Grace Valentine (Dawson) Olmsted (1897 - 1997)

Born 14 Feb 1897 in Brooklyn, New York, USA

Ancestors

Died 17 Sep 1997 at age 100 in San Francisco, California, USA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Marion Ceruti [send private message]

Biography

Descendant of Sir Anthony Deane, MP. Sir Anthony Deane, MP, was a noted naval architect.

Grace (Dawson) Olmsted has French origins.

Grace (Dawson) Olmsted has Welsh ancestors.

Grace (Dawson) Olmsted was a New Yorker.

Grace (Dawson) Olmsted was a Californian.

Grace (Dawson) Olmsted was a centenarian, living to age 100.

Grace was born in 1897. She was the daughter of George Dawson and Blanche Deane. Grace attended school fifty seven in Queens, New York, USA, where she graduated on 27 June 1911.

Grace had three husbands" 1. "Walter" 2. "Baker" and 3. Robert J. Olmsted. Details of her first two marriages remain sparse but Grace's relatives understood that they both ended in divorce. This may be confirmed or refuted with further research. Since living relatives remember "Uncle Robert," more details about him will be described below.

Robert made his fortune in California real estate. As a result, Grace and Robert always lived in nice places. One was Palm Springs, where they had a swimming pool. Another was on Balmer Drive in Los Angeles. Their last home together was in a retirement community called "Liesure World" in Laguna Hills, California, USA, where they lived in the 1960s and early 1970s. Their neice, Lucille Dawson Ceruti, and nephew, Raymond Irvine Dawson, Jr. visited the Olmsteds in their varous homes over the years.

Robert loved exciting sports. When they owned a Tahiti ketch (pictured) in Los Angeles, he enjoyed sailing to Santa Catalina Island. Grace did not especially like sailing but went along to please Robert because she knew it meant so much to him. Robert walked with a limp due to injuries sustained a motorcycle accident. Robert Olmsted, passed away in Laguna Hills, CA in 1973.

Grace was very active in the Christian Science Church. After Robert passed away, she moved to the Arden Wood Christian Science retirement, rest, and study facility in San Francisco, located near the intersection of West Portal Blvd. and Wawona St. It is a large, beautiful building designed in the style of a French chateau, perhaps similar in some ways to the mansion that her aristocratic ancestor, John Cushier, must have inhabited during his early childhood in Bordeaux, France.

Her nieces and nephew attended her 100th birthday party at the Arden Wood. Pictured here from left to right: Dr. Marion Grace Ceruti, grand niece; Mr. Raymond Irvine Dawson, Jr, Esq. nephew; and Mrs. Lucille Bird Dawson Ceruti, nice.

Aunt Grace passed away from complications associated with a broke hip, several months after her 100th birthday in 1997. Grace had no children but she is remembered by her nieces and nephews as a kind and spiritual lady who was very generous to her relatives. An observation of Raymond Irvine Dawson, Jr., her nephew, was that Grace would never go anywhere without her earrings. Grace's estate contained books by and about Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and lots of pairs of earrings.

Sources

• Commencement announcment and ticket for admission, "The Class of June 1911, School Fifty Seven, Borough of Queens, invites you to attend their commencement to be held in the assembly hall, Tuesday, June Twenty-seventh, nineteen hundred and eleven..." handwritten in the upper left corner is inscribed tne name, "Grace Dawson."
• Genealogy document including the Weisinger, Westphal and Dawson families, dated 5 Feb. 1986, "L. S." References include a College of Arms chart dated 1981. No name is cited as the author on the document, but given the centrality of the Westphal name, one can speculate that it came from one of the Westphal cousins of Raymond Irvine, Dawson, Jr., whose mother was a Westphal. The information is sparse, but appears to be accurate, as far as can be ascertained upon inspection of the Dawson side of the family. The document is in a private family genealogy collection in San Diego, California, USA.
• Letter dated 4 March 1992 from John Bevan, (before he earned his Ph.D.) on the official letterhead stationary of The Historical Diving Society, to Raymond i. Dawson, Jr. regarding the descendants of Charles Anthony Deane. The enclosures to the letter include a four-page update consisting of the genealogy of recent Deane descendants, and a copy of the U.S. Census report of 1870 proving the existence of Renue A. Deane, a family member previously unknown to us.
• Death certificate no. 380261455, Grace (Valentine Dawson) Olmsted, issued on 19 Sep. 1997 in City and County of San Francisco, State of California, USA, signed by Herbert Hawley, Administrative Coroner. Death date was 17 Sep. 1997.
• Family records and personal experience of family members
• Letter written in Delray Beach, Florida, USA by Raymond I. Dawson, Jr. to his third cousin once removed, June Rance in Australia on 4 Nov. 1999. Letter contains precise birth and death dates of close relatives and most are accurate.