Found the following in the Sacramento BEE (California). As far as I know, my family of French's is not related, but thought someone else might be interested. .................................... FRENCH, FRANCIS Local musician in the 1930's and 1940's, died in a Sacramento rehabilitation center on December 26, 2000 a few weeks after open-heart surgery. Born Dec 3,1914 in Auburn, he was 86. He is survived by his sister, Gladys F. Durbrow and her family: William Durbrow III of Grass Valley; Nancy Kennedy of Redding; Richard A. Durbrow of Citrus Heights; Edward A. Durbrow who lives in Saztama, Japan. He played in the Grass Valley high school orchestra, traveling daily from Chicago Park on the narrow gauge RR. Frequently he was heard in recitals or at events playing the violin, accompanied by his sister on piano. After graduation in 1933, he and three other local teen-age musicians (Bud Foote, 'Speed' Parker, Bob Wilson) went around the world on the Dollar Line steamship the President Garfield, playing violin and saxophone. After returning, the group played for dances in Peardale, You Bet and a Lake Olympia. Later, he graduated from Sacramento Junior College and played in the Sacramento Symphony orchestra. He became a roving music instructor, making the rounds weekly at Auburn, Marysville and Grass Valley schools. Drafted into the Army near the end of WWII, he returned from New Guinea to work briefly for the Veterans Association, and then for the California Department of Employment - first in Stockton and then in Yuba City. He and his wife, and large number of Chihuahua dogs, lived in the same house since 1953. His ashes will be interred in the family plot next to his wife, Ruth Choate French, in the Odd Fellows' Cemetery in Grass Valley. Arrangements are in the hands of Hooper-Weaver mortuary.