Sometimes it is fun to find interesting and random family connections to famous people when researching your genealogical roots. These stories are a case in point. They put my family members in the wider context of history in general, and of California history in particular.
My Great Grandmother, Clara Vere (Burrows) Hansen, graduated from Grass Valley High School in 1900. My mother, Margaret (Hansen) Boothby, found this rolled up diploma in a drawer awhile back. The name is beautifully done in careful calligraphy and touched with gold ink. But look at that name! Who was Clara Vere de Vere Burrows? The family story goes that Clara Vere was named after a character in the Alfred Lord Tennyson poem "Lady Clara Vere de Vere". Her name has always appeared as Clara Vere Burrows or simply Vere Burrows on any artifacts and letters I have come across. This is the only place that her name has appeared as the family story described.
"Lady Clara Vere de Vere" is an English poem written by Alfred Tennyson and published in 1842 according to Wikipedia (the free encyclopedia). The poem is about a lady in a family of aristocrats, and was written as a scathing rebuke of nobility and aristocratic ancestry. Tennyson had a close friendship with the de Vere family and wrote the ironic poem to show his distaste of noble claims. He writes of Lady Clara and how she has rebuffed a young, but low born man who loved her, and he committed suicide after she rejected him. All of her noble claims cannot balance out her coldness, pride and idleness (as proven by the fact that she has no better claim on her time than breaking hearts). Tennyson makes the case that good character is earned by virtue, not high birth.
An excerpt...
"Trust me, Clara Vere de Vere; From yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife, smile at the claims of long descent. How e'er it be, it seems to me, 'T is only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood."
Tennyson was and remains one of the most popular British poets. A number of phrases from his works have become commonplace in the English language ("Tis better to have loved and lost/Than never to have loved at all") and he is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. So, it is not surprising that Vere's parents who were both very educated and well read would be familiar with the poem and possibly connect with the moral of the story. Good character and virtues were highly thought of during the 1800's, especially if you worked hard to earn them. And both of her parents had a strong work ethic, and aspired to make names for themselves as lawyers in the growing town of Grass Valley, California. Or, they just liked the name and the way it rolled off the tongue!
Vere's autograph book from 1900.
Clarence Grenfell wrote a very nice note of remembrance.
Leland Conroy wrote "Love many, trust few, always paddle your own canoe."
Edgar Barker wrote, "Remember me when far far off Where baboons die of whooping cough."
Emma Nankervis wrote "Dear Vere-Friendship is a golden knot. Tied by an angel's hand. Your friend and Schoolmate".
I believe this bottom picture is of Emma Nankervis. Vere Burrows is on the top. These were in her high school graduation things, and are individual pictures of the thirteen graduates in her class. Emma Nankervis gives us the next connection in my story......
Emma Nankervis had an older brother named William Nankervis. William ended up marrying Vere's younger sister Wanda Burrows. William worked as a miner at the Empire Mine; his father was a miner also, originally coming to Grass Valley from Cornwall. William and Wanda had two children: Claude B. Nankervis and Hazel D. Nankervis. Hazel went on to marry William Gilbert Lockyer in Berkeley, California in 1931. Their son, William Westwood Lockyer, was born in 1941. He is Margaret Hansen Boothby's second cousin.
William Lockyer (according to Wikipedia) has had a long career in California politics, and is now retired. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a BA in Political Science in 1965 and then later completed law school at the University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in 1986. He began his political career as a School board member of the San Leandro Unified School District. From there he chaired the Alameda County Democratic Central Committee and coordinated Senator George McGovern's 1972 campaign for the Presidency. He won a State Assembly seat in 1973 and served in the California legislature for the next 25 years. In 1998 he was elected attorney general. Lockyer had been a casual friend of Arnold Schwarzenegger during his state senate years when the actor chaired the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. In 2003 Lockyer made the surprise announcement that he would support Schwarzenegger for Governor which would have been the first time he voted Republican in a state election. He was elected to the office of state treasurer in November of 2006 after contemplating a run for Governor; he had become disheartened by Governor Schwarzenegger's leadership, but decided he couldn't win a primary election battle with Jerry Brown and ran for treasurer instead. There were rumors he might try to run for Governor in 2010, but he ran for treasurer again with the slogan "Straight Talk, No Bull#*+!" and was re-elected for a final term. He received more votes that year than any elected official in the United States. He retired from elected office in 2014, and now works with a Boston based international law firm. It is worth reading about all his political accomplishments for the state of California, especially his 1987 "Napkin Deal" written on a restaurant napkin. (Bill Lockyer-Wikipedia).
Bill's daughter from an earlier marriage is an attorney at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), continuing the practice of law in the family.
William Westwood Lockyer
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