Edward Thomas Tyack

Edward Thomas Tyack was Pearl ’s father. His early history is not known; he was born in England in November 2, 1856 and graduated from the English School of Mines in Cornwall, England he worked in mines in Cornwall until 1887 when he immigrated to the United States where he ended up mining in Elkhorn and Butte, Montana, and in Gem, Idaho, all mining communities. He had four brothers and one sister, one brother, Joseph, went to Johannesburg , South Africa , and became a jeweler.
Torn was tall, about 6 ft I in, intellectual, gentle, and loving with his family, he had an excellent voice and sang bass in the Episcopal Church in Butte. He died in 1910 from black lung disease at Butte , Montana . Louisa who was born in England , was Tom’s first wife. The first six children were born in England . After coming to the United States , two more were born in Elkhorn , Montana . They are listed here.

I.  Harry b. Jan 1877 ( England )
2. Ethyl b. Mar 1878 ( England )
3. Edgar b. Jan 1880 ( England )
4. Edna b. 1881 ( England )
5. Kathleen b. Jun 1882 ( England )
6. Thomas b. Apr 1886 ( England )
7. Stanley b. Jun 1888 ( Montana )
8. Clifford b. Nov 1891 ( Montana )
9. A girl that died at birth in 1889 or 1890

Louisa died giving birth to Clifford. She and the baby girl are buried in Elkhorn , Montana .

1. Harry-- he never married. He planned to be a lawyer but went partially deaf at 21 from meningitis. He later was hit by a train he couldn’t hear as he walked down the tracks; as a result of the accident he became completely deaf. he worked as a topman in a copper mine while living in Butte . he moved to Santa Rosa when the family moved there and then to Sacramento where he lived with Clifford and his wife until he died of heart failure on December 2, 1960.

2. Ethyl -- Married Bert Schenk. Lived in Helena , Montana . Had one daughter, Edna.

3. Edgar -- His wife’s name is Edith . Children are Lois and Douglas. Lois married Ed Whitehead and Lives at 2925 Nettie St. , Butte , Montana she’d be about 80. Douglas lives at 529 S. Henderson, Seattle , Wash. Edgar was short and a blacksmith for the mines. He had arms like steel, lie would challenge guys at bars that he could pin the biggest man there; bet $5, and invariably pin the big guy in seconds.
He would talk about how Harry and he, watching lines of mules: as they werecarrying coal from the mines, thought it fun to throw rocks at the mules, causing them to buck and drop coal. The kids would pick it up and take it home--even though their dad was a superintendent and could get all he wanted.

4. Edna -- Married Ole K. Moe, President of Montana Teachers College at Dillon. He taught History, she taught 2nd a 3rd grade classes. Both died sometime before 1976.

5. Kathleen -- She married twice and had four children. Her first husband was George Hammond. They had a boy George and a daughter Dorothy. Dorothy lived in Alhambra Her second husband was Jeff Leighton. They had a daughter everyone called Bud; don’t know her real name. A second daughter was named Viola. Kathleen died in 1984 or 1985.

6. Thomas -- A bachelor. The 1910 Census Record shows he was a clerk in a grocery store, in Butte . He died about 1922-1924 in Santa Rosa , California .

7. Stanley -- lie worked as a miner in a Coppermine in1910, according to the 1910 Census Record. Several years later, he joined the family exodus to Santa Rosa where he worked for Nelligan and Sons as an egg Candler and sold poultry items but not chickens. He was an expert horse weigh master and horse shoer. He married Ulalia (?) Jones, her second marriage. Her son, S.P.Jones is a shoe repairer in Santa Rosa . Stanley and Thomas moved to Santa Rosa about 1921 because life in Butte was too rough. Stanley died about 1948.


8. Clifford -- Clifford clerked in a dry goods store in Butte in his youth, according to the census record. After moving to California , He married Irene Else. They had one son, Clifford E. Clifford R. worked as a stationery engineer at Mercy Hospital in Sacramento . He would act out radio fights and baseball games for his deaf brother, Harry. He would mouth the announcer’s descriptions and act out the fights with his hand, or act out the baseball strike and ball calls like he was the umpire. Clifford R. died in 1947.

