History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I, Part 154

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I > Part 154

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Washington's Birthday, 1856, was the festive natal day of Mr. Huddles- ton, who was born in Harrison County, Mo., near Bethany, the county seat, the son of John and Harriet (Babbitt) Huddleston. The former was born in Knox County, Tenn., and came to Missouri with an uncle, David Buck, thereafter following farming ; while Mrs. Huddleston was a native of Illinois. Both, therefore, were very early settlers of Harrison County. In 1851, MIr. Huddleston came out to California, leaving his family in Missouri; but after mining for thirteen months, he went back with a train of horses, and a year later, having been taken with pneumonia, he died there.

C. B. Huddleston was only three and a half years old when his mother was left a widow with five children, he being the fourth youngest, and the only boy. When he was six his mother married again and seven years later

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she died. All the schooling that he obtained was secured while he was work- ing nights and mornings for his board in the winter time after the war. There were no schools during war-time in his neighborhood, but the district was subject to jayhawking and bushwhacking. Most of his knowledge, there- fore, has been obtained since he was grown, by wide reading; but he is at present a very well-informed man. After the death of his mother, Mr. Hud- dleston had no home, and then he worked out by the month on farms, until he was twenty, when he began to rent Missouri land.

At the age of twenty-five, and while he was still in the Iron State, Mr. Huddleston was married to Miss Mary M. Reed, the accomplished daughter of S. B. and Parmelia (Shackleford) Reed, and a sister of David Reed, the enterprising flour and feed man in Kingsburg. The only one of the family now living, Mr. Huddleston was exceedingly fortunate in his marriage, and has thus been able to perpetuate the family name with honor and happiness. With Mr. Huddleston, a half-brother came to California, but he went back to Missouri after ten months, and is still living there.

It was on March 3, 1898, that the expectant party alighted from the cars at Traver, where they lived a month, when they moved to Kingsburg. In 1903, Mr. Huddleston bought forty acres, his first investment in California land, near the place where he now lives in the Eschol school district. By hard work, he soon transformed the acreage, and it has more than once been remarked that whatever C. B. Huddleston had to do with, prospered. He owns forty-four acres of well-improved land three and a half miles south- west of Kingsburg, and has twenty-five acres in peaches, eight acres in Thompson seedless, and the balance in alfalfa.

Mr. and Mrs. Huddleston have become the parents of six children, all of whom have done well: John S. is a rancher in the Eschol district, and married Myra Beaver, by whom he has had six children-Francis, Bernice, Vernal, Raymond, Clyde, and Forest. Gertrude is the wife of Hubert Rat- liff, a farmer in the Laguna de Tache grant; and she has five children-Mar- garet. Rawlston, Max, Charles, and the baby. Myrtle married A. T. Brewer. the wide-awake butcher at Kingsburg, and she is the mother of five children- Bonna, Morgan, Lynn, Dale, and Dante. Iva is the wife of Hugh Clark, Mr. Brewer's partner in the meat market. and they have one child, Fav. Claire Franklin is at home, and Hugh, seventeen years old, is a student at the Kings- burg high school. The family belongs to the Methodist Episcopal Church at Kingsburg.

Mr. Huddleston has always been public-spirited, and anxious to do his full civic duty ; he has served sixteen years as a member of the board of education of the Eschol school district, and has served in trial and other jury work.

FRANK D. ROSENDAHL .- Not without reason was it that Frank D. Rosendahl, popularly known as Judge Rosendahl, enjoyed the highest favor and goodwill of the largest number of his fellowcitizens, for he was not only the pioneer of all the Swedes who came to Kingsburg, but he encouraged hundreds of others to settle here, and so gave a tremendous impetus to the town along the best and most permanent lines. He himself first saw the light of day in Sweden, having been born there on June 5, 1843, a son of Henry Rosendahl, who came to the United States in the early seventies and for a while lived in New York. The father had been an iron-maker in a rolling mill in his native country, and that line of work he followed on coming to America. In the middle seventies he moved west to California and until his death, which occurred in 1890, he shared the home of his son who came with him via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco in 1875. The companion of his joys and sorrows, whose maiden name was Elizabeth Erickson, whom he had married in Sweden, died there, the mother of two sons and three daughters, of whom our subject was the eldest.

