USA > California > Merced County > A history of Merced County, California : with a biographical review of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 77
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Mr. Mord was united in marriage on April 2, 1913, with Agnes Wickstrom, a native of Indiana, and they have five children: Lucile, Weldon, Everett, Laverne and Naomi. Mr. and Mrs. Mord are members of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church at Hilmar and he served as treasurer of the organization during the erection of the new $46,000 church in 1922. He studies carefully the political issues of the day and votes without fear or favor.
OLIVER FRANKLIN JOHNSTON
As an intelligent, energetic fruit grower, Oliver Franklin Johnston is typical of all that is best in an estimable ancestry. His father is a carpenter and builder and at the age of seventy-three is an active and
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skillful workman, able to do a full day's work. They are of that sterling Scotch blood which predominates in Canada, from whence they came ; hospitable and highly respected, they are of the class that are ever regarded as the bulwarks of society. O. F. Johnston is the owner of a fruit ranch of thirty-three and a third acres in Fruitland precinct, fourteen acres being in peaches and vines, and he resides at the ranch home of his parents in the same precinct. Mr. Johnston was born at Paso Robles, San Luis Obispo County, on May 26, 1892, the son of John Henry and Emma (Crawford) Johnston, the former born in the Province of Ontario, Canada, and brought up in Upper Canada near Toronto. The mother was born in Quebec, her father of English and her mother of Scotch birth, and she attended the public school. After their marriage they moved to what was then the terri- tory of Dakota in 1882, and homesteaded 160 acres near Lisbon, now in North Dakota. Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Johnston moved from Dakota to California about 1884 and settled in Dixon, for four years, where Mr. Johnston worked at his trade. Coming over to San Luis Obispo County he bought a farm in 1888, where their son Oliver Franklin was born. They had six children, as follows: William, a clerk in a store at Paso Robles, who married Alice Luckey and lives in Paso Robles; Elizabeth Grace, wife of Hubert Petersen, a rancher in the Par Colony; Anna Mabel, wife of Verne Donaldson, in the trucking and transfer business in Livingston; Oliver Franklin, our subject; Agnes Isabel, a trained nurse in San Francisco; and Flora, wife of Raymond Van den Heuvel of Merced.
Oliver Franklin Johnston grew up on his father's farm near Paso Robles until he was nine years old, and then came with his parents to San Francisco, and to the Fruitland Colony in 1910. He is a Republi- can in politics and a member of the Woodmen of the World.
LOUIS DAHLSTROM
That "honesty is the best policy" is the maxim that governs the business life of Louis Dahlstrom, merchant at Irwin in the Hilmar Colony of Merced County. He believes in the "square deal" with everybody and in consequence he is prospering accordingly. A native of Sweden he was born on January 17, 1877, the son of H. L. and Carrie Dahlstrom, natives of Sweden who came to America with their family in 1889. Their eldest son, Peter Dahlstrom, had come the year before and the family located in Marshall County, Minn., where the father was a farmer on 160 acres of land. There were six children in the family, viz .: Mary, Mrs. Henry Lundell of Turlock ;
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Peter, who died in Minnesota in 1889; John, born November 24, 1874; Louis, our subject; Dan, born August 12, 1880, who erected the Dahlstrom block in Irwin in 1922; Gust, born in Sweden on May 31, 1884, now running a Union Oil station in Turlock. The mother, who was born in 1842, died in Turlock in 1922 aged eighty years; the father, already past eighty-four, is living retired in Turlock.
Louis Dahlstrom accompanied the family to the United States and attended the schools in Minnesota and then spent some time in Wash- ington before he arrived in Turlock, he being the first member of the family to arrive here. In 1921 he started a grocery store on a small scale at Irwin, later being joined by his brother John; and they carried on the grocery business under the firm name of Dahlstrom Brothers until January 1, 1925, when Louis bought his brother's interest and continues the business as Louis Dahlstrom. He has built up a pros- perous business and his trade gradually increases with the growth of the community.
In 1905 Louis Dahlstrom was married to Miss Annie Johnson, daughter of Mrs. Frank Johnson of the Hilmar Colony, and their children are : Ella Evangeline, Helen, Stanley, Chester, June, Pershing and Donald. Mr. Dahlstrom is one of the progressive men of the colony and does his duty as a citizen at all times.
