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 85
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143
In 1903, Mr. Grounds located in Fresno, where he engaged in the butcher business, operating a shop on Blackstone Avenue. On November 15, 1911, he purchased his present place of eighty acres on Noyes Avenue in the Biola district, where he conducts his celebrated ranch for the breeding of pure short-horn stock, raises alfalfa, and runs a dairy of twenty-five cows.
In 1903, at Kingman, Ariz., I. T. Grounds was united in marriage with Miss Minnie Starkey, a native of Arizona, born on the H. Willow Ranch, and a daughter of Wellington Starkey, a native of Visalia, Cal., who migrated to Arizona in 1874, where he engaged in the cattle business, and in that state passed to his eternal reward. Her mother was, before her marriage, Esther Roberts, born in Australia, but now residing at Keystone, Nev. Mrs. Grounds was the second youngest of four children. She attended the high school at Santa Ana, Cal. Mr. and Mrs. Grounds have four children: Roy D., Janice D., W. Carrol, and Chester W.
R. J. Broward
2105
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Mr. Grounds is a stockholder in the Danish Creamery, a charter member of the California Short-Horn Breeders Association, and has shown his fine cattle at Fresno, where they have been awarded several first prizes. He has shown his interest in educational matters by serving as trustee of the Biola School district, and is Clerk of the Board. Mr. Grounds expects to take up his residence in Craig, Moffat County, Colo., at an early date, where he has become a stockholder in the Clay Springs Cattle Company, one of the largest concerns of its kind in the country, and owners of large tracts of land in Ari- zona, Nevada and Colorado, and having thousands of cattle.
JOHN F. BROMARK .- A fresco artist who has no equal in Fresno County, and a gentleman of Swedish birth who has become one of the most Į ublic-spirited of American citizens and put his loyalty as well as his service - ability to the test by repeatedly accepting public office and discharging the onerous duties of a public trust, is John F. Bromark, the well-known con- tracting painter and city trustee at Kingsburg, a man of long and varied experience and of exceptionally broad views, and with particular interest in the cause of popular education. He was born at Dannemora, Sweden, on January 2, 1859, the son of Andrew Bromark, who was a carpenter and builder. The latter was married in Sweden to Anna Linquist, a native of that country, and all three of their children were born at Dannemora. The subject of our sketch is the oldest; the next is Hildah, the wife of Carl Tegelberg, a well-to-do and retired farmer of Swea City, Iowa; while the youngest is Anna, the wife of C. J. Lenander, a banker and real estate opera- tor, as well as a farmer, at Bancroft, Iowa, who owns a ranch of 900 acres. on which is a herd of buffalo, and is both wealthy and influential.
After profiting from the advantages of a common school education in his native land, John F. in 1870 came with his parents and the rest of the family to America, and settled in Florida near Quincy, where they engaged in farming for a couple of years. Then they moved to Chicago, arriving there two years after the fire, and there John learned how to stripe wagons and carriages, becoming in the end a fine carriage-painter.
But the young man was more ambitious, and so, at the first opportunity, he took a regular course as a portrait painter at the Chicago Art Institute, and soon became proficient. He made crayon portraits of Leander McCor- mick and other members of that well-known family, and painted portraits of other noted Chicago men; and for a time it looked as though portraiture would be his natural and chief occupation. He had to learn, however, what has given disappointment to so many, that art had to wait for a fair hearing in a land busy with other and tremendous problems, and that portraits were not regarded by most people as an every-day necessity.
Mr. Bromark found, in fact, that there was more money in fresco-painting and high-class decorating, because it was in greater demand and so few were capable of doing it; and in Chicago alone he worked as a fresco-painter for about fifteen years. There he was associated with Chicago's leading painter and decorator, Milligan, and so participated in much of the work which. in that period, made the residences and public buildings of the western metrop- olis of such note.
In the meantime Andrew Bromark had moved out to Iowa and bought a farm of eighty acres, and in time John followed and purchased eighty acres adjoining that of his father. When he sold his farm, he became a con- tract painter at Swea City, Iowa, and here he was active and successful for another ten years.
The year 1903 became eventful in Mr. Bromark's life, for he then moved to California. He came almost immediately to the central part of the state, and he was not long in discovering the superior advantages of Kingsburg, where he bought twenty acres of unimproved land. He planted vines and set out peach and apricot trees, and some five years ago he sold the property for
2106
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
$8,500, after which, in 1913, he built his beautiful residence, which reflects his artistic sensibility.
