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Family pictures from "Nix" Graves
of Christie Descendants in California,
and from Illinois and Missouri.

Of the children of Dr. Robert James Christie, Sen. and Sarah Elizabeth Nixon Christie, their daughter, Emma Lee, known as Lee, (January 10, 1862 - November 11, 1934) was the first to marry. On October 1, 1883 she married Robert Calien Graves (October 16, 1858 - September 21, 1893) They had two daughters before his death from Typhoid Fever almost ten years later. Lee and her daughters, May Louise Graves (July 25, 1885 - July 30, 1899) and Maud Nixon "Nix" Graves (September 15, 1888 - April 30, 1987), moved back into the family home at 1407 Vermont Street, Quincy, Illinois. By 1893, most of Lee's sisters and brothers had left the family home; only two unmarried sisters, Augusta Maud (Maud) and Laura Virginia ("Coot") still lived at home. Nix said that the three women took turns doing the house cleaning and cooking for their father. After Maud married Hervey Asay Fry on October 5, 1898, and moved "down the street," Coot and Lee did the housekeeping chores. Louise lived to be 14, when she too, succumbed to Typhoid Fever. Nix graduated from Culver-Stockton College in Canton Missouri. In 1916, she and her mother, Lee, moved to Hollywood, California. Nix worked for many years as a bookkeeper at the Hollywood Citizen News until the age of 77, when she retired, sold her duplex, and moved to a Methodist retirement home, Kingsley Manor in Hollywood, where she died at the age of 98.

All but one of the children of Dr. Robert James Christie, Sen. and Sarah Elizabeth "Mittie" (Nixon) Christie, made their way to Hollywood, California. We're not exactly sure about the sequence of the migration, but we do know that Maud (Christie) and her husband Hervey Fry moved to Hollywood in 1921; and that all the others had moved to Hollywood before 1917, when their brother, Dr. Robert James Christie, Jr., died in Quincy, Illinois. Most likely, Lee (Christie) Graves and Miss Laura "Coot" Christie moved together in 1913. And Cassius "Cash" Christie made the move with his wife, Matilda "Tea" (LaRue) in 1914.

The pictures collected here, were found in the boxes of Nix Graves' things that had been stored away by the family, and only recently revisited. We have Marilyn Fry and her daughter, Gretchen, to thank for identifying these pictures, scanning them, and making them available for circulation among the wider family.

On the left is the old family home at 1407 Vermont Street, Quincy, Illinois. The house was torn down sometime after Dr. Robert James Christie, Sen.'s death in 1909. We presume that Lee (Christie) Graves and "Coot" Christie continued living there until their move to California in 1913. That address has since become part of the hospital's parking lot.

Among "Nix" collection of pictures, are these pictures of her Christie Grandparents. On the Left is a tintype of her Grandfather, Robert James Christie, Sen., taken before he was married, before he became a doctor, and before he moved to the midwest from Virginia.
On the right is a picture of his wife, Sarah Elizabeth "Mittie" (Nixon) Christie, which was surely taken much later in her life.

Maud Nixon "Nix" Graves in pictures taken in the midwest, long before she moved to California.

"Nix" on the left, and on the right, "Nix", her mother, Lee (Christie) Graves, and her sister, Louise. Lee Graves is the "Mrs. E. L. Graves, Lewistown, Mo." who took several of these photographs.

Both of these pictures were taken in the midwest. On the left, the man with "Nix" and Louise is their Uncle Cash Christie.
On the right, we can only assume that the man is a relative. We don't recognize him and he isn't identified, but compare his facial features with the picture of Robert Cailen Graves, below. "Nix" and Louise are even younger here.

On the left, "Nix" and Louise. On the right a picture of Louise by herself. Louise Graves died of Typhoid Fever in 1899 just five days after her 14th birthday.

Emma Lee (Christie) Graves, born 1862 in Missouri, died in 1934 in Hollywood, California.
And her husband, Robert Calien Graves (1858-1893) is on the right.

Two pictures taken in California: Lee (Christie) Graves and her daughter, "Nix" moved from Quincy, Illinois to Hollywood, California in 1916. Standing; "Coot" and "Nix", and Lee Graves, sitting on the ground.
On the right, a studio portrait of Lee Graves, taken later in her life.

Among the older pictures in "Nix'" collection are pictures of Augusta Maud Christie (1867-1958) as a girl, and one of Laura Virginia "Coot" Christie (1872-1956), wearing her grandmother's wedding dress. And again, the photographer is Emma Lee Graves.

We're not sure who all these lovely ladies are, but we can't resist presenting their picture on these pages. Swim suit styles have changed some, haven't they?

A group of people gathered at the home of Alton and Virginia (Fry) Graves on Castilian Drive in Hollywood, California on June 1, 1947. Alton Graves was of a different and unrelated family than the Robert C. Graves who married Lee (Christie) Graves.
On the far left is Paul Cobb, then Alton and Virginia standing in the background. Seated, the first two people are unidentified, and the boy seated on the near side of the picnic table is also unidentified. Seated on the far side of the table are Laura "Coot" Christie, Alice (Fry) Cobb, "Nix" Graves, and Augusta Maud (Christie) Fry, at the end of the table.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that these folks are (seated L to R): Maud (Christie) Fry, Laura "Coot" Christie, then a lady that we're not sure about and (we think) Matilda "Tea" (LaRue) Christie.
Standing (L to R): Chester Cotton, Virginia (Fry) Graves, Hervey Asay Fry, Alice (Fry) Cobb (maybe??), Alton Graves and an unknown.
We do believe that the picture was taken in the back yard of the duplex on Orange Grove Avenue that "Nix" and "Coot" shared for so many years.

Chet Cotton -- "I believe at the top of the picture is my mother holding a very tiny me. The two seated ladies on the right are Nixon and Laura (aka Coot). The lady behind Laura/Coot looks familiar and is, I suspect, the mother of Virginia Graves wife of Alton Graves. I don't know the other two. They are posed by the front steps of the house at 6107 Edmund Street in Hollywood, CA. This is the house that I believe Robert C. Cotton and Chester M. Cotton purchased for their mother, Mary Elizabeth Christie Cotton and which my father, C. M. Cotton, inherited at her death. In those years I suppose Robert Christie Cotton was on active duty with the U.S. Army and living in married officers' quarters so he didn't need a house."

Sitting: Nix, Clagett, Tea, Laura. Standing: Emma Lee, Alton, Virginia, Hervy, Maude, Chester. - Chet Cotton -- "I think this pic was taken in the backyard of Nix's little duplex on Orange Grove Avenue."