Ancestors

John Manugoff

John Manugoff was born on 19 February 1893 in Armenia, then divided between the Russian and Ottoman empires. His records give his birthplace three ways: Armenia in the censuses and on his daughters' papers, Russia in his alien registration, and the USSR on his death record. The surname is a Russian-style form of an Armenian name, with the Russian ending -off. In 1956 he gave his father's name as Hoggi Agagipope and his mother's maiden name as Shaw Tomian, both born in Armenia, as an American clerk typed them. Armenian men of his generation often carried a surname different from their father's, and the Manugoff name may come from a grandfather.

He came to the United States in 1913, at about twenty. Armenian was his mother tongue. In 1925 he described his birthplace as Russian Armenia. That was the part of the Armenian homeland ruled by the Russian Empire: the province of Erivan and the Kars region, which Russia took from the Ottoman Empire in 1878. His alien papers, which give Russia, fit that.

On 8 January 1920 the census taker found him in Torrance, lodging in the house of Isaac Anderson, a dry goods merchant, and his wife Alice. She wrote his name as John Magroff. He was twenty six, born in Armenia to parents born in Armenia, and Armenian was the mother tongue of all three. He had come in 1913, was still an alien, and could read and write. He worked as a furnace helper in a steel mill. The census marked him married, though no wife lived with him. In 1956 he told a clerk he had been married twice before, so there was a first wife before Janie. The records do not say who she was or where she lived.

By January 1925 he was married to Janie Eliza Gasway, a Texan a year younger than he was, and they lived at 2020 Andreo Street in Torrance. He was a steel worker. Their first daughter was born there on 23 January 1925. Her birth certificate named her Myra Monogoff, and she grew up as Maren Jean, with the same birth date. The doctor wrote the father's age as thirty and his birthplace as Russian Armenia. Melvina followed on 1 October 1927 at Gardena, and Zelma Louise on 11 January 1932. On Melvina's birth record John gave his age as thirty four and his birthplace as Armenia.

The family settled in Gardena, a farming and factory town in the South Bay of Los Angeles. In April 1930 they owned their house in the Moneta district of Gardena Township, valued at $4,500. John, thirty seven, was a laborer for a steel company. The census taker wrote the name Manngoff. She recorded that he had come in 1913, was still an alien and could read and write. He gave his age at his first marriage as thirty one and Janie's as twenty eight, which places their wedding about 1923.

In 1940 they were in the same house they had held in 1935, in the tract south of Compton Boulevard. That census wrote the name as Mansegoff.

John was never naturalized. Under the Alien Registration Act of 1940 every non-citizen in the United States had to register and be fingerprinted, and John was given alien registration number 2019350.

On 27 April 1942, at forty nine, he registered with the draft board at Torrance. This was the registration of men aged forty five to sixty four, who were not called to serve but were counted for war work. He lived at 1144 Compton Boulevard in Gardena and had no telephone. He worked for the Columbia Steel Company on Border Avenue in Torrance, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel. As the person who would always know his address he named John Oursler, of 912 Beech Street, Torrance. The registrar described him as five feet two inches tall and 140 pounds, with hazel eyes, black hair and a dark complexion. He signed the card himself.

Janie died at home on 7 November 1949, of cancer of the liver, and John buried her at Inglewood Park Cemetery. In April 1950 John was fifty seven, a widower, and still not a citizen. He worked as a stopper maker in a steel mill. A stopper is the long rod sheathed in fireclay that plugs the outlet in the bottom of a ladle of molten steel, and stopper makers built them. His household in Gardena that spring held his daughter Zelma, eighteen and working as a sample clerk, his daughter Melvena, twenty two, and his eldest, Maren, with her husband Jack Kester and their two little boys. That November Zelma married Bill Ronald Daugherty in the chapel of the Spanish American Institute at Gardena, a Methodist school. Bill worked at Columbia Steel too. John gave her away, and the fifty guests went back to his house for the reception. In the spring of 1951 he saw Melvena married too, at the Little Church Around the Corner in Inglewood.

On 30 June 1956 John married again, at Gardena. He was sixty three, living still at 1242 West Compton Boulevard, the house his daughter Zelma had married from, and told the clerk he had been married twice before. His bride was Elsie Amelia Dolson, born Elsie Howe at Fishkill, New York, in 1894, the widow of Charles Henry Dolson. A Baptist minister married them, and her son Nelson Dolson signed as witness. John signed his own name. Elsie died on 5 February 1961. In 1963, at seventy, John married a third time, to a woman named Louise. He died in Orange County on 3 January 1969, aged seventy five.

If John Manugoff is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "John Manugoff (1893-1969)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/john-manugoff-1893-1969-af6e44.