This architectural triumph reminds one of some of Mr. Bromark's mas- terpieces in the realm of art. Among his most famous paintings are the "Gypsy Girl" and the "Colonial Dame," and he is also widely known for a number of California and Iowa landscapes, in which grouping and perspec- tive, as well as the appreciation of color values, are very noticeable. His art work shows rare discernment and the most refined feeling.
Besides being a prominent member of the Swedish Baptist Church at Kingsburg, where he serves as a deacon, Mr. Bromark is a city father, and one honored for his conscientious discharge of the affairs of his office. He was first appointed to fill a vacancy, and then elected, in 1917. to the same office. He is also a member of the Grammar School Board, and advocates schools of the highest efficiency.
While in Chicago, Mr. Bromark was married to Miss Svea Swallander, a native of that city. They had five children: Lillian, Violet, La Rose, Rupert and Carl, all of whom are bright and interesting, and some of whom share his home-life. The good mother, however, died in 1912, beloved and highly respected by all who knew her.
AUGUSTINE GANDRAU .- A man who has gained success and prominence in Fresno County, is Augustine Gandrau a viticulturist of the Round Mountain district. He was born at Elk Point, Union County, now South Dakota, but then Dakota Territory, June 13, 1867, being one of the twelve first white children born in Dakota Territory.
His father, Antoine Gandrau, was born in Ontario, Canada, of French parents. In 1852 he came via the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco, but after mining for three years he returned to Ontario, where he married Marceline Nolette and took charge of his parents' farm, caring for them until they died, when he removed to Dakota Territory, being among the first to locate at Elk Point, Union County, in what is now South Dakota, where he homesteaded and improved a farm. When he retired, in 1894, he came to Porterville, Tulare County, Cal. However, he and his wife returned to South Dakota on a visit and there he died. His widow continued to reside there till her death. Of their six children Augustine Gandrau is the fifth oldest and grew up on the farm, and from a boy showed a great love and admiration for a fine horse. So it is little wonder that in later years he made a success of the selection and training of standard-bred horses.
After completing the local schools, Mr. Gandrau learned the printers' trade in the Huronite office in Huron, S. D., and then edited the Beadle County Press at Cavour, S. D., for one year. Selling out, he used his funds to pay his way at the Congregational College at Yankton, after which he came to Porterville, Cal. For a time he worked on the Porterville Enter- prise, and later ran the barber shop in the Pioneer Hotel, Porterville, for five years. In 1898 he located in Sanger where he ran a barber shop.
Being interested in fine horses, Mr. Gandrau fortunately purchased a three-year-old gelding for $50, whom he named George G. He proved to be a standard-bred of finest blood. Training him, he discovered his great speed. He raced him on the Western Circuit and won $3,500 in purses in one year. The next spring he sold him to Anthony Brady of New York City, the Diamond King of the Transvaal, for $15,000. On the day he was sold, George G. made a record of 2:0514 and went the half-mile in 1:01, on Pleasonton track. Afterwards he made the world's one mile record-on a half-mile track. in 2:0634, at the same time beating the world's one-half mile record, and this record has never been beaten. George G. sold for the highest price ever paid for a gelding west of the Rocky Mountains.
Always having a desire to own a ranch, after the sale of George G., Mr. Gandrau purchased 160 acres two miles southeast of Sanger. He im- proved eighty acres with vineyard and sold the balance. In 1913 he sold
2107
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
his eighty-acre vineyard for $27,000, and then purchased his present place of forty acres in the Round Mountain district, where he has fine soil and a first class water right, and there he engages in viticulture. He has twenty acres of horizontal cordon emperor grapes, which is the first commercial vineyard of the kind in the Valley, and shows an extraordinary yield.
Mr. Gandrau can well feel proud of his success, as do all his friends. He was married at the Hughes Hotel, Fresno, on December 6, 1897, to Miss Emma Derusha, who also was born in Union County, S. D., a daughter of Joseph and Louise Derusha, natives of Canada and of French descent. Mrs. Gandrau came to California in 1894.