After Louisa’s death in Elkhorn in 1891, Edward Thomas went back to Cornwall , England , about l893 or 1894, taking the family with him. He stayed about 5 years aril presumably worked at his old job of mining in the Cornwall area. Clifford went to grade school there--and nearly got kicked out of school once when he challenged, rather vocally, his teacher’s claim that England never lost a war. “How about the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812” he challenged. The discussion between the two got up to school officials who finally ruled that the teacher was right-- those wars were internal English revo1utons and not wars at all, and therefore don’t count.
Mary Lily and Tom met in Cornwall ; she became his second wife. Lily, from California , was with her mother, Elizabeth, visiting relatives in the Cornwall area arid Plymouth , where Elizabeth had been born, about 1850. Elizabeth had a shriveled arm which she kept covered with a shawl her father was Richard Edwards, a miner. Mary Lily’s father was James Thomas Tregembo, born in 1840 in England . H co-owned the Townsend Mine (Awet mine) of silver and gold near Benton , mono County, California . Elizabeth had had twin girls in Benton but both died after just a few months. The she gave birth to Mary Lily in 1874. Lily’s mother usually dressed Lily in bright red dresses so if Indians attacked Elizabeth could easily spot her.
About 1889 or so, Elizabeth was sick with a malarial-type illness and Lily’s father decided Elizabeth and Lily should go to Plymouth , England , for awhile for her to recover. After staying about 6 months, Elizabeth decided to return and while waiting or passage money from home she received instead a cablegram saying her husband had died in a fall in his mine (pushed, some said, by his partner). Lily’s mother later received a letter from the partner wanting to buy her half of the mine. She naively signed a paper agreeing to this, sent it back, and never heard from the scoundrel again. Later, she found he had sold the mine and disappeared.
After Lily’s fathers untimely death at his mine in California , Lily and her mother stayed on in England for 5 years. One night, Lily sang at an entertainment show for naval officer’s n a Naval Officers Training ship. In attendance, invited by a friend, was Edward Thomas Tyack. The two met, fell in love, got married, ,and left damp, green England for dry, dusty, Gem, Idaho all in a very short time.
It’s possible the move back to the United States and Gem took place in April or May of 1899. After seven years of tense management-union conflicts in the mines around Gem and Wallace, Idaho, severe union rioting occurred in April resulting in the Bunker Hill mill being blown up, several deaths, and martial law established with Army troops moved in for a period of eleven months. Most miners were fired, and new ones brought in who had to swear an anti-union pledge. Edward Thomas may have heard of this opportunity and returned.
Tom was 43, Lily was 26. Resentment rose from Louisa’s children being ‘mothered’ by someone their own age. Harry was 23, Ethyl:22, and Edgar 20 at this time. This feeling must have disappeared with time for it has been said that after Tom’s death, Harry and Lily thought of marriage--but the brothers and sisters of Harry weren’t quite ready for that. Lily and Tom had 12 years together before Tom died.
Their union produced:

1. Percy, born in 1899 but died in infancy, he's buried in Gem, Idaho.
2. Winifred Pearl, born December 26, 1900
3. Vera, born in 1902
4. Edward Theodore, born 1910 in England .


