George Wallman bio

George Wallman Biography: An Immigrant Story

George Wallman came to northern California during the mid 1860’s in a big wave of Italian, Swiss-Italian and German speaking immigrants. He was from Hanover, a province in the Kingdom of Prussia, Germany. From1880-1920 was the peak period in the history of all US immigration. (See essays on Germans in California and C.F. Leiding.)

George Wallman lived between 1851 and 3/3/1922. Dates given on various censuses do not always add up correctly and it is probable that George and others simply gave ballpark figures every ten years. Discrepancies in the dates that seem to be the result of honest miscalculation on the part of the actors, or from illegible census records, at this point, are something that just has to be lived with.

George Wallman was 28 on the 1880 Census. His brother George R. Wallman was 18. They lived in Bolinas, California in the household of their brother, farmer John Wallman, age 30. They were all German-speaking immigrants. Both parents of George Wallman were born in Prussia.

The 1890 Census records were mostly destroyed by fire. There is nothing to find for any of the George Wallman family.

The 1900 Census shows George Wallman’s immigration year to be 1864 or 1866 (exact date illegible). The 1910 Census shows George’s immigration year to be 1868. It appears George gave different immigration dates throughout the years, but we get the general idea, mid- 1860s. By 1900, George was the owner of his own farm in Sonoma, the acreage where the Adele Harrison Middle School now sits.

Catherine was George Wallman’s first wife. She was from the Duchy of Holstein, the northernmost state in Germany; she was 40 years old in 1900. This makes her birth year 1860. George was born in 1851; he was @ nine years older.

The 1900 Census shows Catherine’s immigration year as 1864. It is hard to tell if George and Catherine immigrated together. They both came in the mid 1860’s. They were most likely too young to be married at that time, as by this reckoning, Catherine would have then been only 4 years old.  

The 1900 Census shows Catherine and George as having been married for a certain number of years, the exact number illegible, possibly 12 years.  In 1900 Catherine was listed as the mother or four children, three living. ‘Georgeanna’ was the oldest at age 12, then Ella also at age 12, then George at age 6.

The 1900 Census also has a Mrs. George Wallman as a patient at the Napa State Hospital, along with 100s of other people listed as ‘members of the household’. Judging from this account of Catherine’s whereabouts, she had psychological issues of sufficient degree to end up at the state hospital, a scary fate.  

The 1910 Census shows George Wallman married to second wife, Annie S. Wallman, they having been married for 8 years. So, Catherine either died in 1902 or before or was permanently put away at the hospital around that time. Annie was 42 years old in 1910 and was born in California in 1868 or 1869. She was 17 some years younger than her husband. Annie’s parents were both born in Massachusetts. Various sources list Annie as the mother of George Wallman’s children; not so, it was Catherine.

I have found no record of George and Annie having any children. They certainly could have given their ages. The 1930 Census shows Annie as a widow and head of household, owner of a house valued at $3,500, with one Jonas E. Johnson, age 66, as a household member. Perhaps she had an outbuilding on the ranch property, or lived in the adobe. The house could have been at Salt Point, (where George Wallman finished out his days) although since Jonas Johnson is buried in Sonoma, I’d say the house was probably in Sonoma and on the ranch.

Various family and household members who cannot be located as buried in local cemeteries, could be candidates for what Nancy Parmelee recalls as George Dolcini and Alvin Wallman mentioning, about people being ‘buried out back’ on the ranch property.

Georgiana Wallman, 1886–1978, was George Wallman’s first child. There are a number of discrepancies surrounding Georgiana in census and other records. Gerald Hill states that Georgiana was German born, that she was an immigrant. All census records however, show her being born in CA. The identity of Georgiana’s first husband is unable to be determined, only that the surname is Dolcini. With some study and consideration, I doubt if Georgiana was actually married. There is no paper trail or any records at at all. I believe she became pregnant and was said to be married to save face.

It’s possible but not likely I have the wrong George Wallman in Bolinas and another George Wallman is the one from Sonoma and Georgiana’s father. If Georgiana was to be German born, the family had to have immigrated on or after 1886. And there are no George Wallmans I can find that fit that time frame. As far as I can tell, Georgiana was California born and the Sonoma George Wallman is the same fellow on the Bolinas, CA 1880 Census.

Ella C. Wallman 4/18/1888-10/8/1969, was the middle child of George and Catherine Wallman. Ella married John B. Skinner (born 1868 in CA) who was 20 years her senior. Ella had five children total with John; Mildred was born 1907 and John born 1909. On the 1910 Census Ella was listed as age 22 and married with 2 kids. Like her older sister, the husband and/or father of the children was not listed as a member of the household. On the 1920 Census the family had moved to Sacramento, Mildred is gone, likely a victim of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Of the remaining children: John B. is 10, Robert J. is 8, Arthur B. is 5 and June O. is 3. By 1930 the family had moved to San Francisco where Ella died in1969.

George J. Wallman 1892- 1981 was the final child of George and Catherine Wallman.  He married the Polish born, Protestant Lena Berta Grande (Heilmann) 7/22/1889 – 5/5/1955. Lena’s highest grade in school was 6^th and George’s 8^th.

Now for the story of George and Catherine’s third child, George J. Wallman: Figuring out the status of his wife was quite the adventure.

