stpaulcens.jpg = fullsize
Arrow to #126
16355.721 Eugene B. Comstock, b 18 Jan 1852; d 1874-1880
CA; m Agnes Farrell who died 30 Nov 1895,
16355.722 Clarence B. Comstock, b 18 Jan 1855; d 09 July 1891 CA; unmarried; obituary available from source
16355.723 Ernest Howard Comstock, b 26 Sept 1856 San
Francisco, CA; d 07 Nov 1857 San Francisco; buried Lone Mount Cem.
16355.724 Myra H. "Alvira" Comstock, b (01?)( 20?)
02 Jan 1860 San Francisco, CA; d 21 Dec 1946 Rancho Santa Fe, CA (near
San Diego); m (1) 23 May 1877 at Buffalo, NY (Div) George B. GLENNY (b 05
July 1858 Buffalo, NY; d _____ ;); m (2) Charles F. MEYERS.
Sources:
Bigelow Family Genealogy Volume. II page. 256;
Howe, Bigelow Family of America; page 258-259 child (see below).
records of Bigelow Society.
1860 census.
Subject: Biggs
Date: Tue, 29 Jul 2008 11:38:57 -0400
From: Jim and Judy Comstock <jimjudy2@verizon.net>
Still confusing. My friend found a Myra Comstock in Buffalo in 1880
at the same time George Glenny was in Buffalo, but not married to
each other and wonder if she went back to her maiden name before she married
Myers. However, Myra shows in no census from 1900-1930 which
is odd. But, Myra in Buffalo lists her mother's maiden name as Biggs.
Did you give me the name of Briggs as the maiden name for Phebe Bigelow?
This is a real mess to unravel and now I am wondering
if she is the one afterall. I am pursuing the Lone Mountain Cemetery which
could shed some light on the family.
Jim
More from Jim:
I just called San Diego County libraries and the Greenwood Cemetery
in Rancho Santa Fe. Myra was cremated at age 86. Why of course
she would be listed at that time as Myra C. instead of Myra H. when
she was born because she was buried as Myra Comstock Myers!
Now I got a bunch of additions and rewrites. This is great.
Now to find descendants. As good as it is now, it sure will be
a dissappointment if she had no children. Will let you know.
Any ideas on how to find Glennys or Myers?
This is unbelievable stuff!!! I would like to build a time line
of where she went. I think she was in CA. until sometime late
1870's and then Bullalo 1880, St. Paul 1885, overseas 1891 with George,
married Charles 1896 and then back overseas but I will have to study
all that. I wonder if there is any way to find out what ever
happened to her husband George and to Charles. I went online
and could find almost nothing on Charles who I thought would be easy.
I wonder if Charles died before she did? Since he was a big
shot I wonder if somewhere there are pictures of Charles and Myra.
I will have to try.
Pecking away at this. Here are some facts. A Myra H. Comstock
age 20 lives in Buffalo in 1880 with her cousin Eliz. All info
fits. White, but she is unmarried. George Glenny
lives in Buffalo with his parents in 1880, he being 21 years old.
Myra shows on the 1860, 70 in California and 80 census in N.Y.
and never again. The marriage to George seems plausible though
the 1877 is questionable because she was so young and she does not
appear to be married in 1880, but could have been married an divorced
though not shown on the census? a stretch. Phebe Bigelow shows on the 1870
census in Ca. and your records show that she died in N.Y. in
1871 which means that she came home very shortly before she died. I
will work on obit.
Howe pub 1890: " 486-1166 MARTIN
BIGELOW, son of Otis and Betsey (Bartlett) Bigelow, was born in Lebanon,
Conn., Feb. 12, 1789; married _____ Briggs. They had a family, and he died
Jan. 16, 1864. We give two children, -- there were probably others:
2548. OTIS; m and res. Troy, NY
2549 DAUGHTER; m. ____ Comstock; she now resides San Francisco;
she has two sons, and one daughter who m. George B. Glenny of Buffalo, NY"
She spent 10 years in China but nothing in 1910. Their permemant
address was Katonah, NY which is just north of NYC.
From Scott Barker:
I am going to guess that the confusion the person has is from the marriage
date of 1877 and find them in different census records with Myra using Comstock
as a surname.
"Still confusing. My friend found a Myra Comstock in Buffalo in
1880 at the same time George Glenny was in Buffalo, but not married to each
other and wonder if she went back to her maiden name before she married
Myers. However, Myra shows in no census from 1900-1930 which is odd.
But, Myra in Buffalo lists her mother's maiden name as Biggs. Did you
give me the name of Briggs as the maiden name for Phebe Bigelow? This
is a real mess to unravel and now I am wondering if she is the one
afterall. I am pursuing the Lone Mountain Cemetery which could shed some
light on the family.
Jim"
This assumes that Myra Comstock and George Glenny had been married
and divorced prior to the 1880 census. Attached is a passport application
photo of the two. It is dated November 1891. Obviously the two
were together and married in 1891 so one would have to conclude that the two
did not marry until some time after the 1880 census.
Also attached is a photo of the 1885 state census for St. Paul, Minnesota.
In the 2nd collumn George B Glenny is easily readable. The next line
down on first look you might see "Maria" but as we know the name to
be Myra you then can see how it was written by someone who wasn't quite sure
how to spell it. Aside from that her state of birth is Cal and although
the age doesn't fit exactly it is a sign of what is to follow as in her second
marrige the dates of birth are off by as much as 12 years.
Her 2nd husband, Charles F Meyer was a corporate executive for Standard
Oil of New York and from Immigration/Emmigration, passenger ship records
and passport info they spent many years abroad, mainly in the far east.
