Ellen Maria Goff

Ellen Maria Goff was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Goff and Amelia Calkins. Her father was by occupation a bookkeeper. Her mother was the sister of Abel Henry Calkins, who married Sarah Maria Watrous. The father died in 1859, aged forty-three; the mother, born in March, 1820, came to Stockton in July, 1872. Grandfather Abel Calkins died of heart disease at the age of fifty-nine, but grandmother Esther (Mixter) Calkins lived to the age of ninety-one.

In the spring of 1863 Ellen had an opportunity through her Uncle Henry (Abel H. Calkins) to teach school. It was exactly 4 months after she received her teaching certificate, and 5 days before her 17th birthday, that she was married to Benjamin Watrous, the brother of her Aunt Sarah Watrous.  They were married in Three Rivers, Massachusetts, September 2, 1863.

Mr. and Mrs. Watrous set out for California a few weeks after their marriage, leaving New York in October, and arriving by way of Panama and San Francisco in Chinese Camp, Tuolumne County, November 13, 1863. Here Mr. Watrous resumed his stock-raising pursuits, and in November, 1870, took up their residence in Stockton, San Joaquin County, California.

Ellen became ill in time and was forced to spend time in Oakland for treatment and recovery. From there she would darn the clothing of her children and carry on extensive correspondance with her family. She was in constant pain and treated with such contraptions as electric batteries to try to subdue the pain. She returned home but was went back in the early 1890s where she eventually died at the young age of 46. In her many correspondances her humor revealed her New England roots in its dry wit. Her husband was often the enduring target of her humor.

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