Mr. Gandrau is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company, the California Peach Growers, Inc., and of the Fairview Grape Growers Association. He has been president of the Sanger Local of the Fresno County Farm Bureau since its organization and is one of the original direc- tors of the Fresno County Farm Bureau He was chairman of the different drives for Red Cross, Y. M. C. A., Associated Charities, and Liberty Loans in his district during the world war. Mrs. Gandrau is a member of the Round Mountain auxiliary of the Fresno Chapter Red Cross. Mr. Gandrau is a member of Sanger Lodge, No. 375, I. O. O. F., of which he has been Noble Grand two terms.
ANDREW COLOMBERO .- A viticulturist of the Clovis section, who has improved a fine ranch, is Andrew Colombero, a native of Cuneo, Pie- monti, Italy, born August 10, 1878, where he was reared and educated. In 1889 he made his way to Savoy, France, where for fifteen years he worked on farms and vineyards, except a few months while he served his required time in an Alpine Regiment in the Italian Army, returning to France after his honorable discharge.
In 1903 he came to California and in Siskiyou County he was employed in saw mills and lumber yards for the McLoud Lumber Company, continuing there for a period of eight years. He then came to Sanger, Fresno County, being employed in the lumber yard of the Sanger Lumber Company for two years.
Having a desire to own a farm and engage in fruit raising, he purchased ten acres near Clovis, in 1913, where he built his home and set out a vine- yard, adding to his original purchase until he has twenty-six acres in his home farm, devoted to growing malaga and seedless Thompson grapes. He now also owns another ranch of twenty acres which is also in vines.
Mr. Colombero was married in Italy to Miss Mary Rovero, and they have six children, three of whom are living: Peter, Josephine and Henry. Mr. Colombero is liberal and enterprising and supports all local movements for the advancement of the county. We find him a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and also of the Melvin Grape Growers Asso- ciation, from their organization.
HANS HANSEN,-A progressive, successful farmer, and a worthy man who has never failed to devote some of his life to the up-building of the com- munity in which he has toiled and had his being, is Hans Hansen, who has been equally blessed in an excellent family. Like some of his fellow country- men in California, he was born at Bregninge, on the island of Ero, in Baltic Denmark, and his father, Christ J. Hansen, was a farmer and dairyman who enjoyed good repute in his native land. He married Maren Jensen, by whom he had five stalwart sons ; and both parents and all the children are still living.
Hans, the third oldest, was born on July 25, 1882, and brought up on the home farm while he attended the common schools of the neighborhood. When he was fourteen years old, however, he began to work out on other farms for a living, and he continued at agricultural work in that vicinity until he left Denmark to take the great step of crossing the ocean to the New World.
2108
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
In 1905, then, he reached Audubon County, Iowa, and worked on a farm until, in the following January, he was lucky to say good-bye to the extreme heat and cold of the Middle West and to move on to California. At first he located at Newman, where he worked for a year on a dairy ranch, and then he leased the same ranch for a year and conducted there a dairy. After that he worked in the Gustin Creamery for two and a half years and further added to his valuable experience.
Satisfied that Tranquillity was one of the best of all places in Fresno County and offered advantages superior to those he has been having, Mr. Hansen in December, 1910, bought his present ranch of forty acres, and in the fall of 1911 moved onto it. By hard work begun immediately, he leveled, checked and ditched it, and otherwise further improved the land, and by sowing alfalia made of it a most desirable ranch property. Now he has thirty acres given ip to alfalfa alone; and having purchased twenty acres more of land, he ha: sixty acres in all, a part of which is used for the raising of grain. He also co ducts a dairy and raises poultry, owning about 250 hens. He belongs to 1 te San Joaquin Valley Milk Producers Association, and supports every good novement making for the development of Central California.
At Oakland, on October, 1910, Mr. Hansen was married to Miss Petra Nielsen, a native of Ero, Denmark, and the daughter of Peter C. and Anne M. Nielsen ; a good woman who has become an excellent mother and house- wife. Four children have gladdened the Hansen home: Harry M. is the oldest; then there is Christian P .; after him has come Mabel Margaret ; while the youngest is Hans Einar Hansen. The family attends the Lutheran Church, and seeks the good in life. They are also enthusiastic Americans, and during the recent war crisis none were more loyal to their adopted country.
