The Songs of John Pier Quaid

My family moved to Arizona in 1968, when my father's division of Motorola relocated to Scottsdale. Arizona seemed exotic and distant and brand new, so I was surprised to hear that we weren't the first Quaids to live there. And it wasn't even close -- my great-granduncle John Pier Quaid had spent time in Arizona shortly after its statehood in the 1910s.

The Ford Hotel in Phoenix, where John Quaid stayed in 1918.
Hand-colored postcard, from 1911.

John Quaid appears to have led an eventful life, so let's start at the beginning. He was born in Limerick, Ireland to Charles and Mary Neylan Quaid on October 25, 1879. The family called him Jack. He attended the Christian Brothers School on Sexton Street until he was about 18, which I think shows that he wasn't under economic pressure to go to work early, unlike most of my other ancestors in this period.

John Quaid at the Christian Brothers School.
He's the one in the top-left, facing sideways.

John's father Charles was a pig buyer, and John initially followed in his footsteps. In the 1901 Census, 21-year-old John was also a pig buyer, living at home with his newly-widowed mother, his older brother and fellow pig buyer Daniel, and his sisters Catherine and Esther.

The bacon trade wasn't going to be for him, however. In 1905 John emigrated, sailing on the Pretorian to Nova Scotia on his way to Toronto. He arrived in January, and by February he was already getting married to Mary Jane Crocock in Branford, Ontario. Branford is next to Hamilton, the home of Mary O'Day Quaid, but the O'Days had already moved to Chicago by this time.

On Christmas Eve of that year, just 10 months after they were married, the couple had a daughter named Mary. Just a month later, on January 22, 1906, John entered the US through Michigan, noting on the immigration forms that he intended to join his brother and my great-grandfather Thomas in Chicago. Neither his wife nor his infant daughter were with him at that point, but on September 17, 1906 an infant named Mary Quaid, born in Canada nine months earlier, died in Chicago after falling out a window. I don't know whether that was John and Mary Jane's daughter; the death certificate does not name the infant's parents.

The marriage of John and Mary did not last. Mary Jane returned to Branford (if indeed she ever left) and married John Edward Day in 1913. On the license application she could either claim to be a spinster or a widow, and she chose spinster. I suppose that must have covered divorce as well. Mary Jane and Edward had three more children, and then she died in childbirth in 1921 at the age of 34.

John had described himself as a clerk and farmer when entering Canada, and when entering the United States he described himself as a bookkeeper. The 1906 City Directory of Chicago shows John P living with Thomas, as a bookkeeper. Thomas by this point was married and had five young children. John didn't stay for long -- the 1907 directory shows Thomas in the same place, but John had moved on.

I don't know where he went, but he had a few other relations in the US. His sister Anna Bridget was probably studying nursing in Bridgeport at the time, and his younger sister Esther also arrived in Bridgeport in late 1906. And they all had an uncle David Quaid farming in San Benito, California.

In 1913, John was naturalized as an American citizen in Sacramento, California. He was living there as a cashier with Natomas Consolidated, a mining company. The Sacramento Bee reported that he sang bass in choir performances at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament. He sang "When Shall the Day Dawn on Erin" for St. Patrick's day in 1914. In October 1914 he sang "Bells in the Lighthouse" in a minstrel show (in blackface, of course) for the benefit of the St. Francis Catholic Church. The show was so popular it was extended to a second performance.

Also in 1913, John Quaid married 25-year-old Hilda Read Llewellyn, a school teacher born in England and raised in San Diego. They may have met there -- the 1912 directory of San Diego includes a bookkeeper named John Quaid. Some time around 1915 John and Hilda had a son, and like many of his siblings he named his eldest son Charles. By 1917 Hilda was divorced and living back in San Diego with her retired parents and her young son, who appears with her in the 1920 Census.