ALBERT EDWARD SMITH
The town of Winton was named after the surveyor of Merced County, who was operating for a land and trust company. In 1918 a fourth class postoffice was started with Harry A. Logue as post- master ; it was made a third class postoffice on February 14, 1923. The second incumbent of the office was Mrs. Margaret Cassell, and the third, Albert Edward Smith. He was born in Grass Valley, Nevada County, Cal., July 12, 1879. His father, Zenor T. Smith, was born in Worcester, Ohio, came to California as a young man and taught school at Grass Valley. The mother, Caroline McClosky Smith, was born in Iowa and came to California with her brother. Being afflicted with asthma it was necessary for her to leave Grass Valley and they located at Atwater, Merced County, where her health was im- proved. The father taught in the Merced, Turlock, Snelling and Madera public schools, and passed away in 1904 at the age of sixty- six. The mother still lives at Gustine, Merced County. They had three children : Frank E., who is in the employ of the State Highway Commission and resides in Merced; Albert Edward, our subject; and Belle, the wife of Harry Foster, who lives in Gustine.
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Albert Edward Smith was only a year old when his parents brought him to Merced, and his education was begun in the public schools of the county and completed by a course in Heald's Business College in San Francisco. He clerked in different stores and at length started a general merchandise store for himself in Winton.
On November 9, 1909, A. E. Smith was married to Martha Ann Logue, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs Harry A. Logue, of Winton, of whom a sketch is elsewhere given in this book. Two children were born of this union, Robert Arthur and Mabel Verna. The former has the distinction of being the first boy born in Merced Colony No. 2 at Winton, Cal. Mr. and Mrs. Smith are intelligent and personally attractive and have won the esteem of the community in which they live for their thoughtfulness and attention to the wants of the people of their community. Mrs. Smith makes an able and accommodating assistant postmaster. Mr. Smith is a member of the Moose and of the Modern Woodmen of America of Merced.
SAMUEL E. HARRIS
It has been said of the World War, that those who "talked about its horrs did not know, and those who knew about them did not talk." It is doubtless for that reason that no data have come to the sketch writer from the veteran Samuel E. Harris of his experience in the field of Argonne and elsewhere in France. He does not talk. It is only chronicled that he was an engineer in Co. A, 25th Regiment of the 1st Army Corps. All honor must be given him for responding to his country's call and for faithful service to the end. He is today serv- ing his day and generation quite as efficiently as agent of the Ford products in Dos Palos. Born in New York City, July 14, 1891, he was reared and educated in Cincinnati, Ohio, up to 1910. From 1911 to 1913 he was in San Francisco. From there he went to Firebaugh, Fresno County, where he was a clerk in Miller and Lux's general store. He next engaged in business for himself until he enlisted in the United States Army. When he returned from the war he sold out his business in Firebaugh in 1919, and coming to Dos Palos he took over the agency of the Ford products and now sells the Ford and Lincoln cars and the Fordson tractors and all accessories.
Mr. Harris is vice-president of the Dos Palos Chamber of Com- merce, and a member of Mountain Brow Lodge No. 312, F. & A. M., of Los Banos, and of the Dos Palos Post of the American Legion, No. 86. His family consists of his wife, Elsie E. (Cline) Harris, and one son, Samuel E., Jr.
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ARTHUR O. WICKSTROM
A Swedish-American of sterling worth who is prominent in farm and church circles in the Hilmar Colony of Merced County, is Arthur O. Wickstrom, who is deeply interested in projects for the advance- ment of his adopted county and state. He lives on his thirty-five-acre ranch on August Avenue, one mile northwest of Hilmar. He was born at Earl Park, Ind., on November 30, 1879, the son of Oscar A. Wick- strom, who is mentioned elsewhere in this history. When Arthur was a child of two his parents moved to Iowa, and when he was four they removed to Dakota Territory, that part now embraced in South Dakota. It seemed that the elder Wickstrom was looking for a suitable location for a home, and in 1886 he went to Colorado and farmed near Holyoke, Phillips County. In 1898 they left for Knox County, Nebr., and it was in the public schools of these various places that our subject received his education. He was brought up to be a farmer and has devoted his entire life to that pursuit and is now a well-informed man on many branches of agriculture and horticulture. In 1911 Mr. Wickstrom left Nebraska for California, having decided to settle here, where his father had located in 1903. He has been successfully carrying on his ranch ever since.
