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 II > Part 44
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man who had the happy faculty of making and retaining many friends, and he continued as president of the Lucile Oil Company until his death, on March 27, 1912.
After his death Mrs. Robertson assumed the responsibilities of president, being assisted in the management of the company by her son Kenneth for two years prior to his enlistment in the Medical Department of the Eighth Infantry, U. S. A., serving over-seas and now stationed at Coblenz. The Lucile Oil Company is located on Sec. 6-21-15, comprising 100 acres of land, and at present has three producing wells.
Mr. and Mrs. James MacG. Robertson were the parents of five sons, four of whom grew up: Kenneth, a graduate of the Coalinga High School, now over-seas; James, who was accidentally killed at the age of fourteen, while out hunting; Douglas, who graduated from the Coalinga High School in 1917, and had the honor of winning the second place in the interscholastic tract meet : Frederick, also a graduate of Coalinga High School in 1917, and who held the record for pole-vaulting, and who passed away in April, 1918.
Fraternally, Mr. Robertson was a member of Coalinga Lodge of Masons, was affiliated with the Order of the Eastern Star, and was a member of the Fresno Lodge of Elks. Religiously he was reared in the Presbyterian Church, and in politics was a Progressive Republican. He was greatly interested in educational matters and was prominently identified with the work of the Coalinga School District, having served as its trustee and was active in the work of the board when the new grammar school was built. Mrs. Robertson is a member of the Baptist Church, and also a member of Eschscholtzia Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star.
RALPH M. CONE .- In the vicinity of Reedley is located the productive sixty-acre ranch owned by the firm of Dexter & Cone, of which R. M. Cone is the resident manager. This ranch is developed to a high state of production and is devoted to the growing of Thompson's seedless grapes. Mr. Cone is thoroughly conversant with the propagation and cultivation of vines and has been steadily working on his own property since 1911.
A native of Windhall, Bennington County, Vt., R. M. Cone was born on May 10, 1878, a son of Ira and Ida (Lathrop) Cone, both born there. There were six children in their family, of whom R. M. is the only one to make his home on the Pacific Coast. He received his education in the public schools of his native state, after which he worked at various tasks for some time, one of them being a coachman for Rear Admiral H. B. Robeson, U. S. N., in whose employ he remained for four years. Mr. Cone subsequently became connected with the Vermont Marble Company, the largest marble works in the world, and in time he worked his way to a foremanship, which he held for seven years, three years of this time being spent in the plant in Vermont and the balance at their branch plant in San Francisco. He worked very diligently in the interest of his company. The years following the great fire in San Francisco were busy ones for Mr. Cone and he had much to do with material reconstruction there, until he resigned to come here.
In 1911, Mr. Cone purchased an interest in the ranch where he now lives and since that date has given his entire attention to improving the place. When he located on the ranch there were but four small pepper trees on the place, an old house and a lean-to stable; now he has one of the best developed ranches in the district, all the result of his own labor. He was one of the largest alfalfa raisers in this section of the county in early days. Five crops of alfalfa were cut each season and a ready market was found for the output of the ranch. In this particular part of the work Mr. Cone proved himself an adept, as he and his crew baled as high as eighteen tons per day for others. Under the able management of Mr. Cone the ranch is fast developing into a fine dividend-payer, the soil being very productive. The fifty-seven acres now given to vines are in Thompson's seedless.
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On June 27, 1912, the marriage that united R. M, Cone with Miss Mary A. Wetherbee, was celebrated at Eugene, Ore., and they have one son, Marion. Mrs. Cone is a daughter of John F. Wetherbee and was born in Manchester, Bennington County, Vt., on December 24, 1880. She traces her ancestry back to a great-grandfather, Job Dean, who was with General Washington at Valley Forge. After Mrs. Cone had completed the grades in her home school she took a course at the Burr & Burton Seminary, a private institution in her home town. In 1897 the Wetherbee family moved to Oregon, where her father engaged in the milling business. In that state the daughter attended the University of Oregon and later grad- uated from the State Normal at Monmouth. She then took up teaching and for one year taught in the schools in Albany. Her next location was at Eugene, where she remained for five years as assistant principal, and one year in another department. For two years thereafter she was connected with the Glencoe School at Portland, as an instructor, after which she came to California. When she took up her residence in Fresno County, about sixteen months after Mr. Cone had been here, she was requested to register her life certificate in order to be available as a teacher in any grade should the exigency of the case demand. Mr. and Mrs. Cone are highly esteemed by their many friends and a delightful hospitality is dis- pensed at their home. Mr. Cone is an enthusiastic member and district correspondent in the California Associated Raisin Company.