I don't know what became of young Charles, but I have a theory. Hilda went on to marry a widower named Wilfred Florentine Mills in the early 1920s. Wilfred's wife had died in 1917, and the couple had an adopted daughter but no sons. In the 1930 Census Hilda and Wilfred were living in Glendale, California, not with Charles Quaid but rather with a 16-year-old son named Wilfred Florentine Mills, Jr. Today there is no record of the birth of a Charles Quaid in Sacramento, but there is a record of Wilfred F. Mills, born February 10, 1914. The father's name isn't in the available record, but the mother is indeed named Llewellyn. So my theory is that Wilfred adopted young Charles, changed his name, and amended his birth record to match.

Bisbee Daily Review, May 17, 1917.

The next reliable reference to our John is an accounting advertisement he placed in the Bisbee, Arizona newspaper. Bisbee was a copper mining town at the time, population 8,000 or so. It was a company town, and that company was Phelps Dodge. A few months after this advertisement, Phelps Dodge countered an attempt to organize a union by conducting a brutal mass kidnapping and what it called a "deportation" of union supporters. John Quaid was not among the 1300 victims.

It's interesting that Quaid was associated with a music store in Bisbee. So much of his life would revolve around music.

In September of that year, 38-year-old "Jack" Pier Quaid of Jerome (another mining town in Arizona) married Hazel Edah Harvey in Phoenix. Hazel was a 25-year-old music teacher from Iowa, whose family had moved to Phoenix a few years earlier.

John Quaid's World War I Draft Registration.
Presumably written in his own hand.

In his World War I draft registration, John says that he's an accountant for the J. D. Halstead Lumber Company, located at Five Points in Phoenix. I had never heard of Five Points, but apparently it's the intersection of Van Buren, Seventh Avenue, and the diagonal Grand Ave. He says that he's tall, with blue eyes and brown hair. But perhaps with an aim of downplaying his suitability for the draft, he notes that he's blind in his left eye, has a broken right ankle, and come to think of it he's Canadian anyway.

The Arizona Republican, November 26th, 1918

Thirteen months after they were married, John and Hazel had a daughter named Mary Kathleen. Another marriage, and another daughter named Mary born right away. But by the time Mary was born, John had already abandoned the family. We'll go over this in some detail.

On November 23, 1918, John Quaid got married for the fourth time, this time to a 25-year-old stenographer named Celeste Colby "Bessie" Thomas. But there was a hitch in this hitching, which was that he hadn't taken the trouble to end his third marriage. The rest of this part of the story plays out in the newspapers, which I'll transcribe for searchability.

From The Arizona Republican, December 5, 1918:

LEFT WIFE AND BABY HERE TO ELOPE WITH GIRL TO FLORENCE

That John Pier Quaid, accountant and well-known man about town, had a wife in this city when he eloped with a pretty stenographer and married her in Florence a week ago, was the sensation sprung yesterday when it became known that warrants charging Quaid with bigamy, wife abandonment, and failure to provide had been issued.

Quaid has been arrested in Miami where he is passing his latest honeymoon. He will return to Phoenix tonight in the custody of Deputy Sheriff Skidmore.

According to those who appear to be familiar with the case, in addition to the wife and nine-day-old daughter of Quaid, who resided at 733 East Pierce street, and the stenographer in office of the secretary of state who married him in good faith a week ago, there is a third woman in Bisbee who appears to have some claim on the alleged "squire of dames." It is said that a letter recently was received here from Bisbee in which the writer asks when Quaid will receive her.

A few days before the elopement of Quaid and the stenographer, a brief notice appeared in The Republican announcing the birth of a daughter to Mr. and Mrs. Quaid. It is understood that Quaid informed certain of his friends that the article referred to his brother and sister-in-law and that the child was his niece. To others he is alleged to have said he had been divorced.

He frequently was seen in public with the girl who became his bride in Florence. Member of a prominent family in this city, the young woman's unfortunate connection with the affair was discussed yesterday when it became known that the bigamy charge had been sworn out in Florence. It is understood she will immediately institute annulment proceedings.

The deserted wife and baby, left in indigent circumstances, have also begun court action. Complaints have been sworn out in Justice Wheeler's court by Mrs. Arminta Harvey, mother of wife number one, charging him with wife abandonment and failure to provide for wife and child.

