Ernest Carroll HINKLEY (1 Sep 1882-2 Feb 1946) +
Inza Belle TOOTHAKER (28 Feb 1883-1 Jul 1945)

Kathleen Emily (30 Nov 1905-17 Mar 1990) — m. Paul L. Spinney on 30 Oct 1930

Kenneth Abbott (6 Aug 1907-22 Dec 1992) — m. Alice Minnie Hodsdon on 1 Aug 1931

Maxwell Abner (20 Nov 1910-29 Apr 1991) — m. Mary B. Mackey on 20 Jul 1934; divorced; m. Helen B. Jewett on 9 Jun 1940

Dorothy Ella (11 Mar 1913-24 Apr 1997) — m. George Lewis Prescott on 18 Mar 1938

Darleen Eleanor (22 Apr 1915-27 Oct 1981) — m. Lewis M. Crocker on 15 Sep 1951

Philip Toothaker (27 Jul 1922-22 Jul 2001) — m. Carlene Cora Ross on 7 Jul 1947

Ernest was born in Madrid, Franklin County, Maine, the elder of two children to George Dana Hinkley and his second wife Luella Abbott. He was raised with his two older cousins/half-siblings from Dana’s first marriage to Luella’s sister Elverna.

Inza was the eldest of six children to Ermon L. Toothaker of Rangeley and Ella Laura Hinkley of Madrid.

Ernest and Inza were third cousins: they were both descended from Miller Hinkley and Rachel Whitney of Philips, Maine. For that matter, Miller and Rachel were second cousins.

Ernest and Inza married on 17 Dec 1904 in Rangeley, Maine, where they resided and where their children were born. The birth certificate for their first child, Kathleen, listed Ernest’s occupation as “truckman”. Inza’s younger brother Fenn Toothaker lived with them for a while, showing up at age 15 in the 1910 census. This was no doubt due to their mother Ella Hinkley Toothaker’s early death in 1901. Also with the family in 1910 was Ernest’s widower father George Dana Hinkley, 63.

The 1920 census showed five children, Philip not having been born yet.

The 1930 census showed all six children still single and at home. Fenn Toothaker was living with them again, his wife having died in 1920, age just 32. By 1940, only Philip was still at home.

Ernest was for many years the town clerk for Rangeley, Maine. He worked in the town office at 2472 Main Street, which is now the Rangeley Lake Region Historical Society. Inza’s name appears as the transcriber on a number of old historical records for the Hinkleys and other Maine ancestors going back to the early 1800s. That is, she copied old records that were in danger of being lost. The transcription dates are not listed, so I don’t know when this was, but it was probably related to Ernest’s position as town clerk.

Inza died of what sounds like congestive heart failure on 1 July 1945. Son Kenneth and family moved to Rangeley to look after Ernest. Ernest’s daughter-in-law Alice drove him to his office, because he had lost one leg. He died abruptly on 2 February 1946, seven months after Inza.

Ernest and Inza are buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Rangeley. Their grave is just past the Furbish mausoleum, and as of 2016 is flanked by two Leyland cypress trees.

Ernest Hinkley and family in September 1928
L to R: Ernest, Ken, Dorothy, Kathleen, Philip, Darleen, Max, Inza

Children

Kathleen Emily Hinkley (1905-1990)

Kathleen married Paul L. Spinney (23 Jun 1902-17 Aug 1974), a career Navy radioman, on 30 Oct 1930 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Paul had family ties to Kittery, Maine, where there are landmarks that bear his family name, but he was born in New Hampshire, son of Arthur A. Spinney and Lydia O’Neil. Paul and Kathleen had no children.

Before the war, they lived in the Philippines and in California. There are records of a Kathleen Spinney, 32, arriving in Honolulu on 24 Aug 1938, a first-class passenger on the ship Lurline sailing from Los Angeles. That was very likely her. During the war, she lived in Rangeley and took care of her parents. After the war she and Paul went out to California, then moved to a house on Cutts Road in Kittery, where they lived in the 1950s and early 1960s. There are also records of Kathleen living at 175B Pine Street, South Portland and 217 Broadway, Bangor, although they don’t say when. They give the right date of birth, so it was definitely her.

Then, back to southern California, where Paul died in 1974 – Azussa, California, or something like that. (Death record says Los Angeles.) Kathleen stayed in California until she begin to have memory troubles. One time she got lost and couldn’t find her way home. One of the California Toothakers brought Kathleen back to Maine, and Max got her settled at a nursing home in Gorham, New Hampshire, where she died in 1990. There is a marker in her memory by the grave of her parents in Evergreen Cemetery, Rangeley.

Kenneth Abbott Hinkley (1907-1992)

Kenneth has his own entry in the family tree.

