M. (1) 11 Nov 1912 in Tacoma, Washington
Wife: Tillie Nack
M. (2) 11 Feb 1921 in Los Angeles, California
Wife: Hazel Laura Elwood
M. (3) 1943 in (probably) Los Angeles, California
Wife: Lillian Johnson
D. 10 Mar 1980 in Monterey Park, California
People change their last names for a variety of reasons. In the case of Thomas Michael Mitchell, he took such an action at a critical point in his life, as he ran from authorities who were trying to find him.
Tom was born on October 7, 1893 in Oswego, Kansas to an unmarried 20-year-old woman named Laura Ross. His mother later told him that the man who made her pregnant was named Thomas Carey, and that he had refused to marry her after he was aware of her condition. In fact, his father wouldn’t even acknowledge Tom, and as a result, they never had any contact with each other.
For the first year and half of his life, Tom lived alone with his mother. Then in March of 1895, she married a man named Howard Sheridan. His step-father could be mean at times, but he accepted Tom as his own son, and gave him the name Sheridan. Tom would eventually have seven younger half-brothers and one half-sister (two of the boys died as a babies). In 1900, the family left Kansas for the state of Washington, moving to the remote town of Lake Kapowsin, near Mt. Rainier. Sheridan worked for the railroad, and the family lived in a small house next to tracks that ran through the woods. After 1905, the family moved to the Tacoma area, and this was where Tom spent the rest of his childhood.
Tom with his half-brothers Forrest and Howard in about 1901
In Tom’s family, higher education was a luxury, and he completed his education when he graduated from the sixth grade. Between the years 1907 and 1915, he worked at various jobs all over the Northwest. Tom traveled as far north as Alaska, and as far south as Portland. One time he got into trouble at a lumber mill, threatening his boss after he fired him. Later, when the boss turned up murdered, Tom was arrested for it. Luckily, a girlfriend he was living with came forward as an alibi and cleared his name. There was also a story that Tom had a very brief career as a prizefighter. These anecdotes suggest that Tom was somewhat of a rough character, at least at this point in his life.
Tom got married around this time, but records suggest he wasn’t ready for such responsibility. His bride was Tillie Nack, a young girl he dated in Tacoma, and their wedding took place before a judge on November 11, 1912. Tillie had a stillborn son the following year, and sometime after that, Tom deserted her. He was arrested in May 1914, and served three days in the county jail. He told a judge he would reunite with Tillie, but she died on August 15, 1915, and the death record used her maiden name, describing her as divorced. The cause of death was Bright’s disease; it was noted that the pregnancy two years earlier caused her illness.
In about 1916, the entire Sheridan family moved to California, making their home in Los Angeles. Tom was in his early 20s, and decided he liked the area. He took a job working for an ice cream caterer, which gave him the opportunity to see how the other half lived. At one party in the Hollywood hills, he witnessed those in attendance skinny dipping in a pool. But this period of Tom’s life had a very sad event — in March 1917, his mother died in childbirth. This left a huge void in the Sheridan family.
That year also saw the U.S. pulled into World War I, which led to Tom being drafted into the Army in July 1918. He was due to be shipped to fight in the war in Europe, then he was delayed when he contracted the Spanish flu. Tom recovered, but the war ended, and instead of France, he was shipped to a location outside of Newport News, Virginia, where all the returning soldiers were arriving. This was where he spent the bulk of his service.
Tom in about 1918
One evening during the spring of 1919, Tom went with an army buddy named Tex Townsend to meet some girls in the restricted zone of town. On the way out, the two of them got into a fight with some MPs. The next day, Tom heard that one of the MPs had wound up dead, and they were going to be arrested for the crime. Tom knew he would wind up in prison, or even be executed, for something like that. So he got together with Tex, and they decided to go AWOL.
Tom and Tex traveled first to Richmond, then Tex said he knew a lawyer in Washington D.C. When they met with the lawyer, he said they should keep running and change their names. Tom chose the name “Mitchell” more or less at random. The lawyer offered another bit of advice: in order to not get caught, they needed to split up. So they went their separate ways, and Tom never heard from Tex again.
After Tom was on his own, he went to Philadelphia, where he took a job at a Woolworth's store, and on a whim stole $600. His goal was to get back to California, so he boarded a train to St. Louis, and worked there for a few months, trying to earn enough to go further west. By January 1920, Tom had made it to Denver, and next he went to Salt Lake City, where he almost bumped into one of his army officers at a dance. Finally he found himself in the desert town of Caliente, Nevada, working for the railroad. After a short time there, he made a deal with a co-worker for a ticket to Los Angeles.
Tom hoped to reunite with his family in Los Angeles, but he found that the Sheridans were no longer at the same address, and he had no way of finding them. So he took a job as a cook in a YMCA kitchen located downtown. There he met a spirited young woman, Hazel Elwood, who also worked as a cook. He began flirting with her, and after a brief courtship, they got married in Los Angeles on February 11, 1921. Not long after the wedding, Tom found one of his half-brothers while walking down a street, thus re-establishing contact with the family.
Tom holding son Tom in 1922
Tom’s second marriage was a rocky one. During the first couple of years, he and Hazel had two children, and they moved to the city of Oakland. It was there that Hazel took up with one of Tom’s half-brothers, who had come to stay at their house. This fling produced a third child in their household, but Tom somewhat forgave her and they continued as a couple. After a fire destroyed their house, the family moved back to L.A., and they eventually settled in Tujunga near Hazel’s mother. For a short time, Tom operated a restaurant in Hollywood, but he badly injured his knee in an auto accident, and was forced to close it. Hazel decided to move out on her own, and he stayed in Tujunga raising the kids.