FRANK BEGOLE .- A native of Medina, N. Y., where he was born December 11, 1874, Frank Begole has made a place for himself in the business life of Fresno. He received his education in the grammar schools and the academy in his native town, and at the age of fifteen years, started to make his own way in the world. He learned the plumbing trade with Acer & Whe- don, in his home city, and followed his trade for a few years in Buffalo, N. Y., then worked his way west, following his trade in Chicago, St. Louis, Denver, and other Middle Western cities. For a time he ran a shop of his own in Mos- cow, Idaho. He finally came to San Francisco, Cal., December, 1902, and worked in different cities in the state, from San Diego north to San Francisco, and put in a year and a half at work in the Yellowstone National Park, on the Canyon Hotel, located there.
Mr. Begole came to Fresno in April, 1911, and secured work with V. T. Cox for two years. In November, 1914. he engaged in business for himself, doing contracting plumbing. In May of 1916 he formed a partnership with J. C. Hinton, with the firm name of Begole & Hinton, but after one year, the partnership was dissolved, and Mr. Begole opened his present place of bus- iness, at 2532 Tulare Street. He makes a specialty of contracting for fine residence work, and has installed the plumbing in a number of fine homes in Fresno and surrounding territory, among them the following: L. Wass resi- dence, Kerckhoff Ave .; M. D. Priest home, in Alta Vista tract ; D. D. Bolitho home, Calaveras Ave., ; the A. Hasselbalch residence, Forthcamp Ave.,; Theo. Schmidt home, Yale Ave.,; and a number of fine residences in the Normal School district, for John G. Porter ; the John Muir School on Palm Ave .; be- sides others too numerous to mention. Mr. Begole is also doing the plumb- ing for the Alta Vista Homes Company, in the Alta Vista Tract, and at the present time has seven residences under construction. With strict attention to detail and modern methods of workmanship, Mr. Begole has built up a large business, and has the confidence and respect of his fellow citizens in the community.
Frank Begole
2111
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
Fraternally, Mr. Begole is a member of the Red Men of Fresno; he be- came a member of the Odd Fellows, at Medina, N. Y., in which order he has passed all the chairs, including the Encampment, and is now member of Fresno Lodge No. 186, I. O. O. F .; he is also a member of the Eagles, of San Francisco. Besides his business interests. Mr. Begole owns a ten-acre ranch located one mile west of Fresno, on White's Bridge Road and Hughes Ave., which he devotes to Thompson Seedless grapes and figs.
JOHN AUGUST STEITZ .- A resident of Fresno for over a quarter of a century who has seen the town develop, and who has himself prospered despite serious obstacles, is John August Steitz, who came to Fresno in the early nineties. He was born at Skadofsky, in Samara, Russia, on December 14, 1869, the son of John Peter Steitz, a farmer there, who had married Mary Kruzel, in time the mother of two boys and four girls, all of whom are still living. In 1898 John Peter Steitz followed his son to California and resided with him until his death, in 1916, aged seventy-nine. His good wife also died here.
John August was the second eldest in the family, and after attending the public schools, went to work as a farmer. In 1890 he was married in Russia to Miss Christina Deil, also a native of that country.
In 1893, Mr. Steitz came to Fresno and entered the employ of Spaning, the brick manufacturer, with whom he continued for three years. Then he engaged with a contractor for building and helped erect some of the houses in the section, including the Hughes Hotel, the Helm Block, and other struc- tures. Some years later he fell from a third story, where he was working, and from that time on had to abandon building at altitudes.
He then drove a bakery wagon for the Fresno Bakery for three years, without the loss of a day, and next began in the merchandise business. In 1903 he bought a store on Sonth F Street, which he later sold, purchasing a larger place on the same thoroughfare.
On August 17, 1908, Mr. Steitz bought the lot he at present uses and there built a store and a residence. He sold general merchandise, and ever since has handled only the highest grade of dry goods, hardware, grocery and meats, so that now he does a lively trade in part based on established reputa- tion for quality of stock and honesty in methods.
Mr. Steitz has been twice married. His first wife died here and left seven children. Peter is in the employ of the Wormser Furniture Company at Fresno; Christene is Mrs. Bier of the same city ; Lizzie is Mrs. Eurich, also of Fresno; Charles is with his father, and there are Alexander, August and Margaret.
On the occasion of his second marriage, Mr. Steitz took for his wife Miss Maggie Deubert, by whom he has had four children. They are Elsie, Bertha, Nathalie, and Freda, and with their mother attend the Free Evangelical Lutheran Cross Church, where the father is a member of the board of trustees.
