1903–1984

Sixth Generation: Florence Isobel Tagg < Emma Maria Williams < Hannah Maria Warner < William Warner < William Warner < William Warner

My 2nd cousin twice removed

Florence Isobel “Flossie” Tagg was the daughter of Emma Maria Williams and David Tagg.1 She was born in Chicago on May 8, 1903.

She never married and had no children.

Florence died in Clatsop, Oregon on December 3, 1984, at the age of 81. She was buried at the Ocean View Cemetery in Warrenton, Oregon.

Notes

In high school, Florence studied “Pedagogy” (teaching) and was active in drama and Glee Club.2

She went on to become a teacher at Westport Grade School in Westport, Oregon.

The Trip of a Lifetime

In June 1955, at the age of 52, Florence travelled to Europe.

She boarded the Holland-American Line’s ship, Groote Beer (see the photo below) in Quebec City, and arrived in Southampton, England on June 14. She took a train to London where she would stay at the Regent Palace Hotel for two days before travelling on to continental Europe.

Most of the passengers aboard the Groote Beer were American students, many were American teachers, and the Regent Palace was known (according to its Wikipedia page) to cater to group tours. So it is possible that Florence was on the trip in the capacity of chaperone.3

On August 16, a full two months after arriving in Europe, she boarded the Sibajak (see the photo below), belonging to the Royal Rotterdam Lloyd Shipping Line. She arrived in New York City on August 27, with her two suitcases and a basket, ready for the trip cross-country to Oregon in time to start the new school year.4

Florence I. Tagg Elementary School

Florence must have been an exemplary teacher, because the people of Westport, Oregon chose to honour her highly. By 1972, when she was 69, one of the town’s elementary schools had been named after her: the Florence I. Tagg Elementary School.5 In that year, it had 140 students and 7 teachers. We don’t know if it was the same school where Florence had taught, but it seems likely. By 1999, it appears that the school was no longer operating. The online docket of the Oregon Public Utility Commission refers to a hearing to be held at the Florence Tagg Center, on US Highway 30, on May 12, 1999.6

Images

The photo at the top of the page is a colourized, digitally enhanced version of Florence’s graduation photo as it appeared in the 1922 edition of The Zephyrus, the yearbook of Astoria High School in Astoria, Oregon.

The original, unenhanced version is below. Please note that the colourizing software has arbitrarily made Florence’s eyes brown. We don’t know what colour they were.

The Zephyrus 1922, Astoria High School,, p. 15

Here is how one of her classmates described Florence in 1922:

The Zephyrus 1922, Astoria High School, p. 38
The Groote Beer, seen here in 1958, which took Florence from Quebec City to England in 1955 (Hoboken History Museum)
The Regent Palace Hotel, seen here in 2005, where Florence stayed 50 years earlier, in June 1955 (Attribution: Peter Kaminski from San Francisco, California, USA, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
Ship the Sibajak in Wellington Harbour, NZ in 1952
The Sibajak, seen here in 1952, which took Florence from Rotterdam to New York in 1955 (National Library of New Zealand)

Sources

1 2 Astoria High School, The Zephyrus: Astoria, Oregon, 1922. https://archive.org/details/zephyrus.1922. The nickname “Flossie” appears on p. 101. Florence’s graduation photo and the reference to “Pedagogy” is on p. 15. Notes on drama and the Glee Club are in the text shown above, on p. 38.

3 Year: 1955; Arrival: New York, New York, USA; Microfilm Serial: T715, 1897-1957; Line: 15; Page Number: 77. Source Information; Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

4 The National Archives of the UK; Kew, Surrey, England; Board of Trade: Commercial and Statistical Department and successors: Inwards Passenger Lists.; Class: BT26; Piece: 1334; Item: 97. Source Information: Ancestry.com. UK and Ireland, Incoming Passenger Lists, 1878-1960 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2008.

5 U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office for Civil Rights., Directory of Public Elementary and Secondary Schools in Selected Districts: Enrollment and Staff by Racial/ethnic Group, Fall 1972, Volume 1, p. 1140. https://books.google.ca/books?id=6833vK5PbvEC&pg=PA1140.

6 Oregon Public Utilities Commission, Docket No. UM 896, Order No. 00-234, Date: 4/5/1999. https://apps.puc.state.or.us/edockets/docket.asp?DocketID=5492