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 95

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1424

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 95

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Mr. Becker was married at Hanford to Miss Mena Maude Parker of Fresno. They have two children: Evelyn Ellen and William James. They have built an up-to-date bungalow, and it is one of the most attractive homes in Riverdale. Mr. and Mrs. Becker are members of the Episcopal Church at Fresno, and Mr. Becker belongs to the Riverdale lodge of Odd Fellows.

AUGUST JOHNSON .- An old-timer with a varied and exceedingly in- teresting history, and a pioneer who ever deserves the esteem and good will of fellow Californians, since he has done much to develop, improve and ad- vance the neighborhoods in which he has cast his lot, is August Johnson, who was born in Sundsvoll, Sweden, the outlet of a lumber manufacturing country and an important seaport, on October 4, 1857. He was once prom- inent in the work of sinking oil wells, and was quite as well known in the equally great work of distributing and setting out nursery cuttings for vineyards.

His father was John Johnson, a native of Vennland, who was a lumber- man and a millwright, and was engaged in saw-milling, and he was married in his home-region to Amalia Aaronson. The father died in 1876, and the mother ten years before. They had five children, among whom the subject of this interesting sketch is the third oldest, and also the only one now living.

August was brought up in his native country, was educated at the public schools, and was an apprentice to the millwright trade. In 1881 he came to Wisconsin, and was employed in that state as a lumberman, continuing the same line of work in Minnesota. The next year he decided to push still further West, where the climatic conditions were more attractive, and he came to Fresno County, Cal. After three months, not finding just the em- ployment he desired, he went North to Oregon and Washington, and for a couple of years labored in the mills, turning out lumber. In 1884 he returned to Fresno.

Having great faith in the future of Central California, Mr. Johnson bought fourteen acres in Washington Colony, where he set out a vineyard, and as soon as possible, he bought twenty acres more, arranging the whole in as fine a vineyard as could be seen for miles around. In 1903, however, he sold this and moved to what is now the Mckinley district and Johnson Avenue, where he improved forty acres. He not only laid out a fine vine- yard, but he set out a good peach orchard; and this he conducted for four years when, in 1907. he parted with it at a sale. It was then that he bought twenty acres of the Richland tract, which he managed until 1918 when he sold it and purchased twenty acres on Valentine and California avenues, four miles west of Fresno. There he had a display of Thompson seedless grapevines, Sultanas, and Muscats, the whole forming one of the most de- sirable of small ranches. He is an active member of the California Associated Raisin Company, having always been identified with raisin association move- ments.

Frank Lauridsen.

Kirstine Lauridsen

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In February, 1900, Mr. Johnson was married to Miss Mathilda Carlson, a native of Linkoping, Sweden, who had come to California in 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson are among the most popular of Swedish-Americans. In politics they are Republicans, but never allow party allegiance to stand in the way of a hearty endorsement of all worthy movements for local reform and improvement. They attend the Swedish Mission Church.

As illustrating Mr. Johnson's activity as a pioneer, it may be recorded that in early days he bought a well-boring rig, in association with a partner, and in 1885 alone sunk fifteen wells-a considerable number for that period. He also put up windmills when they were a novelty, set out vineyards and contracted for nursery cuttings. In one year he contracted to bud 750,000 cuttings of Muscat slips. In the spring of 1896, he tried his luck at mining at Cook's Springs, Alaska ; took along some dried fruit that he sold at a profit and which helped pay expenses. In December, 1918, he sold his ranch and bought a house and lot in Fresno, on 323 Effie Street. In the spring of 1897, Mr. Johnson made a trip back to Sweden to visit old scenes and the fair at Stockholm, but returned to Fresno, more satisfied than ever that he had taken up his home here.

FRANK LAURIDSEN .- A liberal-minded, large-hearted gentleman of kindly disposition, who has become well-posted in producing raisins and has greatly aided in the development of the viticultural interests of the County, is Frank Lauridsen, a native of Denmark. He was born in Vardo, Jylland, on April 27, 1868, the son of Laurid Jepsen, a farmer, who married Miss Maren Hansen. She died in 1874, when Frank, who was the youngest in the family, was six years old, leaving seven children. The lad was brought up on a farm and educated at the public schools.

