Sourwine Family Home Page

May Julien Sourwine and her four children taken in Reno, Nevada around 1922.	Sourwine Family Home Page
This is a working copy of a home page looking at the descendants and ancestors of Major James Arthur Sourwine and his wife Anita May Julien. Above is a photo of May Julien Sourwine and her four children taken about 1922. This page is maintained by Mary Morman, a daughter of Mary Nevada Sourwine Morman. You can contact her by email using the complex (but not difficult) instructions here if you have any problems with the page, if you would like more information, or if you have information that should be included here. Links below will take you to each of these family members and their descendants. Or, you can choose to view Julien Family Ancestors or Sourwine Family Ancestors. This page is still in progress and not all of these links may be working at this time. This page was last updated 12 June 2012
Major James Arthur Sourwine Anita May Julien	Julien Goode Sourwine William Arthur Sourwine Mary Nevada Sourwine Anita Louise Sourwine
James Arthur Sourwine
James Arthur Sourwine, known to most of his decendents as "The Major", was born on August 6th, 1884 in Buffalo, NY to James H. Sourwine and Anna Tims Sourwine. He grew up in Upland, California (where his father owned a grocery and some orange groves) and graduated from Pomona College. He married his first wife, Anita May Julien on June 8th, 1907 in Reno, Nevada. Their oldest child, Julien Goode Sourwine was born in Reno the following year. The family returned to Upland, California where William Arthur Sourwine were born in 1910. They then moved to Ithaca, New York while James pursued a graduate engineering degree at Cornell University. Their third child, and first daughter, Mary Nevada Sourwine was born there in 1911. The family returned to May's family home in Reno, Nevada where their fourth and last child Anita Louise Sourwine was born in 1914. James served in the Army Corps of Engineers Construction Battalion in World War One, eventually retiring with the rank of Major. He did not, however, return home to his wife and family after the war. He asked May for a divorce which she granted him in 1924. She continued living with her children in her family home in Reno. He later married Victoire D'Ongren (Victoria), daughter of a French artist, leaving her after she bore him twin sons who died at birth. He died in Washington, DC in 1957.	James Arthur Sourwine, 1906
Anita May Julien
Anita May Julien, the youngest of seven children, was born to Judge Thomas VanCamp Julien and Martha Alice Brewer on May 6th, 1887 in Reno, Nevada. She grew up in Reno attending Reno High School until she was sixteen, and participating actively in the life of the First Methodist Church congregation and choir. While visiting a former pastor and his wife in Upland, California she met James Arthur Sourwine. They were married on June 8th, 1907 from her family home in Reno, Nevada. Her first son, Julien Goode Sourwine was born there the following year. William Arthur Sourwine, her second child, was born in Upland, California in 1910. Her first daughter, Mary Nevada Sourwine was born in Ithaca, New York in 1911 while her husband was studying engineering at Cornell University. The family then returned to May's family home in Reno where their fourth and last child Anita Louise Sourwine was born in 1914. May lived in Reno while waiting for her husband to return from World War One. When he wrote to tell her that he was not returning and wanted a divorce, she gave him one in 1924 continuing to live in her family home with her two older sisters, Annie Louise Julien and Effie Estelle Julien. She worked as a clerk in a Reno department store to support her family and raised her four children. She was active in the First Methodist Church of Reno until well into her nineties. She ran the church "crib room", and worked in the church office - in conjunction with that role she played the piano and acted as witness for countless weddings. A stained glass window in the church was dedicated to her in 198x. In 1985, after a fall that broke her hip, she moved to live with her daughter Mary and granddaughter Diana in North Highlands, California. She died, the last of her generation, on 16 July 1988 at the age of 101 at the Roseville Nursing Home in Roseville, California survived by her two daughters, fifteen grandchildren, 36 great-grandchildren, and 5 great-great-grandchildren.	Anita May Julien, 1907
Julien Goode Sourwine
Julien Goode Sourwine was born in Reno, Nevada on 7 April 1908, the first child of James Arthur Sourwine and May Julien Sourwine. He worked his way through law school in Washington DC as a newspaper reporter, and went on to become Chief Counsel to several Senate Committees. He married Mary Elizabeth Gillen on 1 January 1934 and they had three children, Julien Gillen Sourwine (born in 1939), William Wayne Sourwine (born in 1943), and Mary Ann Sourwine (born in 1947). Jay and Mary returned to Reno from Washington DC when Jay retired, and he died there in June of 1986. Mary Gillen Sourwine lived on in Reno until 1996.	Julien Sourwine