History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 110

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700

USA > California > Orange County > History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 110

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Mr. Rurup takes a live interest in civic affairs, losing no opportunity to set forth the advantages of always choosing the man best fitted for office, rather than standing by party candidates. California and Orange County, therefore, have always profited through such high-principled citizens as Mr. and Mrs. Rurup, and no greater wealth has come to the great commonwealth than in such worthy families as theirs.

WAYLAND WOOD .- An aggressive, whole-hearted and thoroughly public- spirited citizen, who made a reputation in Montana as a pioneer before he came to California and led the way in successful subdivision of some of the choicest Santa Ana property, is Wayland Wood, the scientific and progressive walnut grower of 1524 North Broadway. He was born in Atchison County, Mo., on January 16, 1869, the son of William Henry and Isabel E. Wood. The elder Wood was a pioneer Baptist minister, having a wide circuit in western Missouri; but this did not prevent him from giving our subject a high school education in Maryville, Nodaway County, Mo.

For twelve or thirteen years Wayland Wood was busy as a contractor and builder in Maryville, but in 1900 he went to Custer County, Mont., whither came also Miss Delia J. Baker, who was born near Maryville on March 25, 1870, and went to the same school, at the same time, in that town. And at Terry, Mont., on March 25, 1900, they were married. She had taught school in the vicinity of Maryville for a number of years, and became an agreeable companion and a most helpful mate. As a happily married couple, Mr. and Mrs. Wood lived together in Montana until November, 1914. when they came west to California. They have four children-Carrie E. and Charles H., students in the Santa Ana high school, and Mary Margaret and Isabel O. Wood,

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pupils in the grade schools. Mrs. Wood died in 1915 at Santa Ana. The family attend the First Baptist Church at Santa Ana.

Mr. Wood was the pioneer grain grower of the country between Powder River and Fallon Creek, in Montana, and now he has fifteen acres of walnuts in two groves near Santa Ana, under the service of the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Com- pany. When he purchased the Barton Tract on North Broadway in 1915, he had the foresight to subdivide and develop the tract, and he rapidly sold city lots there and even built several houses, adding greatly to the value and the attractiveness of North Broadway property.

A Democrat in matters of national political import, although nonpartisan in his attitude toward local candidates and measures, Mr. Wood also belongs to the Masons and Knights of Pythias, and among the most popular of live-wire fraternity men in their circles.

EDGERTON B. SPRAGUE .- An influential citizen of Santa Ana who has worked his way up by intelligent, hard and honest effort and so has become prominent in financial circles, is Edgerton B. Sprague, the popular cashier of the Orange County Trust and Savings Bank of Santa Ana. He was born near the Connecticut River, at Windsor, in Windsor County, Vt., on November 25, 1880, one of the ninth generation of Spragues descended from Edward Sprague whose two sons, Ralph and William, came from England to Boston in 1630 and helped to establish here those American brauches which later included such celebrities as Daniel Chamberlain Sprague, the mis- sionary to the Sandwich Islands; Alfred White Sprague, the scientist and author; Charles Sprague, the poet; John Titcomb Sprague and John Wilson Sprague, the sol- diers; Peleg Sprague, the jurist; William Sprague, Sr., and William Sprague, Jr., governors of Rhode Island; and William Buel Sprague, the clergyman widely known in Europe as well as in the United States, who collected over 100,000 autographs of note and published many interesting volumes of travel and essays. Great-great grand- father Jonathan Sprague drifted to Hanover from Massachusetts, and erected there the first school building, out of which later grew Dartmouth College.

The father of our subject was Clarence M. Sprague, the shoe manufacturer at Windsor, Vt., and Kennebunk, Maine, who later removed to Grundy Center Iowa, and became a farmer and a stock raiser. He is still a resident of that place, but lives retired. He had married Miss Abbie E. Weston, a native of Plymouth, Vt., and a member of another old Massachusetts family proudly tracing its ancestry back to Plymouth. She died in Iowa. Grandfather Weston was a farmer in Vermont, while Grandfather Edgerton Sprague was a farmer in Vermont and also owned a fine tract of land in Iowa. Clarence M. Sprague had three children; two of whom are in Iowa, and one in California.

