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 77
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In December, 1914. Mr. Kilby received an appointment as postmaster of Helm, and ever since he has held that office to the satisfaction of all his fellow-citizens. He is also serving as public weighmaster. He supports, as does his good wife, every desirable movement for the advancement of local interests. Besides, he is actively interested in the Pine Flat conservation project, which is likely to prove of much importance as the years go by.
Mr. Kilby was made a Mason at Kerman, and there, as throughout the county, he numbers many loyal friends. The postoffice at Helm is now under the Civil Service and has been much improved as to its serviceability since Mr. Kilby took charge.
JOHN J. STRATTON .- A fine fellow whose many friends are glad to see that he is again building up a satisfactory business despite previous re- verses, is J. J. Stratton, the viticulturist and chicken fancier who once de- veloped by hard work in the East a splendid celery farm and vegetable gar- den but had to sell out and come West on account of his wife's health. This was in 1902, and ever since he has been building and broadening as all who know his capacity would expect him to do.
He was born at New Baltimore, Stark County, Ohio, on July 27. 1869, the son of Elias Stratton, who was a farmer there and served in the 186th Ohio Regiment during the Civil War. He married Catherine Boston, a native of Ohio; and both are dead. Three children were born of this union, and all are living. Of these our subject is the second oldest and the only one in California.
Brought up in Ohio, the lad played and worked on the farm, and at the same time attended the public schools. He learned to be a farmer and a carpenter : and when he was ready for the responsibilities of life, he married Miss Nora Matti, a native of Randolph, Portage County, Ohio. Mr. Stratton followed farming, running his father's farm for a time and later specializing in celery on land of his own. He put in five thousand feet of tile under his five acres, and raised big crops of celery.
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In 1902, Mr. and Mrs. Stratton made a visit to California, then returned to Ohio. In 1906, on account of failing health of Mrs. Stratton, they sold out and started for California, stopping for two months at Colorado Springs. Disappointment with the results led him to California; and in the fall of 1906 he settled in Fresno County, near Fowler, where Mrs. Stratton died on November 15. He was in the employ of William Ruffert for eighteen months ; and meantime, in 1908, he bought this place and began the necessary im- provements.
He embarked in the poultry business in 1909, purchasing White Leg- horns and installing incubators and brooders, and raising chickens and gather- ing eggs. He set out a fine eucalyptus grove by the house and with a variety of vines, made a nice vineyard. He has twenty acres on White's Bridge Road and Hughes Avenue, and his poultry yard now has about 1,000 hens. He belongs to and vigorously supports the California Associated Raisin Company.
One child survived Mrs. Stratton-Piccola by name, until March 15, 1919, when she died. In national politics a Republican, Mr. Stratton takes keen pleasure in assisting to promote all worthy local movements, regardless of party lines.
ABRAM OLSON .- An interesting instance of an enterprising man who. having made a great success in one field, had the foresight necessary to see the still greater opportunities in another, is afforded in the life-story of Abram Olson, the well-known contractor and builder of Fresno, who bought and improved certain ranch property, and is now one of the foremost viticulturists of the vicinity. He was born in Daleslan, Sweden, in April, 1863, the son of a prosperous farmer, and was reared on a farm, while he attended the gram- mar schools in Sweden. Later, pushing out for himself according to the cus- tom of his country which encourages a lad early to get upon his feet, he be- came an expert sawyer and then a master carpenter especially familiar with lumber ; and after that, wishing to vary his experience, he took to the lakes, and for three years was a sailor.
When he was twenty-two years of age, Mr. Olson crossed the ocean and pushed west to South Dakota, where he went out on a farm at Elk Point. At the first opportunity, however-for he found agricultural conditions here very different from those in Sweden-he took up carpentry and building, and so resumed his trade. His characteristic Old World thoroughness con- tributed much to make him a very acceptable workman, and it was not long before he had established himself in the big city of St. Paul. His clever and satisfactory work, in fact, made him in demand by a power elevator company, and he had all and more than he could do helping to construct elevators. During these years he had a forty-acre farm in South Dakota, but he sold it to locate a homestead of 160 acres thirty-five miles east of Bismarck, which he improved and managed.