The first difficulties between Mrs. Quaid and her husband are said to have been over the coming of their little child. Mrs. Quaid, it is alleged, asked her husband for a small amount of money to be used for the purchase of a layette in preparation of the coming event. He refused absolutely, it is said, and the result was a bitter quarrel. Quaid is said to have left his home a month before the elopement.

"Well-known man about town", indeed. This story sounds so modern, with Quaid travelling widely across Arizona and honeymooning in Miami. Two days later there was a follow-up story with a little more background. From The Arizona Republican, December 7, 1918:

UNSIGNED NOTE INFORMED QUAID HE WAS FREE MAN

Anonymous Communication Telling Of Wife's Death Enough To Convince Him He Could Marry Another

That he received an unsigned typewritten letter that his wife was dead, was sufficient to convince him that he was free to marry again, was the statement made in jail yesterday by John Pier Quaid, accountant and man-about-town, who was brought back from his honeymoon in Miami to answer to the charge of failure to provide for a very much alive wife in Phoenix and a few-days-old daughter. In Florence a charge of bigamy has been placed against Quaid, who ten days ago eloped with a stenographer whom he married in that city.

Quaid bore anything but the appearance of a gay Don Juan in his cell in the county jail. Coatless and collarless, dejected but not repentant in manner, he discussed his affairs, shifting all blame for his present predicament on his mother-in-law, Mrs. Arminta Harvey, whose "insidious attacks," he claims, caused him to "drift" from his wife. He was so "alone," he declared, that he naturally turned to the lovely young girl whose friendship meant much to him. Music was a close bond between them, he said.

Thought House in Mourning

Quaid stated that he believed that the typed note of his wife's death came from his sister-in-law. He received it after he returned from a brief business trip to Hayden the latter part of November. It was left for him at the Ford hotel, and from there he went to his former home and, noting the curtains drawn and the house in darkness, did not question the message contained in the note.

He had no knowledge that he was a father until he returned to Phoenix and was placed behind bars. He had not seen the announcement of the birth of his daughter in the Phoenix dailies, although the notice appeared a few days before he eloped to Florence where his "marriage" took place.

Quaid claims his was a case of too-much mother-in-law. He declares that he and his wife were happy in Jerome a year ago. After they came to Phoenix he sensed the difference in his wife and realized the influence of a mother upon her daughter, an influence was working to his discredit, he maintained.

Doesn't Know Where Is

He was employed by a lumber company, but when booked for "investigation" by the authorities, he lost his position, he said. Then he went to Hayden and on his return heard that the wife, from whom he had drifted away through no fault of his own, he insisted, was dead.

"I the learned [sic] that my name had been coupled with that of a young girl for whom I had the greatest friendship. I thought the only thing to do was to marry her," said Quaid who spoke of the sympathy and understanding on which he said, the friendship was based.

He said the girl had returned to Phoenix with her parents he believed, but that he was not quite sure, and regretted that her name had been drawn into the affair.

Denies Still Another Woman

Quaid denied absolutely that a Bisbee woman had any claim on him and seemed greatly outraged that such a report had been circulated. His connection with various women did not worry him to the extent of the charges placed against him in Justice Wheeler's court where he will be given his preliminary hearing at 10 o'clock Tuesday morning on a charge of failure to provide.

His bond in each case was placed at $500, which he could not furnish. According to his story, he has no resources whatever. He said it was impossible for him to employ counsel; that he had practically exhausted his means in providing a home for his wife.

Quaid is an Englishman who "tried to get over." He said all his relatives were in England and that cousins and nephews and even a niece had suffered from the war. With tears in his eyes he spoke of his mother and of the shock it would be to her if she should hear the charges made against him.

Quaid has lived here less than a year, but is well-known about town. A member of a choir in one of the local churches, he has been identified with church and musical circles in the city.

Now our John Quaid is from Ireland, not England. But in this period "England" was routinely used as the name of the county as a whole, what today we would call the United Kingdom. And of course Ireland was still part of that United Kingdom, although not for long. Also, this news wouldn't shock John Quaid's mother since she had died the year before. And it's not the case that "all his relatives were in England", since he had two siblings in the US, plus more distant relations. I think these discrepancies could be errors of the reporter, or lies. But I'm still reasonably convinced that this is our John Quaid, largely due to details that follow.

