History of Kern 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, Part 109

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682

USA > California > Kern County > History of Kern 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 > Part 109

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MICHEL ANSOLABEHERE .- Mr. Ansolabehere in early life made himself helpful at the old home farm near Baigorry, Basses Pyrenees, France, where he was born March 5, 1871, and where the first twenty years of his busy existence were uneventfully passed, in a round of farm duties and school work. A desire to see something of the world and to try his fortunes in California led him to leave his old home in the foothills of the Pyrenees mountains. Crossing the ocean, he arrived in Kern county in December. 1891, and without difficulty found employment as a herder of sheep. In the same year as himself there also came to Kern county his brother, Gratian. who was born in France in 1868 and who since 1895 has been intimately associated with the younger brother in stock-raising and agricultural activi- ties. By his marriage to Clara Aharabide, also a native of France, he has three children. Marie, John and Babe.

After he had worked for different sheepmen about four years, Michel Ansolabehere bought a flock of sheep and engaged in business in part- nership with his brother, Gratian, since which time the two have co-operated in their enterprise. It was their custom to summer their flocks, comprising from four to six thousand head, in Mono county, from which place they brought them down to Buena Vista lake and other favorable points to feed through the winter. During 1909 the two brothers bought in the Rosedale district three hundred and twenty acres eight miles northwest of Bakersfield. under the Beardsley canal, and since then they have put the property under cultivation to alfalfa. During 1913 they disposed of their sheep in order to give their entire time to the raising of hay for the market. Neat buildings have been erected on the half-section and the large tract shows the thrift, intelligence and constant care of the owners. In politics both brothers vote with the Republican party. The younger brother married in East Bakersfield in 1909 Miss Mariana Irulegy, who was born in Aldudes, Basses-Pyrenees, France, and by whom he has two children, Margaret and John.

CORNELIUS DUNNE .- Born in County Cork, Ireland, in 1861, Cor- nelius Dunne attended the national schools and learned carpentering. At the age of twenty years he left the old home and crossed the ocean to America, where for a year he worked in Boston, Mass., meanwhile being employed in the Tremont hotel. At the expiration of the twelve months he came

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west and entered the railroad service, his first work of that kind being in a roundhouse at Needles. A year later the Southern Pacific Company built into Needles and he secured a position in the department of bridge- building. About 1884 he was transferred to Mojave and here he has since remained. At the time of his arrival very few buildings had been put up at this point and he has witnessed the steady growth of the equipment here. For two and one-half years he was employed as car-repairer, after which he served as inspector of trains for seven years. Next he was made foreman of gangs and in 1910 he became car foreman, which position has since taken all of his time.

With judicious economy Mr. Dunne has saved his earnings, investing them in California property, so that now he is the owner of two houses in Mojave, one hundred and sixty acres of fine farm land in the fertile and famous Weed Patch of Kern county and a walnut grove of twenty acres near Anaheim, Orange county, these various properties representing his own unaided efforts to attain independence. In politics he has been staunch in his allegiance to the Republican party. After coming to Kern county he was married at Keene to Miss Mary O'Meara, a native of San Francisco and a sister of P. J. O'Meara, represented elsewhere in this volume. The Dunne family comprises five children, namely: Catherine, Dennis, Margaret, Francis and Eugene. The eldest is a graduate of the Los Angeles Normal, class of 1913, and the second is a graduate of the 1913 class in the Fresno high school. Margaret is attending the Sisters' School in Los Angeles and Francis is a pupil in the Fresno high school, while the youngest son is a pupil in the local schools.

LEWIS H. LARSON .- The proprietor of the Home Transfer & Stor- age Company, who has been a citizen of East Bakersfield since November of 1901, claims Missouri as his native commonwealth and was born at St. Joseph, Buchanan county, December 19, 1858, being a son of Kittel T. and Mary (Kennard) Larson, the latter a native of Louisville, Ky., and the former of Norwegian birth and ancestry. After having learned the trade of black- smith in his native country the father migrated to the new world at the age of twenty years and soon settled on a farm near St. Joseph, Mo., where in addition to tilling the soil and raising stock he devoted considerable at- tention to his chosen occupation. A building on the farm was utilized as a shop and farmers from all directions came there to avail themselves of his skill in repair work and in horse-shoeing. Eventually he retired from the farm and established a home in St. Joseph, where he died at the age of sev- enty-three years, having survived his wife, who was fifty-six at the time of her demise. Of their five children the third. Lewis HI., was reared on the home farm and attended country schools. After he had completed the com- mon-school branches of study he devoted his entire time to farm work. When the family removed to the city of St. Joe he engaged in the teaming business. Three years later he became the proprietor of the Red Tank oil line and conducted a retail oil business for four years, after which for five years he carried on a retail milk business as proprietor of the Globe dairy in his home town.

