The Gerken Family of Big Oak Flat

by Karen Davis
Herman Henry Gerken was born in Germany on October 28, 1864. He came to America in 1879 and became a naturalized citizen in 1885. He and his wife Elizabeth Bridget Long were married in Tuolumne County on February 4, 1892. Elizabeth was the daughter of John and Catherine (Harney) Long of Chinese Camp. The couple made their home and raised their family of nine children in the Big Oak Flat/Groveland area where Herman supported his family by working as a gold miner, blacksmith and local "Garrote" teamster. Following the death of his wife on January 4, 1916, Herman moved to Richmond California and went to work for Standard Oil. He later returned "to the hill" for his retirement years and died here July 23, 1933. Both Herman and Elizabeth as well as many of their children are buried in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Cemetery.

Their first daughter, Florence Alice (Flossie), was born in 1894 and married a local man Willard Albert James in the mid-late 1910s. As a young boy of 17, Willard had served on the team which was formed in Groveland in 1909 to survey the territory around Lake Eleanor and the Hetch Hetchy Valley. He was a private in the U.S. Army during WWI and worked as a driller in the oil fields of Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas early in their marriage. Willard and Florence returned Big Oak Flat with their four young children and he was probably best remembered as the constable during the 1930s and 1940s. Willard died in 1970 and Florence in 1972.

The Gerken’s second child, Mary Ellen (Mayme), was born in 1897 and married her first husband Josiah (Si) Goldsworthy in 1915. According to his obituary in the Mariposa Gazette, Si died of pneumonia within a few months of their marriage and about one week after Mayme’s mother died of the same illness. Mayme and her second husband John McCORMICK made their home in Oakland in 1930 where John drove a truck for a bottling company. Mayme is described as "a little bit of a thing" who was kind to everyone. She was exceptionally neat and clean and wouldn’t go out of the house without fixing her hair and putting on her apron. Mary Ellen’s third husband was Robert Lee and she lived in Auburn before her death in 1983.

The next two children of Herman and Elizabeth Gerken were Alfred Joseph (who was born in 1898) and Herman Cecil (who was born in 1901). Alfred was 68 when he died in 1966 and Herman only 46 when he died in 1947. It is believed that both men remained bachelors.

The Gerken’s third daughter, Isabel Anne, was born in 1903 and had four children by her husband Willis Tanner. They made their home in Sacramento before her death in Marin County in 1997.

Genevieve Cecilia was the fourth Gerken daughter and she was born in 1906. She married John Thornton and had four children. She was living in the Bay area when she died in 1955.
John Merritt, the Gerken’s third son, was born in 1908. He and his wife Esther were living in Oakland in 1930 where he worked as a ‘housesmith’ for a sheet metal company. Their only child was a son. John died in Walnut Creek in 1991.

The youngest son, Raymond Arnold, was born in 1909. He and his wife Margaret Virginia Cushing had four children and made their home in San Francisco where they raised four children.

The last of the Gerken’s children, Uvelora Elizabeth, was born in 1914. According to family lore, some gypsies were traveling through the area when she was an unnamed newborn. They suggested that should she be named Uvelora she would never want for anything, she'd be a "golden child". Uvelora was only about 1 ½ years old when her mother died and about five when her father moved the younger children to the bay area.. Uvelora eventually married and had two children by her first husband Mr. Herrick and three children by her second husband George Javedas. She lived in Oakland in the 1970s and died in Sacramento County in 1987.

Some of the detailed information on this family was provided by Gerken descendants Mary Alice Capson and Virginia O’Reilly.