When twenty-two years of age, Frank was seized with a desire to seek his fortune in the New World; so, leaving the scenes of his boyhood, he migrated to America and the Golden State, and arrived in Fresno County in April, 1890. Here he secured employment in a vineyard in Central Colony, and being industrious and thrifty, and determined some day to own a vine- yard, he made his first purchase of land in 1893, when he bought ten acres, and a year later bought another vineyard of the same size. In 1900, however, Mr. Lauridsen sold his twenty acres and leased a forty-acre vineyard on Madison Avenue, where he engaged in viticulture, experimenting success- fully for four years.

In the meantime, Mr. Lauridsen had purchased his present holding of fifty acres of raw land on White's Bridge Road, three miles west of Fresno, which he improved by setting out forty acres to vines and bordering his vineyard with Thompson seedless grapes. He set out muscat, sultana and Thompson grapes, and made of the whole a very handsome property. The residence and other buildings are picturesquely situated in an orange grove. In addition to this holding, Mr. Lauridsen owns a forty-acre alfalfa ranch in the Manning district, equipped with a pumping-plant for irrigation.

Mr. Lauridsen was united in marriage, in 1905, with Miss Christene Jen- sen, a native of Ribe, Denmark, the ceremony being solemnized in Fresno, to which city Miss Jensen, who has since proven such a delightful and helpful companion, came in 1901. A daughter, Mabel, has come to them.

A member of both the Dania and the Danish Brotherhood, and an ex- president of the latter society, Mr. Lauridsen also belongs to the Lutheran Church. He has been a member of all the different raisin associations since the first one promoted by M. Theo. Kearney, and is now a member and a stockholder in the California Associated Raisin Company. Known as an enterprising and successful business man, and one always interested in the upbuilding of Fresno County, Mr. Lauridsen is also highly esteemed for his honesty and integrity.

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HISTORY OF FRESNO COUNTY

STEPHEN FRANCIS MOONEY .- A highly-respected worker in the oil fields, who brought with him from the East the accumulated and val- uable experience of years of successful work in the oil districts there, is Stephen Francis Mooney, a native of Clarion County, Pa., where he was born on May 1, 1864. His father, Stephen Mooney, was an oil operator and producer in that county and died in Pennsylvania on October 3, 1917. Mrs. Mooney was Mary Dormor before her marriage, and she died in the same place forty years ago, the mother of five children, four of whom,-three boys and a girl-are still living. One of the sons, J. B. Mooney, resides in Coalinga.

Stephen was brought up in Clarion County and there educated at the public schools; and until he was twenty-one, he assisted his father. Then, for four years, he was dressing tools with a contractor of oil wells, after which he worked as a driller. He next engaged in contract drilling for the Southern Pennsylvania Oil Company in West Virginia, when he returned to Armstrong County, Pa., and was a driller with the People's Natural Gas Company.

In 1907, on account of his daughter's health, he came to Coalinga and was in the employ of WV. M. Graham, on Section 6, and then he was a driller on Section 2. He was next with James Robertson, of the Azores Oil Com- pany in Jacolitos Canyon, and after that for nine months was foreman in charge of the drilling for the Boychester Oil Company. In 1910, he entered the service of the California Oilfields, Ltd., and as a driller he has continued with them and their successors in California ever since. He is now the oldest driller on this lease and no one has a more creditable record.

While in Harmony, Butler County, Pa., August 4, 1885, Mr. Mooney was married to Miss Belle Hunter, who was born in Blair County, Penn., but reared in Butler, daughter of David and Frances (Law) Hunter, of old Pennsylvania stock. Mr. and Mrs. Mooney have six children: Edna is Mrs. Loges of Dinuba ; Esther has become Mrs. Vass, of Los Angeles; Ruth is Mrs. Davisson of Oilfields; and Heien, Kenneth and Edward are at home.

No one takes a healthier interest in politics than does Mr. Mooney, who follows the Democratic banner in national affairs, and joins his fellow- citizens in local projects and works for the best men and the best measures, irrespective of party lines, thus striving as a model citizen for the bettering of the country.

F. C. GIBSON .- A progressive rancher and dairyman, and an honored trustee of the Grant School district, is F. C. Gibson, located three miles west of Laton. Not only is he a scientific farmer and dairyman, but he is an ex- pert blacksmith and mason, has a forge on his farm and does brick masonry, cementing, and blacksmithing for the local corporation. In 1914 he bought his home ranch of forty acres; and now he runs a dairy of twenty-one cows. He was born on February 16, 1867, in Grant Township, Boone County, Iowa, the son of Franklin Christopher Gibson, a farmer and a Union soldier in the Civil War. While a young men the father had come to Boone County and there married Miss Martha Walker, a native of Pennsylvania. Grandfather Abraham Walker and his wife and family drove across the plains with ox teams.