The second eldest, Edgerton Sprague was brought up at Windsor and at Kenne- bunk, and when a boy of four came to Iowa. He went to school at Grundy Center; assisted his father on the farm, and then entered Cornell College, at Mt. Vernon, Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1903 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He next entered the law department of the University of Michigan, where he remained until his senior year when, in 1905, he made a trip to California and the Coast, and what he saw here, he liked so well that he concluded to remain.

On November 5, 1906, Mr. Sprague entered the service of the Orange County Title Company of Santa Ana, having previously been employed in surveying at Laguna Beach, where he became acquainted with Mr. Mansur, who persuaded him to enter the employ of the Title Company; and he resigned from the escrow work of that concern only because of an offer from the California National Bank, whose assistant cashier he became on March 1, 1915. On the first of October, two years later, he was made cashier of the Orange County Trust and Savings Bank to the satisfaction of all the patrons. He is a stockholder and a director in the bank, and a stockholder, director and vice-president of the Home Mutual Building and Loan Association of Santa Ana.

In 1910, at Santa Ana, Mr. Sprague was married to Miss Agnes McBride, a native daughter born in Sacramento; and their fortunate union has been further blessed through the birth of their two children-Clarence Edward and Weston Finley. The family attend the Presbyterian Church, in which Mr. Sprague is a trustee. He is a Mason, associated with Santa Ana Lodge No. 241, Santa Ana Chapter No. 73, Santa Ana Council No. 14, and Santa Ana Commandery No. 36, K. T .; and he also belongs to the Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., of Los Angeles.

In addition to his banking responsibilities Mr. Sprague is interested in horticulture, and he has business property interests in Santa Ana. He has owned various pieces of property at different times, and has never failed to identify himself in the most helpful manner with the growing city and county.

Baraque

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OSCAR ROSENBAUM .- A highly intelligent, well-educated rancher who, despite various handicaps inherited through financial reverses of his father, has succeeded in attaining for himself and his family a considerable degree of affluence and comfort, is Oscar Rosenbaum, the progressive owner of the fine acreage on the State Highway about two and a half miles north of San Juan Capistrano. He was born in the San Juan precinct on May 24, 1869, the second oldest child of Henry George Rosenbaum, a pioneer cattleman at San Juan Capistrano, contemporary with Don Marco Forster and Judge Richard Egan, who came to California in 1850 around Cape Horn. He married Susan Bolton, a native of England, who was reared in Australia and came to California in 1861. He came to San Juan Capistrano about 1868 and had a rich pioneer experience. He was extensively engaged in the raising of cattle, but met with reverses, leaving little or no property for his children, of whom there were nine. Broken down, he retired to Los Angeles, where he died; and in that city, also, Mrs. Rosenbaum, a devoted mother and wife, passed away, neither of this worthy couple having been granted the pleasure of knowing how well their children would succeed in their struggle with the world.

Oscar grew up on his father's ranch in what is now San Juan precinct, near San Juan Capistrano, and attended the grammar schools in that old town; and when sixteen years old, he left home and finally drifted to Colorado. He worked at anything that his hands could find to do-ranch work at first, but later in the mines; and after a while had succeeded so well that he could take the next important step in life.

He was married at San Bernardino, Cal., to Miss Ella May Brumbly; and their union, the happiness of which was assured through the bride's genial and winning personality and her industrious habits, has been further blessed in the birth of eight- een children, fourteen of whom are living and honored as active American citizens. Three of their sons were in the war: Clarence Homer who was in the Mobile Ordnance department, is now operating the Imperial Valley ranch; Frank Oscar, who served overseas in the Three Hundred Sixty-fourth Infantry, is now attending the Davis Agri- cultural College; Fred George served in the Second Engineers until the armistice and is now in charge of his father's upper ranch.

As a result of their hard work and frugality, Mr. and Mrs. Rosenbaum are now the owners of two excellent ranches, one two miles, and the other four miles north of San Juan Capistrano, including a combined area of 1,000 acres besides acreage in Santa Ana and Imperial Valley. This last-mentioned ranch, further to the north, is managed by one of Mr. Rosenbaum's sons, Fred George. Mr. Rosenbaum himself is both an experienced farmer and an able business manager; and while for the most part follow- ing stock-raising or mixed farming, he has planted much of his land to walnuts and oranges, and is now developing an excellent orange grove on the ranch two miles north of San Juan Capistrano. At the same time, he finds it possible to enlarge his culture and keep up his reading and general studies so that as a conversationalist he is always able to attract and hold his own.