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Frank Rosendahl attended the excellent common schools of Sweden, then went to college, and topped off with the study of landscape gardening at the Rosendahl College in Stockholm, where he also mastered surveying. In 1868 he was engaged to lay out the city part of Umeo, Sweden ; and in the same year he crossed the ocean to New York, where he was employed in Central Park and remained for seven years as division gardener.

In 1875 he came to San Francisco as gardener in Golden Gate Park, which was then being laid out, and a year later embarked in the nursery bus- iness at Oakland. His success was so marked that it was only a logical step for him to move to Fresno, in 1878, and engage in the raising of fruit in Washington Colony. Later Mr. Rosendahl traded this ranch for 140 acres in the Kingsburg Colony, and there he followed the nursery business until 1900, when his son, Henry Rosendahl, assumed the direction of the work. In the meantime, Mr. Rosendahl transacted more or less business in real estate, from 1885 handling all kinds of property and giving his best efforts in par- ticular to the colonization of Kingsburg. In this he was very successful, bring- ing here his fellowcountrymen and others, so that he is gratefully remem- bered by all who knew him for unselfish qualities of character that had their bearing on the happiness of thousands of lives.

While in Sweden, Mr. Rosendahl was married to Hannah Elizabeth Wick- man, a native of that beautiful country, and they became the parents of several children : Frank T. is a rancher in the vicinity of Bakersfield: Henry was a nurseryman of Turlock and is now a rancher at Kingsburg ; Fannie and Edith are teachers at Fresno, and Fannie served as County School Superintendent of Fresno County for eight or nine years; and Florence, who taught at San Jose. In fraternal life, Mr. Rosendahl was a member of the Independent Or- der of Foresters, having been active in the lodge at Kingsburg. Miss Fannie Rosendahl has become prominent in the educational world as Assistant Su- perintendent of Schools for Fresno County, and her sisters, Edith and Flor- ence, live with her in Fresno.

For many years a stanch and energetic Republican, Mr. Rosendahl not only served in the councils of the party, but for years was Justice of the Peace. His record as a magistrate was in the highest degree creditable, and has be- come to his descendants a precious heritage. Mr. Rosendahl died on August 26, 1915, and his remains were interred in the cemetery at Fresno.

WALTER WILSON DUKE .- A popular business man whose success is due to his high ideals and standards of conduct, is Walter Wilson Duke, a native of Missouri, born near Carrollton, August 28. 1870. His father, \V. H. Duke, was a Kentuckian, and his mother, who was Elizabeth Lester before her marriage, came from Tennessee. This fusion of some of the finest of Southern blood was bound to tell, and Walter W. started life with physical and mental force such as would spell attainment and prosperity. His father moved to Missouri and farmed there, and when he left the Iron State, he received the farewells and best wishes of many who deeply regretted his going ; it was in 1876 that Mr. Duke's course lay across the broad continent to the northwest and Oregon. At Lakeview, in Lake County, he at last pitched his tent, and as a farmer and stockman, won success for himself and pointed the way for others to follow, and there he died, honored by all who knew him. One might very well find in just such lives as that of W. H. Duke and his faithful wife the entire story of the conquering of a vast continent by the Eastern pioneer. The oldest of their four children, Walter W. was brought up at Lakeview, and there attended the public school. He learned farming, and with a boy's enthusiasm, he rode the range. His experiences were not always pleasant, nor were his tasks light, but he proved what was in him, and prepared himself for the real tussle with the world.

When he was twenty-one, Mr. Duke engaged in farming for himself in Lake County, Ore., and in 1898 he moved to Modoc County, Cal. At Davis

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Creek he managed the Davis Creek hotel; and he soon engaged in the raising of sheep, cattle, horses and hogs. He leased a ranch of about 1,000 acres, and for ten years was one of the most successful ranchmen. In 1908, he sold out and went to San Francisco; and a year later, he came to Kerman, where he bought a farm, and for three years raised alfalfa. Later he established his general merchandise store, at first in a small building a block below his pres- ent site. His stock was not large, but his business acumen, his straightfor- wardness, and his desire to be of service to his patrons, enabled him to do a good business from the start.

In January, 1915, Mr. Duke bought his present site and erected a re- inforced concrete structure, forty-five by eighty feet, affording two large stores, and his business has grown until the Duke establishment is noted for the completeness and quality of stock handled. Mr. Duke is active in the Merchants Association of Kerman and was one of the organizers and a char- ter member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a live wire in all that will advance the community or benefit the State. Loyal to the principles of the Democratic party, he is non-partisan in local issues.