Upon leaving Missouri for California and settling in Kern (now East Bakersfield), Mr. Larson secured employment in the boiler-shop of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, with which company he continued for three and one-half years. Upon resigning the position he embarked in the dairy business. In order to have ample space for the industry he bought three blocks of ground and eleven lots on East Nile street, where he operated the Kern dairy for five years. At the expiration of that period he sold the dairy herd and closed out the business. Next he became interested in the transfer business under the title of the Home Transfer Company. Later

L. H. Larson Diffie. Lapon

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he bought the interests of the Home Transfer & Storage Company, under which name the business since has been conducted. Near his residence at No. 1600 Nile street he has built a storage warehouse with ample facilities for the storage of furniture consigned to him by patrons. For business purposes he keeps three wagons in steady use and at this writing maintains his office in his home. Much of the original acreage has been sold, but he still retains one block of land and therefore has sufficient room for all the demands of the business.

While living at St. Joe, Mo., Mr. Larson married Miss Vetura L. Moore, a native of that city and there deceased. Three children survive of that marriage, namely: Mrs. Lulu Lee Boden, of East Bakersfield; Nora E., wife of O. P. Coats, of Fresno; and George S., who is employed as a driver in the transfer business. By his marriage to Miss Christina Olson, who died in St. Joe, Mr. Larson is the father of one son, Andrew K. His present wife, whom he married at St. Joe in 1898, was formerly Mrs. Debbie (Shaffer) Etzweiler, a native of New Buffalo, Perry county, Pa., and a daughter of Benjamin and Mary (Radel) Shaffer, also natives of the Keystone state. During the Civil war Mr. Shaffer served as a private in a Pennsylvania regi- ment and was wounded in an engagement. After having engaged in farm- ing in Pennsylvania for some years in 1876 he removed to Kansas and settled on a farm, but later followed the trade of shoemaker at Ellsworth. From Kansas he came to California and briefly sojourned at East Bakers- field, thence went to Long Beach, where he died at eighty-one years of age. His wife had died in Pennsylvania, leaving four children, two of whom now survive. The youngest child of that union was Debbie, who in Kansas became the wife of Jacob I. Etzweiler, a carpenter and builder by trade. Mr. Etzweiler was born at Millersburg, Dauphin county, Pa., and died in Texas, leaving the widow and six children. Four of the children survive, namely : Mrs. Katherine E. Johnson, of East Bakersfield; Minnie, a grad- uate nurse living at Coffeyville, Montgomery county, Kan .; Harry. now at Maricopa, Cal .; and Jacob, who is employed at Oil Center. Mrs. Larson has been actively identified with the Ladies of the Maccabees, Pythian Sisters, Rebekahs and Fraternal Aid, while Mr. Larson holds membership with the Knights of Pythias, Fraternal Brotherhood and Pythian Sisters In politics he upholds Democratic principles.

FRED W. CRAIG .- Mr. Craig was born in New York City, June 25, 1826, a son of Archibald and Ann (Coffin) Craig, natives of New Jersey and of New York state, descendants respectively from Scotch and from English ancestors. They both lived out their days and passed away in New York City. The father was long cashier of the Chemical Bank of New York. All of their seven children are deceased. Fred W. Craig began his education in New York City and when he was twelve years old went to Monmouth county, N. J., to live with an uncle. Later he became a clerk in a store and thus gained an intimate knowledge of the mercantile business. In 1848 he went to Spring- field. Ill., where in 1852 he was a salesman in the hardware store of Mr. Pease, his uncle. Responding to the lure of gold, he turned his face toward California. Sailing from New York on the Ozark, he came around the Horn to San Francisco, the vessel putting in at Rio for repairs, and landed in July. 1853. From San Francisco he went to Placerville, which town was then known by the not euphonious but accurately descriptive name of Hang- town. After a short time we find him in Sacramento, where he was a clerk in a commission house eighteen months. Next he established himself at Indian Diggings, Eldorado county, as a merchant, where for two years he sold goods that were hauled into the camp from San Francisco. In 1857 he became proprietor of a restaurant at Oroville, which he continued with snc- cess for two years. In 1861 he made his first trip to Kern county. After a