In 1904 the marriage of Arthur O. Wickstrom and Ida Mord was celebrated in Nebraska. She is a sister of C. A. Mord, the blacksmith at Hilmar. This marriage has resulted in the birth of four children : Oliver, Olivia, Dorothy, and Alvin. Mr. Wickstrom is a member and a trustee of the Swedish Evangelical Mission Church at Hilmar, con- tributing generously towards the fund for the fine $46,000 edifice. He is a liberal Republican and considers the correct principles of govern- ment and the strict observance of the Eighteenth Amendment.
RALPH D. HOARD, D. O.
One of the rising young professional men of Merced, where he is building up a fine practice, is Ralph D. Hoard, a native of Union County, South Dakota, born April 20, 1895. There he was reared and educated up to the age of eleven. He later was associated with his brother in a flour mill in Oregon, and came to California in 1909 with this relative, first locating in Pasadena, where they were engaged in the garage and automobile business.
After some time spent in these different lines, Mr. Hoard decided to follow a definite profession, and one in which he felt an especial interest. He entered the Los Angeles College of Osteopathic
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Physicians and Surgeons, and after graduating in 1922, practiced in Los Angeles. Coming to Merced in October, 1923, he opened up offices here and has since been a part of the professional life of the city and county, building up a practice founded on the confidence and patronage of the people, who know him as a conscientious, able exponent of his profession, one who makes a study of each individual case, and uses the most modern methods to bring about a cure. His well-equipped offices are a testimonial to his success.
The marriage of Dr. Hoard, which occurred November 29, 1917, united him with Dorothy Crumley, a native of Canada. During the World War Dr. Hoard served in the medical corps attached to the 40th Division, went over seas with them, and was later transferred, spending altogether one year in France. He is a member of Ameri- can Legion Post No. 83 at Merced.
WALTER T. PETERSON
Though still young in years Water T. Peterson has demonstrated his ability in mercantile lines and is proving that he possesses the qualities of success in any occupation in life. Coming from an excel- lent Swedish family, he is a man of unusual worth and promises to make a citizen of which any community may well be proud. On October 1, 1923, he bought the store from the Hedman-Johnson Hardware Company and has started the Peterson Cash Grocery, deal- ing in staple and fancy groceries and hardware.
Walter T. Peterson was born in Central City, Colo., on September 4, 1901, the son of John and Amanda (Lindahl) Peterson, who are living in the Hilmar Colony, where they own a fruit and dairy ranch of thirty acres. They are both natives of Sweden and were married in Colorado, where the father was a gold and silver miner for twenty years before coming to Hilmar in 1903. They have three children : Ethel, at home; Paul, who owns forty acres in the Hilmar Colony; and Walter T., who grew up in the Hilmar Colony and worked on his father's ranch during school vacations until he was ten years old, when he went to work for the Hedman-Johnson Hardware Company. After finishing the Elim Union Grammar School he had three years in the Hilmar Union High School. His brother Paul left for the war and he was called home to help on the farm. With the exception of that ten months he worked for the Hedman-Johnson Hardware Com- pany until he bought out their store at Hilmar in 1923. He owns five acres which he has improved from bare land to a bearing vineyard. He is secretary of the Hilmar Community Chamber of Commerce and in politics is a Republican.
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W. B. OLSON
The state of Iowa is sending many well-to-do and honored citizens to California, prominent among whom is W. B. Olson, who resides with his family in his comfortable and attractive home on his thirty- acre farm devoted to general and mixed farming near Irwin. He is a fine type of the Norwegian-American manhood, a large, well-built and muscular man, with a strong mind in a healthy body, full of good nature and streaks of humor that make you feel that he is a jolly good fellow.
Mr. Olson was born in Story County, Iowa, in 1869. He grew up there and was married to Miss Martha Sydnes, also a native of Iowa. They came to California in 1907 and bought the thirty-acre ranch one mile south of Irwin on the east side of Lander Avenue. His father, Brite Olson, settled in Iowa in 1855, being one of this county's earliest permanent settlers. He brought with him the intelligence and strength which characterized the hardy Norse pioneers of the Northwest.
Mr. and Mrs. Olson stand for education and progress and it is their aim to provide a good education for their four daughters. All are well known in educational circles. The eldest, Rebecca, is a gradu- ate of the Fresno Teachers College and is a teacher in the high school at Kerman, in Fresno County. The second daughter, Elma, is a high school graduate and now the wife of Prof. Haberman, whose specialty is horticulture in the schools of Los Angeles. The third daughter, Winnie, is a graduate of the Fresno Teachers College and is a teacher in Hanford. The youngest daughter, Pearl, is a graduate of Fresno Teachers College and teaches at Atwater, Merced County.
