The Family of Mr. & Mrs.Calvin Jessie Chancey
(Grandparents)
Calvin Jessie Chancey |
Nettie Florine
Brookins |
Calvin Jessie Chancey
Dad’s father Calvin Chancey, was born in Suwannee County 24 March 1886. Unfortunately, I have little knowledge of how Grandfather Calvin spent his early family years. His parents Frank and Mary Chancey, in 1893, homesteaded 160 acres of farmland in Luraville, a small community on the north bank of the Suwannee River. This fact leads me to believe that as a young man Grandfather Calvin worked the farm along with the rest of his family.
In December of 1906, as a young man of twenty, Grandfather Calvin married Miss Nettie Brookins of Live Oak (she having recently moved there from Jefferson County).
Calvin, Sadie, Nettie, & Dad
It was in Suwannee County that Grandfather and Grandmother began their family of seven children.The picture shown here was given to me by a member of the Brookins family, and shows Grandfather Calvin holding his first born, Aunt Sadie. Seated in front of Grandfather, is Grandmother Nettie who is holding Dad seated in her lap. What a thrill it would have been for me to show this photograph to Dad and discuss his early family life.
I imagine Grandfather Calvin, as a young man, must have been looking for his new land of opportunity as almost everyone was doing in those days. With his dreams of riches, Grandfather gathered together; Grandmother, Aunt Sadie, Dad, and Uncle Art to begin their journey to Clearwater, a city noted for ultra clear water springs located in central Pinellas County. Uncle Marvin believes that the year of their journey was in 1914, the year he was born. Uncle Marvin, at our last interview, told me that he believed his birth took place on the journey from Suwannee County to Clearwater.
Where Grandfather and his family first settled after their move to Clearwater was until recently, a mystery to me. However, Dorothy Chancey Von Derau (Uncle Art’s daughter), remembers a conversation with her father years ago saying the family lived in a two story house in the town of Bellair when the family first came south. Uncle Marvin remembers the family living in a two-story house near the bay, close to Morton Plant Hospital, which might be considered Bellair. According to Dorothy, her father and the family lived in that house until Grandfather Calvin had their home built on the property he purchased facing Fort Harrison Avenue. The lumber for their new home came from the second story of the house they lived in after arriving in Bellair. This was to be home for members of the Chancey family for the next 30 years or more. Uncle Marvin told me that while he lived there, “They were always working on the house and could never seem to get it finished.”
Grandfather Calvin’s promotion to head gardener at the Belleview Club in 1920 gave him a monthly wage of one hundred fifty dollars. To Grandfather, this must have appeared to be a lot of money, for he soon began to invest small amounts of his salary into real estate, operating on small margins. For a while, his transactions were profitable, but the collapse of the real estate market found him loaded to his financial limit with property for which he was unable to pay. Severely depressed over his financial losses, Grandfather (late in the evening on the day after Christmas in 1927), entered the bedroom of their home, and took the life of Grandmother, their baby daughter, and finally himself.
The Newspaper article appearing in the Clearwater Sun, December 26, 1927 with the details of their death.
“THREE KILLED IN CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY HERE”
“Calvin Chancey Shoots Wife, Baby, and Self, Coroner’s Jury Declares.”
Although financial trouble is believed to have caused the man to become despondent, the testimony of a son this morning was the only clue to a motive. The son testified that Chancey had purchased the pistol a short time ago and at that time had remarked he intended to ‘settle it all.’ The son also testified that Chancey was worried over financial matters.”“Believed desperate over financial worries, Calvin J. Chancey shot and killed his wife and 4 year-old baby and then committed suicide shortly after 2 o’clock this morning at his home on South Fort Harrison Avenue. A coroner’s jury, hastily impaneled just before daybreak, released a verdict that Chancey had met death through a ‘self inflicted gunshot wound,’ while Mrs. Chancey and the baby, Dorothy, came to their death by a revolver in the hands of Calvin J. Chancey."
My paternal grandmother, Nettie Florine Brookins, was born to Littleton Thomas and Ella Walker Brookins on the 13th of January, 1887 in Jefferson County, Florida.
Unfortunately and quite sadly I might add, there is very little information available today to describe the life or personality of my grandmother Ella.
Months after my research began, I was fortunate to receive two 
pictures of Grandmother from family members. Each of the photos suggests that she was a very loving person, while at the same time, a stern person that you would not want to cross under any circumstances. The child shown here in Nettie’s lap, I believe, is either my Uncle Earl or my Aunt Louise.