In the fall of 1912, Mr. Olson sold that property and located in Fresno. He took up contracting and building, and erected several bungalows for Messrs. Dodds & Orr. The next year he bought the twenty acres on Ventura Avenue soon so well identified with his name, eleven miles east of Fresno, and leveled and improved the land, put up a residence and other out-buildings, and so made it one of the really desirable ranches of the county. It is under the Fancher Creek ditch, and therefore has plenty of water, and this has proven a consideration of the first importance. He set out a fine vineyard of carefully-selected Thompson seedless and emperor grapes, and also planted figs and with each he had phenomenal success. After improving this ranch, he sold it in June, 1918, and now owns eleven acres in Roeding Villa Colonies where he resides with his family, devoting his land to viticulture. For years he has been one of the enthusiastic and hard-working members of the Cal- ifornia Associated Raisin Company.
During his pleasant days in South Dakota, Mr. Olson was married to Miss Nellie Johnson, a native of South Dakota, and the daughter of Peter
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Johnson, one of the most honored pioneers of that great commonwealth. Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Olson, and each has reflected the creditable qualities of their parents. Bernice is Mrs. McFarland of Fresno; Milford was in the United States Navy and now in the employ of the Newman Vineyard; and there are Garfield who was in the United States Army, First Army Mobile Veterinary Hospital No. 1. He served overseas, stationed at Verdun, serving until September 12, 1919, when he was mustered out at San Francisco and returned home; Electa, Madeleine and Floyd. Mr. Olson is a Lutheran while his wife was raised a Baptist and he carries on his civic work under the banners of the Republican party, while lending the most helpful support to all local movements for community improvement.
G. A. WOLFE .- One of the hustling business men of the City of Fresno is represented in the person of G. A. Wolfe, a member of the Giffen-Wolfe Agency, authorized dealers for the universal car-the Ford, in this district.
Mr. Wolfe is a native of the Buckeye State. He was born at Cleveland on April 24, 1885, the son of G. W. and Marie E. (Burch) Wolfe, both now being deceased.
The family of G. W. Wolfe moved from Cleveland to Chicago, when their son was but a child, and it was in the public schools of the "Windy City" that he received his schooling. After his schooldays were ended, young Wolfe came West to California, and in 1903 was in the employ of the Farmers Na- tional Bank of Fresno, where he held a clerkship for a year.
His next venture was in the real estate and insurance business with F. M. Chittenden, and for two years he carried on a real estate and insurance business with considerable success.
Later, Mr. Wolfe was assistant manager of the Operating Department of the California Associate'd Raisin Company, and still later, was in charge of their Insurance Department.
On August 6, 1915, Mr. Wolfe engaged in business under the firm name of Madison and Wolfe, general insurance, which was formerly owned by the F. M. Chittenden Company, and under his masterful guidance, their business became the largest in Central California. Mr. Madison finally purchased his partner's interest, and thereafter Mr. Wolfe formed the partnership with Wylie M. Giffen, as mentioned above.
They give employment to about sixty men, and thereby facilitate the sale of the Ford automobile and Fordson Tractor.
G. A. Wolfe was united in marriage with Miss Johanna M. Johnson on February 21, 1914. They have a daughter, Helen Marie Wolfe. The family attend the First Methodist Church. Mr. Wolfe is a prime member in all movements for the upbuilding of his adopted county, where he is respected and esteemed by all with whom he has business or social relations.
JAMES HENRY STRICKLIN .- An enterprising and successful farmer and dairyman who has an agreeable family that unite in extending a true west- ern hospitality, is James Henry Stricklin, who was born in Oregon City. Ore., on April 25, 1864, the son of William Stricklin, a native of Virginia, in which state he was born in 1804. He moved to Iowa and there married Elizabeth Earnest, who was born at Fort Des Moines, Iowa. In 1852 he crossed the great plains with ox teams and wagons; and passing through the Indian country, they located in Clackamas County, near Oregon City. There he took up 640 acres of land-what was allowed for man and wife- improved it and lived on it till 1874; when he sold out and moved to Eastern Oregon, settling near The Dalles, in Moscow County. He became a stockman, and died there, in 1879. At the same place his good wife passed away in 1891, the mother of nine children, only four of whom are living.
James Henry, the third youngest, when he was ten years of age accom- panied his family to The Dalles, and this migration had much to do with his limited book education. He had to travel seven miles to school, going on
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Inez L. anderson
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horseback, and so instead he early set to work on the farm. He continued at home until he was nineteen, and then he went out to work, in order to help his mother bring up the rest of the family.
