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July 15, 2007

Walter Douglas Coffee, Jr.

I rarely blog about my own line because there are so few descendants available with an interest in our ancestors. However, from time to time I go back to my line to see if I can fill in any blanks.

Walter Douglas Coffee, Jr. was a grandson of Lilburn Warren Coffee, a brother to my gg-grandfather, James M. Coffee. Walter's father, Walter, Sr. was born Jul. 25, 1882 in Hays Co., TX and died in California on Oct. 29, 1947 from injuries received in an automobile accident. He had married Sarah Ruth Moore on Sep. 9, 1926 in Big Spring, Howard Co., TX and, from that union was born Robert Lee on Mar. 5, 1926, died before 1930. Their second and last child was Walter, Jr., born Jul. 18, 1927, died Sep. 11, 1985. Ironically, Jr. also died from injuries received in a vehicular accident in California.

As I recall, Walter, Jr. was a truck driver for SafeWay. On the morning of Sep. 11, he was driving north on California highway 101 in Mendocino Co., apparently enroute to deliver stock. At mile marker 43.57 he was involved in some sort of accident that took his life. His death certificate reads that death was caused by "acute congestive heart failure caused by respiratory inadequacy as a result of inhalation of superheated air." His body was moved to Hayward in Alameda Co., CA and later interred at the Chapel of the Chimes in Hayward.

Other information found in his death certificate indicates that he was married and his wife's name was Hattie Rose. For a long time I considered Rose to be her middle name and searched without success for a marriage record, or other document, that would provide her maiden name.

Just recently however, I discovered four California birth records for children born to a Coffee; their mother's maiden name was Rose. This information has given me new impetus to find some rather long lost Coffee cousins who many still live in California.

They were all born in Alameda Co., and their names and dates of birth are:

Marilyn Kay Coffee, born Oct. 11, 1951
Douglas Eugene Coffee, born Dec. 4, 1953
Barry Wayne Coffee, born May 25, 1955
Cindy L. Coffee, born Jan. 12, 1958.

Please contact me at the e-mail address below if you have any information.

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