USA > California > Alameda County > History of Alameda County, California. Volume II > Part 49
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Oakland is fortunate in having among her most prominent men and workers one who combines the ability to be a successful educator and a forceful worker in civic affairs. Professor W. E. Gibson served two terms as president of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. While he has been making the Polytechnic famous as an educational institution and training thousands of young men and women for lives of usefulness in the business world, he has made an equally prominent mark as a leading factor in the work of various civic organizations. He has been a director of the Merchants' Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce for several years. He was elected president of the latter organization in January, 1912, and because of his successful direction of that body, he was reelected in January, 1913. At the convention of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the Pacific Coast in 1913, the record and personality of Professor Gibson so impressed the delegates that they elected him president of that coast body for that year. Governor Johnson recognized his ability by appointing him to write the official argument against the sixth amendment of the state constitution, which was before the people for con- sideration in an initiative petition. The record of Professor Gibson for good gov- ernment, honesty and efficiency in civic affairs is thoroughly appreciated and his sincerity has inspired thousands of others to believe as he does.
AUGUST H. ROSE
Peculiar honor attaches to that individual who, beginning the great struggle of life unaided, gradually overcomes the obstacles in the pathway of success and, through his own force succeeds in forging his way to the front and winning a competency and a position of respect and influence among his fellowmen. Such is the record of the gentleman whose name forms the caption of this sketch and who is deservedly numbered among the leading business men of Oakland. August H. Rose was born on a backwoods farm in Logan township, province of Ontario, Canada, February 17, 1871, and is one of a family of nine children. He had but slight opportunity for securing an education and devoted his early years to work on the home farm. When seventeen years of age he started out to earn his own livelihood and on his arrival in Detroit, Michigan, he had a friend write to his parents, as he had never learned to write. However, he was intensely ambitious and while in Detroit attended night school and, later, a business college. He also took up mechanical drawing and learned the carpenter trade in that city. He learned quickly everything to which he applied himself and in the building trade he soon became known as an expert, being put in charge of the construction of some of the buildings of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. He was still comparatively young for so important a position and was called "The Kid Boss." There now hangs on the wall of his office in Oakland a photograph, taken October
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31, 1890, showing the building he was erecting and the crew of men working under him.
In August, 1906, Mr. Rose arrived in Oakland, with forty-three dollars in his pocket, and opened a small cabinet shop and planing mill on Seventeeth street, in which he made a specialty of store furniture and fixtures, and in this venture he met with success. In recent years Mr. Rose has been engaged during a greater part of the time in making fire insurance appraisals and adjusting fire losses in various parts of the state, in which line of work he has gained an enviable reputation, being a man of clear-headed judgment and governed by a desire to be absolutely fair and honest in every transaction. He has been very successful in all of his affairs and now has under construction a beautiful residence, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars.
Mr. Rose was united in marriage to Miss Mary C. Weimar, a native of De- troit, Michigan, and they are the parents of four children, Harold W., Mrs. Ethel May Lehan, William A., who is associated with his father in business, and Dorothy Elizabeth. Mr. Rose is a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, the Sciots and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks and belongs to the Oakland Builders Exchange and the Chamber of Commerce. Candid and straightforward in manner and of forceful personality, he has won and retains an enviable place in the confidence and regard of his fellowmen wherever he is known.
FRED WALTER FOSS
Fred Walter Foss has established an enviable record as treasurer of Alameda county and belongs to that class of men who are holding public office in the interests of the people at large. He has been identified with the leading civic movements for many years and has held a public office for over twenty years. Mr. Foss was a member of the board of freeholders of Berkeley when the charter for the com- mission form of government was drafted.
He was born August 1, 1871 in Linn county, Missouri. His father, Martin Foss, was a native of Maine, having been born September 9, 1840, in the town of Marshfield. In 1863, he yielded to the lure of the west and lived for four years in Washington. In 1867 he came to San Francisco, California, and later made a trip to the east. He spent a few years in the Pine Tree state and then migrated to Missouri where he was married to Evelyn C. Seavey. She was born November 22, 1847, in Whitneyville, Maine, and died in July, 1888.