Mrs. Duke before her marriage on April 19, 1915, was a popular Min- neapolis maiden, Katherine R. de Harven, and she came of good old French stock. Their one child is named Walter de Harven Duke. Mrs. Duke attends the Episcopal Church.

MISS JULIA ELLEN FLEMING .- The appearance of woman in the modern business world is not such a commonplace event that one does not wonder a little when they succeed, amid the sharpest of competition : and when that success is so apparent and undeniable, as in the case of Miss Julia Ellen Fleming, admiration is added to the surprise, and the whole world, so to speak, is ready good-naturedlv to doff its hat. What is delightful about the whole affair is that Miss Fleming bears her laurels just like any other mortal, looking upon her success as natural enough.

A native of Fresno, of which thriving California city she is always proud, Miss Fleming is the daughter of Russell Harrison Fleming, one of the well- known pioneers of Central California and a member of a sturdy family reach- ing back through our early Colonial history to historic old Ireland. Her grandfather, John Fleming, came from the North of Ireland and served in the War of 1812; and later he died in Pennsylvania at the hearty age of sixty- five. Her grandmother, on the other hand, a native of Massachusetts and An- nie Karle by her maiden name, lived to be almost one hundred years old. In Mariposa County, at the beginning of the troubled year of 1863, Russell Flem- ing married Elizabeth Dorgan, who had come to the United States when she was a child, and had lost all trace of her Cork near of kin. Mr. Fleming en- gaged in farming, mining, staging and the livery business, and thus had a busy and varied career ; but he provided well for his family, and this may have been one of the most important early influences or conditions making for Miss Julia's success.

Educated at both the public grammar and high schools, where she was equipped for office work of an expert character, Miss Fleming in 1900 engaged with W. T. Mattingly, and later entered the service of Smith & Ostrander, attorneys. Having by that time made for herself a reputation for ability and fidelity that commenced to create a demand for her services, she accepted a position of responsibility with the Shepard Teague Company, and with that concern remained nine years. She was also for four years with the Shepherd- Cochrane Company of Fresno and on September 1, 1915, she established a business for herself. How well the public has responded with confidence in her judgment and conscientiousness may be seen from the fact that Miss Fleming is now energetically representing several of the leading companies of the entire country. Among these are the New Hampshire Fire Insurance

Julia Ellen Fleming

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Company, The Boston Insurance Company, dealing in automobile insurance ; the Home Fire and Marine Insurance Company ; The United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company ; The Massachusetts Bonding and Insurance Com- pany, the last two named being casualty and bonding companies. In her reaching out after a just share of the local trade, Miss Fleming is rated one of the most energetic and attaining agents in the State. She also handles employers' liability insurance, and all other kinds of insurance, except lite insurance, and is also a Notary Public. But Miss Fleming is more than a mere business woman, or one who participates in ordinary social affairs. She has a broader view of her obligation to society, takes a live interest in public issues, and so, while pushing trade and advancing the commercial prosperity of Fresno, she never neglects an opportunity to render civic service where she can. At this time of tremendous stress in particular, when women more than ever are finding their right place and coming to their own, Miss Fleming is doing her duty, modestly but faithfully, to enable Fresno to take the place she should in the columns of the nation.

CHARLES STRID .- For over thirty years a resident of the Kingsburg Colony, and one of its successful ranchers, Charles Strid is a worthy example of a self-made man who, after years of hard toil and continuous struggle, became the owner of a twenty-acre ranch in this prosperous section of Fresno County.

Charles Strid was born on August 21, 1866, at Nykroppa, Sweden, a son of Erik and Annie ( Peterson) Strid. The father was an iron-miner and died in Sweden when about sixty years of age; the mother came to America in 1898, accompanied by her youngest son, Victor, and settled in the Kings- burg Colony where she passed away at the age of seventy-one. Mr. and Mrs. Erik Strid were the parents of ten children, nine grew up, and two were killed accidentally in the iron mines of Sweden-Anders, at the age of thirteen, and Gustav, who was twenty-seven and married, and who left a widow and one son, Anders Strid, who is now a rancher in the Kingsburg Colony. Emma came with her mother to America in 1898 and is now living in Oakland.

