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 70
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CARL LANGESCHEID .- How a foreign war may affect the destiny of an individual is shown in the story of hard work done and success attained by Carl Langescheid, the well-known viticulturist, who came to Fresno County early in the first decade of the twentieth century. He was born near Breckerfeld, in Westphalia, Germany, on December 21, 1872, and is the son of Ludwig Langescheid, a farmer there who owned his own trim farm, and who is still living in the quiet enjoyment of the community's esteem. His mother was Louise Kuekelhaus before her marriage. After years of devotion to her family, she died in Germany in her sixty-seventh year.
Carl was the youngest of the three children, and his schooling and other advantages were not neglected. When he was fourteen, he was apprenticed to a hardware merchant in Muenster, with whom he remained for four years; and later he was engaged at Bielefeld, where he became acquainted with G. Brocks, who interested him in California. He had previously planned to go to South Africa, and for that purpose had studied English ; but the Boer War breaking out, he changed his plans, and listened more attentively to the stories, almost fairy-like, of the advantages of the Golden West, and partic- ularly of the Golden State. Wishing on account of his health to get to a milder climate, and desiring in particular outdoor work, Mr. Langescheid at length determined to cross the ocean and the great American continent, and to try his fortune in California. In August, 1903, he came to Fresno and was in the employ of Mr. Brocks until fall; and then he went into the Kutner store, serving for six weeks in the implement department. It did not take long for him to understand American ways, and he made rapid progress.
In the same fall, 1903, Mr. Langescheid bought forty acres on Belmont Avenue, in the Calimyrna Colony, and set it out as a vineyard with muscatel and Malaga grape-vines, completing the work in 1904. Few, if any, vine- yards of the kind in that section made a better showing than this, the first venture of Mr. Langescheid as a viticulturist. He ran it for ten years.
In November, 1905, Mr. Langescheid was married. The ceremony oc- curred at Fresno, and the bride was Miss Lisette Brocks, a sister of Gustaf Brocks. She was a native of Enger, Germany, and made her first trip to Fresno four years before. The Langescheids soon identified themselves with the German Lutheran Church, of which Mr. Langescheid became a trustee, an office that he held for years. He was also president for a year, and secretary.
In April, 1913, Mr. Langescheid sold his property and they made a trip back to Germany and his old home. They had a most enjoyable time, and in October of the same year, parted from the scenes of their boyhood and girl- hood with natural regret, and yet with a satisfaction in the thought that they were coming back to California, and to Fresno. Five months later Mr. Lange- scheid- bought his present fine estate, the old Sanborn place, which he has operated ever since. Eight miles east of Fresno he has forty acres in vine- yard, with muscat, Emperor and wine grapes, and he also has twelve acres of alfalfa. He has thoroughly improved the place, and has a fine residence. Cooperative in spirit and ready to lend a helping hand to every project cal-
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culated to advance the commercial interests of the county, Mr. Langescheid is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
Mr. and Mrs. Langescheid are also keenly interested in anything which tends to improve the neighborhood as a place of desirable residence, and in that respect as in others, do their full duty as citizens, standing by the land of their adoption.
S. BERG .- Among the well-known citizens of Fresno County must be mentioned S. Berg, one of the best-educated of his fellow countrymen, who is owner of a ten-acre ranch two miles south of Parlier. He was born at Ribe, Denmark, on June 21, 1869, the son of Nils Christian Berg, a shoemaker there, and Anna Christine (Christianson) Berg, a native of Schleswig. Of the eight children in the parental family our subject is the eldest.
Brought up in the Danish Lutheran Church, in which he was confirmed, Mr. Berg attended both the common public schools and the Latin high school, and later, at the University of Copenhagen, he took a law course, and was ad- mitted to the practice of law. The legal field, however, attracted him but for a short time; and having learned bookkeeping before he went to the uni- versity, he became a bookkeeper at the bank at Ribe.
On November 23, 1903, Mr. Berg was married to Julia Kirstine Peter- son of Görding, Denmark, the daughter of Peter Hansen and Karen Chris- tianson who owned a good-sized farm. Mr. Hansen was a breeder of fancy horses and cattle and took several premiums for his exhibits. The parents had eleven children, and of these five girls and two boys are still living. One of the sons is Hans Christian Peterson, the well-known engineer, and to him is due the credit for Mr. and Mrs. Berg coming to America. He was foreman for the bridge-building department of the St. Louis, Minneapolis and Northern Railway, and later he became one of the construction en- gineers on the Panama Canal. Now he is farming at Hopkins, Minn.