Mr. Foss received his education in the public schools of San Francisco. Select- ing lumber as his business, he organized the F. W. Foss Lumber Company. The Hogan-Foss Lumber Company is now the successor, with Mr. Foss as president.
In 1908 Mr. Foss became a member of the board of supervisors, on which he represented the fourth district of Alameda county. In 1918 he was elected to the office of county treasurer. For the past ten years he has been the treasurer of this county, discharging his duties with characteristic efficiency and fidelity.
In 1893 Mr. Foss was joined in marriage with Anna Minerva Renwick, who was born July 27, 1870, in Allegany county, New York, and was called away
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January 1, 1910. Of that union were five children: Fred Walter Jr., William Renwick, Lulu Renwick, who is the wife of William C. Peck, Anita Lorraine, and Elmer Renwick. In 1912 Mr. Foss married Vida M. Vervalin.
With the declaration of war against Germany, William R. Foss voluntarily enlisted in the United States Army and served for over two years, seven months being spent in France. He joined the American Legion and in 1924 was made commander of his Post. As chief deputy treasurer he assists his father in safe- guarding the funds of the county. In 1919 he married Dorothy Wellendorf of Berkeley. They have one daughter, Geraldine Ann.
A republican of progressive views, Fred W. Foss was made president of the Berkeley Unit of the Lincoln-Roosevelt League. He was the first president of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Foss has held office in numerous fra- ternal organizations. He is a member of the Woodmen of the World, the Inde- pendent Order of Odd Fellows, the Royal Order of Moose and the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason.
Worthy motives and high principles have actuated Mr. Foss at all points in his career. Of a frank, genial and winning personality, he has drawn to him a wide circle of loyal friends.
ALFRED W. SCHNECK
Alfred W. Schneck, of Oakland, who enjoys a wide reputation as a builder of real homes, in which business he has been very successful, is deserving of great credit for what he has accomplished, for he began in humble circumstances and had to work hard and persistently in order to get a start in life. His prosperity has been honorably earned and he stands today among the respected and influential business men of the East Bay district. Mr. Schneck was born in Menomonie, Wis- consin, on the 16th of August, 1890, and is the second in order of birth of the eleven children born to his parents. He received his education in his home neigh- borhood, attending a German school for six years and English schools for four years. At the early age of eight years he began to work, helping to support the family, and at the age of fourteen years he was doing a man's work. Determined to make his own way in the world, he ran away from home, walking nine miles to a railroad, on which he paid thirty-two cents for a ticket to Eau Claire, Wis- consin. There he secured work in a furniture factory, for which he was paid one dollar a day, and afterwards worked in Dell's paper mill as a screen tender for one dollar and a quarter a day. During 1907-8 he was at Cuderan, Wisconsin, where he was employed as second cook in a logging camp, working from four o'clock in the morning until eleven o'clock at night, in order to feed ninety men, for which labor he received thirty-five dollars a month. Returning to Eau Claire, he established a laundry, which he ran for three years, and then sold. In 1913 Mr. Schneck went to Los Angeles, California, where he ob- tained work in the Excelsior laundry, remaining there until 1914, when he went to San Francisco. His first work there was with the Mercury Automo- bile Company, on Golden Gate avenue, where he was employed in repairing and painted sight-seeing busses. Later he came to Oakland and for five years
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was employed as a conductor on the Key Route system. He then learned the carpenter trade with Barrett & Sheely, after which he engaged in contracting and building on his own account. His record from that time to the present has been one of continuous activity in that line, for he early established a reputation for honest work and square dealing, and he has erected many attractive homes and apartment buildings throughout the East Bay district, having had as many as eighteen houses under construction at one time. He employs an average of forty men and among the many structures erected by him are the fine homes of J. M. Evans, F. A. Marshall, L. C. Smith and A. A. Steele, an apartment house for F. J. Mountain, a flat for M. J. Steele, and the brick building for the American Trust Company Bank at Seventy-third avenue and East Fourteenth street. He is painstaking and thorough, taking a justifiable pride in the high quality of his work, and has been found absolutely dependable under all circumstances.