DR. THOMAS D. SMITH .- Eminently associated with the recent development of Central California, is Dr. Thomas D. Smith, one of the pro- gressive representatives of the medical profession in the State, and a physician of exceptional experience and attainments even before he came to the Pacific Coast. He was born in Hancock County, Ohio, on November 17, 1864, the son of James P. Smith, a native of England who migrated to America during his boyhood days, with his father, Benjamin Smith. The family located awhile at Quebec, then came into the United States, to Wheeling, W. Va., and from there to Hancock County, in the Buckeye State. The father was a farmer and became well-to-do; and he lived to the ripe old age of eighty- three. James Smith had married Christina McGarry, of French and English descent, and of a prominent old family of Virginia, and to them were born four children : Irwin H., of Marion, Mich .; Anna L. Bunnell, of Mt. Blanchard, Ohio : Charles C., a physician of King Hill, Idaho; and Thomas D.
Thomas' boyhood was passed on his father's farm in Hancock County and in attending the district school, and later he went to the high school at Mt. Blanchard. He was also a student. for a year, at Wooster (Ohio) Uni- versity. Then he entered the offices of Drs. Gemmell & Mundy and studied under them ; and after that he matriculated at the Cincinnati Eclectic Medical College, where he completed the regular medical course and graduated with the Class of '92. He then took a postgraduate course in the New York Post- Graduate College, during 1892 and 1893, and during that time was on the staff of physicians of the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital. These oppor- tunities for experience and research in the metropolis of the New World, wisely improved, have contributed much to Dr. Smith's scientific knowledge and technical proficiency.
Very soon after Dr. Smith's graduation, in June, 1892, he was united in marriage to Miss Flora Williams, a member of the famous Roger Williams family, who graduated as a Doctor of Medicine from the same college, and whose life story, as his helpmate and a woman of prominence in medical, sociological and legislative circles, is given elsewhere in this work. He then came to California and practiced for a year at Yreka, Siskyou County, but returned to Cleveland where he was engaged on the medical staff of the municipality. In 1897 he went to Bremen, near South Bend, Ind., and there engaged in general practice, until 1911.
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With characteristic Kingsburg enterprise, Dr Smith, in 1915, in as- sociation with his equally ambitious wife, erected the imposing Smith Block, one of the best-arranged office buildings in the San Joaquin Valley. Besides ample suites of rooms for both Drs. Thomes D. and Flora W. Smith, it contains a dentist's office and well-equipped operating rooms, and an at- tractive reception room.
Dr. Smith still follows a general practice; and being a man of the strictest integrity and disposed to give the closest personal attention to the wants of his patients, he has been phenomenally successful and is regarded as a scholarly leader in his profession. Together with his talented wife he is prominent in Masonic circles, and at the same time, like her, never misses an opportunity to advance the public weal and to improve the health con- ditions, as well as to support, in a substantial manner, those institutions of particular value to Kingsburg and Fresno County. Among these are the California Raisin Growers' Association and the California Peach Growers' Association, in both of which he is a shareholder.
JESPER JENSEN .- A public-spirited, generous-hearted pioneer, who has been a hard worker, and through his enterprising labors has become closely and honorably identified with the history of Fresno County, so that he may justly claim with modest pride that he has helped to develop the great state in which he is an honored, patriotic citizen, Jesper Jensen is the head of a family equally as popular as himself. He came to Fresno at the beginning of the nineties, and in the fall of 1918 bought the ranch of thirteen acres which he now owns and operates on the Mill Ditch Road, one mile northeast of Selma, where he has his pretty home; and he has become, more and more, a force making for California ideals.