Mr. and Mrs. Berg sailed from Copenhagen, on January 14, 1909, on the steamship C. F. Tietken, and they landed at New York on the 29th of that month. On February 2nd they reached Hopkins, Minn., and for two and a half years Mr. Berg was busy keeping the books for the Minneapolis Threshing Machine Company.
When he first came to California, Mr. Berg rented ranches near Selma ; but after some thirty months, he again took up bookkeeping, this time enter- ing the service of the Parlier Winery and the River Bend Gas and Water Company. In each engagement he gave such satisfaction that after another two and a half years he was able to secure a home and an exceptionally well-situated and equipped farm of his own.
Mr. and Mrs. Berg attend the Danish Lutheran Church and participate in its many good works for the bettering of humanity. They are generously responsive to movements for the advancement of the neighborhood, and are especially interested in the public schools.
JOHN OSLUND .- A very estimable man, who has improved a fine farm in the district where he was a pioneer, and has the distinction of being one of the developers of Vinland, is John Oslund, who came to Fresno almost at the beginning of the present eventful century. He was born in Hede, Hjemtland, Sweden, on December 26, 1851, the son of Sven Halvarson, a farmer, who died there, and Ragnhild Halvarson, the mother of two children, who also passed away in that country. John, the younger, is the only one in the United States. He was reared on a farm, during which he attended the public schools, and he early worked at lumbering. He also learned the car- penter's trade. When twenty-one, he spent two years in the Swedish army, joining the infantry ; and after additional service in lumbering, he came to the United States, in 1884.
At first Mr. Oslund settled in Grant County, Minn., where he worked as a carpenter and builder ; and then he located in Hoffman, where he advanced
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to contracting and building. He also bought eighty acres there, and by steady, progressive work made his mark in the community.
In November, 1903, Mr. Oslund came to Fresno County, accompanying the Reverend Nordstrom and others, a small but select company, of whom only three are now left. He bought his place of twenty-five acres on the San Joaquin River, then quite raw land, located on it and at once began improve- ments. He built a residence, set out a fine orchard and vineyard, and has continued there in prosperous business ever since, raising, among other su- perior fruit, Muir, Lovell and Elberta peaches. He also grows good crops of alfalfa. He is a member and stockholder in the California Peach Growers, Inc., and a member of the California Associated Raisin Company.
At Hoffman, on July 20, 1889, Mr. Oslund was married to Mary Elfberg, a native of Hjemtland, who came to Grant County in 1882 with her parents, who were early settlers of that section. She is the daughter of John C. Elf- berg, a farmer who first brought his family to Red Wing, Goodhue County, and two years later located at Hoffman, where he died. John Elfberg's wife was Karen Larson before her marriage, and she also died in Grant County, the mother of seven children, five of whom grew up. Five came to Minnesota, and Mrs. Oslund is the fourth.
Mr. and Mrs. Oslund have had four children; two died in infancy, and the others are: Josephine Eugenia, the wife of M. A. Trukken of San Fran- cisco and the mother of two children-Marjorie Eugenia and Doris Mariane; and Edgar L., who has been assisting his father in ranching, is now a ma- chinist. Mr. and Mrs. Oslund both helped to organize the Swedish Lutheran Church at Vinland and to build the handsome edifice there, and Mr. Oslund was a member of the first board of trustees; while Mrs. Oslund was Sunday School teacher when the congregation was organized and the services were held in Mr. Nordstrom's home and she was also secretary of the Ladies' Aid Society for ten years. In national politics Mr. Oslund is a Republican, al- though he supports local measures regardless of party.
ADOLPH KOPP .- A successful rancher, raisin and peach grower, who is also a public-spirited citizen, sympathetic and liberal to a fault, is Adolph Kopp, one of the stockholders in the First National Bank at Parlier. He was born at Wangen, in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, on July 6, 1873, the son of Jacob and Barbara Kopp, both of whom were born, married, lived and died in Switzerland. His father was a shoemaker, and one of the clever- est in that whole locality; but because of economic conditions the family grew up in stringent circumstances. Two children blessed this worthy couple, Adolph and Alfred, the latter living at San Jose.