A naturalized citizen, Mr. Steitz is a Republican in national affairs, but always ready to support worthy local movements, irrespective of partisanship.
JOSEPH WIGGENHAUSER .- Prominent among the late-comers in Fresno County, and one of the leading agriculturists in the vicinity of Ker- man, is Joseph Wiggenhauser, who was born in Chicago on October 26, 1874, the son of John Wiggenhauser, who located in that city in 1872, and was for several years in the employ of the Emmett Proprietary Company, manufac- turers of medicines. In 1878 he located in Osceola County, Iowa, where he purchased 160 acres of land and continued farming until 1901, when he re- moved to Stevens County, Minn., and bought a tract of 240 acres. This he later sold and returned to Chicago, where he spent the rest of his days. Jo- seph's mother was Dora Vesser, who died in Iowa about 1879.
Joseph was the only child of this union, was reared on the Iowa farm and received a good education in the public schools .. When twenty-one years of age he engaged in business in Osceola; but after two years, on the death
2112
HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY
of his father, he took charge of the Minnesota farm, and raised grain and stock until 1911, when the farm was sold.
Having become interested in Fresno County from advertisements put out by the Fresno Irrigated Farms Company, he purchased his present ranch of thirty acres and located here in 1911. He chose the Vinland district because it appealed most to him; and when he later disposed of ten acres, it was to enable him to give greater attention to the remaining twenty acres, devoted to Thompson seedless grapes, peaches and alfalfa. In February, 1917, he bought twenty acres half a mile south of his present place, which he con- tinued to improve until November, 1918, when he sold it at a good profit.
Mr. Wiggenhauser is a member of the California Associated Raisin Com -. pany, and is a firm believer in cooperation. In politics, he is an Independent, voting for the man rather than the party. He is enthusiastic and optimistic for the future of this section of Fresno County, and has faith particularly in its prospects as the finest of all Thompson seedless regions in the State.
Fresno County owes much of its prosperity and fame to the experience, far-sightedness, industry, and faith of such settlers as Mr. Wiggenhauser, and no one will begrudge him all the good things of life that come his way as a result of his toil and enterprise.
ELI WOODALL .- The life which this memoir delineates began in England, in the year 1857. Eli Woodall is the son of William and Eliza Woodall who were both natives of England. Mr. and Mrs. William Woodall were the parents of eleven children. The family immigrated to the United States in 1887 and located in Idaho, where the parents passed away. Seven of the children are living; two reside in Idaho, one in England, and four in California.
Eli Woodall is a pioneer of the Reedley district and has been a resident of Fresno County since 1906. Since his settling near Reedley he has been actively engaged in the advancement of best interests of that section of the county.
In conjunction with his brother-in-law, Matthew Horsfull, he owns a ranch which is devoted to the culture of oranges, Thompson's seedless and muscat grapes. His ranch has yielded as high as two tons of grapes to the acre. When he first began to till the soil of his ranch the land was in a wild or virgin state. Eli Woodall being a practical farmer he has by hard work and intelligent efforts, succeeded in bringing his ranch to its present state of productivity. His success is illustrative of the excellent opportunities offered by this section, and his citizenship has been of value to the community.
JOHN CARLSON .- A conscientious, hard-working rancher who, after years of expert work in Europe as a maker of surgical instruments, has be- come a successful fruit-grower, specializing in peaches, is John Carlson, who lives about one and a half miles north of Kingsburg and who is widely known as one of the Kingsburg promoters to start a branch here of the Rural Credits Bank. Through this remarkable banking institution, farmers can get long loans at low rates of interest, and Mr. Carlson himself has three thousand dollars which he borrowed from the bank for twenty years at five per cent. interest. The institution will undoubtedly grow and will continue to prove to the farmer a source of strength and beneficence.
Born in Sweden, on January 17, 1862, Mr. Carlson came to America in . 1887, having previously been at Christiania for four years, where he was apprenticed to a master in the art of making dental and other surgical instruments. He stopped awhile in Chicago, and there he engaged as a laborer in grading for the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railway in Wisconsin, and also going to work for the company in Minnesota. In 1888 he went back to Wisconsin, and there, at Ashland, while working in a saw- mill, he had the great misfortune to lose three fingers from his right hand.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.