Mr. Schneck was united in marriage to Miss Dorothy Tickell, a native of Kansas, and they are the parents of two sons, Curtis David, who is ten years of age, and John Alfred, three years old. Mr. Schneck is a member of Fellowship Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and is an extremely popular member of the circles in which he moves, while throughout the community in which he lives he is held in high esteem for his splendid personal qualities and his business ability.
HARRY C. SMITH
The health of the people of a community is very largely dependent on the purity of its food supply, and the position of food and market inspector is one of the utmost importance. This office in Oakland is held by Harry C. Smith, who during the ten years that he has been at the head of the department has practically reorganized it and has maintained its efficiency at a standard which has enabled ·it to function properly at a minimum of expense and effort. Mr. Smith was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on the 9th of March, 1882, and is a son of David T. and Elizabeth (Clark) Smith, both of whom are deceased.
Harry C. Smith received his education in the public schools and manual training schools, and at the age of eighteen years engaged in the insurance business. He came to Oakland, California, in 1905, and has lived here continuously since. In 1917 he was made chief food and market inspector of this city, at which time the department was poorly organized and its duties but indifferently performed. Mr. Smith at once undertook to perfect an organization along the latest scientific lines, doing away with much former duplication of effort, curtailing the force about one- half, and making the department self-sustaining. He has thirty men under his supervision, all of whom are reliable and trustworthy, and the character and quality of the food and the methods of handling it are kept under constant inspection. With a proper appreciation of the importance of the work in which he and his men are engaged, they are doing a most effective service, greatly appreciated by the people of the city.
Mr. Smith was united in marriage to Miss Stella English, a native of Pennsyl- vania, and they have three children, Grace, Robert and Jane. Mr. Smith is a Mason
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and has taken the fourteenth degree of the Scottish Rite. He also belongs to the Greater Oakland Club. He served as a member of the First Philadelphia Reserves, and from 1898 to 1905 was a member of Company F, First Regiment Pennsylvania National Guard. Mr. Smith is a lover of outdoor recreation, trout and bass fishing being his favorite diversion. He has been indefatigable in his official duties, keeping in mind always the public welfare, and throughout the city is held in high esteem.
MRS. NANNIE S. KRAMER
Endowed with executive power and animated by a spirit of broad humanitarian- ism, Mrs. (P. J.) Nannie S. Kramer has become a strong force for moral, educa- tional and civic progress in Oakland, and her ability and achievements have placed her with California's foremost women. She was born in St. Peter, Minnesota, a daughter of Alexander and Marie (Matson) Brown. Her father, who was stone mason by trade, came to California to assist in the building of Stanford University. On November 3, 1921, he was called to his final rest and is survived by Mrs. Brown, who still resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Their daughter, Nannie S. Brown, attended the public schools of St. Peter, Minnesota, and in 1898 was graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College. For five years she was engaged in educational work in that state, teaching in Balaton, Win- throp and Sacred Heart, and in 1905 came to San Francisco, California. On May 9, 1906, she was married to Peter J. Kramer, who was born February 20, 1880, in Cleveland, Ohio, and is superintendent of the Pacific Pipe Company of Oakland and San Francisco. They are the parents of a son, Lloyd, who was born November 9, 1907.