WILLIAM P. MORRISON
The possibility of starting at the bottom on the road to success with only a team of horses and a plow, and eventually winning out, is exemplified in the career of William P. Morrison, who resides on the Merced River ranch near Snelling. He was born in Redlands, Cal., the youngest of four children in his parents' family. His father, F. P. Morrison, was born in San Rafael, Cal., and attended Yale College in the nineties, and upon returning to California he located at Redlands and engaged in citrus culture in partnership with his brother. W. P. Morrison, whom he eventually bought out. He was one of the founders and was president of the First National Bank of Redlands. and he served as city treasurer of Redlands for fifteen years. F. P. Morrison was married to Mabel Stillman of San Francisco. Her
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father was the late John B. Stillman, who came to San Francisco via the Horn in 1846 and went on to Sacramento in 1849, where he later became prominent as the builder and owner of the Stillman Hospital. Later he moved to San Francisco, where the family is prominent and active today.
William P. Morrison attended a private school at Redlands and was a student in the Sheffield Preparatory School in 1914 at Andover, Mass. He entered Yale College, Class of 1917, but in 1916 trans- ferred to the University of California, Agricultural Department, Class of 1918. His college days' work was interrupted when he enlisted, in June, 1917, in the University of California Ambulance Corps No. 2 for service in the World War. He trained at Allentown, Pa., and was transferred in January, 1918, to the Officers Training School; he received a commission as second lieutenant of the 152nd Depot Brigade and served until the Armistice, and received an honor- able discharge on December 30, 1918 at Camp Kearny. He returned to his father's home in Redlands and was unsettled until the fall of 1919, when he took up the responsibility of operating his father's ranch, on the south side of the Merced River, one and a half miles above Snelling. This property, consisting of 640 acres, and known as the Old Blunt Ranch, has been in the family for the past thirty-five years and has been leased to tenants. Here Mr. Morrison raises hogs on the uplands, and hay, grain and figs on the rich soil of the bottom lands; walnuts are also being set out.
ELMER B. WOOD
As the present manager of the Atwater Fruit Exchange, a branch of the California Fruit Exchange, Elmer B. Wood is making good in the responsible position he holds. The Exchange is a non-profit, cooperative association and the Atwater branch started in 1918 with thirty-two members, the first season shipping seventy-six cars of fruit. At the present writing, 1925, there is a membership of some 250, and the season of 1923 shipped 333 cars to various sections of the country. The various plants of the original local company employ as high as 200 people during the heaviest part of the season, at which time the pay roll amounts to $8,000 per week. Not a little of the gradual growth of the local Exchange is due to the untiring efforts of Mr. Wood, who devotes his entire time to the business.
The eldest of three children, Elmer B. Wood was born on a farm in Indiana, not far from the city of Chicago, a son of the late John R. Wood. His mother, Lela (Diehl) Wood, still makes her home
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in Indiana. Elmer was reared on the home farm and attended the public schools, coming to California in 1913, to make his home with his grandfather, W. D. Wood, in the San Marino citrus belt, where he learned about all there was to know of the industry in all its branches. He continued his study at the Davis Agricultural College, Davis, Cal., in 1917. But his work was interrupted by his enlistment in the army, where he became a second lieutenant in Headquarters Co., Ninety-first Division, serving until honorably discharged at Camp Sherman, Ohio, in June, 1919.
Mr. Wood was united in marriage in November, 1919, with Miss Dorothy Hertges, born in the State of Washington. After his dis- charge from the United States service he returned to California and was engaged in farming and agricultural development until he was made the successor of W. H. Spann, as manager of the Atwater Fruit Exchange, the position he now holds. Mr. Wood owns a twenty-acre ranch one-half mile north of Atwater, which is set to peaches and grapes. Fraternally, he is a member of Yosemite Lodge No. 99, F. & A. M., and the Merced Pyramid of Sciots, both of Merced. He is an upright and conscientious man, and has a host of friends in the county.
AMBROSE E. DANERI
Endowed with sound executive and business ability, Ambrose E. Daneri, postmaster of Merced, Cal., is recognized as a worthy repre- sentative of the intelligent and substantial citizens of his locality, and is held in high esteem throughout the section in which he resides. A son of John and Angella Daneri, he was born March 24, 1880, in Coulterville, Cal., where he remained until he was a young man. The father, John Daneri, was an early settler in Mariposa County, com- ing there in the late fifties, he engaged in farming on a large scale and served as road overseer. He passed away on the home farm in 1899, aged fifty-nine years; the mother still makes her home there and is seventy-eight years of age.