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short stay there he tarried briefly in Tulare county, then returned to San Francisco. Late in that year until deep snow he was a clerk in a store at Caribou. Later he was variously employed until 1864, when he took up his residence in Kernville, where he was employed in general merchandising as a clerk until 1866. In this year he established a store on Kern river, near Kernville, which in 1870 he removed to Havilah. Meantime, in 1868, he had been elected to serve three years as supervisor. He was re-elected in 1871 and in 1873 he resigned to take the office of county clerk, which he assumed in March, 1874, about a month after the county seat was located at Bakersfield. Before the close of the year last mentioned his store was burned down. In 1875 and again in 1877 he was re-elected county clerk, in which office he served continuously six years. He was for some years postmaster of old Kern, but resigned the place to accept the office of justice of the peace for the third judicial township, which he ably filled for two terms. In 1894 he was recalled to the office of county clerk, by election on the Republican ticket, and assumed its duties in January, 1895, and served until January, 1899. From then until his death he was engaged in the real estate and insurance business, holding a commission as notary public. He had been a citizen of East Bakersfield since 1875 and built his fine house there in the summer of that year. In politics he was a Republican. Fraternally he affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He married, at Havilah, Miss Hava M. Crosby, a native of Illinois and also a pioneer of Kern county of 1851. Their daughter, Anna M., is librarian at the East Bakersfield branch of the Beale Memorial Library.

JESSE ROY ROGERS .- When the first adventurous emigrants crossed the ocean from Great Britain and landing in Virginia planted the English flag on a spot which they named Jamestown in honor of their king, there was among the number a gallant young Englishman bearing the family name of Rogers. From the time of the settlement of Jamestown in 1607 through the more than three centuries following, his descendants have been loyal to America and brave in the defence of their country in war. During the Revo- lutionary struggle several of the name were in the army, among them the great grandfather of Isaiah Rogers, whose grandfather was a soldier in the war of 1812, while his father went to the front during the Mexican conflict. He himself, of Kentuckian birth, nevertheless opposed slavery and felt so strongly in favor of the Union cause that he left his native commonwealth to take up arms for the north. Relatives were of southern sympathies and friends also joined the Confederacy, but he persisted in his course, although deeply regretting the estrangement that necessarily followed. Some time after the war had come to an end he established his home in Louisville, Ky .. where his son, Jesse Roy, was born on New Year's day of 1875. Removing to Missouri in 1879, he established the family on a farm near St. Louis. Eventually he retired from agricultural pursuits and settled in Carthage, Mo., where he now makes his home. By his marriage with Miss Nancy Davis, he became allied with an old southern family early resident in South Caro- lina, although her birth had occurred in Alabama. The Davis family traces its genealogy back to the Grahams, of well-known Scotch-Irish lineage.

Among eight children comprising the family of Isaiah Rogers and of whom five are still living, Jesse Roy Rogers was third in order of birth, and he was six years of age at the time the family removed from Kentucky to Missouri. It was in the latter commonwealth therefore that he received his education. When fourteen years of age he left school and began to serve as an apprentice to Robert Graham, a plasterer in Kansas City, with whom he continued for five years, meanwhile learning every branch of the busi- ness. On the conclusion of his apprenticeship he worked as a journeyman in Kansas City, St. Louis, Chicago, Omaha and Denver. By persistent effort