At Canon City, in Grant County, in 1899, Mr. Stricklin married Miss Flora Cutting, a native of Oregon City ; and after that they settled on a farm, where he bought a claim. He homesteaded 160 acres near Canon City and went in for stock-raising; and he used his father's old brand, an X. In 1905 he came to Laton, Cal., and bought forty acres of the Laguna tract for fifty dollars per acre; he improved it for alfalfa and a fruit orchard, planted peaches and six years later sold it for $150 an acre.
He located on his present place in 1911, buying 158 acres ; on account of dry years he let some of it go back so that now he has about seventy acres. He built a residence, set out an orchard and leveled and checked the land for alfalfa. He devotes most of the land to the growing of this desirable fodder, and he carries on successfully a very sanitary, up-to-date dairy. He also leases land, and raises grain.
Three children have blessed the home life of Mr. and Mrs. Stricklin. Dorothy is the oldest; and there are Elsie and Alfred, and all are at home. Mr. Stricklin belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America. In national pol- itics he belongs to the Democratic party, and he is first, last and all the time an American.
HARVEY G. ANDERSON .- Coming to California in the middle six- ties, Harvey G. Anderson has since then been modestly but steadily en- deavoi ing to make this world a better place to live in.
Mr. Anderson was born at Dubuque, Iowa, on October 10, 1863, the son of William H. Anderson, a native of Iowa, and a grandson of William Ander- son, who was born in Alabama, and became a pioneer in Iowa. William H. Anderson grew up there a farmer, and was married in that state to Miss Jane McBride, the daughter of William McBride, who was born in Scotland, and also became a pioneer of Iowa. Mr. Anderson brought his wife and two chil- dren across the plains in 1865, by means of horses and wagons, a part of a large train of forty-seven vehicles, and they took all the summer to make the journey. He settled at Stockton and there engaged in farming, then he bought land near Waterloo, and he is still residing' there, hale and hearty, daily superintending his ranch, although at the advanced age of eighty-two years. Mrs. Anderson died in 1880, the mother of two children, of whom our subject is the older. Alice is now Mrs. William Thrush and lives on the old home ranch.
Harvey Anderson was brought up on a farm and educated at the public schools. From a young man, however, he was interested in oil, and he was impelled by a great desire to get to the oil-fields; so, about 1880, when he was seventeen, he went to Pennsylvania, and at Bradford, an oil center, he learned the oil business. Then he went to Bowling Green, Ohio, and after four years returned to California when the development in oil was just beginning in the Los Angeles field.
Reaching Santa Paula and finding that everything was quiet in the oil- fields, he turned to drilling water wells, and as a contractor he operated with great success in Kern, Tulare and Santa Barbara counties. He had a shop in Tulare where he manufactured stove-pipe casing used in casing the water- wells, and he met with such success that he made that town his headquarters for four years. He was ready, therefore, to take advantage of the opening of the Kern River oil-fields, and going in there early, contracted to drill. He was given an important contract by the 33 Oil Company, and drilled for them their second well in the Kern River field.
After a year, Mr. Anderson joined others, bought 120 acres, and striking oil, they put down seven wells. He superintended these until the tract was sold, and in 1905 he came to Coalinga as superintendent of this same prop-
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erty, for the Esperanza Oil Company. At that time they had only three wells, but he continued to drill and he put down thirteen more. About 1913, the company was bought by the General Petroleum Company, and he continued as superintendent. The average depth of the wells is from 1,200 to 1,700 feet, and the lease is 170 acres. Aside from this responsibility, Mr. Anderson has another, that of the superintendency of the Ophir Oil Company, which has two producing wells; the superintendency of the Ozark Oil Company, which has five wells, and the superintendency of the Coalinga National Oil Com- pany and the Minoru Oil Company. He was interested in and was one of the organizers of the Pilot Oil Company, in which he is a vice-president and a director. They have sixty acres in Sec. 12-20-14, where seven wells are producing. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Chamber of Mining and Oil in Los Angeles, and is a director in the First National Bank of Coalinga. He is an organizer and director in the Esmeralda Mining Company which owns and operates a quicksilver mine adjoining the New Idra. The company has a mountain of cinnabar ore and has a plant equipped with rock-crusher, retorts and condensers, with a capacity of 100 tons.
On May 15, 1891, at Tulare, Mr. Anderson was married to Miss Inez Mull, a native of Arkansas, and they have had one child, Neal Anderson, who is a graduate of St. Mary's Academy, Oakland, and who then attended Santa Clara College, and afterwards learned the oil business under his father. He was in charge of the Information Bureau of the San Joaquin Valley exhibit, Panama Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, in 1915. He is now superintend- ent of the Petroleum Company at Fullerton. He is of a mechanical turn and is the inventor of a gasoline extractor of casing-head gas, which. after con- densing the gasoline, saves the remaining gas that formerly went to waste.