Mrs. Kramer's first work in the field of public service was in connection with the Washington Parent-Teacher Association of which she was chosen president in 1918. In the following year she was made recording secretary of the second district Parent-Teacher Association and in 1919 was called to the presidency of the Oakland Federation of Parent-Teacher Associations, which she represented in that capacity for two years. It was during that period that she started nutrition work in the Oakland schools, a movement that has since proven of great benefit to pupils. Her deep interest in and understanding of children led to her appointment as chairman of the juvenile court in 1918, a position for which she proved equally well qualified. As one of the partners of the Junior Red Cross Shop she was the means of keeping it open, using the money for the promotion of child health, and she secured for the organization five thousand members, the largest in the district. In 1923 she became a member of the Oakland board of education, and the record which she made led to her reelection in May, 1927, for another term of four years. In 1923 as state finance chairman of the California Congress of Mothers, she created the state scholarship loan department, for which the commonwealth has set aside the sum of fifteen hundred dollars a year. This fund is used to aid ten deserving students to secure a college education, the money being loaned without interest, and when they have acquired an earning capacity it is returned to the state. Mrs.
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Kramer is now chairman of the state scholarship loan fund, which has long passed the experimental stage, and she trusts that in time this will become a revolving fund.
In local club circles she has long been prominent and in 1925 was chairman of the finance committee of the Oakland Federation of Women's Club. On October 27, 1925, she called the first meeting to organize the Women's City Club and was one of the four organizers of that club which now has three thousand mem- bers. On October 12, 1927, work was started on their six-story building at the corner of Fourteenth and Alice streets, which will contain six shops, seventy-five rooms for business and professional women, these having already been rented. Other features of the structure will be a public auditorium seating one thousand persons, a fine swimming pool and an up-to-date gymnasium. The building will cost approximately five hundred thousand dollars and the rooms and shops will be ready for occupancy in September, 1928. When chairman of the finance committee of Parent-Teacher Association it was brought to her attention that women had no meeting place in Oakland but the Y. W. C. A. building. Then it was that she called the first meeting of women in various organizations throughout the city to organize a club for the purpose of erecting and maintaining a building to be used for all women's activities, and from this has grown the above building.
She was appointed membership chairman of the Women's City Club and after two years of effort her work was crowned with success. Mrs. Kramer takes deep interest in religious affairs, and has been an active worker in Sunday school and church organizations. While she works towards high ideals, her methods are practical, and every public activity which merited her interest has become an achievement. Mrs. Kramer has generously given her services for the general good, and her record proves that women are becoming as great a factor as men in civic advancement.
WALTER E. CULVER
The Piedmont fire department has made an enviable record under the direction of its chief, Walter E. Culver, who has gained wide recognition as an unusually capable and efficient department head. Mr. Culver was born in Jefferson City, Montana, on the 11th of November, 1887, and secured his education in the public schools of Boise, Idaho, where he graduated from high school. On April 7th, 1907, he became connected with the fire department of that city, and has followed that line of work to the present time, a period of twenty-one years. After nine years with the Boise department, he came to Berkeley, California, where he at once entered the fire department, and on November 15th of that year joined the Piedmont department as assistant chief. On January 1, 1927, he was appointed chief of the department, in which position he is still serving. In the department there are sixteen men and the equipment consists of two pumps, one service truck and one combina- tion chemical wagon. The Piedmont district has a remarkable record in relation to its fire loss, and in 1921 won the Thomas Ince silver cup for having the smallest loss per capita of any city in the United States. Its loss by fire was only seven
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hundred and forty-two dollars, against a property valuation of fifteen million dollars. Mr. Culver is cool and fearless in the face of the most difficult conditions, has shown excellent judgment in combatting fires and commands the confidence of his men, who respect and admire him for his fine record.
Mr. Culver was united in marriage to Miss Frances K. Branson, who is a native of Idaho and they are the parents of two children : Frances F. and Forest W. Mr. Culver is a member of Piedmont Lodge, No. 521, F. & A. M., at Oakland; the California Fire Chiefs Association ; the State Firemen's Association and the Inter- national Fire Protection Association, and is also secretary of the Pacific Coast Association of Fire Chiefs. He has shown a deep interest in everything relating to the public welfare and because of his splendid personal qualities is deservedly popular throughout his community.
