McMath Obituary Archive
Ellen Elizabeth (McMath) Alley

 

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MRS. ELLA ALLEY, PIONEER DAUGHTER DIED TUESDAY FUNERAL SERVICES AT UPPER LAKE--FRIDAY

September 1941

Funeral services for Mrs. Ella Eliza Alley will be held from the E. D. Sleeper home in Upper Lake at 2 o'clock Friday afternoon with Dr. Lynn T. White of San A______ the officiating clergyman, and burial will be in the Upper Lake cemetery. The Eversole Mortuary will be in charge. The pallbearers will be grandsons and great-grandsons of Mrs. Alley.

Mrs. Ella Eliza Alley, highly respected and dearly beloved pioneer woman of Mendocino and Lake Counties, passed away Tuesday, September 2, at the home of her daughter, Grace, in Ukiah.

Ella Eliza was born at Niles, Michigan on 25 May 1852. She was the daughter of Archibald and Elizabeth McMath, and the last of a family of 10 children. She was a twin sister of the late Robert McMath, a well known resident of Upper Lake and a sister of Mrs. S. S. R_______ of Lakeport, who passed away only a few years ago.

When she was 6 years old, her father brought his family to California, by boat around Cape Horn. They settled at Marysville, where they operated a store for some years. On 11 October 1867, because of failing health, he moved his family to Gravelly Valley in Lake County, the young girl and her mother driving the team all the way over the rough roads and caring for the ailing man.

Mrs. Alley lived in this mountain valley until she was 15 years old, when she and John Lemuel Alley, and his sister Winnie Alley and Robert Bucknell were united in marriage at a double wedding, celebrated at the home of the bride in Gravelly Valley before daybreak on 11 October 1867. The wedding breakfast was cooked by her mother at the open fireplace in dutch ovens, which were common in those pioneer days. The bridal couples were then escorted by 17 couples on horseback to the home of Andrew J. Alley, the father of John and Winnie, at Upper Lake, where the double wedding ceremony was repeated under a large pepperwood tree. It was a brilliant social event and was attended by many prominent pioneers. A barbecue dinner was served to over one hundred guests.

Contributed by Barbara J. Morehead