Page:California Historical Society Quarterly vol 30.djvu/113

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News of the Society
87

bearing on the subject, and I stated that the result was a highly significant contribution, which had a continental as well as a local bearing—a remark which could have applied, I think, to Mrs. Maloney's scholarly approach to any matter she happened to have in hand, namely, that its bearing was unpredictable and therefore its examination should be exhaustive.

Mrs. Maloney's death occurred on December 10, 1950, in Berkeley, following a long illness. She is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Alice M. Hendershot of Modesto, and a son, Joseph M. Maloney, M.D., of San Carlos; also by a brother, Fred B. AicCormac of Berkeley, and a sister, Mrs. Grace McCormac French of Dayton, Oregon; and by an aunt, Mrs. Willis S. Duniway of Portland, Oregon. There are five grandchildren.

Mrs. Maloney was a competent worker and charming person.

Herbert E. Bolton


Charles Francis Griffin, M.D.

Dr. Griffin, an active member of this Society over a period of many years and compiler of its Index to the Annals of San Francisco, published in 1935, passed away at Sebastopol on December 23, 1950. He had left San Francisco, by stage, on the morning of his death, to spend the holidays with his only sister, Mrs. Clara L. Watson, at Guerneville. A few miles before reaching his destination, the bus swerved from the highway into a redwood tree, which fell, crushing the doctor so severely that he expired soon after reaching the hospital.

Charles Francis Griffin was born in Lassen County, California, on April 26, 1869, the son of Francis Marion Griffin, an early pioneer of Benicia and native of Searsport, Maine, and Margaret Malloy Griffin of Roxbury, Massachusetts. He attended school in Vallejo and, following his graduation from Vallejo High School, registered at Cooper Medical College, San Francisco, now the medical department of Stanford University, receiving his M.D. degree with the class of 1891. He at once engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery, in the city of his choice—San Francisco. When World War I became a reality, the doctor volunteered and saw active service with the Spruce Division in France, where he was badly injured.

Genealogy and civic affairs became Dr. Griffin's particular hobbies. He was the author of innumerable articles along these lines, was past-president of the California Genealogical Society, and for years an officer of the Society of Mayflower Descendants. It will be recalled, also, that on September 7, 1941, a bronze tablet was erected by Dr. Griffin in the San Francisco Civic Center, marking the site of the Old Yerba Buena cemetery (1850-1870), which occupied the triangle formed by Market, Larkin, and McAllister streets. In addition, he collected and preserved for posterity the names of some 5000 persons here interred.

Before her marriage, the doctor's mother had become the owner of a