Appreciation of loved ones who made life rich for many

Lilian A. Cross was the daughter of carpenter John Francis Cross (1828-1910) and schoolteacher Sarah Meservey (1835-1928) who came from Maine to California in the 1850s. Appreciation of loved ones (1933) is Lilian Cross's account of her family's life in California after her father came west in 1852 to work as a carpenter in Benecia. He returned east to bring back his new bride, and the young couple moved to Sacramento County in 1855, living on various farms there for more than thirty years, with Mrs. Cross teaching and supervising several local schools. With the family's move to Oakland in 1892, this becomes a story of town-dwellers, not farmers. Throughout, Cross gives special attention to her mother's experiences as wife, mother, schoolteacher, and independent widow.