Tuesday, February 18, 2025

Who Was Clifford Ross Hayes? Adding to the Hayes Family Tree....


 The San Francisco Examiner
Wednesday, June 1, 1892
newspapers.com


    Who was Clifford Ross Hayes? This name came up in a search I was doing through newspapers.com the other day.  I was very surprised to see that Frank and Sallie E. Hayes had another child, as I always thought Lester Franklin Hayes was an only child.  Lester was my great grandfather; he married my great grandmother Emma King in 1908 in San Francisco.  Clifford Ross was Lester's younger brother!  Quite a discovery! 

    Clifford was born when Sallie was 36 years old, and when Franklin was 38 years old.  He was born 10 years after his older brother Lester.  There are no records discovered (yet) of any other children born between Lester's birth in 1882 and Clifford's birth in 1892.  



 The San Francisco Examiner
Wednesday, June 1, 1892
newspapers.com

       

 San Francisco Chronicle 
Thursday, June 2, 1892
newspapers.com

    Funeral services were held shortly after Clifford's death at the Hayes home,  18 Elgin Park, in San Francisco.  Hayes family members in attendance with Frank and Sallie Hayes were most likely Lester and Lillie Ross Hayes, Franklin's mother.  The death date for Lillie's husband Robert is unknown at this time, so he may or may not have been alive in 1892.  Frank's brothers Joseph and William were possibly in attendance.  Sallie's Crawford siblings (Mary and George) were living in San Francisco, and may have also attended.  Sallies' parents John Washington Crawford and Sarah Byerly Crawford were still living at the time in the city, and may have attended. Members of the Cummings family may have also been present.  It must have been a very sad and somber gathering for everyone, especially Franklin, Sallie and Lester. 


   I don't know why Clifford didn't live past his first birthday.  His death certificate or any records of burial may have been lost in the 1906 Great Earthquake.  He may have been buried in one of the original San Francisco cemeteries which were  later moved to Colma after 1900.  Robert Hayes had purchased plots in the Lone Mountain Cemetery in 1863. Bodies from this cemetery (later named Laurel Hill) were not completely relocated to Colma until after 1940, and unclaimed headstones were reused for seawalls and erosion control.  Many were used for lining rain gutters.  Clifford's funeral notice did not give a place of internment, so we just don't know what happened to his body after his death. 



 Clifford Ross Hayes
b. ? 1891 d. May 31, 1892 aged 1 year. 
Image from Pinterest
   

    Clifford was given the middle name Ross, which was his paternal grandmother's maiden name.  Lester and Emma gave their first daughter the same middle name:  Dorothy Ross Hayes.  In memory of Lillie Ross Hayes and Clifford Ross Hayes.  I have added Clifford to the family tree where he will no longer be lost to time or forgotten.