Adolph was only fifteen when his father died. As he was the older boy, the brunt of the responsibility of supporting the household fell upon him, and the spring after his father's demise, he left school. His education therefore was limited to about the equivalent of a present-day California grammar-school course. At the age of nineteen he came to America, having for his destination the pleasant town of Selma, reports of which had reached across the wide ocean. There he soon hired himself out as a farm hand. He had no relatives to help him, but he managed to advance and continued thus employed for about five years, during one of which he was busy as an expert horticulturist at the Agricultural Experiment Station, at that time five miles east of Tulare- an experience that proved very valuable. After having worked out for others he began renting, and for four years leased ranch land. Then, in 1902, he bought his present ranch of forty acres. Before that time, also, in partnership with A. Blattner, to whom reference has already been made, he had rented the Miley place of 160 acres, three miles northwest of Parlier.
As soon as he was able to arrange for such an absence, Mr. Kopp made a trip back to Switzerland. He started from California before Christmas, 1902, and returned in the following May. When he came back, however, he
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was accompanied by a wife. While visiting his home town, Mr. Kopp was married to Miss Verina Pfister, a sister of Mrs. A. Blattner, whom he had known before he came to America. Now Mr. and Mrs. Kopp have three children : Ida, who is at school; Adolph, Jr., and Harold, the baby.
Mr. Kopp is now renting twenty acres besides farming his own forty acres, making sixty acres that he is keeping well tilled. He is a hard worker who has always attended very carefully to every detail of his business. He employs one man steadily, and in busy seasons he uses eight more; and he works four mules on his place. He has made numerous improvements in his property, and in 1917 started to build a commodious bungalow on his farm, which was completed in 1918. He has recently installed a four-inch centrif- ugal pump and ten-horsepower distillate engine, which he uses for irri- gation. His property is two miles northwest of Parlier, and there he and his good wife enjoy the fruits of honest toil. He has fourteen acres of peaches, thirteen and a half acres of muscats, two and a half acres of Thompson's seedless, two acres of apricots, two acres in the ditch, three and a half acres of alfalfa, and one acre of raw land, while the balance is devoted to yards and buildings.
For many years Mr. Kopp has interested himself in California history and politics, and he is keenly alive to all that has to do with the develop- ment of the state and the advancement of his home district. He is a member of the California Raisin Association, and is willing to aid every civic move- ment, and he aims to vote for principle and for the best man regardless of party. Though not members of the German Lutheran Church at Selma, Mr. Kopp helped to organize the congregation, and the family attend that church, and give it their friendly support.
SIG WINBLAD .- A native son, who has done well through becoming thoroughly posted in viticulture, and is now independent and highly re- spected, is Sig Winblad, the son of John Winblad, a native of Halmstad, Swe- den. As a boy his father was a messenger for the telegraph company; but when he became fourteen he shipped as a sailor and went off to sea. He continued to follow a mariner's life until the time of the Civil War in America, when he enlisted in the United States navy and served until the close of the great struggle. After that he resumed the ventures and adven- tures of a sailor and went round the Horn to China and the Orient, quitting the sea for good only when he decided to locate in San Francisco. There he married Mathilda Built, a native of Sweden; and after marriage continued for a time to work in a planing mill. Wishing to obtain land, however, he came to Fresno in 1881, bringing with him his family, and located in the Scandinavian Colony, where he bought and improved twenty acres. Later he purchased the present tract of twenty acres, where he made his home. He built a residence and, with the help of his son, Sig, put in a vineyard. After a while he purchased sixteen acres, and still later another twenty acres. Mrs. Winblad passed away in 1885, and Mr. Winblad in 1909, aged sixty- nine. He was widely honored as a member of the G. A. R. and as a school trustee who was conscientious in the discharge of his duty to the community. Both Mr. and Mrs. Winblad were Lutherans. Two children were born of their union: Sig V., the subject of this sketch, and Athena (now Mrs. I. E. Wilson), who resides in Glenn County.
