George Alonzo McColley was the son of James McColley and Caroline Greene. James McColley was the brother of Martha's 2nd great grandmother (Hannah Elizabeth McColley m. Daniel Nichols). Caroline's father was the brother of Martha's 4th great grandmother (Amy Greene, m. Amos Nichols).
George was born in Faribault County, Minnesota in 1882. According to Pioneer Heritage (by Dallas McColley, 1993), George moved to the San Francisco, California area before 1905 and was there during the 1906 earthquake. He married Lulu Longergon with whom he had two children, Maurice (born 1908 in Oregon) and Marion (born 1910 in California). In the 1900 census, George was living with his parents in Prescott, Minnesota and working as a Farm Laborer. In the 1910 census, George, his wife Lulu and their two children were living in Santa Rosa, California with Lulu's parents and siblings. George was listed as being a restaurant worker. He and Lulu were still married when he registered for the World War I draft in 1917. At that time he was working as a driver for Standard Oil. At some point after that he divorced Lulu and married Ione Peterson. Reportedly, he and Ione were divorced in 1919 and Ione remarried to a Mr. F.E. Barrett. However, another article indicated that she was married to Mr. Barrett before she married George McColley, and was still married to George at the time of her death. In 1920, George was registered to vote and living in San Francisco.
On December 11, 1921, George McColley hand-wrote a will giving his belongings to his children, should they care to have them. On December 12, 1921, after George reportedly spent the weekend with Ione at the home of her parents, Ione was driving him to Petaluma and apparently along the way, he killed her and then killed himself.
Here is a copy of an article from the San Francisco Chronicle (taken from Newspapers.com) regarding the circumstances of his death (click photo to get an enlarged version):
The Oakland paper had a somewhat different description, indicating that Ione and George were still married at the time of the incident.