During the 1930s, Tom had a hard time finding a way to make ends meet. He tried distilling brandy from grapes growing wild in the neighborhood, then offering it for purchase. He also made donuts which he had the kids sell door-to-door. In March 1934, Hazel had a fourth baby, and even though Tom wasn’t the biological father, he raised the child as his own. By the late 1930s, Tom and the kids moved to the San Gabriel Valley, where he would live for the rest of his life. He settled into a career of cabinet making, a trade he first learned in 1923. In the early 1940s, he bought a storefront property on Garvey Boulevard and opened up a cabinet making shop. Behind the shop, he had a house to live in, and a second house that became used by other family members.
In 1943, Tom finally got a divorce from Hazel and married his third wife, Lillian Johnson, whom he met at a dance. They had a daughter born in 1944, but she had a defective bile duct, and died at 6-months-old. Then in 1946, a son was born whom they named Dennis. He had physical problems that showed up later — dyslexia and epilepsy — and was more or less disabled his entire life.
Tom in his cabinet-making shop in 1953
Tom in his backyard in 1974
In spite of Tom’s lack of formal education, he was an avid reader throughout his life. He took a great interest in nutrition and health, taking vitamin supplements during the 1960s, way before it was common to do so. His taste in music was fairly traditional for his generation: he loved Liberace and Lawrence Welk. As for his religious beliefs, Tom was an affirmed atheist. Whenever he was asked about it, he declared, “I believe in reality.”
In about 1962, Tom moved one last time, to a house a few blocks from his shop. He continued to work until he was 80 years old, when blindness from glaucoma forced him to stop. Then in about 1979, he went into a decline. His wife Lillian moved him into a nursing hospital against his will, and he died there on March 10, 1980.
The name Mitchell was passed down in the family for three generations, but the identity of Tom’s real father was eventually solved. In 2017, DNA evidence proved that this man was Thomas Michael Carey (1864-1937), who for many years owned a fruit wholesaling business in Coffeyville, Kansas. A couple of years after Tom was born, his biological father got married, and had four more children. None of them was ever told about their older half-brother.
A postscript on the army desertion and name change
In October 2021, documents were found showing the timing of Tom’s desertion. An army roster for March 1919 gave the 27th as the date he went missing, and a roster for April named him as a deserter after 30 days had passed.
The army rosters also revealed that Tom’s buddy, Tex Townsend, returned to camp, and seems to have suffered no punishment. I learned that the man kept his name all they way to end of his life in 1975. In addition to this, a thorough search of Newport News newspapers during the week Tom disappeared showed no report of a fight between soldiers and MPs.
In October 2021, documents were found showing the timing of Tom’s desertion. An army roster for March 1919 gave the 27th as the date he went missing, and a roster for April named him as a deserter after 30 days had passed.
The army rosters also revealed that Tom’s buddy, Tex Townsend, returned to camp, and seems to have suffered no punishment. I learned that the man kept his name all they way to end of his life in 1975. In addition to this, a thorough search of Newport News newspapers during the week Tom disappeared showed no report of a fight between soldiers and MPs.
This information leads me to believe that no one died in the fight with the MPs. I think that when Tom was told authorities were looking for him, it was just a practical joke being played by others in his unit. It's also possible that the one playing a joke on Tom was Tex Townsend. Why did he go back to camp right after they split up in Washington? Was his lawyer friend in on it, too? Was he even a lawyer?
Assuming it's accurate that the MP didn't die, Tom lived his entire life thinking that he had killed a man in a fist fight, and this wasn’t true. It's interesting to think that if this prank hadn’t happened, my name wouldn't be Mitchell — and most likely, I would have never been born.
Children by Hazel Laura Elwood:
1. Thomas Milton Mitchell – B. 1 Jul 1922, Los Angeles, California; D. 10 Nov 2007, Winnetka, California; M. Margaret Elizabeth Bolheres (1922-2016), 2 Jul 1949, Pasadena, California
2. Patsy Eleanor Mitchell – B. 23 Feb 1924, Los Angeles, California; D. 27 Apr 2002, Sitka, Alaska; M. James Lawrence Sarvela (1914-1995), 27 Dec 1947, Glendale, California
3. Forrest Leroy Mitchell – B. 21 Sep 1926, Oakland, California; D. 30 Jun 2016, Desert Hot Springs, California; M. Patricia Ann McKenzie (1930-2010), 21 May 1948
4. LIVING
Children by Lillian Myrtle Johnson:
1. Carolyn Lee Mitchell – B. 1 Jul 1944, Los Angeles, California; D. 11 Jan 1945, Los Angeles, California
2. Dennis Clark Mitchell – B. 4 Apr 1946, Los Angeles, California; D. 26 Mar 2005, Cheyenne, Wyoming; M. Judy A. Smith, 21 Jan 1973, Rosemead, California
Sources:
Family Bible of Laura Sheridan
Marriage certificate of Thomas Sheridan and Tillie Nack, Tacoma, Washington, 11 Nov 1912
Marriage certificate of Thomas Mitchell and Hazel Elwood, Los Angeles, California, 11 Feb 1921
Divorce record of Thomas Mitchell and Hazel Mitchell, Los Angeles, 7 Jan 1943
City directories of Tacoma and Los Angeles, 1915-1938
1900, 1910, 1920 and 1930 U.S. Censuses in Kansas, Washington, Colorado and California
Interviews of Thomas Michael Mitchell and Thomas Milton Mitchell, 1976-1997
California Birth Index, 1905-1995
Social Security Death Index
California, County Marriages, 1850-1952