The story continued another two days later. In The Arizona Republican, December 9th, 1918:

QUAID TO BE TAKEN TO PINAL COUNTY TODAY ON BIGAMY WARRANT

John Pier Quaid has been officially informed that a warrant has been issued for him out of a court of Pinal county accusing him of bigamy. The warrant was brought over yesterday evening by Deputy Sheriff Skidmore who had taken Joe Ward, the forger, to the penitentiary. The warrant was handed to him by Sheriff Hall of Pinal asking that it be read to Quaid last night. The sheriff said that he would come after him today.

He will probably be surrendered by the Maricopa county authorities, inasmuch as the Pinal county charge is a more serious one than wife desertion with which he is charged here.

Quaid will be tried before Judge O.J. Baughn of Pinal, by whom he was married less than two weeks ago. It is possible that Quaid will file an affidavit of prejudice and ask for a change of venue. He may surmise that any judge upon whom he has imposed in this way might entertain a prejudice against him.

It will be some relief to the sheriff's office to be rid of Quaid. Scores of women who have read about him have called at the jail requesting a sight of him. They want to know what manner of man he is that can have a wife in every port.

"Scores of women.. requesting a sight of him". Justice moved quickly in those days, because just 8 days later in The Arizona Republican, December 17th, 1918:

BIGAMIST QUAID IS SENTENCED TO PRISON

John Pier Quaid, self-confessed bigamist, has been sentenced to serve not less than six nor more than ten years in the state penitentiary and to pay a fine of $2,000.

Brought before Judge Baughn, who married him in the week before to a stenographer on the staff of the secretary of state, Quaid pleaded guilty.

Returned to Phoenix from his honeymoon in Miami to answer to the charges of failure to provide for his wife and minor child, Quaid declared that he believed his wife was dead when he married the other woman. He said he had received an unsigned letter containing the information and had then eloped with the secretary's stenographer, to whom he had become attached because of their common love of music.

The bigamy charge being brought against him in Florence, he was removed to the penitentiary town. Offering no defense, Quaid placed himself at the mercy of the court, tears streaming down his cheeks as Judge Baughn pronounced the sentence.

From The Coconino Sun, December 27th 1918, a succinct headline:

HAD TOO MANY WIVES

An indeterminate sentence of from six to ten years in the penitentiary was passed by Judge O.J. Baughn of Pinal county, upon John Pier Quaid, former leader in Jerome musical circles, after Quaid had pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy. Quaid eloped from Phoenix with Miss Bessie Thomas, a stenographer, and they were married in Florence by Judge Baughn. From Florence, Quaid and his bride went to Miami. While they were there Quaid's real wife, whom he married while living in Jerome, charged him with desertion and failure to support her and her child. The truth about Quaid's escapade came out and within less than two weeks he was an inmate of the penitentiary.

The Phoenix-based Arizona Republican had avoided publishing the stenographer's name, as she was the daughter of a prominent local mining executive. But the Coconino Sun, published in Flagstaff, had no such qualms. I think it's interesting that they also note Quaid's involvement in musical circles in Jerome, in addition to what we heard about his activities in Sacramento and Phoenix. John's sister Esther had a notable musical career, so perhaps it ran in the family.

John Quaid claimed that he married Bessie Thomas to protect her good name, and there may be some truth to that, but on July 11, 1919 she gave birth to a daughter named Gertrude Celeste Thomas. That's a little under 33 weeks after their marriage, so it appears there were other factors at play.

Writing this in 2022, I find it particularly interesting that this all takes place during the peak of the "second wave" of the 1918 Influenza pandemic. Most of that pandemic's deaths happened between September and November, 1918.

As the newspaper article points out, the Arizona State Penitentiary was in Florence, as it still is. Since the Census counts everyone including prisoners, the 1920 edition tells us about inmate John Quaid. It notes that 39-year-old Mr. Quaid arrived in the United States in 1906, and was naturalized in 1913. He's an accountant. He was born in Ireland, and he reports that his native tongue was Irish. His American siblings Thomas and Anna Bridget said the same thing that year.