He was born on the island of Fyen, in Denmark, on January 15, 1858, attended the Danish public schools, and at the age of fourteen was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. His father was Jens Clausen, who had married in Denmark, Maren Jespersen; and he was a farmer doing well on a small estate. There were four children, only two of whom are now living: Anna, the widow of Lars Jorgensen, living on Maple Avenue ; and Jesper, the sub- ject of our sketch. The second in order of birth and preceding him was also named Jesper, and died a lad in Denmark; and Magdalene, the youngest, died there when she was four years old.
Jesper was the first of the family to come to America, and when twenty years of age he sailed from Copenhagen on the old Allen line, landing at Quebec in July, 1879. Without much delay, he came west to Lincoln, Placer County, Cal., where he had a niece, still living there, Mrs. Caroline Johnson, the wife of Chris Johnson, the placer miner ; and as soon as he had unpacked, he engaged to work on a farm by the month. He early got into the work of running machines for threshing; and he followed threshing for seven seasons.
The next year after reaching Placer County, Mr. Jensen sent for his parents, and for some time he had the pleasure of their companionship in his own home. Finally the father died, and then Mr. Jensen in 1890 came to Fresno and worked on various fruit and raisin ranches. In time, also, his mother breathed her last; and when he had laid away her sacred remains, he had the quiet satisfaction of knowing that he had fulfilled his duty as a son.
In 1893 he was married to Sine Petersen of Fresno, a daughter of Mai- thias Petersen, who died in Denmark, and who had married Marven Katrine Christensen who is now living at the ripe old age of eighty-two, with the Jensens. After marriage, the Jensens rented a fruit and raisin ranch in the Scandinavian Colony. Later, they rented other farms in other places, in each case assuming more responsibility and getting better and better results. Finally, he bought twenty acres on Maple Avenue, and then bought
GHBacker
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twenty more; and although he eventually sold these, he purchased as much as the two ranches combined, and that purchase constituted his very desir- able property, on Adams Avenue, four miles east of Fowler, which he sold in June, 1918. With unusual foresight, Mr. Jensen improved his land and brought it to a high state of cultivation.
Mr. and Mrs. Jensen have one child, Clarence, who is fifteen years old. They attend the Danish Lutheran Church at Selma. Mr. Jensen is active in church work and while at Easton helped to organize an Evangelical Danish Lutheran Church. He is a naturalized American citizen, glad and proud of the fact; and loyal and enthusiastically, with his good helpmate, supported the Administration and aided whenever possible in war work. Wherever the Jensens live, they are highly esteemed.
AUGUST H. BACKER .- Among the most progressive, successful and best-known viticulturists in California must be rated August H. Backer, president of the Backer Vineyard Company, in Fresno County. He was the son of Henry Hine Backer, who was born in Holland in 1824, was a sailor for years, and after his adventurous life on the ocean made safe harbor in the United States, landing from a sailing vessel in San Francisco Bay in 1849. Going at once to the mines in Sierra County, he mined for about twenty years in the placers there; but in 1877, lured by the stories he heard from those who knew about Fresno County and its possible future, he came here and located in Temperance Colony on sixty acres of land which he secured. After setting out the first vineyard on twenty acres, he went back to Sierra County to settle up some business he had left, and died there in April, 1879. Henry Hine Backer was a Mason. The mother of A. H. Backer was Augusta Busch before her marriage. She was born in Germany, came to California in 1863, married Mr. Backer in Sierra County, and contributed much to his business success as well as to his domestic happiness. She died on Septem- ber 1, 1904, the mother of six children, all of whom grew to years of maturity, namely: Lena, Mrs. Bond; Hilca, Mrs. Hagerty, now deceased; and August H., Henry H., Dora W., and George W.
August H. Backer was born in Sierra County, September 28, 1866, came to Fresno County in 1878, attended school in Temperance Colony, and later put in a year at Heald's Business College in San Francisco, graduating in 1891. He then took up general farming in partnership with his brothers, and managed the home place for ten years. He increased the vineyard from the original twenty acres to sixty acres and made of it one of the most attractive places in the neighborhood.