WALTER D. LEDFORD .- Six of the eight years that Walter D. Ledford has owned his seven-acre ranch, which he purchased in 1912, has been devoted to the busi- ness of poultry raising, and he is one of the promising and progressive poultrymen of his section of Orange County. The ranch is situated on the Santa Ana branch of the Pacific Electric Railway, north and west of Cypress. Mr. Ledford was born in Cherokee County, Kans., on June 16, 1873, a son of Calvin T., born in Indiana, and Welmet (Hobson) Ledford. The mother was born in lowa and is a cousin of Rich- mond P. Hobson. There were six children in the Ledford family, four living and all residents of California, and two, Walter and Charles, live in Orange County. The father died in Indiana, in 1877, and when Mrs. Ledford married again she chose for her husband Calvin Luther Newlin, by whom she had a daughter, Stella G., now the wife of Espy Hawthorn of Fresno County.

Mr. Newlin and family started from the Kansas homestead en route for California via Texas, but stopped two years in Colorado, from which place, in 1891, they landed in the Golden State. Walter resided in Redlands, after his arrival here on May 5, 1891, and for seventeen years he worked at the trade of carpenter. He had learned the trade earlier in life and was capable to do any and all kinds of work in his line and helped to build up the city of Redlands as well as the surrounding country. In 1908 he came to Orange County and bought his present ranch and upon this he has placed all the improvements. He began in the poultry business in a small way and gradually increased his production of eggs and his broods, now having some 2,000 laying hens of the single-comb White Leghorn breed. He raises chicks for commercial purposes as well. His housing pen is 200x20 feet, and that and other buildings neces- sary for the conduct of his business have been built by himself, and it was here that

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his knowledge of carpenter work has stood him in good stead. He has gradually built up a profitable business and become an authority on raising chickens.

Mr. Ledford was united in marriage in Parker County, Texas, May 15, 1896, with Miss Martha E., a daughter of Thomas B. and Martha A. (Martin) Callison, the latter a cousin of Congressman John D. Alderson of Virginia. Mrs. Ledford was born in West Virginia and came to California after her marriage and this has since been her home. Mr. and Mrs. Ledford have had eleven children, nine of whom are living: Calvin T., served in the World War in the heavy artillery and was in training at Camp Lewis when the armistice was signed. He is married and has two children, Margaret and Elizabeth A., and the family live at Buena Park. The others are Muriel A., George L., Walter D., Carl H., Gladys M., Dora 1., Grace A. L., and Robert C. Politically Mr. Ledford is independent of party and casts his vote for the men and measures that he deems most important for the good of the county and people. He is a member of the Masonic order, Buena Park Lodge, No. 357, F. & A. M., and is held in high esteem by the members of that order.

WILLET S. DECKER .- One of the most successful and, therefore, one of the best-known contractors and builders in Orange County, who has also demonstrated his ability to manage and maintain a fine lemon grove, is Willet S. Decker, who was born at Newton Center, near Scranton, Pa., on May 21, 1862, the son of Amzi and Sophia (Shoemaker) Decker. His grandfather, on his father's side, was a pioneer of Luzerne, later Lackawanna County, Pa., and had much to do with the history of Newton Center, being one of its leading citizens.

Willet S. Decker learned the art of building in Pennsylvania, and as foreman for C. F. Ward, Taylor and Company, and also Conrad Schrader, broadened his ex- perience into contracting. On June 22, 1897, he landed in California, and started to work for George E. Preble at Santa Ana, and in sixty days he was made foreman, with such satisfactory results all around that he remained for thirteen years with Mr. Preble. He had the building of the Masonic Temple, the First Presbyterian Church and the Congregational Church, and in May, 1910, he was appointed deputy state engineer and placed in charge of the construction of the additional buildings at the Whittier State School, as well as the repair of the buildings of that institution. In Angust, 1912, he was appointed building inspector for the board of education of Santa Ana, and superintended the erection of the new Polytechnic high school, and also the Spurgeon school, both of which were completed in the fall of 1913.

