Cox Album menu
Website menu
Davids family tree
( top ) Pages 20-21 of Cox Album
(bottom) Pages 17 and 4 of Cox Album

The man in photo #20 is almost certainly "Henry S. Davids". The woman is his wife. The right photo is labeled "Adelaide S. Davids, 1874", and there is faint erased other writing which can be read as "Mrs. Adeline Davids" ; her correct name is Adeline Coy (Brown) Davids. The top left photo is labeled "August 1874". The 1870 California census states that H.S. Davids was a 30-year-old unmarried "engineer" in Solana County (Vellejo), born in Virginia; an obituary claims that Henry S. Davids was born 1839 in New York. A family bible records his birth on 4 April 1839 at FishKill-on-Hudson, N.Y. Adele Landis stated in 1964 that Alice's mother came from the Davids family: indeed, Henry, Emeline, and Phoebe Davids were siblings. Photo of Henry on page #20 by Bradley Rulotson, 429 Montgomery Street, San Francisco. Photo #21 of Adeline Brown by Bradley & Rulofson, San Francisco The woman's clothing was dated 1876-78, 2 years later than the written date on the photo .

(Page 20) Henry S. Davids
(alternate photo)
  (Page 21) Adeline Coy Davids = "Addie"
(alternate photo)
 


Pages 17 and 4 of Cox Album

The left photo below is dedicated "Yours Affectionately, H.S. Davids and daughter, for Alice"; the father seems to be the same man as on page 20 above. Photo made by Solana Art Studio, J.G. Smith, Vallejo, California, probably about 1887, at which time Henry Stephen Davids would be 48 years old, assuming that his age (30) is given correctly in the California 1870 census. H.S. Davids died in 1888 at the Illinois home of his sister Emeline, and had retired as a U.S. Navy engineer due to poor health (Bright's disease, a staph infection easily treatable today). This was his only child, and given that the father died at age 49, the child knew that she would soon lose her father. Indeed, a second obituary names his daughter, Charlotte, surviving him as an orphan, his wife having died earlier. A later picture of Charlotte, a possible earlier picture, and other family items have survived. Henry died in the home of his sister, Emeline Cox, and Charlotte was raised by Emeline's daughter Marie, who then photographed this daughter a few years later (right photo below). The child's clothing in the left photo was dated 1890, newer than the father's; the child's clothing on the right was dated 1892-3. The left photo may have been organized shortly before Henry's death. The right photo occupies page 4, but is noted on the back by me (Tom McFarland) that it was loose in the album, and inserted later to page 4, but as I studied these photos in March 2000, I concluded that here would be a better place for this photo, nearer her (presumed) father.

(Page 17) Henry Davids and daughter Charlotte (Page 4) Charlotte Judd Davids = "Charlie"
(alternate photo of Charlotte)