Charles Strid. the subject of this sketch, when a mere boy of twelve, went to work in the iron mines alongside of his father, and when fifteen he was able to do as much work as a grown man, continuing this hard work until he was twenty years of age. In 1886 he left his native land for the United States of America, settling at first at Ishpeming, Mich., where he worked in the iron mines for one year. Hearing about the wonderful oppor- tunities in California and learning that Andrew Erickson, the present mayor of Kingsburg and pioneer settler, was located at Kingsburg, Charles Strid resolved to migrate to the Golden State, and accompanied by his oldest brother, Erik, he came to Kingsburg, arriving August 12, 1887. He was so favorably impressed with the country and its future prospects that upon the third day in Fresno County he purchased his present ranch of twenty acres, on credit, paying sixty-five dollars per acre and nine per cent. interest. With the aid of his brother Erik, he planted, during the first spring, two acres to muscat grapes, and afterwards worked out for one dollar per day to make living expenses. Four years later he planted eight acres more to muscat vines. After a long and hard struggle and many privations, Mr. Strid suc- ceeded in paying for his ranch and becoming the owner of a home and twenty acres of valuable land. Five acres were planted to peaches and apri- cots but after about eighteen years the trees were not as profitable as in former years, so they were grubbed out and during the season of 1917-18 this five-acre tract was replanted to vines. In addition to his vineyard, Mr. Strid has improved his place with a house, barn and pumping-plant.

In 1906, Charles Strid was united in marriage with Miss Sophia Carlson, a native of Sweden, born at Westrejotland, a daughter of Carl and Anna 62

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(Larson) Peterson; her father died when Sophia was six, and her mother passed away when she was nine years of age. Mrs. Strid had two brothers, John and Anders Carlson, both of whom died in Sweden; a sister, Selma, died in infancy. While living in Sweden, Sophia Carlson, now Mrs. Charles Strid, corresponded with her cousin, Miss Selma Anderson, then a resident of Rockford, Ill., who is now Mrs. Schoenlund, of Princeton, Ill., and she be- came so interested in America that she decided to emigrate to the United States, and in 1881 she arrived at Rockford, Ill. After remaining three years in Rockford, she removed to Minneapolis, Minn., where she resided three years and a half. In 1887 Sophia Carlson migrated to California and for one vear resided at Colton, afterwards going to San Francisco and Oakland where she lived until 1906, when she married Mr. Strid and moved to the Kings- burg Colony, Fresno County.

Religiously Mrs. Strid is a member of the Baptist Church. Mr. Strid was confirmed in the Lutheran Church at the age of fourteen. He is a man of high principles, a worthy citizen of the county and is highly respected ; he is a stanch supporter of the California Raisin Growers Association. as well as an enthusiastic booster for California and Fresno County.

PETER OLSON .- Few men probably in all Fresno County receive a larger share of merited goodwill and esteem from their fellowcitizens than Peter Olson, who reached San Francisco twenty-nine years ago, came to Kingsburg four years later, and now owns, among other property, a fine bungalow residence with a brick foundation, dating from 1913, and has as a help-mate in life one of the most genial of women, and has been blessed with several worthy children. He was born near Engelholm, Skaane, Sweden, on September 19, 1857, the son of Ole Person, a farmer and bricklayer, who was married in that country to Asseneva Foss, also a Swede, by whom he had four children who grew up in that land: Carolina, who was married, in Swe- den, to Per Nilson, a farmer still active there ; Jane, the third-born, who mar- ried Miss Mary A. Johnson, and is a rancher near Kingsburg ; while Hildah. who came to America, died when she was eighteen years old.

Peter Olson, the second in the family, passed his boyhood and youth in Sweden, and when fourteen went to Halmstad and learned the baker's trade, after having had a limited schooling, which included confirmation in the state church of Sweden. Concluding his apprenticeship, he returned to Sweden, but almost immediately went to sea as a sailor, putting out from Forsom, in Norway. He sailed for Norwegian and Danish ship companies, and for six years followed the life of a sailor. He visited Iceland, Archangel (Russia) various ports of England, Scotland, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, the Mediterranean, Finland, Russia, Holland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Some of his voyages were romantic, and during one he had such a trying adventure that he was converted and resolved to lead a Christian life. He made four trips to America ; and on the fourth, while with a Norwegian sail- ing vessel from London to Quebec, he was wrecked and nearly lost his life. A monster Greenland whale struck the ship off the Newfoundland Banks, and the vessel immediately went down. All twelve of the crew took to the life-boats and were tossed about until rescued by a Rotterdam passenger boat and taken to New York City. There, unfortunately, he could get no work, so he made one more trip to Bordeaux, France, but he returned to New York the next spring, and the same April came on to Chicago. This was in 1880, and failing to secure work on the land, he shipped as a sailor on the Great Lakes.

