This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Lavazolla and Kruse Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/EY.2ADE/11.23.2 Message Board Post: I fixed my email address as the previous was incorrect and I don't know if it can be accessed. I lived outside Downieville in the late 1940's right after WWII. The Lavazolla family had a ranch if my directions are correct about 9 miles from town out past the old cemetary. There was Tony and I remember an older brother Pete (who I believe lived in town on the other side of the bridge past the old post office). The story I remember was that Pete saw a train once...when he went to Sacramento to have a tooth pulled. It seems like he was very old...but I was just a kid. We had to walk in to our place and Tony would loan us a mule when we had something heavy to carry in. We were on what was then called the Little North Fork, which I think may have been renamed. About 30 years ago there was a logging road which went in to the property that started near an old saw mill. I am looking for information on my great grandmother Sarah Marie Brown Kruse, who lived in Downieville and supposedly married John Ernest Kruse during the gold rush days. John Ernest died in Downieville on 21 Feb 1875 at about 44 years old. He was my great grandfathers brother, after he died my great grandfather John Henry Kruse married Sarah and raised their children in San Francisco along with three they had together. He later owned J H Kruse Lumber Company in San Francisco. John Ernest owned a saloon and part of the water works and some mining land according to some records. I would also like some help in obtaining more information an an obituary if possible. I could not spend enough time in Downieville to complete my search and am not in physical condition to do it now. I figure the saloon was where the old Quartz Cafe was. I may be able to come up with more on the Lavazzola's when I have time to think about it. I'm almost positive the correct spelling is "Lavazolla" (John) Ernest Kruse is mentioned on page 460 in "History of Plumas, Lassen and Sierra Counties" elected as a trustee in the first municipal election held April 27, 1863.