Ford Family tintype. First row, seated, left to right: Mrs. Martha P. Hayes Ford, Ella Jane Ford, Jerome B. Ford and Susan Fidelia Ford. Second row, standing, left to right: Jerome C. Ford (“Chester”), Catherine Pauline (“Katie”) Ford and Charles Denslow Ford. Dated November 1869. (Gift of Alice Earl Wilder)
For much of U.S. history, being a mother and wife was more than a personal commitment: it was a job. Early U.S. Census records have acknowledged the multiple ways these roles were jobs. In the 1880 census, 252 women lived in Mendocino, and every married woman’s occupation was recorded as “keeping house.” Later censuses recorded women’s occupations as wife, homemaker, proprietor’s wife, and farmer’s wife.
Women were responsible for the physical and moral well-being of their families. One of the ways they cared for their family’s moral welfare was through political action, even before women had the right to vote. In the early twentieth century, the Temperance Movement spread throughout the country. Many Mendocino women argued for abstinence because of the negative effects alcohol had on their husbands and families. Their activism was tied to their roles and wives and mothers.
One of the early prominent wives and mothers in Mendocino was Martha Ford. Born in Connecticut in 1831, Martha Pauline Ford moved to Mendocino at just 23 years old, only a few short months after she and Jerome B. Ford wed. At the time Ford was the co-owner of the Mendocino Lumber Company. She was one of the first women to settle in Mendocino after the logging boom began.
Early life in Mendocino was likely difficult for Martha. Her eldest son Chester wrote that the only meat the family had for three years was elk and deer. Martha frequently wrote in her diary about waiting expectantly for letters to come from her family back east, and her despair when ships from San Francisco carrying those letters were delayed.
The couple had six children: Jerome Chester Ford, Catherine “Katie” Pauline Rea, Charles Denslow Ford, Ella Jane Ford, Susan Fidelia Pierson, and Persis Amanda Ford. They lived in the Company House, today the Ford House on Main Street. The family was wealthy enough to hire “helpers” (in Katie Ford’s words) to assist Martha in daily chores. One man named Manuel worked outside the home. He helped to “rock the washing machine,” which was a large metal tub on the porch while Martha or the kids scrubbed clothing. In a diary entry from 1854, Martha wrote that Jerome had a “jolly time” helping to wash clothes. “Washing does not seem to him as it does to ladies,” Martha penned.
Even with “helpers,” Martha kept busy. Her sparse diary entries recorded her daily work cooking, gardening, and sewing clothes. Katie wrote that Martha was an expert seamstress, and regularly made and repaired clothing for the entire family. The Fords were a prominent family in Mendocino, and Martha frequently opened her home to others in town, especially newcomers.
The Fords moved to Oakland in 1872, but they visited Mendocino frequently. After their children were grown, Martha cared for Jerome. When he had a stroke that left him paralyzed, she was a diligent nurse. Her health took a turn for the worse when she was lifting Jerome and reported that “something snapped” in her chest. Jerome died in 1889, and Martha passed the following year.
Learn more about hard working Mendocino women in our current exhibit, A Woman’s Place Was Everywhere: How Working Women Shaped Mendocino, now thru March 30th. The Kelley House Museum is open Friday-Sunday, 11am-3pm. Visit the Kelley House Event Calendar for a walking tour schedule.