This all lines up very well with the person who joined Thomas Quaid in Chicago. He has shaved a year off his age, as you do, but everything else matches. This is why I think it's reasonable to discount the biographical details from the newspaper article that claimed he was from England and that his mother was alive. And indeed DNA matches with descendants of both Hazel and Bessie confirm that we're dealing with the same John Quaid.

The Arizona Republic, October 19, 1952

John and Hazel Quaid must have divorced somewhere along the line, better late than never. Hazel Harvey Quaid went on to get a bachelor's degree in education from Arizona State, then a master's degree at Northwestern. She studied music for a year at the American Conservatory in Fontainbleu, France, a school founded by conductor Walter Damrosch. She continued to teach music, initially in her own studio and then for 32 years as an associate professor of music at Arizona State University. She was a leader in the local music community, and published at least two compositions, notably including the Alma Mater of Arizona State University (she composed the music, while Dixie Gammage wrote the words; performance). She also wrote a book called "History of American Music", published in 1962, but I haven't tracked down a copy. Hazel Harvey Quaid died in 1967 in Tempe; many of the details here are from her obituary in The Arizona Republic.

Hazel Harvey Quaid, 1960s

Hazel's daughter Mary Kathleen Quaid also attended ASU, studying music. She was briefly married to sailor Albert Converse Plumsteel; they had a son named Harvey who was raised by Hazel in Phoenix. She later married Gustavo Gavino Gonzalez, with whom she had three children, and then finally Owen "Gerry" Grindahl in 1952. She was a school teacher and a technical writer. She lived her adult life in the East Bay area, and died in Fremont, California in 1991. She was buried near her mother in Phoenix. I wonder if she ever met her father.

Mary Kathleen Quaid (right) in the Arizona State University Yearbook for 1940

Bessie Thomas, the pretty stenographer, married Bennett Aker in 1921. They had two children. Some time before 1930 they divorced and she married George Allsup. Bessie was a medical secretary, and described herself as a bookkeeper in the 1950 Census. She died in Phoenix in 1982 at the age of 89. Gertrude, the daughter she had with John Quaid, married Joe Acuff, who owned an automobile repair shop in Glendale. They both died suddenly in 1991; we'll just leave it at that.

John Quaid certainly didn't serve all of his 6-to-10 year sentence, because the next time we catch up with him is in 1923. By this point he was living in San Francisco with a new wife named Jessie Rowan Payne and their daughter Cathleen Marie. John and Jessie lived in San Francisco between 1923 and 1927. In 1925 they had a son John Paul Quaid, and then in 1926 they had Barbara Jessica Quaid. In city directories John listed his occupation as accountant, except in 1927 when was a credit manager at Mangrum & Otter, a home furnishings store. At that time Mangrum & Otter must have been busy planning the ornate storefront that showed off their decorative tiles, which was opened in 1928 and still stands.

John and Jessie must have split up shortly afterward. Jessie returned to her native Canada and died in 1932 in Manitoba. Her children all appear to have adopted Payne as their last names. Her son John, for example, registered for the U.S. draft with the name John Paul Quaid Payne, while noting that he had enlisted in the Royal Canadian Navy. He died in 1971 in Vancouver. By the time Cathleen got married in 1954 she had adopted her mother's maiden name. She had a son named Frank Bassett, and died in the Veteran's Home in Yountville, California in 2000. Barbara was living with Jessie's sister Nellie Tawns in Santa Rosa in 1940, and may have been adopted that family. She married former baseball player Royce J Lint in Oregon in 1963, and died in Tiburon on the shores of San Francisco Bay in 2006.

John & Auldine's marriage certificate

John moved on quickly. In 1929, 50-year-old John Pelham Quaid married Auldine Regina Silva, a 22-year-old Hawaiian woman studying music in New York. On their marriage certificate, almost every fact about John was wrong -- he was listed as a 40-year-old widower with one previous marriage, whose parents were Martin Quaid and Elizabeth Nylan. Every part of that is incorrect, but as we'll see this is definitely our John.