Our subject was only nine when his mother died at thirty-two years of age, and his father passed away in Iowa, in his thirty-eighth year. His parents had nine children, and F. C. was the oldest son, and a twin with a brother who died. He had three sisters older than himself. He had small opportunity for an education, for when his mother died, the family broke up. The five children were put out separately, F. C. being indentured to C. C. Keigley, a large farmer. Ile had to work hard, and at times suffered abuse. At the end of three years, he went to work for Keigley's brother and con- tinued with him for a couple of years, receiving somewhat better treatment. He thus labored for other folks until he was twenty-two.

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While in Iowa, on March 6, 1907, Mr. Gibson was married to Miss Lucy Jones, a native of Boone County, and a daughter of David and Lucinda (Dyer) Jones, the father being a Kentuckian by birth and the mother a native of Indiana. In that state her parents had been married, and from there, in the pioneer days, they had moved to Boone County.

In November, 1907, Mr. and Mrs. Gibson came to the Laguna de Tache, and now they own forty acres. for some years under his control, while they have just contracted for another forty, across the road to the east. They have one child, John Albert, whom they seek to guide to the most useful and honorable maturity. Mr. Gibson was so long denied the advantages of a good home that it is only natural he should wish to do everything he can for his son. A mother's love and father's protection were denied him, and he was compelled to work beyond his strength. Grandmother Walker, who was born in Pennsylvania, like her husband lived to be past eighty years of age. The Walkers came of Scotch-Irish stock; the Gibsons, of the Pennsylvania Dutch. They became early settlers of both Indiana and Iowa, and deserve honorable mention in the annals of more than one township.

One of the honors Mr. Gibson has greatly appreciated has been his elec- tion to the school trusteeship already referred to. In that office he has been active for those educational opportunities which he himself never enjoyed, and which, indeed, few of his generation had placed at their disposal, as have the American boy and girl of today.

MRS. MARY F. KUCKENBAKER .- A good woman who has reared her family to lead honored lives, is Mrs. Mary F. Kuckenbaker, the widow of the late Charles Frederick Kuckenbaker, the well-known Laton pioneer, and who resides at the old Kuckenbaker ranch of fifty acres five miles west of Laton, in comparative retirement, enjoying quietly the old pioneer house which was added to, from time to time and in happier years, to meet the exigencies of a new country and a growing family. Her home, though simple and old-fashioned, is very cosy, and easily reveals the presence of an experi- enced and careful housekeeper. It was her lot to lose a noble son in the World War, and not long ago the companion for many years of her joys and sor- rows also passed away.

Beloved, however, by her children, of whom she has good cause to be prond, and highly esteemed by all who know her as a neighbor and a friend, Mrs. Kuckenbaker still has much to make her cheerful and happy.

She was born in Cedar County, Mo., about sixteen miles west of Stock- ton, the county seat, of parents who came to that state from Virginia. They pitched their tent in Cedar County, and were among its earliest settlers. Her father was J. C. Beydler, and he married Eliza Gouchenour who came, like himself, of German ancestry. Indeed, the grandparents of both families came from Germany and settled in Missouri about two years before the out- break of the Civil War, after which they moved to Illinois. This change was necessary owing to their sympathy with the anti-slave movement. At the close of the war, however, they returned to Missouri, where the parents had homesteaded, and there our subject grew up. While in Missouri she was married to Mr. Kuckenbaker, a native of Germany, who was reared and educated in Missouri, and who was only eight years old when his parents came to America; and years after her marriage, she came, in June, 1897. to California.

Seven of Mr. and Mrs. Kuckenbaker's children were born in Missouri, while the two youngest were born in California. Effie Elsie Lee, the eldest, died in Missouri when she was two years, seven months and fourteen days old. John Noah, a rancher, married Miss Grace Sands, of Laton, and owns a ranch near that town, and has been very successful, and having no children

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of his own, he is rearing an orphan boy, known as Russell Kuckenbaker, whom he adopted and who is now in the grammar school. George owns two ranches west of Laton, and shares the fruits of his labors with his good wife, who was Hattie Sands before her marriage, and is the mother of three chil- dren-Harold, Elnora and a baby boy. Josie is the wife of Guy Whitney; they have two children, Esther and Dorothy, and they own eighty acres near Laton. Clyde married Alice Cummings of that town, and resides near-by, a rancher, the father of two children, Homer and Wilbur. Crafton is a farmer owning twenty acres and renting 200 acres of the Hancock Ranch, and he married Amanda Bristol, by whom he has had one baby, Virginia. Lester Emery enlisted in the service of his country, and died at the Rocky Ford aviation school near San Diego, on March 8, 1917, unmarried, in his twenty- first year. Isaac Nathan, nineteen years of age, works on a ranch but is included in the honor roll of the draft. Olen Howard, the ninth and youngest born, is seventeen years old and is at home.