Maxwell Abner Hinkley (1910-1991)

Max married Mary B. Mackey in 1934. By early 1940, he was divorced, and living at 237 High Street in Portland. Sister Darleen was living with him. They were both employed at a wholesale stationery firm. On 9 Jun 1940, he married Helen Beatrice Jewett (21 Mar 1912-11 Jan 2010) in Gorham, Coos County, New Hampshire, and settled there. He and Helen had three children:

Willard/Billy F. (1941)

Michael A. (1944)

Margaret A. (1944)

Max worked as an insurance salesman, and as an accountant for the Brown Company, a pulp and paper company in Berlin, New Hampshire. He spoke fluent French, and was an avid gardener. He died in 1991 and is buried in Plot 185C, Lary Cemetery, Gorham, New Hampshire. It’s just a block east of Main Street, down Smith Street in the center of town. Helen, who died at the impressive age of 97, is buried there with him.

Dorothy Ella Hinkley (1913-1997)

Dorothy married George Lewis Prescott (25 Oct 1902-5 Feb 1989), son of Charles and Iona Prescott from Philips, Maine, in 1938. In 1940, they were living in Philips, where George was a stock fitter at a birch mill. The only child listed was Robert M. (b. ~1935), George’s son from a previous marriage. They later had two daughters:

Priscilla Margaret (18 Jun 1942-13 Sep 2022) — m. Dora Thomas “Tom” Truitt in 1961

unknown (????)

George lost two younger brothers killed in action during WWII. One died on New Georgia in the Solomon Islands, a few days before and a mile or two east of the Battle of Munda Point. The other was a navigator on a B-24 bomber, lost at sea a few months later during a raid against Japanese forces in the Solomons.

The family moved to Greensboro on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. George died in 1989 and is buried in the New Sharon Village Cemetery, New Sharon, Franklin County, Maine. Dorothy died in 1997 and is buried in Greensboro Cemetery, Greensboro, Caroline County, Maryland.

Darleen Eleanor Hinkley (1915-1981)

Darleen was living with Max at 237 High Street, Portland, Maine in 1940. In 1950, she was living alone, still in Portland. On 15 Sep 1951 in Portland, she married Lewis Mather Crocker (7 May 1905-14 Jun 1974) from Lynn, Massachusetts. They lived in Cumberland and/or Portland, and had no children.

Darleen worked for many years for Loring, Short, & Harmon, a Portland bookstore and office supply store. She was also the president of a businesswomen of America club, and traveled all over the US on their behalf. A niece remembered her as a wonderful lady with a big heart. She died in Portland in 1981, reportedly of a brain aneurysm while waiting for a bus. She’s buried with Lewis in Blanchard Cemetery, Falmouth, Cumberland County, Maine.

Philip Toothaker Hinkley (1922-2001)

Philip enlisted in the Army on 4 Dec 1942, and reached the rank of TSgt. By the time he returned to Rangeley after the war, both his parents had died. He lived briefly with Ken and his family. He married Carlene Cora Ross (10 Sep 1930-26 Feb 1994) in 1947. Her parents were Harold Earl Ross (28 Jul 1901-Sep 1970) and Faye E. Bursiel (~1910-????), who married on 15 Oct 1928 in Franklin County and lived in Dallas Plantation. (Carlene had at least one sibling, Phyllis P. Ross, b. ~1929, who married Gerald F. Bailey on 1 Jun 1953.) Their children, as best I can tell, although I don’t know order of birth:

Linda F. (1948) – m. Stanley

Diane (1952) – m. Brian K. Mitchell in 1974

Bernie ()

Ernest () –

boy (1956-10 Dec 1956)

Patricia Jean (9 Jun 1958-10 Jun 1958)

Mary D. () – m. Normand R. Duchesne on 28 May 19xx

Pamela () – m. Derr

Dana () –

The 1950 census showed Philip, Carlene, and daughter Linda in Gorham, Cumberland County, Maine. They later lived in Wilsons Mills, Lincoln County near the New Hampshire border. Philip worked for a lumber company and for a sawmill; he later ran a skidder, and eventually bought his own machine. Friends dubbed him “the Bull of the Woods”. Carlene worked as a waitress at Tom’s Lunch in Wilsons Mills, and also as an assistant at the Wilsons Mills post office. She later earned her GED and for many years served as town treasurer.

At some point, the family reportedly lived in Magalloway Township, Oxford County, Maine, several miles south of Wilsons Mills. Two of their infant children died in West Stewartstown, Coos County, New Hampshire in 1956 and 1958.

Carlene died in 1994. There’s a December 2000 record of Philip at 4 Webb Road, Windham, Maine, a residential road in Cumberland County about halfway between central Portland and Sebago Lake.

Philip died in 2001 in New Hampshire. He and Carlene are buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Rangeley next to Carlene’s father, with a separate stone for Patricia Jean “and brothers”.