Charles Matthews Clague was born in Rochester, NY on April 27, 1880 to Fanny Matthews and William Henry Harrison Clague. At some point around 1899 William HH Clague moved the family to Washington, DC.
The patriarch of the family worked as a pressman for the Government Printing Office (GPO). In 1900 the Clagues lived at 59 New York Ave NE. The father worked as a pressman, as did his some William and son-in-law Johnathan Barnes. Charles, who was 20 at the time, worked as a private secretary. Charles’ mom and sisters Nellie (22), Florence (17), and Mary (15) did not work outside of the home.
William Clague died in 1904. The youngest daughter Mary married a year later. She and her husband George N. Scriven had Charles in their home in 1910. The Scriven household was headed by George a policeman (35), with wife Mary (25). They were raising their four year old William with the help of Mary’s mother, the widow Fannie Clague (63) and sister Florence (27). However, Florence worked as a clerk at the GPO so, maybe not her.
Charles married Mary H.A. Smallwood in 1911 inn DC. And from Charles’ WWI draft registration we find him at 131A Bates St NW in 1917. This address placed him in the White segregated Washington Sanitary Improvement Co. housing for working class families. He worked as a gas fitter. By 1920 he became an electrician.
He was able to provide a place for his widowed mother, who was 82 in 1930, and his sister Florence and his wife’s brother William Smallwood. But this was one of two units and it is currently 1,810 square feet for the whole structure. Charles and Mary had no children so there were 5 adults sharing less than 1,000 square feet of space.
In 1940 he worked for the same company he worked for in 1917, but he was a repair worker. In his last census in 1950 he and his wife were listed as unemployed. I should note that unlike other wives, Mary kept working during their marriage. In 1910, before she married she was a saleslady at a packing store. 1920 she was a saleswoman at an electric supply company. 1930, a clerk at a department store. She was not working in 1940.
The couple died in 1950. Charles went first on May 12th at his home. Mary followed a month later on June 10th. In a way it was a blessing. They didn’t have to suffer through the sale of their home and scramble at their age to seek new housing.
Thousands of people have lived in the Truxton Circle neighborhood for over 100 years and they have thousands of stories. The goal of the Truxton Circle History Project is to find every man, woman, and child who lived in the neighborhood using every available source. The Project uses the 1880-1950 censuses, the power of Ancestry and every other online resource to discover and uncover neighborhood history.