Mrs. Anderson is the daughter of Martin and Cornelia (Galloway) Mull, natives of Tennessee and South Carolina, respectively. They removed to Jacksonport, Ark. Martin Mull served in the Civil War as captain of the Jackson Guards from Batesville, Ark., and after the war was engaged as a wholesale merchant until his death. His widow survived him two years. Mrs. Anderson was reared in a cultured environment and is greatly interested in civic and club work. In 1910 she organized the Women's Welcome Club of Coalinga (a Federation club), having been its president for five years. She is also an active member of the Coalinga Women's Club and as delegate at- tended the Biennial of the Federation of Women's Clubs in San Francisco in 1911. Mrs. Anderson was also district chairman of Federation Extension of the San Joaquin Valley District for two years as well as state chairman of Federation Extension and Emblem for a period of two years. She is now state chairman of Emblem and second vice-president of the San Joaquin Val- ley District of the California Federation of Women's Clubs. She is also a member of Eschscholtzia Chapter, Order of Eastern Star, Coalinga.
Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are both interested in the cause of education, each having served as trustee of Alpha school district. They have also been active in war relief work and the different war and allied drives. It is through her enthusiastic work in the Red Cross that Mrs. Anderson is best known, having given her entire time during the World War. She is chairman of the Military Relief of the Coalinga Chapter of American Red Cross, and has been since its organization, as well as a member of its executive board, and to this for months she gave all of her time. She also organized Community-Sings. where the people met and sang patriotic songs on the streets of Coalinga.
Fraternally, Mr. Anderson is a member of the Tulare Lodge of I. O. O. F. He was made a Mason in Tulare Lodge, F. & A. M., and is a member of Coalinga Chapter of the Royal Arch Masons, and also is a member of Bakers- field Lodge No. 266, B. P. O. Elks, as well as the Coalinga Growlers Club. Kind-hearted and generous, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson are always ready to help others and take great pleasure in dispensing the old-time Californian hos- pitality.
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F. K. POMEROY, M. D .- The rapidly increasing population of Fresno County, together with its progress in all lines of industry and productiveness, has attracted men of education and professional brilliance to the city and county. This rising generation of specialists are building up their life work in keeping with the progression of their environment. With the most modern discoveries of science to aid them, they are in the vanguard of human achieve- ment and as such should be given their meed of praise and encouragement. Among those in Fresno County, Dr. F. K. Pomeroy takes rank as one for whom a future of exceeding promise is assured. Born in Oswego, Ore., De- cember 24, 1885, F. K. Pomeroy received his preliminary education in the pub- lic schools of that city. From there he moved to Palo Alto, Santa Clara County, Cal., in 1900, graduated from the Palo Alto high school, then took a four-year course at Stanford University, graduating in 1911, with the degree of A. B., attended Medical School at Stanford in 1911 and 1912, and the last named year went direct to the Columbia University, New York, and there finished a year's course, graduating in 1914, with the degree of M. D. For two and one-half years thereafter he was on the staff of the New York Post Grad- uate Hospital, after completing internship was resident physician on Medical Division of that institution.
Dr. Pomeroy opened his offices in the Rowell Building, Fresno, in July, 1917. He specializes in internal medicine. With his entire mature life spent in study to fit himself for his profession, Dr. Pomeroy is an authority in his branch of medical work, and his name is rapidly becoming known as one of the rising specialists of Fresno.
Dr. Pomeroy was married in Fresno, March 7, 1918, to Miss Edith Hay- den, an only child and daughter of Dr. T. M. Hayden of Fresno.
Dr. Pomeroy enlisted at San Francisco in July, 1918, for service during the great World War, was assigned to the Medical Department of Base Hospital at Camp Kearney, with rank of First Lieutenant, and served as ward surgeon there during the flu epidemic. He left for France on November 6, 1918, landed at Le Havre November 22, and was assigned to Base Hospital No. 66 at Neufchateau, served continuously until he landed in New York July 5, 1919. He was honorably discharged at Camp Dix, N. J., on July 8, and reached San Francisco the 13th. Upon his return to Fresno in August, 1919, he resumed his practice and intends making Fresno his home and the center of his professional activities.