Lena Bertha Grande, 1890-1955, was an ethnic German, Polish immigrant who arrived in NY, NY on 3/4/1910 aboard the Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse. The ship departed from Bremen, Germany, a Hanseatic port city bordering Hanover and the North Sea. By 1920 she was married to Ludwig Heilmann, 5/10/1885-3/12/1936, a Polish/Russian ethnic German. Lena and Ludwig had a grocery and bakery in San Francisco.

Lena’s parents were Gottlieb Grande, 1860- and Juliana Disterheft, 1863-1930.

Lena and Ludwig had two children, Frances Heilmann and Paul George Heilmann. Frances married John Edward “Jeff” Rubke, 3/16/1918- 12/25/2005, of Sonoma. Jeff was the son of Adolph H. Rubke and Elizabeth Hicks. Adolph was a son of Henry R. Rubke, 1843-1915, of Sonoma. The Rubke family had land around Vineberg.

In a great find I was able to locate photos online of Lena’s parents, Ludwig Heilmann, their grocery store and their son Paul George.

On the 1920 Census, George J. Wallman was unmarried and living in Georgiana’s household. On the 1930 Census, George J. is still single, a renter, lived on the orchard family farm and had a radio.

On the 1940 Census George J. Wallman was married to Lena and Lena’s daughter Frances was 16 years old and listed as a member in the household. Frances was the biological daughter of Ludwig and Lena Heilmann; she became the fictive, step- daughter of George J. Walman. Ludwig had died in 1936 and George J. and Lena had gotten together. When Lena died in 1955, in San Francisco on Stanford Lane, the Bates and Evans funeral record shows her name as Lena Wallman. The map on Lena’s funeral record leads to the gravestone of Ludwig and Lena Heilmann. It took some exciting sleuthing to figure out that Lena Wallman was also Lena Heilmann.

George Wallman died in 1981 and he is buried with his father and sister, along with George Dolcini, Frank A. Matsuyama and Alvin Wallman.

On the 1900 Census, George Wallman (senior) was 46 and had moved from Bolinas to Sonoma Township. He bought property on Broadway that later supported his Dolcini, Wallman and Matsuyama descendants. In 1898 George built an adobe house in which he and his family lived and where his grandson George Dolcini was born. This house was known as the Wallman Adobe, later as the Wallman-Dolcini Adobe and finally as the Dolcini Adobe. The house was torn down in the late 1980s to make way for the Adele Harrison Middle School.

The property was a good one for farming as Nathanson Creek was the western border. They would have had a good supply of surface water for irrigating and for watering animals. The land was probably very fertile from flooding and silt enrichment over time. There are numerous references to produce, fruit, figs, orchards, corn etc. George Wallman no doubt planted a large fig orchard, right around the adobe house.

In 1912, George’s daughter Georgiana married Frank Atsuo Matsuyama and they went on the have seven children on the ranch. Along with George Dolcini, George Wallman had 8 grandchildren, a descendant of whom still lives on a piece of the ranch property.  One other descendant is still in Sonoma as of 2014.  

Many American families display the same pattern of social, economic and spatial mobility over time. A family is centered in a rural, agricultural community and as the Untied States grows and the Interstate Highway system is developed, the descendants all move away, scattering, creating a nation of individuals vs. a nation of locally focused kin. In the Wallman family we can see the thinning out of the fabric of society; all of us to some degree are a part of this same process. 

On the 1920 Census, George Wallman, age 69, had moved to Salt Point, in coastal Sonoma County north of the mouth of the Russian River. Maybe he liked fishing or just wanted to reflect in front of the timeless ocean at the end of his days. Salt Point is located inside the former Rancho Hermann or Rancho German. In1846 Ernst Rufus (substantial Nor Cal German immigrant) was granted Rancho Hermann by Governor Pio Pico; it was one of last land grants in Mexican California. George may have known Ernst Rufus and Rufus’ business partner William Benitz. It is possible George Wallman had some German immigrant connections up there at Salt Point, or remembered the area from his first immigrant days. Maybe he even owned a cabin there all along.

In 1922 when the George Wallman, the immigrant, died, his New World legacy was set. His descendants would be fruitful and multiply; they would represent a great example of the ‘melting pot’, of multicultural mixing, of different immigrant stories, of tragedies and American dreams. And on his grandson George Dolcini’s death with the selling of the property, the dissolution of the old homestead, and the demolition of the adobe house, Sonoma changed and grew, from a rural immigrant farming community to an elite tourist destination.

Driving up Broadway into town, kids going to school, people commuting to the urban core, thousands daily pass by the Wallman ranch, a setting where a unique California history unfolded. The past of Sonoma is all the same, rich with history that remains hidden, silent and anonymous in the modern moment. With some imagination we can feel the substance of that past life, almost imagine the people as neighbors going about their business only what separates us now is not space but time.

Mountain Cemetery head stone markers: of the Wallman family

George Wallman, grandfather, 1851-1922, (age 35 at time of Georgiana’s birth)

Georgiana W. Matsuyama, mother 1886-1978, (41 years old at birth of Alvin J.)

Frank Atsuo Matsuyama, husband, 1886-1957

George J. Wallman, brother, 1892-1981, WW1

George Dolcini, son, 1906-1988, (born 6 years before marriage to Frank)

Alvin Joseph Wallman, son 1927-2005, (born 15 years after marriage to Frank, 15 years old at time of Frank’s move to Denver prior to Relocation)

Lena Bertha Grande, i.e. Lena Heilmann (Wallman), 1890-1955

Ludwig Heilmann 5/10/1885-3/12/1936