It was about the beginning of this century when Mr. Kuckenbaker bought the fifty acres which his widow now rents to a resident tenant, and which is a part of the famous Laguna de Tache grant ; and about 1912 he went to Old Mexico and bought some 300 acres of land to which he expected to bring his family when the revolution there had ceased. He was driven out, however, with five hundred other Americans and arriving at Missouri, was vaccinated. Tragic to relate, blood-poisoning set in; his arm turned black, and he who had so long labored as an exemplary American citizens, valuable to every community in which he had lived and toiled. fell a victim to a disorder that has long been a blot on North American civilization. On June 8, 1912, he passed away, in his sixty-fifth year.

In addition to the desirable estate five miles west of Laton, and south of the Riverdale and Laton Road, now known as Mt. Whitney Avenue, Mrs. Kuckenbaker owns 120 acres in Cedar County, Mo., and this property is also managed with characteristic good judgment.

H. PROODIAN .- An enterprising and progressive viticulturist, the owner of a most desirable ranch of forty acres of land devoted to the raising of various varieties of grapes, together with some fig trees, is H. Proodian, a native of Mesopotamia, Armenia, where he was born in Diarbekr, December 1, 1866. He was reared and educated in his native land, and after remaining there about twenty-two years migrated to the United States of America, in the year 1888, locating at Hoboken, N. J .; where he secured employment in a silk mill, continuing with the factory sixteen years.

In 1904 Mr. Proodian came to California, where the following year he purchased twenty acres of land, near Lone Star. Since 1911 .he has owned and operated, with splendid results, his excellent ranch of forty acres, where he now resides, four and one-half miles west of Sanger, in Fresno County. He constructed a fine residence in 1917, and made many other improvements on his ranch. The irrigation system that supplies water for irrigating his crops is especially efficient, and by hard work and intelligent management he has made a splendid success of his ranch.

In 1886, in his native country, Mr. Proodian was united in marriage with Miss Tuma Chankalian, who is also a native of Armenia. This union has been blessed with six children: Roxie, Mrs. Soligian, who has three children; Simpat, "Pat" for short, who served in the United States Army seventeen months, seeing service in France in the One Hundred Sixty-fourth Company, Forty-first Division; Annie, Mrs. Garobedian, who has three children; and Minnie, May and Dickranoohe. After his son returned from his army ser- vice, Mr. Proodian bought eighty acres of land and gave it to him for a home. The family are members of Trinity Church in Fresno.

Mr. H. Proodian is regarded as a progressive agriculturist. He is a mem- ber of California Associated Raisin Company and is particularly interested · in the upbuilding of the best interests of viticulture in Fresno County.

H. Procdian.

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HENRY OAKLEY STOWELL .- A native son who is proud of the progress of the state of his birth, is Henry Oakley Stowell, whose success is the more creditable in the light of the limited advantages afforded him in earlier years. He was born at Santa Maria on October 25, 1891, the son of E. H. Stowell, who married Emma Oakley, a native daughter now deceased and a member of an old family long and honorably figuring in the histories of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties. E. H. Stowell was born in Placerville, and his wife first saw the light near Sacramento. The parents were married at Santa Maria, where Mr. Stowell had a ranch on which our subject and his four brothers and a sister grew up. Four of these six children are now living.

When he was eleven years old, Henry O. came to Guernsey, Kings County, and there he lived a year. He also spent a year at Lemoore, and six years at Laton, three years at Riverdale, and two years at Red Bluff. While at Riverdale, Mr. Stowell was married to Miss Gladys Smith, daughter of C. A. Smith, the cashier of the First National Bank of Laton. One child, Raymond C., has came to them.

Before he was twenty-one years old, Mr. Stowell began to rent, and now he runs 140 acres and some pasture as well in the hills. He keeps 150 head of high-grade cattle there, and half of the herd belongs to him. This is Mr. Stowell's second year on the place, and he has certainly produced results. In addition to other property, he owns half an interest in 100 hogs, and ten horses and wagons, and a full complement of farming tools.

