Collection Guide
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Guide to the Brown, Waldeier, and Bridenstine families collection
MS0029
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Table of contents
Dates: ca. 1860-1973
Bulk Dates: 1888-1949
Collection number: MS0029
Creator:
William Henry Brown, Elizabeth Wise Brown, Josephine Elizabeth Wise Waldeier, Bonita May Waldeier Bridenstine, Dorothy Bridenstine
Delaney.
Collection Size:
2.56 linear feet:
two manuscript boxes, one flat oversize box. Also includes artifacts.
Repository:
Center for Sacramento History
Sacramento, California 95811-0229
Abstract: The collection documents four generations of one family with roots in Sacramento starting in the mid-1800s. The bulk of material
dates from 1888 to 1949 and includes marriage records, school records, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts. Of special note
are photographs of Riverside Transfer Co., located at 1024 6th Street in Sacramento, which Josephine Wise Waldeier ran from
1908 to 1927. Photos show the interior and exterior of the business, plus staff, including members of these families.
Physical location: Archival records: SP SV 7:L:6; artifacts: SP SV 30:C:04, 30:D:04, 42:J:04, 46:K:05, 59:B:04, 60:E:01.
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection is open for research use.
All requests to publish or quote from private manuscripts held by the Center for Sacramento History (CSH) must be submitted
in writing to csh@cityofsacramento.org. Permission for publication is given on behalf of CSH as the owner of the physical
items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the patron.
No permission is necessary to publish or quote from public records.
[Identification of item and/or item number], [box and folder number], MS0029, Center for Sacramento History.
Gift of Joan Dahmen, 2019 (accession 2019/017)
Biography / Administrative History
The family this collection documents has roots in Sacramento starting in the mid-1800s (see family tree at archive.org/details/MS0029FamilyTree).
The first generation of the family is Elizabeth Wise Brown (1849-1941) and her second husband William Henry Brown (ca. 1846-1925).
Elizabeth came overland to California with her family from Iowa when she was three years old, settling in Stockton before
she moved to Sacramento as a young woman. Her parents were George and Nancy Phipps, and she had one sister, Jane, and one
brother, George Phipps Jr., who also lived in the Sacramento area. George Jr. lived in Walnut Grove when he died in 1933 and
was a bridge tender and farmer at Georgiana Slough.
Elizabeth was first married to William Wise, whose family owned land in the Delta region, but he died in 1866 shortly after
the birth of their daughter Josephine Elizabeth Wise. Elizabeth married William Brown in 1873. Family lore says William was
a Pony Express rider from Joplin, Missouri. When he and Elizabeth married, he was a ranch manager and race horse breeder and
trainer at the Burns & Waterhouse horse ranch near what is now the Sacramento Executive Airport. The family lived at the ranch
for some time before purchasing a house at 1315 Q Street in Sacramento in 1904.
In 1908, William and stepdaughter Josephine opened Riverside Transfer Co. at 1024 6th Street in Sacramento. Josephine managed
the company until it closed in 1927. She married Albert Waldeier in San Francisco in 1889 and they had one child, Bonita May
Waldeier (born ca. 1890, died 1958). The Waldeiers divorced in 1891, and Josephine next married Austin C. Peterson in Sacramento
in 1896; they divorced in 1900.
Bonita grew up at the horse farm and the house on Q Street. When younger, she worked alongside her mother at Riverside Transfer
and she attended Sutterville School. Bonita married Roy Robert Bridenstine (born circa 1891, died 1973) and the two had one
child, Dorothy (born 1923). Dorothy lived at the family home on Q Street for at least some of her childhood. She attended
Sutter Junior High School and Sacramento High School, then married Robert Delaney.
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection documents four generations of the Brown, Waldeier, and Bridenstine families, through marriage records, school
records, photographs, ephemera, and artifacts. The bulk of material dates from 1888-1949. Of special note are photographs
of Riverside Transfer Co., located at 1024 6th Street in Sacramento. Opened in 1908 by William Brown and his stepdaughter
Josephine Wise, Josephine ran the company until it closed in 1927, making it an early woman-run business. The photos show
the interior and exterior of the business, plus staff, including members of these families. Also of particular interest is
Josephine Wise and Albert Waldeier's 1889 marriage certificate with tintypes of them mounted into it. The collection is arranged
alphabetically.
Series 1. Papers and photographs, ca. 1860-1973, bulk 1888-1949
Series 2. Artifacts, ca. 1885-1930
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Bridenstine, Bonita May Waldeier
Bridenstine, Roy Robert
Brown, William Henry
Brown, Elizabeth Wise
Delaney, Dorothy Bridenstine
Waldeier, Josephine Elizabeth Wise
Riverside Transfer Co.
Burns & Waterhouse
Sacramento High School yearbooks from 1934-1937 that belonged to Dorothy Bridenstine were removed from the collection and
added to CSH's existing yearbook collection.