The next four seasons, from 1913 to 1917, Mr. Decker was house foreman for the Santa Ana Valley Walnut Growers packing and shipping establishment, and spent from September to December in the packing house, while he did contracting and building for the rest of the year. Since 1917 he has busied himself mostly with gen- eral contracting. Mr. Decker also has another absorbing interest, a beautiful lemon grove of ten acres, at Yorba Linda, lying in the new gusher oil district, which he purchased in January, 1912. All the trees are about nine years old and in excellent bearing, the grove having a record of being one of the best producers for its age of any in the district.

On September 23, 1897, Mr. Decker was married to Miss Jettie M. Winslow, the daughter of J. B. and Hannah Winslow, who are at present residing amid a circle of devoted friends at 1119 North Main Street, Santa Ana. While Mr. Decker was superintending the construction of the new additions to the Whittier State School, Mrs. Decker was the school's popular assistant matron. The family attend the Con- gregational Church at Santa Ana, and Mr. Decker is an enthusiastic Mason, having been made a Mason in Santa Ana Lodge No. 241, F. & A. M. He is also a member of Santa Ana Chapter No. 73, R. A. M., Santa Ana Council No. 14, R. & S. M., Santa Ana Commandery No. 36, K. T., and with his wife is a member of Hermosa Chapter No. 105. O. E. S. He is also a life member of Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Los Angeles. One son, James, blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Decker. In national politics Mr. Decker is a Republican, but in local affairs he is properly non- partisan in his views.

WILLIAM I. WALLER .- Probably the largest individual rancher in Orange County, and also one of its most successful, is William I. Waller, who is operating 3.500 acres at present, practically the whole acreage being devoted to grain farming. Mr. Waller was born at Conway. Ark., Angust 18, 1876, and the following year the family moved to California, settling near Santa Ana. His parents were Samuel R. and Emma (Holderfield) Waller, both natives of Arkansas. Samuel R. Waller crossed the plains to California with his parents in 1849, afterwards returning to Arkansas. When eighteen years of age he enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving in the Civil War, during which time he was wounded in one of the battles in which he participated.

Grillet Schlecker

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After the war he was married and engaged in farming. His wife died in 1882 and in 1885 he brought his children to California and he is still living and makes his home with the subject of this review, who is the only one living of a family of two girls and two boys.

William I. Waller started out at an early age to make his own way in the world, his first employment being on the San Joaquin ranch, where his wages were twenty dollars a month. The years that followed were filled with long hours and hard work, but he finally accumulated sufficient to start to ranching for himself. He leased 320 acres of the San Joaquin ranch and here he went through three dry years in succession, an experience that would have daunted one less courageous, but Mr. Waller stayed right by his project, even being compelled to go into debt for his seed. He then removed to the Whiting ranch, farming there three years, and in August, 1911, he leased the present place, a part of the Santa Margarita ranch. As the years went on, however, he began to prosper and gradually added to his acreage until he now cultivates 3,500 acres, 2,000 acres being in wheat this year. A large part of this acreage is Trabuco Mesa ranch of Jerome O'Neill, ten miles above El Toro. Each year Mr. Waller summer fallows 500 acres, keeping 3,000 acres in grain crops, and thus the land lies fallow one year in every seven, in this way keeping the soil fertile and capable of producing a full crop.

Mr. Waller has his places splendidly equipped with the latest machinery, and he has at least $40,000 invested in horses, mules, tractors, headers, mowers, threshers, etc., and he has a well-equipped blacksmith shop that is ample to handle all his work. He resides in Trabuco Canyon on the Mesa ranch and here he uses a seventy-five horsepower Holt tractor and a Holt combined harvester and thresher, besides about sixty horses and mules, in taking care of his immense grain crops. The other ranch, which is known as the Governor Adour ranch, and which is also a part of Santa Mar- garita ranch, consists of 1,200 acres. Here Mr. Waller nses two headers and for his threshing a Rumely separator.

Mrs. Waller was in maidenhood Miss Pearl Johnson, a native daughter of Cali- fornia, who was born in Santa Ana, whose parents were pioneers of Santa Ana, and she presides over their ranch home with grace and dignity. Two children have been born of this union: Vivian and William. By his first marriage Mr. Waller has one child, Eula.