Mr. and Mrs. Stowell have a live interest in civic affairs, working with the Democratic party in national politics, but they are non-partisan in local affairs. They are much interested in Laton and vicinity, and predict a won- derful future for Fresno County.

JOHN H. STRANAHAN .- The efficient foreman of the Homestead Development Oil Company at Coalinga, John H. Stranahan, is a native of the Empire State, born at North Kortright, Delaware County, N. Y., on Feb- ruary 28, 1863, a son of William and Fannie M. (Schemerhorn) Stranahan, who were both natives of the same state. William Stranahan is of Scotch descent; the family lineage is traced back to the Strachn Clan of Strachn Parish, Kincardineshire, Scotland, the name in latter generations having been changed to Stranahan. John H. Stranahan's grandmother's name was Mc- Cauley, also of Scotch descent, she being a relative of General McClelland.

William Stranahan was a farmer by occupation and removed from New York to Warren County, Pa., where he passed away. His wife in maiden- hood was Fannie M. Schemerhorn, a native of New York state and of old Knickerbocker stock-a lineal descendant of Jacob Schemerhorn, who came to New York in very early days from Holland, bringing his own ship and cargo of merchandise. He died upon his arrival, however, and the ship and cargo were sold and the money invested in lands on Manhattan Island, but the fortune accumulated from the investment has never been received by the descendants.

Mr. and Mrs. William Stranahan both passed away in Pennsylvania and of their six children J. H., the subject of this review, is the oldest. He was reared near Albany, N. Y., at the foot of the Catskill Mountains, and when eight years of age accompanied his parents to Spring Creek, Warren County, Pa., where he was educated in the public schools. J. H. Stranahan was seven- teen years old when his father died and to help in the support of the family he worked in saw mills and on a farm. His next occupation was in connection with the oil industry, where at first he learned to dress tools, afterwards be- coming foreman of one of the Standard Oil Company's properties in the oil fields of Western Pennsylvania. In November, 1909, J. H. Stranahan came to Coalinga, Cal., where he became driller for Marvin Corey, contractor, afterwards he served in the same capacity for Jim Shreves; later he was

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with the British Consolidated Oil Company, which is now known as the Coal- inga Star, and with this company he was engaged from 1910 to 1916 as lease foreman. At present Mr. Stranahan is the lease foreman for the Homestead Development Oil Company, on section 12-20-14, and through his able manage- ment the company is operating fourteen of their sixteen oil wells. Electric motors are used for pumping and most up-to-date methods are used by Mr. Stranahan in operating the lease. He is one of the most popular foremen in this field, being very thoughtful and careful of the welfare of his men and is highly esteemed by all who have business relations with him.

In Cory, Pa., on July 2, 1884, J. H. Stranahan was united in marriage with Evelyn M. Miles, a native of South Ripley, N. Y., and daughter of Cal- vin and Cynthia A. (Perdue) Miles, natives of Massachusetts and the province of Quebec, respectively. They were farmers in the state of New York and afterwards at Freehold, Warren County, Pa. Mr. Miles died at Tiona, Pa., and his wife passed away at North East, Pa.

Mrs. Stranahan's grandfather, Solomon Miles, a native of Needham, Mass., enlisted in the Revolutionary War at the age of sixteen years and had the distinction of serving under General Washington. He was one of the first settlers of Warren County, Pa., where he took up a claim in the wilderness and lived to the advanced age of ninety-nine years. Her great grandfather, who also bore the name of Solomon Miles, also served in the Revolutionary War.

Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Stranahan are the happy parents of one child, Frances, who graduated with honor in 1918, at the University of California, and is now doing post graduate work there. She had the honor of winning the Julian Arnold Trophy, in parliamentary debate.

Mr. Stranahan was made a Mason in Coalinga Lodge No. 287, F. & A. M., and is a member of Coalinga Chapter, R. A. M .; is also a member of the Odd Fellows at Sheffield, Pa., where he is a Past Grand, and is affiliated with the M. W. of A. and the K. O. T. M. at Sheffield, Pa., and is a welcome member of the Growlers Club. Fraternally, Mrs. Stranahan is a member of the Ti- dioute Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, at Tidioute, Pa .; is a member of the Welcome Club at Coalinga, and is very active in Red Cross work. Religiously, Mr. and Mrs. Stranahan are members of the Presbyterian Church, and while residing at Clarendon, Pa., Mr. Stranahan was a member of the borough council and was very active in the upbuilding of the best interests of that borough.

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume II, Part 95

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1424

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1424