J. A. GILLESPIE, M.D .- How much the happy and prosperous Cali- fornians of the last decade or two owe for their safety, advancement and general welfare to those late settlers of exceptional foresight and enterprise who made straight the earlier paths and placed here and there along the way such institutions as were necessary to conserve health, protect life and supply comfort and relief, is well illustrated in the successful career of Dr. J. A. Gillespie, who came to Kingsburg in 1908 and nine years later erected here the Kingsburg Sanitarium:
Born at St. Clairsville, Belmont County, Ohio, fifteen miles from Wheel- ing, on July 9, 1861, Dr. Gillespie was the grandson of Dr. William Ander- son, a physician at Kimbolton, Guernsey County, where he practiced for forty years and died in 1881 at the age of seventy-four. The father was James Gillespie, a farmer, and a native of Ohio, who married Miss Clara Anderson, who was also born in that state. They came to Iowa in 1881, and settled at Chariton, where Mr. Gillespie became a well-to-do farmer and stockman. He was of good old Scotch-Irish blood, and the family supported vigorously the teaching and work of the Presbyterian Church. They were among the first settlers in Ohio, and could trace the family tree back to a great-great-grandfather, James Gillespie. Four brothers are citizens of New York, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Ohio.
Dr. J. A. Gillespie was twenty years old when he came with his parents to Iowa, having previously finished the courses at the St. Clairsville High
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School. He taught for five years in lowa, and while he grew up with his grandfather, the physician, he studied under him. In 1885 he matriculated in the medical department of the Drake University, at Des Moines, Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1888; and after his graduation, he was married at Des Moines to Miss Elizabeth Huggins, of Iowa, then eighteen years old. Three children have blessed their union: Paul is in the United States Navy; William Lynn is in the eighth grade; and Lois is a teacher in Kingsburg.
About 1906 Dr. and Mrs. Gillespie came to California, and two years later they were fortunate in discovering Kingsburg as the most promising field for their work. Having graduated on April 2, 1895, from the Chicago College of Physicians and Surgeons, the Doctor was splendidly equipped for the responsible undertaking of a new sanitarium for the community ; and he kept abreast of the times and present-day demands, when he built an orna- mental, substantial and very practical edifice of stucco 100x35 feet in size. It is furnished throughout in the most up-to-date fashion, and has a capacity of ten beds. Altogether, the Gillespie Sanitarium is a modern institution of which Fresno County as well as Kingsburg may well be proud.
FORD F. KERR .- As proprietor of the Fresno Rug Manufacturing Company, Ford F. Kerr has won a place in the ranks of the enterprising business men of Fresno and his successful and growing business tells its own story. Born in Ripley, Brown County, Ohio, October 22, 1885, he was reared and educated in that locality until 1901, when he came west, remain- ing in Oklahoma a short time and then continued the journey to California, arriving in Redlands in 1902. Going to Pasadena soon after his arrival, he entered the employ of the Pasadena Rug Works, and also worked in the Pasadena Upholstering Company's plant. In 1906 he went to Alameda, and there worked for the Alameda Rug Works. Locating in Berkeley, in 1909, he established the Dwight Way Rug Works in that city, built up a good business, and sold out in 1912.
After selling his Berkeley establishment, that same year Mr. Kerr came to Fresno and established his present business, on G Street. As the rapid growth of the business demanded, he made extensive improvements in his factory and now employs thirty hands at the Fresno plant and uses four automobiles for delivery purposes, and, besides his local work, does a large mail order business, his field of operations including all of California, as well as customers in Arizona and Nevada. A comparatively new industry, the method of rug making is both unique and economical. Old carpets furnished by the customers are cleaned, sterilized, and cut up and rewoven into new carpets and rugs, all of which are reversible, both sides being alike. It takes but one week from the time the old carpet enters the factory to have it re- appear a new rug. Besides the manufacturing of rugs and carpets, a depart- ment of the factory is devoted to cleaning and renovating like furnishings, and this concern is now one of the big industries of Fresno, built up by businesslike methods and is modern in all its appointments. Mr. Kerr has done all the work for the Fresno Hotel, besides making and selling to 'them a large number of rugs; he also handles the work for the Hughes and the Sequoia Hotels. The excellence of the work done may be judged by the fact that Mr. Kerr won First Prize at the Fresno, Modesto and Bakersfield Fairs, in 1917, and in 1918 received the First Prize at the State Fair in Sacra- mento, also at the Fresno Fair.
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