That fall, Mr. Olson went to Minnesota and worked in the woods at Hav- iland, getting out lumber, and the next spring he began to learn the carpen- ter's trade, joining a crew of house-builders. For twelve years he continued to work as a carpenter, six in Minnesota, three in San Francisco, and three

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after he had arrived at Kingsburg, and it was only after that that he com- menced farming. So successful has he been in the latter field that for twenty- one years he has given most of his attention to ranching and the growing of fruit and curing of raisins ; and in addition he has built several houses in and about Kingsburg, sometimes building them on a speculation and selling when he found the proper buyer.

Filial devotion was strong in Mr. Olson, and when he had secured some promising work in Minnesota he sent for his father, mother and brother Jane, and for his sister Hildah, and they came to Minnesota to live. After a while, the father returned to Sweden and died there; whereupon the mother accom- panied Peter to California where she continued to reside with him until she' died six years ago, aged eighty-two.

Mr. Olson has been twice married. On November 25, 1882, at St. Paul, Minn., he was joined in wedlock to Emma Louisa Svenman, a native of Swe- den, by whom he had four children: Virginia, the wife of Ernest Greel, a rice- grower and resident of Richvale, Butte County; Esther, the wife of Fred Moraine, who resides on a ranch near Kingsburg: Wesley, unmarried, was in the army and served in England, was honorably discharged and came home January 2, 1919; and Lawrence, who was in training at Camp Kearney, and was married June 19, 1918, to Miss Clementine Francis, of Kingsburg. Mrs. Olson having died on April 21. 1909, Mr. Olson remarried on October 25, 1909, choosing as his wife Miss Nettie V. Person, a native of Skaane, who, with Mr. Olson and the family, belongs to the Swedish Methodist Church at Kings- burg, which Mr. Olson helped to build. He was, in fact, for years a member of the board of trustees.

Mr. Olson owns three places near Kingsburg, of four acres, twenty acres. and thirty acres, respectively. The tract of thirty acres belonged to the eldest son, Wesley, who was in the army, but on account of the young man's depar- ture in the service of his country, the land was deeded to his father, in trust. The youngest son, Lawrence, also owns a tract of forty acres.

CHARLES WILLARD TRABING .- The leading attorney at Kings- burg, and one of its most enterprising and honored citizens, is C. W. Trabing. the chairman of the Chamber of Commerce. He was born at Medicine Bow, Carbon County, Wyo. His father was Charles A. Trabing, a leading financier and stockman of that state, who passed away at the early age of thirty-six, his death being attributed to blood poisoning. Charles A. Trabing was born in Germany and immigrated to America when a young man. He became one of the leading men of Wyoming and with a brother owned at one time the great "T. B." (Trabing Brothers) ranch located north of Medicine Bow. Charles A. Trabing was united in marriage, at Laramie, with Miss Minnie Dykeman, of Broome County, N. Y. This union was blessed with five chil- dren: Ruth Agnes, who is now the wife of J. H. W. Jones, an orchardist residing at Watsonville; Lewis Edward, in the hardware business at Marys- ville; Charles Willard, the subject of this review; Raymond Clarence, an orchardist and carpenter and builder at Watsonville ; and Daisy, who passed away when five years of age. After her husband's demise Mrs. Trabing moved to Ogden, Utah, and later to California and lives now in Pajaro Valley, Cal.

Charles W. Trabing, was but four years of age when his father died. His early education was received in the public schools at Ogden, which was afterwards supplemented with a college education received at the University of Wyoming and Santa Clara College, near San Jose, Cal .; and he studied oil painting for six years at Hopkins Art Institute at San Francisco, also studied under William Keith, the famous landscape artist of San Francisco, and finally under Professor Grimpie of Oakland. Possessing a penchant for legal lore, he thoroughly prepared himself for the practice of that profession, and in 1910 he was admitted to practice by the Supreme Court of California,

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches 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, Volume I, Part 154

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362