Below is a Time magazine article for him dated 1928:
Meyer v. Deterding
Monday, Apr. 30, 1928
Directors of the Standard Oil Co. of N. Y., by electing Charles F. Meyer
(one of their number) president last week,* emphasized a unique commercial
parallelism.
Standard's great rival in the international oil markets is the Royal Dutch-Shell
group, which Sir Henri Wilhelm August Deterding heads.
Both Meyer and Deterding are in their middle sixties. Meyer's
ancestors were Germans. Deterding's father was a Dutch sea captain.
Both men, before they became great in the world's oil industry, kept business
accounts. Meyer at 22 (in 1886) found work as bookkeeper in the
old Standard Oil's Boston office. Soon he became statistician. Deterding
at 22 quit work as Chief Clerk in an Amsterdam bank to adventure in the Dutch
East Indies, where he sold among a multitude of general items kerosene lamps.
The East Indians who used those lamps filled them with Standard oil shipped
in square cans from the U. S. Sumatra, Batavia, Borneo, Java and the rest
of the archipelago were not yet producing the oil that later the Royal Dutch-Shell
was to control. First oil of the region was discovered at Sumatra in the late
1880's; the Royal Dutch Co. (the Dutch royal family are important stockholders)
was incorporated at The Hague only in 1890.
In 1892, Deterding became a Royal Dutch employe, at their Batavia headquarters.
In 1893, Standard Oil sent Meyer to manage their Bombay office.
In 1896, Deterding became general sales manager in the Far East for Royal
Dutch.
Mr. Meyer went to Manhattan to be a member of Standard Oil's foreign
trade committee in 1907, to be vice president and director in 1920.
But already, at the beginning of this century, Sir Henri had moved to his
Royal Dutch headquarters in The Hague, and from there he directed the fight
for customers.
Worth struggling for has been the field — China with 400,000,000 people,
East Indies with 50,000,000, India with 318,000,000. Everywhere Standard Oil
was first. In China, to get natives to buy kerosene, Standard salesmen sold
lamps for less than a song, for a cheep as inebriates of Singapore used to
say. Mei Fooy is the Chinese name for Standard Oil. Shouting Mei Fooy out
loudly once saved the life of Lucy Aldrich, John D. Rockefeller Jr.'s sister-in-law,
when in 1923 Chinese bandits captured her. It was the only phrase she knew;
and the bandits, if they knew not its potency, knew its beneficence. They
quickly released her.
In India Sir Henri has used gang tactics for abusing Standard Oil. His English
Shell Transport relations have brought him British government aid. Indian
duties against Standard oil are higher than against Royal Dutch-Shell oil.
In the East Indies the tactics have been almost the same.
Both to harry Standard Oil on the flank and to boom up Royal Dutch-Shell
goodwill throughout the British and Dutch possessions, Sir Henri has been
shouting harsh things about Russian petroleum. That oil comes from wells
once owned in part by British investors but now confiscated by the Soviet.
Standard Oil has been buying it to sell in the East, where it has few wells,
but where Royal Dutch-Shell has many. It is more profitable to Standard Oil
to ship petroleum from Russia to India than from California to India. Sir
Henri, therefore, has been crying loudly that Russian oil is "stolen" and
that Standard Oil should be contemned for touching it, that Royal Dutch-Shell
should be patronized for shunning it. (Sir Henri tried to buy the same Russian
oil but with conditions that the Soviets considered unreasonable.)
But more effective than growls is the tangible armament under Sir Henri
Wilhelm August Deterding's command.
At Shanghai, Hongkong, Calcutta, Swatow, Madras, Bombay, Bankok, Amoy and
Fu-chau he has great oil storage tanks. Standard Oil has similar stores
in: Japan Indo-China Dutch East Indies
China Siam Straits Settlement
Philippines Burma Australasia
Ceylon India South Africa
''Shell" ships, tankers and auxiliaries, their number is vast, carry Royal
Dutch-Shell oil to markets. Opposed to them President Meyer has his own
"navy" of 38 ocean going tankers, 5 river steamers, 96 lighters and barges,
68 tugs and launches, and 134 junks.
The money capital of each force is exactly the same. Royal Dutch is capitalized
for Florins 600,000,000 ($240,000,000);
"Shell" Transport & Trading for £43,000,000 ($215,000,000 approximately).
Thus the combined capital of the Royal Dutch-Shell group is very close to
$450,000,000. Capital of the Standard Co. of N. Y. is $450,000,000.
Thus either Mr. Meyer, personifying his Standard Oil Co., or Sir
Henri, personifying his Royal Dutch-Shell group, is like the dog of the
fable, who with a good, juicy bone in his mouth walked onto a plank over
a stream. In the water below he saw another dog with another bone, and he
wanted the other bone.
But there the parallel ends, for the fabled dog opened his mouth to growl
and thereupon dropped his own bone. And, although Sir Henri has been growling,
(most indecorously for a British or a Dutch businessman), as if he were the
dog on the bridge, he has not loosened his teeth from the Oriental markets.
Mr. Meyer, like the dog in the stream, has made no sound in the controversy;
nor has he loosened his teeth.I have all the other info records I can send
later. There's not much in the way of census records since they spent
a good part of it overseas.On another subjust. I know you've told me
once but have lost the email but what sotware do you use to compile the web
site from the gedcom file? I recently aquired Legacy 7.0 deluxe as a
gift and haven't decided whether to keep it or try something else to put everything
onto the web. Scott
rodbigelow@netzero.net 