THE BESSIE J. WOOD COMPANY
In the last few decades women have invaded and successfully maintained their position in fields of effort formerly monopolized by men, but in the undertaking business for some reason comparatively few women are to be found. Bessie J. Wood, of Oakland, is the pioneer of her sex to take up funeral directing as a profession in the Bay district, and probably in the state, and her success in this line has been so outstanding as to be well worthy of specific mention, the Bessie J. Wood Company having one of the leading undertaking establishments in Oakland. Bessie J. Wood was born in Vacaville, Solano county, California, on the 9th of February, 1877, and is a daughter of a Baptist minister. She attended the public schools and shortly after graduating from the Fresno high school came to East Oakland and began her business career. On February 1, 1897, when not yet twenty years old, she bought a half interest in the undertaking business of J. L. Maynard, for which she paid two hundred dollars, raising the money on a note. Their first place of business was in a small frame store building at East Fourteenth and Twenty-third avenues, for which they paid a rental of ten dollars a month. After a time Bessie Wood purchased her partner's interest and a little later Grant D. Miller became her partner. Soon they began shipping caskets to Alaska where Mr. Miller went during the gold rush. He remained at Nome for a year while Miss Wood conducted the business here. Her partner then returned and they were in business together until 1908. The business steadily increased, necessitating more room, and they moved to 1128 Twenty-third avenue, where the rented a seven-room flat and storeroom for twenty-eight dollars a month. In 1908 Bessie J. Wood, anx- ious to move into the downtown business center of Oakland, secured quarters at Twentieth street and Broadway, built especially for her use, the rent of which was one hundred dollars a month, but the business soon outgrew that place and her next move was to a much larger place on Williams street and Telegraph avenue, where she remained eight years. Five years ago she and her husband, Arthur E. Gustason, occupied the present building at 2850 Telegraph avenue, which they purchased and arranged to meet the needs of the business, and they now have commodius and well equipped quarters, well adapted to take care of the business, which has enjoyed
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a steady and continuous growth. Mrs. Gustason devotes her attention to the business management and other duties, and is painstaking and thoughtful in caring for the needs and the comfort of those who require her services. For seven years she was secretary of the state board of embalmers and was the author of a bill, which was passed by the state legislature, for the licensing of embalmers. At the time forty-seven men were killed in a mine at Jackson, Amador county, she identified the bodies, a gruesome task, but a necessary one. She belongs to the National Selected Morticians Association and for a number of years was the only woman member of that organization. She has attended a number of its conventions and conducted a morning session before the convention at Washington, D. C., in 1926.
In 1920 Bessie J. Wood became the wife of Arthur E. Gustason, a civil engineer by profession, who served in the Sixty-second Coast Artillery during the World war, and who is now managing the undertaking business. They own a walnut ranch near Stockton, in the San Joaquin valley. Though her business has made heavy demands on her time, Mrs. Gustason has taken a deep interest in the club, social and civic affairs of her community, in which she has been an active figure. She was one of the organizers of the Professional and Business Women's Club of Oakland, of which she was president when the lot for the club building was purchased, at a cost of thirty thousand dollars. She has served as chairman of the civics department of the District Federation of Women's Clubs, which includes four counties. She has served as a director of the Oakland Woman's Club and the Woman's City Club and is a member of the Order of the Eastern Star. In her political views she is a progressive republican and is well informed on the leading questions and issues of the day. Her splendid business record, her attractive personality and her tactful and friendly manner have combined to gain for her the confidence and respect of the entire community and the admiration of a large circle of warm and loyal friends.
DAVID N. EDWARDS
David N. Edwards, best known among his friends as "Nat" is numbered among the active and successful business men of Alameda county, being president and manager of The Oakland Planing Mill, Inc., as well as being identified with several other enterprises in the community.
Mr. Edwards was born in San Francisco, California, May 25, 1890, and is a son of David L. and Sarah (Taggart) Edwards. The father came to California in 1886, meeting Miss Taggart in San Diego, and a year later being married in San Francisco. For twenty-five years he was employed at the Zenith Planing Mill but is now deceased.
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