Born at San Francisco on September 1, 1879, Sig Winblad was brought up on a farm six miles east of Fresno, where he attended the public school. After completing his education he entered the Van der Nailen School of Engineering in San Francisco and there prosecuted special studies for a year. Then he accepted a post as draughtsman at the Stockton Iron Works in Stockton, and remained in that position of responsibility for five years, finally having charge of the draughting room. About this time John Winblad, the father, wished to retire and talked of selling what he owned, and so Sig
Sig . Winblad
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decided to return home and take care of the place. Accordingly, in 1908 he came back on the ranch. He now owns the original home of thirty-six acres and twenty acres more, half a mile away, which he bought, having in all a vineyard of fifty-six acres. This is set out to Malaga, muscat, Sultana and Zinfandel grapes, the whole forming one of the attractive "show-spots" of Fresno County, and located five and a half miles east of the city. For years Mr. Winblad has been active in support of the California Associated Raisin Company and kindred raisin association movements.
In Merced Mr. Winblad was married to Miss Allein Bitzenberger, a native daughter of Missouri, who had come west to California with her par- ents; and now three promising children brighten their home-John, Harry and Virginia. As a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Winblad has served as a Re- publican trustee in the Scandinavian school district for the second term- the same school he attended when a boy-and he is also the clerk of the school board. Formerly he was a member of the Odd Fellows of Fresno.
AUGUST BLATTNER .- Residing on his well improved forty-acre ranch on the Parlier road, equally distant between Selma and Parlier, August Blattner is among the respected citizens of the favored Selma-Parlier section of Fresno County. A native of Switzerland, he was born at Reigoldsweil, Bassiland, Switzerland, February 14, 1866, and is the son of Henry and Rosa Blattner, who lived and died in the country of their nativity. The father, a small farmer, mainly engaged as a manufacturer of pure silk ribbons, never attained any great wealth. He and his good wife brought their three children up in the religious tenets of the great Protestant reformer and leader, Zwingli. The youngest of the three is August, the subject of this sketch.
Leaving his home in Switzerland in September, 1886, August Blattner sailed from Havre, France, and landed at New York City October 5, 1886, going thence to Franklin County, Ohio, where he secured work as a farm hand. For five years he was employed in tilling the soil, and at the end of that time, in 1891, came to Fresno County, Cal., where he worked as a ranch laborer for nine years, continuing this employment one year after his marriage to Miss Marie Pfister, December 5, 1899.
In 1900, Mr. Blattner went into business for himself, renting the Miley place of 160 acres, and in 1903 purchased his first piece of land, consisting of sixty acres, twenty acres of which is included in his home place. Some time afterward he sold forty acres of the original sixty and later bought twenty acres across the road, just south of his residence. In 1916 he pur- chased a second ranch of 160 acres which lies northwest of Sanger and twelve miles north of his home place. This is also highly improved and set to raisins and peaches. The two ranches are at present operated by tenants. A very attractive feature about his home place is a cement fence of beautiful symmetry and striking appearance, enclosing the front yard. Among other improvements on the place are a fine barn and other necessary outbuildings, including comfortable, well-built tenant-houses.
In 1917, Mr. Blattner rebuilt the house on the home place, transforming it into a modern country residence, and Mrs. Blattner, a devoted wife and mother, is distinguished for her success as a home-maker. She was born at Wangen, a city of about three thousand inhabitants in the Canton of Berne, Switzerland, and is a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Witche) Pfister. The father worked at various occupations, mainly that of cigarmaker, at Wangen. He died in his native country at the age of forty-two years. Her mother is sixty-seven years old. Mrs. Blattner, as a young woman, came to Fresno accompanied by her brother, John Pfister, who became a rancher and died, leaving two children. She has two brothers and two sisters living in Fresno County, namely : Gottfried, her older brother, is single; Louisa is the wife of Emil Dick, the owner of a forty-acre ranch one mile west of the Blattner ranch; and Rudolph Pfister owns forty acres two and one-half miles north-
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east of the Blattner home; and Verena is the wife of Adolph Kopp, the owner of a forty-acre ranch in the Parlier district.
Mr. and Mrs. Blattner are the parents of one child, a daughter, Martha M., who is a senior in the Selma high school. In 1911 the family made an extended visit to Europe, visiting the parents' former homes in Switzerland.
In his party affiliations Mr. Blattner is a Republican. He loyally sup- ported the Administration during the stress of the world war with Ger- many. Although German-Swiss is his native tongue, there is not the slight- est suggestion of the pro-German in him or his good wife. Their home life is ideal. They own a fine automobile and live the life of the prosperous, up-to-date Fresno County rancher.