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he became an expert in his occupation. The demand for high-class work- men in Los Angeles led him to establish himself in that city during 1900, after which he devoted several months to filling contracts in that city. One of his most important contracts in that city was the plastering of the Chamber of Commerce building. Removing to Long Beach in 1901 he at once took a merited position among the leading men in his line. Among his principal contracts in that place were those for the Long Beach National Bank, the First National Bank of Long Beach, the City National Bank, Carnegie Library and Kennebec hotel. A great number of smaller jobs kept him busily occupied in the same locality until 1907, when he began to follow his trade in and near San Diego. Coming to Bakersfield in March, 1909, he entered upon occupative tasks in this city and in Kern county, where he had the contracts for the plastering of the Elks building, the New Southern Annex, the Brower building, Redlick building, Manly apartments, Koesel hotel, Morgan building. Russ residence. Manual Training school, Morrow & Barnett building, and numerous other structures in Bakersfield, besides the schoolhouse in Maricopa and other contracts at points near to his home city. In 1912 he branched out into general contracting in partnership with Joseph E. Yancey, and the firm of Yancey & Rogers have built the Fellows high school annex, have plastered the Bakersfield Club building and have remod- eled the City Hall. Upon the organization of the Builders' Exchange he became a charter member and one of the directorate, besides which he has officiated as second vice-president. While living in Kansas City he met and married Miss Cora Gray, a native of Illinois, and with her and their only child, Albert Edison, he has established a comfortable home in Bakersfield.

EMMETT L. HAYES .- The general manager of the large business in Bakersfield conducted under the title of Hayes & Murray belongs to an old southern family and is himself a native of the south, born at Murfrees- boro, Tenn., August 28, 1882, being a son of the late Thomas and Mar- garetta (Burgess) Hayes. The former, born in North Carolina, became a resident of Tennessee in early life and identified himself with agricultural pursuits there, continuing in the same locality until death. After removing to that commonwealth he had married Miss Burgess, a native of Tennessee and a lifelong resident of the state. They became the parents of ten chil- dren who attained maturity, but only five of these are now living and only one, Emmett L., the next to the youngest, has established a home in Cali- fornia. After he had completed the studies of the country schools he was sent for one term to the Baptist University at Murfreesboro and at the age of fifteen left school and home to begin the battle of self-support. As a clerk with the Mayo Grocery Company at Dresden, Tenn., he gained his first experience in business. That his services were satisfactory appears in the fact that Mr. Mayo took him to Mayfield, Ky., and upon the estab- lishment of the firm of McEllrath, Brooks & Mayo made him cashier of the department store.

The work was congenial and the returns satisfactory, but Mr. Hayes found the constant confinement to the cashier's desk altogether too great a strain upon his health and he resigned in 1901, coming to California and securing a temporary position with J. J. Owen & Co., in San Bernardino. For a brief period he also clerked in a grocery owned by Feetham & McNeill. The year 1902 found him in Bakersfield, where for eighteen months he held a position with Dinklespeil Brothers, grocers. Next he entered the grocery department of Hochheimer & Co. Upon resigning that place he removed to Madera and became manager of the grocery department of Rosenthal- Kuttner Company, but in a few months came back to Bakersfield to serve as manager of the grocery department of Hochheimer & Co. During April of 1907 he purchased from Tipton Mathews the first and only grocery

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business in Wasco, where he not only conducted mercantile pursuits, but also acted as postmaster. With P. A. Murray as partner, in 1909 he opened a grocery in Bakersfield. For a few months he ran the two stores, but in the autumn of 1909 he disposed of the store at Wasco, and since then has devoted his entire time to the management of the Bakersfield establishment. Starting in business with groceries exclusively, the firm later added a com- plete line of hardware and now have in stock not only these two lines, but also paints and oils, roofing and fencing. The location of the store on I street between Nineteenth and Twentieth streets is sufficiently central to be easy of access to all its customers and it enjoys the patronage of a large number of city people, besides a goodly contingent from the country.

The Ashton Baking Company, organized in 1912, with the firm of Hayes & Murray as owners of one-half interest, under the management of Mr. Haves has built up a successful patronage, equipped a new shop and ovens and turns out an excellent product that finds a ready sale in increasing quantities. The supervision of the two separate lines of business keeps the manager busily occupied, but he nevertheless finds leisure for active participation in the Kern County Board of Trade and served for three years as a member of its executive committee. In addition he keeps well posted in the policies of the Republican party, which he supports with ballot and influence. Made a Mason in Delano Lodge, F. & A. M., he was raised to the Royal Arch chapter in Bakersfield, where also he has identified himself with the Elks and Woodmen of the World. At Visalia, in April of 1907, he married Miss Mamie Murray, a native of Tulare county, this state, and a daughter of P. A. and Henrie L. (Hess) Murray, the former a pioneer engineer on the Southern Pacific Railroad and also a member of the firm of Hayes & Murray. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes are the parents of two children, Thelma Vivian and Jack Murray. The family live at No. 317 Eighteenth street, in the Kruse tract, Bakersfield, where they own a recently completed and attractive residence. He is a director in the Colorado Pacific Land Company, the owners, platters and improvers of Kruse tract, one of the finest residence portions of the city.

