A note in my grandmother's writings: "Bolina Sally Hawkins -- My Grand Mother (always known as Sarah P. Wakeland)". The only other listing with the name "Bolina Sally Hawkins" which I have been able to find, is her daughter's listing in the family diary. Why she has the name "Permelia" is something of a big mystery for me -- one wants to make the assumption that it has something to do with Preston's grandmother's, Permelia Duckett, but why? I have not been able to find any kind of relationship between the name Bolina and Permelia either, though Permelia is not that uncommon of a name in the 19th century. My grandmother, Electa Wendt, also did not know the reason for this name change -- when I asked her directly about it, she replied that she had once asked her own mother about it after seeing it in the diary but did not get an answer.

Sarah started a diary in 1905 when she was 75 years old that her daughter, Eliza also maintained which was used to compile some of this genealogy.

Vera Curtis in a DAR submission lists David Hawkins as father (Eliza's genealogy in the diary lists it as John, David was a brother who died at 23 according to the diary, pp. 38-39).

The 1900 US Census shows Sarah P. Wakeland living in Cedar Rapids Village, Boone Co., Indiana. However, in Vera Curtis's DAR statement, it is stated that "Sarah P. Hawkins lived in Cedar Rapids, Neb., until March 1884, when she came to California via Union Pacific." This appears to be incorrect. Verbal statements from my grandmother, indicated that this move occurred in the 1890's sometime. Affidavits in the Preston D. Wakeland Pension file indicate that Sarah P. was still living in Nebraska in February 24, 1898.

The Hawkins family line is indeed a very long one, and has been traced back more or less to the 1480's. The line includes Sir John Hawkins, the second son of William Hawkins and Joan Trelawny. Sir John was a contemporary and possibly a cousin of Sir Francis Drake. Sir John Hawkins was one the great seamen and heros of Elizabethan England. Needless to say, there is quite a bit of writing available about his life. Hawkins family genealogies are also as plentiful as they are long. One which I found several years ago when my grandmother was still alive, was the Memoranda Concerning Some Branches of the Hawkins Family and Connections, by Genl. John Parker Hawkins, U. S. Army (Indianapolis, Indiana, 1913). A long and detailed study, which I examined for several hours in hopes that I would find some listing about our Indiana Hawkins but found nothing, except that all Hawkins in the United States were somehow related to Sir John Hawkins. At least this was something which I could tell my grandmother.

Part of the problem was trying to substantiate the Hawkins family list which Eliza had compiled with some existing public source such as the US Census. However, since much of Sarah P.'s family was born before the 1850's when less complete family information was collected, this was more or less a lost cause. Examinations of other kinds of records such as land transfers and wills, that existed in some form in the kinds of publications which I had access to, were generally incomplete compilations extracted from the specific county records.

Presently there are several Hawkins family websites which contain long and complicated Hawkins genealogies, that first appeared to me to include every Hawkins line but ours. However, after a query which I had made on a large Sir John Hawkins website in England, a Robert Hawkins got in touch with me and we more or less figured out the connection between our two Hawkins lines and all the rest. This derived genealogy differs a bit from the one which Eliza recorded in her diary, largely as the result of different individuals having the same name. There is a great deal of work left to do on researching this line (hence its inclusion on this website), however this opened the door finally.

Sarah P. Wakeland applied for a pension July 31, 1896 as a widow of a Civil War Veteran (Record #638310 and 471.735).

Sarah P. owned some land in Sonoma county and there is a listing for her in Amended Index Sonoma County Homestead Declarations is:

Wakeland, Sarah P., widow 24 Aug 1909 K-250.

From the Sonoma County Deed Index: Grantee -- Sarah P. Wakeland:

Trustees of La Fayette Lodge No. 126

Deed 2 May 1904

260

463

for ten dollars, for the southeast quarter of Lot No. 62 of the Masonic Cemetery, Sebastopol.

Luther Burbank

Deed 27 Jan 1906

225

272

for "ten dollars in gold", for "Lot thirteen, as numbered and designated upon the map entitled "Plan of Riverside Addition to the City of Santa Rosa..." This is her Tupper Street property.

In Santa Rosa Block Book for 1892 on the Tupper Street block are two pieces of property belonging to a Wakeland. My grandmother said that they used to see Luther Burbank, the famous horticulturist, working in his garden across the street quite often.

Sarah P. Wakeland lived at 659 Tupper Street in 1916 and had a previous address of R5B992 according to her Civil War Pension file.

Obituary from The Press Democrat, September 25, 1919:

Mrs Sarah Wakeland
Is Dead at 90 Years
____

J. J. Wakeland and C. C. Wakeland of Forestville, and Mrs. J. B. Thompson of Rincon Valley are the surviving sons and daughter of Mrs. Sarah Wakeland, who died Wednesday at Sebastopol, aged 90 years. The family has lived in the Sebastopol and Forestville sections for the past 20 years.