Gandmother Nettie was born in Jefferson County. Census records tell us that she and her brother Perry were twins. Nellie probably remained in Jefferson County working the farm along side her brothers and sisters until just after her seventeenth birthday. From there, the family moved to Suwannee County and purchased property in the community of Marybell. It was while living there that Grandmother Nettie met Calvin Chancey. In December of 1906, and 1 month short of her twentieth birthday, Nettie and Calvin were married in Live Oak, Florida.
In 1911, my grandparents decided that the time was right for them to move further south where they saw that others were getting rich from buying and selling real estate. Grandmother was now twenty-four years old with three children.
According to Raymond Driggers, Nettie’s nephew and at one time neighbor, the family eventually settled into their new home in Clearwater, living a somewhat normal life for the next few years.
Gandfather, over a period of several years, had invested heavily in real estate. Suddenly in 1927, the demand for real estate ceased to exist and Grandfather lost almost every penny that he had invested. On the night after Christmas, in 1927, grandfather evidently decided that he could no longer bear the pain of his losses and decided to end his life. After taking the life of grandmother Nettie and their baby daughter Dorothy, he put the gun to his head. Dad, Uncle Art, Uncle Marvin, Uncle Earl, and Aunt Louise were in the living room at the time of the shooting. The memories of this tragedy would be with them the rest of their lives.
Grandmother Nettie was forty years old at the time of her death. The events surrounding her tragic death can be
found in Grandfather Calvin's personal information above.
No additional information has been found that might enlighten us about grandmother’s life before her marriage to grandfather or her life as a loving mother.
Today, Grandmother Nettie, Grandfather
Calvin, and Aunt Dorothy
lie side by side in the City of Clearwater Cemetery
with a common tombstone provided by the surviving children many years later.
The Family of Calvin and Nettie
Name: Calvin Jessie Chancey
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Birth: 24 Mar 1886 Suwannee County, Florida
Death: 26 Dec 1927 Clearwater, FL
Burial: Clearwater Memorial Cemetery, Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida
Father: Francis Marion Chancey (1852-1913)
Mother: Mary Susanne "Molly" Williams (1855-1938)
Marriage: 5 Dec 1906 Live Oak, Suwannee County, Florida
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Spouse: Nettie Florine Brookins
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Birth: 13 Jan 1887 Aucilla, Jefferson County, Florida
Death: 26 Dec 1927 Clearwater, Florida
Burial: Clearwater Memorial Cemetery, Clearwater, Pinellas, Florida
Father: Littleton Thomas Brookins (1858-1928)
Mother: Ella S. Walker (1867-1910)
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Children
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1 F: Sadie Pearl Chancey
Birth: 2 Aug 1907 Live Oak, Suwannee County, Florida
Death: 23 Mar 1982 Dixie County, Florida
Spouse: Luther S. Earnest
Marriage: 30 Nov 1925 Pinellas County, Florida
Spouse: Charles W. Forsythe
Marriage: abt 1945 [Location Unknown]
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2 M: James Edward Chancey
Birth: 11 Sep 1909 Live Oak, Suwannee County, Florida
Death: 4 May 1983 Leesburg, Lake County, Florida
Spouse: Leola Malinda Severance
Marriage: 19 Apr 1935 Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida
Spouse: Marge May Noddin
Marriage: 20 Jun 1965 Waumbek Hotel, Jefferson, NH
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3 M: Arthur F. Chancey
Birth: 28 Nov 1911 Suwannee County, Florida
Death: 22 Jun 1975 Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida
Spouse: Marie Townsend
Marriage: 25 Nov 1935 Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida
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4 M: Marvin Thomas Chancey
Birth: 19 Feb 1914 Clearwater, Pinellas County, Florida
Death: 7 Aug 2000 Brandon, Florida
Spouse: Roseita Valdespino
Marriage: 10 Jun 1939 Tampa, Hillsborough County, Florida
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5 M: Earl Jacob Chancey
Birth: 5 Aug 1916 Clearwater FL
Death: 17 May 1994 Pinellas County, Florida
Spouse: Celia Thomas
Marriage: [Date Unknown] Florida
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6 F: Ella Louise Chancey
Death: [Date Unknown] [Location Unknown]
Birth: 1919 Clearwater, Florida
Spouse: Young
Marriage: [Date Unknown] [Location Unknown]
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7 F: Dorothy M. Chancey
Birth: 1924 Clearwater, Florida
Death: 26 Dec 1927 Clearwater, Florida