Pearl was born in Gem. At that time it had a population of 2500, now it has only a few hundred. Gary Cooper was born here too, in 1901.
About 1901, the family returned to Elkhorn , Montana . Pearl remembers being baptized here. ( Elkhorn is now a ghost town.)Tom worked for the Anaconda Copper Co as a superintendent in Elkhorn but a few years later moved the family to a job with the company in Butte . Their home here was on Esmeralda Street and according to the l9l0 census was owned by Tom and was free of a mortgage. (Larry Heringer, Jr. visited there with Pearl and found it still in good shape. He has pictures of it.)
Tom was an active Republican and active in party matters, being for a time the Republican Party Chairman in Butte for Teddy Roosevelt. He was an active Mason also. (One day, dressed up and riding his carriage to meet with the state masons, a skunk jumped down from a snow bank into his lap and let fly He returned home and buried all his clothes and scrubbed for hours to get rid of the odor.)He also sent Pearl to a convent school in Butte to give her a better education and to’ keep her away from those rowdy rough miner’s kids.’
In early 1909 Lily, Pearl , Vera and Clifford went to Plymouth , England and stayed with Tom’s sister. Pearl remembers they stayed two years. Lily found she was pregnant while there and stayed to give birth to Edward Theodore. (Was he named for Theodore ‘Teddy! Roosevelt ?)
Tom apparently became ill with Black Lung disease while Lily was in England . Again quoting from the 1910 census, it notes Tom had been out of work for 52 weeks from the trade as a ‘miner in a coppermine while at the same time Harry arid Stanley who both worked as miners in a Coppermine had riot been out of work. The census was done in May l910.
It’s a bit confusing from this distance in time to understand why Lily stayed in England so long if Torm was ill for 52 weeks. Tom and the home were at least taken care of by the three boys (Harry, Thomas and Stanley) who were still home and working. It might be Lily was too ill after giving birth to come home before Tom’s death for Pearl still had a doctor’s bill. ( a copy of that bill is on this site) From Dr. John harries of Dartmouth addressed to M’. Tyack dated December 1910 for professional attendance and medicine during October and November. The bill was over 7 pounds, a sizeable amount for 1910.
Edward Thomas died on December 23, 1910. I{e was buried on December 24, 1910, according to the Mount Moriah Cemetery Association in Butte , in Block A2 Lot 90 Grave 7. There was nothing to hold the family to Butte , so in the summer of 1911 they pulled up roots arid left by train for Los Angeles to look for work. Finding nothing they headed north to Santa Rosa , California . Harry had been reading about chicken ranching in this area and liked the idea as a way to support the family. He and Lily pooled their money arid went into business in Santa Rosa .
Pearl started high school here. One of her classmates was Robert “Believe-it-or-Not” Ripley. She tutored him in spelling, and it is claimed he once asked her to marry him. She also knew Luther Burbank, biking to him on her way to or from school as he worked in his yard. Pearl became ill with inflammatory rheumatism (or something like it) and spent the part of a year in bed. She never finished high school. She worked in a candy store; the 5and 10, Penney’s arid Rosenthal’s Department Store.
In April 1923 she went on a blind date and met Larry Heringer who was working in the accounting department of the Standard Oil Co. of California. Six weeks later they went on a picnic with another couple; marriage was in the summer air-- for that day, June 10, 1923, both couples went to Calistoga , Calif and got married in a double ceremony. (Shades of Tom and Lily’s quick courtship and sudden marriages)
The next year, Larry was transferred to Seattle (where Patricia was conceived) but he quit the job because the close-up accounting work was causing him vision problems and he was afraid he might go blind.
Returning to Sacramento in l924, he joined a college classmate (another college classmate whom Larry roomed with was James ‘Jimmy’ Doolittle) arid opened a lumber store, The Sacramento Lumber Co. The classmate, Jack Butler, worked inside; Larry worked outside. They went broke in 1929; Larry claiming it was Jack’s fault because of his poor accounting practice. Larry then opened his own insurance business.
Larry and Pearl introduced to the world:

1. Lawrence William, Jr., born May 1, 1924
2. Patricia Faye, born April 20, 1925
3. Janice Carol, born January 1, 1933
4. .Thomas Frederick , born December 18, 1946


Vera married and had two children:

1. William
2. Geraldine


Edward Theodore (Ted) married twice:

By his first wife, Nettie, they had one child, Nette left him in 1939.

Marlene.


He married a second time in l942 to Jean. Ted served in the Air Force in WWII, returning home in 1945. One child,

Eddie (Edward Theodore Tyack), was born in 1946.

For awhile, Jean live in the family home and worked in Sacramento, while Ted worked in Fresno and commuted the 170 miles to home in Sacramento every weekend.

Lily lived on in Santa Rosa until she died on April I0, 1935. She died of a bowel obstruction, although the death certificate says the principal cause was Chronic Myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle) and Hypertension (high blood pressure) --something few people died of even then. She is buried in Sacramento, California in the Odd Fellows Lawn.

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