As March comes to a close, our last profile in celebrating Women's History month is on Catherine "Kate" Ellen Nolan Chattleton.

Catherine must have been a remarkable woman as she became a widow left with seven children several years after coming to San Pablo.

Catherine Ellen Nolan was born on 28 February 1850 in Longford County, Ireland. She immigrated in 1864 to New York where she later worked as a nurse for a prominent New York lawyer. She arrived in San Pablo with her husband, Constant, in 1876. They lived in a three-story Victorian which was located on a private road leading to their farm from Church Lane, located across from the Alvarado Adobe and not far from the recently built (August 1864) Saint Paul Catholic Church. The two operated a hay bailing business on an expanse property bordered by Church Lane (to the north), San Pablo Avenue (east) and Vale Road, down to the overflow parking lots for the San Pablo Casino (south) all along Wildcat Creek.

A native of Ireland, 14-year-old Catherine left her home in 1863 with her older sister Mary and brother James Nolan to come to California. It is not known how she met her husband, Constant Chattleton, who was born in New York, although Catherine did live in New York until 1870. His parents had been born in France. After their marriage c1872, the couple lived in the pueblo of San José. However, by the 1880 census it shows the family now in San Pablo with five children, Annie, John, Mary, Katie and Constant Jr. They had two more children soon after, a daughter Emma born in 1881, and Ellen in 1883. After Catherine lost her husband to suicide in 1884, to support herself and her large family she took in laundry, ran the hay bailing business, and also operated a dairy.

It was incredibly hard work. Dairy farmers had to get up very early, milk the cows and then ferry it to San Francisco. There was no refrigeration in those days, no pasteurization. You had to sell the milk the same day. With great regularity, Catherine deposited the milk money at the Hibernia Bank. She not only supported her family, but she also acquired more property. Catherine's daughter Nellie married Joseph Maloney of the nearby village of Pinole who helped her operate the farm, and Catherine welcomed the help. He owned a milk distribution operation in San Pablo, delivering to nearby Richmond (the first delivery service) and the milk came from Catherine's cows which grazed in the alfalfa fields along San Pablo Avenue.

Catherine died at her home in San Pablo on September 14, 1923 at age 73 and is buried at St. Joseph Cemetery in San Pablo. The land where they had their hay and dairy farm has a rich history of agricultural and civic development in the city of San Pablo. Over the years the Chattleton property was sold off and initially developed with some small rental units, a plumbing supply store and the infamous Broiler Restaurant. Eventually, the open fields became an 18-acre site for the Circle-S Corral and Alvarado Mobile Home Parks, which remained in operation until it was removed in 2010 to make way for redevelopment into a new city hall complex for San Pablo in 2011. In all, the Chattleton property once consisted of the former Circle-S site which housed about 250 mobile homes, the Davis lumber yard and a Salvation Army store, since razed. A 2.8-acre portion was sold to Contra Costa County for the construction of the new West County Health Center (replacing the old Richmond Clinic and Health Center).

From Ireland to New York, to San José to Mendocino County to San Pablo, Catherine's legacy lives on in Chattleton Lane and the once proposed Chattleton Square. We also wish to acknowledge and thank Victor Westman, Contra Costa County’s former county counsel and great grandson to the Chattleton family who spent hundreds of hours tracing the multiple roots of his family's history since his retirement in 2001.

Hopefully, Chattleton Lane will live on once the city has completed their final plan to improve the newly opened space.  Most definitely Chattleton Lane will live on at the San Pablo Historical and Museum Society.  If you have memories of Chattleton Lane please share them with us or come down to the museums to see all the wonderful history we want to share with you about this and many more topics.  The entire collection of Victor Westman documents and memoirs can be examined upon request.