MORTEN MORTENSEN .- A progressive, successful rancher, whose wife and family are equally highly respected, and who is the sort of colonist that Fresno County is glad to welcome, is Morten Mortensen, who came here with some means acquired for the most part in Minnesota, and he is today rated among the well-to-do hard-working agriculturists of Central California. His finely appointed ranch of twenty acres lies three miles southwest of Parlier.
He was born in Jylland, Denmark, on February 15, 1872, the son of Jacob Mortensen, who is still living in Denmark at the age of eighty-one, and was reared on his father's home-farm, from seven to fourteen years of age, attending the public schools, and, in the creed of his parents, he was confirmed in the Lutheran Church. When old enough he served in the Danish army- the experience proving so disagreeable that he resolved to come to America instead. He first secured an honorable discharge, however, and then he set sail, in 1892. He stopped at Perth Amboy, N. J., and there for six years worked in a terra cotta factory; and then, in 1898, he married. The bride was Miss Ella Hansen, a daughter of the land of his boyhood and youth, who had been in America since her fifteenth year. They removed to Staten Island, and there he found employment in the chemical department of a large factory in which dentists' tools were made.
Tiring of indoor labor, however, Mr. Mortensen came west to Dodge County, Minn., and rented 240 acres. He raised grain and live stock, and did so well that in 1909 he sold out and came to California. Mrs. Mortensen had a sister, Mrs. H. P. Hansen, living in Selma, and this helped their de- cision at that critical stage of their progress.
At first Mr. Mortensen bought ten acres west of the Walnut School- house, and later traded for his present holding, in 1910. These twenty acres he planted as follows: seven acres of peaches (Muirs, Lovells, cling-stones and nectarines), four acres of malagas, three acres of muscats, two and a half acres of seedless grapes, and half an acre of young peaches, while he has an acre of pasture, an acre of alfalfa and the balance in a dry yard with the necessary buildings. He soon placed the ranch under irrigation, and obtained results that astonished his neighbors. He is a member of the Raisin and Peach growers associations, always ready to advance the interests of the horticulturist and viticulturist.
Mr. and Mrs. Mortensen have four children: Howard works a farm of forty acres west of Fowler; Arthur works another place six miles northeast of Vitoga; Ernest attends school; and so does Gladys. The family attends the Danish Lutheran Church three miles west of Parlier, and Mr. Morten- sen belongs to the Danish Brotherhood. All have engaged heartily in Red Cross and similar war work.
Morten Mortensen is the fifth child in a family of six children, and the only one in California. A sister, Mrs. Herman Petersen, resides at Devil's Lake, N. D., and a brother, August, also successful, is in Wisconsin. All the rest are in Denmark. His beloved mother, who was Christine Jacobsen be- fore her marriage, died at the old home in Denmark, twelve years ago.
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ALBERT C. LESHER .- An excellent example of what a California boy can do is found in the case of Albert C. Lesher, the efficient, attentive and popular druggist of Fowler, who has the only drug-store in the town. He is well equipped for his responsible service to the community, having a liberal education and a technical knowledge of pharmacy obtained in part by actual work as a young man in a drug-store, and the completion of the regu- larly prescribed course in pharmacy at what is now the Pharmaceutical De- partment of the University of California. He came to Fowler immediately after his graduation, foreseeing that Fowler would be one of the important centers.
A native son, and one of the proudest, Mr. Lesher was born at Modesto, on March 29, 1886, the heir of one of Modesto's successful men, John Lesher, who died thirty-one years ago, and who was the go-ahead proprietor of the soda works in that town. Albert's mother was Catherine Block before her marriage, and she is still living, a widow, at Modesto. Four children in the family grew up, the others being: John C. and Will F., of Modesto; and Emma M., the wife of Leonard Dozier of Los Angeles.
Albert grew up in Modesto, and attended the public schools. At seven- teen he entered a Modesto drug store, and after two or three years' appren- ticeship, he matriculated in the Affiliated Colleges at San Francisco (now a part of the State University) and completed the prescribed course in phar- macy, graduating in the Class of '09. He at once came to Fowler, and has deservedly built up a good trade, and carries a well selected stock of all things to be found in an up-to-date establishment.
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