BIOGRAPHIES

09-04 Florence Adele Chaffee

1900 - 1969

FLORENCE ADELE CHAFFEE, daughter of Herbert Fuller and Carrie Toogood Chaffee, was born in Amenia, ND, June 2, 1900; died at San Anselmo, CA, in 1969; married in Minneapolis, MN, June 2, 1920, Sydney Marshall Higgins, son of Albert Edward and Dell (Hinds) Higgins, of San Diego, CA. He was born March 2, 1889 in San Diego; died December 3, 1955 in San Anselmo, Marin County, CA.

During her first few years of school, Adele Chaffee was taught at home. After the death of her father in the Titanic disaster of 1912, her mother moved to Minneapolis, MN, where Adele attended Graham Hall (later Northrup School) for the next four years.

Adele

Age 4

Adele with her father, H.F.Chaffee,

at the Chaffee home in Amenia

She graduated from LaSalle Seminary in Auburndale, MA in 1918, went to Oberlin College (Ohio) for one year, and spent the following year traveling in Europe with her mother and brother, Lester. After her marriage to Sydney Higgins in 1920, she and her husband lived for a year in Minneapolis, then moved to California, finally settling in San Anselmo in 1925

Sydney Higgins graduated from Leland Stanford University with the class of 1913, and served in the U.S. Navy in W.W.I, where he attained the rank of Liertenant, J.G. He operated an insurance brokerage business in San Francisco for many years. With the outbreak of W.W. II, he was again commissioned in the navy, serving at the Mare Island Navy Yard at Vallejo, CA until the war's end when he was retired with the rank of Commander. He then divided his time between his home in San Anselmo and a ranch he had inherited in San Diego County until his death in 1955.

Children of Florence Adele Chaffee and Sydney Marshall Higgins:

i. Barbara Ellen Higgins, b. March 11, 1921 in Minneapolis, MN; married Robert McCrea Yelland, who was born August 19, 1921.

ii. Patricia Anne Higgins, b. May 11, 1923 in Berkeley, CA; married October 9, 1945 Donald Edward Hudson, who was born July 12, 1919.

iii. Constance Jean Higgins, b. December 5, 1925 in San Francisco, CA; married June 1, 1944 William Nowlin Kelsey, who was born July 30, 1923.


To see more pictures of Florence Adele, click here for the Photo Gallery

SOURCES:

  • Descendants of Eben Whitney Chaffee, compiled by H.L.Chaffee, 1969 and Carter G. Chaffee, 1998

  • Family photographs archived at IRS-NDSU