In 1889 the Backer family bought land in Kutner Colony. This they im- proved and lived there for ten years. The property is still owned by the Backer Vineyard Company. The present home-place of Mr. Backer consists of twenty acres of vineyard, but with his brothers he operates and owns other vineyards and grain lands. After the death of the mother, in 1904, the other members of the family incorporated the Backer Vineyard Company, of which August H. is president. The company own 120 acres in Temperance and Kutner Colonies, all in vineyard, and a tract of 800 acres of grain land north of Sanger. Mr. Backer, with his brothers, engaged in viticulture and farm- ing, buying, improving and selling lands. They owned 120 acres in the Mt. Campbell Orange Tract, near Reedley. This they set to vines and sold as well as other places they have owned from time to time. About 1910 the Backer Vineyard Company, with George Roeding, packed a car-load of em- peror table grapes in drums packed with redwood sawdust, shipped it to New York and there placed it in cold storage until the Christmas market, and then sold it. This was the first car-load lot of table grapes shipped East in this manner, and proved a success. It established a precedent that has re- sulted in the development of a business of large proportions in the state. In 1918 the Backer Vineyard Company shipped to the East twelve car-loads of emperors in sawdust. One car-load sold in Washington for $3,600. One
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car-load from Mr. Backer's home place sold in New York for $3,500. The place of twenty acres, where Mr. Backer erected a modern residence and now makes his home, has been his property for over thirty years. In 1918 the Backer brothers divided their individual property and dissolved partner- ship, and each is now operating for himself, with the exception of the Backer Vineyard Company, which is owned by all members of the family.
At Vallejo, October 21, 1894, August H. Backer and Mary A. Gee were married. She was born in England in 1869, and came to the United States with her parents. Three children blessed this union: August, a graduate from the Fresno High and the Junior College, now serving in the American Expeditionary Forces in France, as a corporal in the aviation section ; Harry, attending the Fresno High; and Irene. On July 9, 1911, Mr. Backer was bereaved of his wife, who was mourned by a large circle of friends.
Mfr. Backer is a trustee of Temperance Colony school district, and for twelve years has been clerk of the board. He is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company. His record is time-tested proof that well- directed ambition and intelligent application will bring a man large returns, especially if he be wide-awake to choose favoring conditions and a promising field for his operations.
JOHN E. EKLUND .- Aggressive and progressive, whether as me- chanic, business man or rancher, John E. Eklund never allows any grass to grow under his feet, and he has such a reputation for honesty and upright- ness that everybody regards his prosperity as something quite natural, and interest in both his romantic past and in his promising future is bound to be doubled. Active and energetic to an unusual degree, and reaping as the re- sult almost a phenomenal reward. Mr. Eklund recently did a business of $56,000 a year, and that is a matter of moment for even such a live city as Kingsburg. He is favored, too, with an accomplished wife of strong character and pleasing beauty, who shares with him a well-earned popularity for good works.
On June 2, 1880, Mr. Eklund was born at East Jutland, Sweden, the son of Carl and Emma Nicholson Peterson : the difference in names being explainable by the peculiar system of the Scandinavian people in respect to varying family names, and the fact that John E. Peterson took the name of Eklund when he entered the Swedish Army. For thirty years his father had rented a large farm, and there our subject was born and grew up, ac- customed to the raising of grain and cattle. The elder Peterson was a very hard working man, but he reared a family of nine children, the youngest dying when he was nineteen years old. Two of the sons, C. O. and David Peterson, came to America and are now farming near Kingsburg; while a daughter, Anna, is the wife of C. E. Erickson, a farmer in Tulare and Kings counties, who resides in Fresno County, and another daughter, Esther. is the wife of A. E. Gustafson, a rancher also residing in Fresno County. John E. is the third son and the fourth child born to this worthy couple.
Attending the local public schools as a boy, John, being large and strong. was early given hard work on the farm, while he was brought up according to the strict tencts of the Baptist Church. At nineteen he enlisted in the Swedish army and took the regular corporal's examination, and after doing his full duty for two years as a loyal subject of the king, he decided to come to America, drawn hither by the brothers and sisters already mentioned, who had located in Chicago. For a while he worked out on a farm in Bureau County, Ill., and then he began to learn the carpenter trade. His first posi- tion was with the McCormick Harvester Works; but the next winter he went to St. Louis and secured employment at the World's Fair, where he aided in erecting the imposing buildings.