Ambrose E. Daneri completed the grammar school course in his native county, and then entered the Stockton Business College, from which he was graduated in 1900. After his graduation he became bookkeeper for Hale Brothers in San Francisco, remaining with this firm for two years, when he entered the employ of the Santa Fe Rail- road Company and was sent to Richmond, Cal., where he served in the commissary department for fourteen months. He then returned to Mariposa County and took the management of the famous Horse Shoe Bend Ranch in that county owned by Francis B. Loomis, assis-
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tant Secretary of State in Washington, D. C., and Richard H. Rogers of Springfield, Ohio, and successfully managed the ranch for one year, when he went home and ran the home ranch for the following three years. On March 15, 1909, Mr. Daneri removed to Merced and entered the postal service under Charles Harris; from 1916 to 1918 he served as assistant postmaster and in 1919 he received his appoint- ment as postmaster, a position he has capably filled ever since. Mr. Daneri received the further distinction of being made county director of Merced County of the Government Savings under the U. S. Treas- ury Department, and during the World War was very active in this department. Always taking an active and helpful interest in public affairs, he lends his aid toward the advancement of all movements calculated to enhance the general welfare.
On April 8, 1903, Mr. Daneri married Miss Cora Belle Hamil- ton, of Wellington, Ill., who became the mother of two children, Amo and Hamilton. Mrs. Daneri died in 1915. Mr. Daneri is a member and a Past Grand of Merced Lodge No. 208, I. O. O. F .; Past Chief Patriarch of San Joaquin Encampment No. 46, I. O. O. F .; also a member of Fresno Canton, I. O. O. F .; President (March, 1925) of Yosemite Parlor No. 24, N. S. G. W., and First Vice-President of the Lions' Club of Merced.
JAMES H. SLAVAN
The life of the manager of the Atwater branch of the Merced Lumber Company has much in it that is worthy of honorable mention. The only son and eldest of three children, James H. Slavan, was born in Winnemucca, Nev., November 2, 1892, a son of James P. and Lorena (Hastings ) Slavan, born in New York and Wisconsin, respec- tively. James P. came west with his father from New York. The lat- ter engaged in the cattle business in Nevada and died there. James P. later came on to San Francisco and took up railroad work and was agent on the Southern Pacific. He afterwards engaged in the whole- sale grocery trade and died in 1916. Mrs. Slavan's father, Al. Hast- ings, was roadmaster on the Southern Pacific in Carson City, Nev. His principal work, however, was in the construction work of the Alameda Pier.
James H. Slavan was reared in Oakland and was graduated from the John C. Fremont High School in 1911. In 1913 he shipped as a sailor before the mast and served four years, receiving his certificate as pilot in May, 1917. In the meantime he worked as assistant cashier for the Santa Fe in Oakland, then went on the road as clerk to Road- master John Clendening. Later he enlisted in the U. S. Navy as
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warrant boatswain and was appointed recruiting officer. He is Past Supervisor in the West Coast Naval Reserve under Captain Castle of San Francisco. He received a commission on the U. S. S. Invincible under Captain George H. Zeh, in November, 1918, and made many trips to France. He received an honorable discharge in San Fran- cisco in 1921. He is secretary of the Board of Trade of Atwater and of the Boosters Club; is a Republican in politics and fraternally is a member of the Knights of Pythias and of Merced Lodge No. 1240. B. P.O.E.
ERNEST PAGNINI
Although a resident of Merced for comparatively a brief time, Ernest Pagnini has won a recognition as a citizen of worth and his business, located at 524 L Street, has been conducted with fair suc- cess. He came to Merced in 1920 and was associated with Mr. Boze- man in the bicycle business. One year later he became the sole owner of the establishment; he deals in all makes of bicycles and motor- cycles, and is equipped to do all kinds of repairing. A native of Italy, he was born on February 6, 1894, a son of P. and Mary Pagnini, both natives of the same country. The father brought his family to California in 1896 and settled in Merced County, where he engaged in raising raisin grapes. Both parents are now residing at Santa Cruz, retired from active business life.
Ernest Pagnini attended the public school in Merced and grew up on his father's farm. He remained with his parents until 1919, when he established a bicycle business at Madera, which he sold one year later and removed to Merced. Since 1911 Mr. Pagnini has been a professional motorcycle racer.
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