Mary Dondanville, the fifth of eight children, and only daughter, of Emile Dondanville and Marie Schumacher, was born in San Gabriel, California, May 8, 1896. Shortly after her birth her parents moved to their home just north of San Gabriel Mission and Mary grew up there. When she completed her schooling she found work as a housekeeper.

On August 27, 1923, Mary married William Allen Brooks, who had come to California from the east. They established their home in Downey, California. Their daughter, Marjorie, was born August 2, 1924. Mary and William Brooks separated the year following Marjorie's birth. Mary and her daughter moved into Emile's home on East Mission Drive in San Gabriel. Her grandparents cared for Marjorie while her mother returned to work as a housekeeper in a home in San Marino.

When her Aunt Josephine Dontanville died in 1931, Mary and Marjorie moved into Wallace's home in Pasadena for six months to keep house for her uncle and his son Henry. They returned to San Gabriel where Marjorie attended grade school at the Mission. In 1937, when her mother died, Mary again gave up employment to keep house for her father. In the late 1930s,the land around the Dondanville home was subdivided into 20 lots. The lots were parceled out to children and grandchildren and Mary was granted occupancy of the home until such time that she remarried or died.

Emile died in 1937, and Mary returned to work. In addition to housekeeping she worked briefly in a grocery store in the neighborhood. Encouraged by Marjorie, she worked at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Long Beach as a riveter during World Was II. About 1945, Mary married Peter Yaun, a Swiss, with whom she had kept company for several years. Mary and Peter built a home on Euclid Avenue on one of the lots that had been subdivided in the late 1930s. Marjorie established separate living arrangements. Peter Yaun died in 1975 and Mary moved to an apartment near her daughter's on South Gardner Street in Los Angeles. Mary died June 12, 1988.

265.1 Marjorie Louise Brooks, 1924 -
born in Los Angeles August 2, 1924, never married. Worker for Southern California Bell Telephone Company. Purchased a home, a garden apartment, on South Gardner Street, in Los Angeles and continues to live there in 2004.

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