Despite the many attractions of the East, however, especially to a me- chanic who was so rapidly demonstrating his ability, Mr. Eklund came out to California the next year, accompanied by his brother-in-law, C. E. Erickson,
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and stopped at Kingsburg. Finding an opening in Los Angeles, he went to work there for six months, and when he came back to Kingsburg, he bought forty acres in conjunction with his brother, C. O. Peterson, and he and his brother-in-law improved it. Peterson lived and worked on the place, while Mr. Eklund followed carpentering and put his earnings into the farm. Three years later, he sold his interest.
He then went to Seattle and worked as a carpenter on the Alaska, Yukon and Pacific Exposition buildings; and again he displayed as a me- chanic the original stuff that was in him. Before going north he had built a house at Kingsburg, and after returning from Seattle he traded the dwelling for an eighty-acre farm northeast of Kingsburg. Sixty acres of the land he resold, and the balance he improved to a high state of cultivation.
Pitching his tent once more in Los Angeles, Mr. Eklund entered the building trade, erecting and selling houses. He put up and disposed suc- cessfully of as many as ten houses of his own, and he also built others on contract. So well did he prosper, that he soon entered on the most im- portant of all responsibilities-marriage. Meeting in the City of the Angels one of the most attractive of Kingsburg girls, Miss Selma Danell, he took her for his wife; nor has his judgment ever served him to better advantage. She was born in Kansas, the daughter of Charles and Anna Elg Danell, both of whom are now living at Kingsburg; and with her parents she came to California when she was nine years old.
On taking up their residence at Kingsburg, Mr. and Mrs. Eklund bought thirty-five acres on the west side of the town, and there built a bungalow for their home. At the same time Mr. Eklund bought out G. Edward Damel- son, the proprietor of the Kingsburg Implement Company, the transaction taking place in 1912. He commenced to handle wagons and buggies, to sell farm implements and to do plumbing ; but later he gave up plumbing work and made a specialty of automobiles and car accessories. In this department of modern activity he became a leader. He had the Kingsburg agency for the Chevrolet and Lexington automobiles, and made many sales.
Among Mr. Eklund's land operations in which he has been particularly successful, must be mentioned the disposal of thirty-five acres that he sub- divided. He again bought more land of which he had ten acres in grain and four acres in town lots. He is a member and stockholder in both the California Raisin Association and the California Peach Association.
Mr. and Mrs. Eklund are members of the Swedish Baptist Church at Kingsburg. They have three children: Joseph Walden; Esther Margaret ; and Violet, born May 2, 1919.
Mr. Eklund purchased eighty acres of raw land, four and a half miles southeast of Kingsburg, in September, 1918. He then sold his business in Kingsburg in order to improve his land. He put down a well, installed a pumping plant and built a house. He bought an International (8-16) gaso- line tractor and operates it himself. He also owns a twenty-acre alfalfa ranch which lies one-half mile south of his eighty. He also sold his resi- dence and other city property in Kingsburg, in order to give his whole time to planting and improving this eighty-acre tract, which will be planted to raisin and table grapes, mostly Thompson's seedless.
JOHN HEIDENREICH .- A fine old German-American gentleman who turned his back on the political institutions of his native land because of his dislike of the burden of militarism, and who is loyal and true to his adopted country and especially pleased with California, in which state he has had such success that he has indeed found it "Golden," is John Heidenreich, who came to Vinland somewhat more than a decade ago. He was born in Bavaria on January 25, 1845, the son of John Heidenreich, a farmer there who was a leader in the Revolution of 1848 and died in the year following. His wife had been Margaret Betz before her marriage, and she also died in Germany, the mother of seven children, among whom John was the second youngest.
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He was brought up on a farm, attended the public schools, and in 1867 entered the German army, enlisting with the artillery and serving such time as was expected of him. When the war with France commenced in 1870, he was called out and fought until the close of the war, being wounded in the left temple, and he received an honorable discharge. Soon afterward, he decided to try his fortune in the New World; and in October, 1871, he arrived in New York and proceeded to Illinois, where he settled for three years near Elgin. Then he went farther west to Sac County, Iowa, and bought 160 acres of railroad land, which he soon improved from its raw state.
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