The Good Intent

In 1918, John Pressley Phillips, the son of William Walker Phillips of Fresno, married Ruth Anderson, the daughter of David Pressley Anderson of Santa Rosa. Their common ancestor was David Adams, Jr., who served in the Revolutionary War, and both descended from solid, southern, established families that could trace their bloodlines to nobility in 17th-Century Britain. Rooted in America, family members included both a British Loyalist and three signers of the Declaration of Independence. They flourished as planters in South Carolina and Mississippi until the Civil War. Like many Confederate families reduced to nothing at war's end, the Phillips and Andersons came to California to start over. Both families thrived, in farming, banking, politics, the arts and community leadership, especially in the fertile Central San Joaquin Valley. The marriage of these, two southern families has linked two surprisingly rich and distinguished threads of ancestry. The names of relations in the near and distant past may startle as well as impress the reader. Every family has a story to tell that is often lost as generations pass on.