WILLIAM WALLACE .- Inventive ability of a high order would have brought worldly fame and material prosperity to Mr. Wallace had not his career been cut short by untimely death when he was forty-one years of age. Notwithstanding his passing ere he had reached the zenith of his powers he left behind him a reputation for inventive skill based upon inven- tions that now are in constant use. As a machinist his skill was so great that many considered him a genius. From childhood he had the faculty of grasping the intricate details of any piece of mechanism and to him more pleasing than the usual sports of youth was the success with which he could put together the numerous parts of a machine into working order. As is common with men of his type, he had his discouragements and reverses. but he never allowed failure to depress him or to retard even momentarily his enthusiastic labors upon his patents. Evidence of his ability and of the successful business supervision of his widow appears now in the Wallace Pump Works, located at No. 718 Twentieth street, Bakersfield, where are manufactured some of his most important inventions.

Born in Pennsylvania in 1869, apprenticed in youth to the trade of a machinist near Pittsburg, and removing to California about 1900, Mr. Wallace first secured employment as an expert machinist in the Bakersfield iron works, and later, as superintendent of the machine department for Reed Brothers, engaged in the manufacture of the Parker pump on Chester avenue. After a time he went to the Kern river oil field and started a machine shop, but the venture had a disastrous termination, and in one year he returned to Bakersfield to start anew. Here he opened a machine

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shop on Twentieth street, where he engaged in reboring oil well pumps. During 1905 he obtained a patent for rebrushing oil well pumps and in 1908 he patented the Wallace interchangeable oil well pump, which now is manufactured in large numbers and used with gratifying success by the largest companies in the county. At the time of his death, which occurred October 9, 1911. he was engaged with a number of other patents, but his untimely demise prevented their completion. He belonged to the Maccabees.

In New York City occurred the marriage of William Wallace and Miss Sadie Summers, who was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, being a daughter of Christian Summers, a native of London, England, but for many years a manufacturer in Copenhagen. From childhood she was trained in the doc- trines of the Lutheran denomination and she always has been a generous contributor to that church as well as a firm believer in its creed. Possessing business ability of a high degree, at the death of Mr. Wallace she determined to maintain the business and manufacture his patents. The results have proved the wisdom of her decision. It has been her good fortune to secure the services of Perry McAninch as manager; with his skilled and capable co-operation she has engaged in the manufacture of the Wallace Interchange- able oil well pump and the Wallace bushed pump. The plant, of which she is sole proprietor, stands on Twentieth near O street and is operated by electrical power.

WILLIAM J. ROOKS .- The American genealogy of the Rooks family extends back to the period of the colonization of the Atlantic seaboard. Andrew J. and Jane (Smith) Rooks, now residents of Baldwin's Park, Cal., are natives of Georgia and their son, William J., was born November 2, 1864, in that state, at a small hamlet known as Newton Factory. In early life Andrew J. Rooks followed the trade of blacksmith at Monroe, Walton county, his native Georgian city, from where he served as a sharpshooter and scout throughout almost the entire period of the Civil war, being a member of Company C, Ninth Georgia Regiment, C. S. A. There were but three of his nine children who lived to years of maturity and the eldest of these, William J., has followed the occupation which he learned so thor- oughly under the skilled instruction of the father. Beginning to learn thie trade when sixteen years of age, he served his apprenticeship at Newton Factory and then spent two years in a carriage factory in Atlanta, Ga., after which he conducted a shop of his own at Snellville, same state, for two years. Next we find him in Alabama, engaged in the car-shops of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad at Decatur, where for eighteen months he specialized in the manufacture of coach and engine springs. After three and one-half years in the car-shops he opened a carriage-shop of his own in Decatur, where he engaged in the manufacture of carriages and wagons with considerable success.

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History of Kern 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, Part 109

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog] Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company Number of Pages: 1682

Author: Morgan, Wallace Melvin, 1868- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Los Angeles, Cal., Historic record company
Number of Pages: 1682