Augusta “Gussie” Nickels, (1869-1954)

Headstone GPS Coordinates: 

Birth: June 1869, California

Death: 04 March 1954, Steilacoom, Pierce County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Samuel Nickels, Clara Nickels née Berry, Frank Nickels, Baby Clara Nickels

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Nathaniel Berry (Massachusetts) 

DAR# A009622; Samuel Edward Berry (Massachusetts) DAR# A009627; William Nickels (Massachusetts)

Disclaimer: These lines have not been officially proven by NSDAR standards

Augusta “Gussie” Nickels was born in June 1869 in California, the second child of Samuel and Clara Nickels. Her birth came during a period of transition for the young family, who had left their native Maine in search of opportunity in the West. Within a year of her birth, the Nickels family settled in Seabeck in Washington Territory, a growing mill town along Hood Canal that would remain central to Gussie’s life and legacy.

Gussie’s parents both came from Kennebec County, Maine. Her father, Samuel Nickels, was born July 22, 1842, in Pittston to Captain Alexander and Hannah Nickels. Her mother, Clara Ella Berry, was born April 13, 1845, in Gardiner to Elbridge Berry and Angeline Carey. Samuel and Clara married on March 26, 1864, in Pittston, and their first child, Alice Gertrude, was born the following year.

By 1870, baby Gussie arrived with her parents and older sister in Seabeck, where her father worked in the sawmill. Years later, Alice recalled their landing in Washington Territory: seeing Native people on the wharf and no white settlers in sight, she confessed she had been frightened, never having seen Indians before. For the Nickels children, Seabeck was truly frontier country.

Throughout Gussie’s childhood, her father’s occupations reflected the changing economy of the region. In 1880 he was employed in a sawmill; by 1887 the family was living in Port Gamble; and by 1900 they had returned to Seabeck, where Samuel worked as a fisherman. Eventually, by 1910, he was listed as a farmer on his own property.

Clara gave birth to seven children, six of whom were living in 1900. That year, Gussie, age 30, was still residing at home in Seabeck with her parents and siblings Nellie, Frank, Arthur, and Samuel. The three brothers were working as fishermen on Puget Sound. The eldest sister, Alice Gertrude, had married John Walton and was living nearby in Seabeck with her own family.

The Nickels family history, however, was marked by hardship. On April 12, 1874, diarist Jacob Hauptly recorded that “Sam Nickels is crazy,” and the following day noted that he “put Sam Nickels on board the Colfax (ship) for Steilacoom.” This early episode suggests that Gussie’s father struggled with mental illness decades before his eventual institutionalization. By 1920, Samuel was living as a patient at the Western Washington State Hospital in Steilacoom, while Clara was listed as head of household in Seabeck.

Mental illness would profoundly shape Gussie’s own life as well.

Sometime prior to 1910, Augusta “Gussie” Nickels was admitted to the Washington State Hospital for the Insane in Steilacoom (later known as Western Washington State Hospital). She would remain there for the rest of her life.

Gussie died on March 4, 1954, after decades of institutionalization. Her cause of death was recorded as bilateral acute pulmonary edema with early bronchial pneumonia, complicated by cardiac disease and post-operative bowel resection. Hospital records and one of her grave markers list her birth year incorrectly as 1880; however, a later modified marker reflects her true birth year of 1869.

She was buried in the Nickels family plot in Seabeck Cemetery.

Gussie was not the only member of the family to suffer such a fate. Her younger brother Frank, born in December 1875 in Seabeck, was also admitted to Western Washington State Hospital shortly after the 1900 census. He died there on November 15, 1901. Though his grave was recorded on a plot map, no marker remains. Another child, known as Baby Clara, died on July 16, 1874, and was buried in the Seabeck Cemetery without a marker.

Their mother, Clara Nickels, died April 30, 1923, at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle from bronchial pneumonia (influenza) at age seventy-eight and was buried in the family plot. A year later, on March 16, 1924, Samuel Nickels died in Charleston (now part of Bremerton), Kitsap County, Washington. His death certificate listed “Labor Pneumonia” as the cause of death and noted he had suffered from senile dementia for ten years. His occupation was recorded as ship’s captain. He was buried beside Clara in Seabeck Cemetery.

Two obituaries published in the Kitsap County Herald described Samuel as one of the most conspicuous and well-known pioneers of Seabeck — a man remembered for his welcoming smile and handshake, whose passing drew a large congregation in tribute.