Chester, Willard and Leslie Doud --Doud Bros. Lumber Company

I came across the above business card belonging to Chester Doud.  On the back of it is scribbled Christmas greetings to my great Grandparents, William and Ella Jane Sherwood who lived in Wisconsin, from Grace and Chet Doud.  I noticed that this card was from when the company was headquartered in Buckley, WA rather than Tacoma.  The three brothers were Leslie, Willard and Chester.   The fact that this card says Buckley means that it was probably written on around 1905. 
Ironically this card was mailed to Wisconsin in 1905 and it has now made a round trip back to the Seattle area almost 110 years later!    Buckley is a small town east of  Tacoma. It now has a long history of logging industry and still has a large logging festival every year!  It's fun to know that the relatives had a part in this.  And the father of Chester, Leslie and Willard -- Chauncey Doud, -- died and was buried in Buckley in 1912. 

So I looked up the Doud Brothers Lumber Company and discovered that according to Robert D Martin, Jr. a descendent of Leslie's daughter Geneva,  "In early 1906 they decided that they wanted to have a mill nearer civilization and shipping facilities (both rail and cargo) and bought a site on the waterfront, just south of the Tacoma smelter. The Defiance Lumber Company incorporated that year with a capitalization of $275,000 and the mill was soon built. By 1907 the company owned 18 acres with 1,400 feet of shoreline and employed 150 men."   There are also photos of the Defiance Lumber business available on the internet from the Tacoma Public Library.

This was Chester Doud around 1920.  He only lived another year from when this photo was taken.  

This photo below and the close up from it above, was taken at Chester and Grace's house at Mason Street in Tacoma. 

On the back of this photo it says "March 21st, 1920." Sam Sherwood (brother of Grace) wrote on the back that the "Doud-Sherwood clan all get together and having a bit of a summer weather decided to have their pictures took". He also said "We were sorry that Bird and Binder could not be with us." The couple in the back right are DEFINITELY Ella Jane and William Sherwood, and the couple in front on the left are DEFINITELY Sam and Daisy Sherwood. I believe the couple standing in back on the left are Chet and Grace (Sherwood) Doud and that the two people in front on the right are Elmer Sherwood (married to Birdette) and his sister Marian (married to William Binder).  The photo says that "Bird" (Elmer's wife) and "Binder" (Marian's husband) were not there.  Elmer's wife, Birdette, was another Doud cousin to these three men so there were at least two connections between the Sherwood and Doud families.

Grace lived until 1959 -- this photo has my mother walking behind her was taken 1946. It's ironic that when I moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1977 that I had no idea that I had distant relatives from the Midwest who had been significant players in the history of the Pacific Northwest.  These included the Doud Brothers as well as the Rhodes Brothers with their three stores in the Tacoma and Seattle area.  But that's another story for another day.  

 

I have a letter from Grace Doud to Will and Ella Jane Sherwood -- written from Buckley during the time they lived there. Copied below:

1904-0214 – Grace Sherwood Doud to Will & Ella Sherwood,

Buckley, Feb 14, 1904

My dear bro, sister and family

            I feel like I had neglected you shamefully for so long and that I must thank you for the picture you send me at Christmas.  I take it down and look at it often and find something new every time.  I think the porch over the dining room door such an improvement.  I hope you are all well this winter.  I never see Lill Cady hardly any more.  So I don’t get the news of Glendale and vicinity.  We have had a good deal of sickness here since November.  There has been seven deaths.  Think of it, in a little place of this size.  Three died of typhoid fever.  There are no new cases for which we are so thankful.  There seems to be a great deal of it everywhere this year.  We are having such stormy weather.   It snows and blows and rains.  This time of year is always our worst part of the winter.  But in spite of that my daffodils are peeping through the ground, in fact a couple of inches high.  Richard is going to school in Tacoma this winter at Whitworth College. He is in his first year of high school work.  Is doing well and likes it but wishes he could live at home, he is a home boy.  And reminds me so much of your Will.  I hope he grows up as good a man.  Roy is like his papa and thinks his father perfect and if he grows up and makes as good a man as his father I shall be pleased and grateful.  Roy is harder to control than Richard.  Susie and George must be getting tall and strong.  I can see them trudging off to school over the road we used all to go when Jack Frost was nipping at my toes and ears.  In those days I little thought I would be away out in Wn [Washington] with boys of my own going to school.  If all goes well Chet and I will see you next fall, but I don’t dare plan very far ahead.  Aunt Grace, Sam and Daisy are coming out here next June.  The mill has been shut down since Christmas.  They have been putting in a railroad for logging purposes.  They have just completed it and commence running this week.  All the mills about here have been shut down so there are a great many idle men.  The first of the winter we had a regular housebreaking epidemic, till finally they put men on the streets at night to watch.  No great amount was ever stolen. 

           

      Bellingham.”  They take in Fair Haven too so it makes quite a city.  Elmer is still fire chief and is as fat as ever.  I am very well this winter.  I weigh 140 lbs which is more than I have weighed since I was married.  We have very good schools here this winter, employ eight teachers.  Roy’s teacher is especially good I think.  Do they employ high school teachers in the Glendale school house and are the Browns living there.  If you see them remember me to them especially Louise and how is Mrs. Dunlap.  I never hear from her or of her and Fred Cutland and family and the Duncans.  How people do come and go out of ones life but never quite forgotten, especially friends of one’s youth.  How is the old farm yielding now, I hope well.  I suppose you have lots of stock and how is your health.  Will, I wonder if you are thinking of me, you seem so near tonight and you know I believe in telepathy somewhat.  Do either of the children like music and where is Dora?  Is she teaching?  I miss Richard so much, he is always at the piano or pegging away but Roy never goes only when he has to practice the Villian [violin?] But he has talent and reads music so readily I shall keep him at it for which he will be grateful at some future day I hope. 

The have changed the name of “Whatcom” to “

            Well, I can’t think of any more to write and guess you are tired of reading this so will say good by hoping to hear from you. 

                                    I am your loving sister,   Grace Doud                         Buckley, Wn

Grace and Chet had been married at the Bride's home on October 18, 1887 and they had originally lived in Pittsville, Wisconsin where Chet and his extended family were living at the time.  They had quite the clever announcement -- the little cards fit into those tiny envelopes.

Alas,  Chester only lived to be 56.  Grace did not remarry, but lived with her niece, Grace Sherwood Pautsch, until she died in 1959 at the age of 96.   The home where Grace and Chet were married and where her brother and sister-in-law lived at the time of this letter was called by the family "Spring Brook Farm" in Kendall, Wisconsin. 

This photo was taken around 1900.  The R. Sherwood parents on the marriage announcement were Richard and Grace (Gulvin) Sherwood originally of England.

 

CORRECTION: After looking at the wedding announcement again, I realized that the Richard Sherwood's  WERE NOT living at the farm at this time.  It was the "Mauston" address that reminded me that after William (their son) and Ella Jane were married they officially rented the farm from the parents and the parents moved out for a few years.  They probably wanted their own lives as much as the newlyweds!  When Richard Sherwood died in October of 1889 (two years later) Grace, his wife, stayed in Wisconsin and moved to Wonewoc, Wisconsin by 1900.  Sometime before 1909 Grace Sherwood, Richard's wife, moved to the Pacific Northwest and she passed away in 1909 in Tacoma, Washington.