Just two months earlier, Auldine's father had died in mysterious circumstances, apparently poisoning himself the day after his surprise marriage to a woman his close friends didn't know. Truly a Death in Paradise scenario, with a suitable setting to boot.

Reviews of Auldine Silva's piano performances
From an advertisement for her teacher Elsa Cross, in 1926

Auldine and John were married in Manhattan, where Auldine was studying at the Damrosch Institute of Musical Arts, now known as Julliard. So she's the second of Quaid's wives to study at a prestigious music school founded by Damrosch. A later newspaper article noted that she received her training under Martinus Sieveking, the Dutch concert pianist, and then took private instruction from Austrian pianist Edward E. Treumann.

In the 1930 Census, John and Auldine were living in Honolulu, 29 years before Hawaii became a state. John was claiming to be a 40-year-old mining engineer from Illinois, which was of course incorrect but at least consistent with their marriage registration. Auldine didn't report an occupation in the census, but through this period she was offering piano lessons.

The couple had two sons, Joseph Anthony Quaid in 1930, and Dennis Neylen Quaid in 1933. Neylen was John's mother's maiden name. People spelled that name various ways -- Nealon, Neiland, etc -- but Neylen is close to how John spelled it on his 1905 marriage registration.

In the 1940 Census this family of four was still living in Honolulu. John listed his occupation as accountant, but he was unemployed. He had only worked an estimated one week of the previous 52, making a total of $35. His accounting training must have come in handy, however, because they were able to juggle the books enough to afford a live-in servant named Elaine Saito. Presumably they were living off of Auldine's income. Once again John claimed to be born in Illinois, and knocked 10 years off his age.

In July of 1940 John was appointed the manager of the Kamehameha Homes low-rent housing project, and subsequent news reports tell of grateful residents shaking his hand in gratitude. John is described as "formerly in the employ of the territorial government and in the construction business."

In July of 1942, John, Auldine and their two boys left Hawaii for Cape Girardeau, Missouri to live near John's sister Anna Quaid Rigdon. A newspaper story reporting the move says that John was an accountant for the territorial government of Hawaii, and that the family were there during the Pearl Harbor attack, but were not in the midst of it. They lived just a few miles away from the naval base, however, so it must have been terrifying.

The couple bought a little house at 1729 Bessie St, and by August Auldine was offering piano instruction out of their home. The Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian said that "she insists on detail work."

The family's stay in Missouri was short, however, because by April 1943 Auldine was advertising for piano students in San Jose, California, in the future Silicon Valley. In the 1944 directory of San Jose, John and Auldine were living just a few miles from where I would live 65 years later. John was again listed as an accountant, and Auldine was a music teacher. Their two bedroom, 1250 square foot house at 733 Schiele Avenue still stands, and is now valued at $1.4 million.

John P Quaid's unmarked grave in Santa Clara, CA.
Next to Rossi, diagonal from Aquistapace, map link.

John P Quaid died February 19, 1945 in San Jose. His death certificate cites coronary occlusion as the cause of death. His obituary mentions Auldine and their kids, notes his connection to Anna Rigdon and his membership in the Hilo, Hawaii branch of the B.P.O.E., and invites friends to the funeral service. John Quaid wouldn't win any "Father of the Year" prize, but everywhere he went he seems to have become a well-known part of the community. He was buried in the Santa Clara Catholic Cemetery in an unmarked grave. When I lived in the area I rode my bike past that cemetery dozens of times, oblivious to any connection to a resident.

A few years later Auldine married Quincy Dycus in Texas, and they moved to Stockton, California. She outlived Quincy, too. By 1975 she was a widow running the Dycus Piano Studio in Stockton. She died there in 1988, at the age of 81. By that time their son Joseph Quaid was living in Barcelona, and Dennis Neylen "Not That Dennis" Quaid was living in Spring, Texas. Dennis died in 2005.

So that's the story of John Pier Quaid. He showed up in Phoenix years before air conditioning, in Hawaii years before any surprise attacks, and in Silicon Valley before the invention of the transistor. Along the way he made a lot of friends, was a man-about-town in the American West, and made more than his share of mistakes.