Starting in life with no financial assistance, Mr. Waller put in many years of hard work in order to get the capital which would enable him to begin his own ranching operations, but he has made a splendid success and now ranks high among the pros- perous agriculturists of Orange County. In politics, Mr. Waller has always been con- sistent in his allegiance to the Democratic party.

GEORGE M. ROSS .- The real estate business presents opportunities for the exer- cise of the best efforts and energies of representative men of the community and George M. Ross, secretary of the Orange County Realty Company and secretary and manager of the Anaheim Walnut Growers Association has gained a position of prominence in this line of enterprise. He was born on a farm near Moran, Allen County, Kans., on June 29, 1879, and is the son of William A. and Ella (Southard) Ross, natives of Ohio, the father being reared in Missouri and Wisconsin and in the latter state he was married in La Crosse where his father and his grandfather, James H. Ross, were engaged in lumbering and logging until they located in Allen County, Kans., and in that country went through the days of the drought and grasshoppers. Grandfather Ross died in 1910 at Pasadena, Cal. He had served in a Missouri regiment in the Civil War and from there they moved to Wisconsin. Of Southern lineage the Ross family trace their ancestry back through the early settlers of New England to England and Scotland. William A. Ross now resides in Anaheim and is president of the Orange County Realty Company. In 1903 the family came to California and located at Anaheim.

The oldest child in a family of three hoys, George M., attended the rural and high schools in his native state and graduated from business college at Ottawa, Kans. After this he was employed in the bridge and building department of the Missouri Pacific Railroad one year and then came to California in 1903, where he was with a fruit company at Los Angeles for six months. Following this he went to Anaheim and engaged in the dairy business for a year and a half. Disposing of his interest in the dairy he helped organize the Anaheim Gas Company, of which he was secretary and manager for three years. He then sold his interest to the Southern Counties Gas Company and engaged in his present line of work, selling realty. After seven years in business in 1915 with his father, William A., and brother, Walter J., he incorporated the Orange County Realty Company to carry on the business on a larger scale, and . of which he is secretary and an active partner. The firm are dealers in real estate and

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build residences in Anaheim which are sold to homeseekers and they have met with increasing success. He is secretary, director and manager of the Anaheim Walnut Growers Association and a great part of his time is claimed by his duties in this capac- ity. He is also a director of the California Walnut Growers Association and takes an active part in its deliberations.

In establishing domestic ties he chose Miss Marion Johnston of Ontario, Canada, as his life companion, to whom he was united in marriage June 12, 1912, the fruit of their union being a son named Donald Livingston. In his religions associations he is a member of the Presbyterian Church of Anaheim and was superintendent of the Sun- day school for eight years. He is also active in the Y. M. C. A. work and was treas- urer of the first county Y. M. C. A. organization west of the Rockies. Politically he casts his vote with the Republican party and in his fraternal relations is identified with the Woodmen of the World. He is a member of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce, having served as a director and is an enterprising, progressive, public-spirited citizen who takes a warm interest in Orange County's welfare and is active in the civic improvement of his home town, where his sterling integrity has won the esteem of many friends.

ALFRED W. FINCH .- A highly-esteemed member of the Maccabees of Santa Ana, and a successful rancher, is Alfred W. Finch, who was born in Bedford, Ohio, on June 7, 1884, the son of Charles and Elizabeth I. (Robinson) Finch, born in Cambridgeshire, England, and Cleveland, Ohio, respectively. The mother was the daughter of Alfred and Nelga (Bruce) Robinson, who trace their ancestry back to Robert Bruce of Scotland. Great-great-grandfather Robinson made the trip with ox- teams and wagons from Connecticut, coming to the site of Cleveland, Ohio, and camp- ing in the heart of what is now that large and beautifully built-up city. Alfred Rob- inson became a navigator on the Great Lakes, and for many years sailed as a cap- tain on lake vessels. Charles Finch, a brother of the late John A. Finch, of Spokane, Wash., who became a millionaire miner in the Coeur d'Alene district, was a grocery- man in Bedford, and when he removed to Cleveland in 1886, entered the employ of the American Wire and Steel Rolling Mill Company. At the end of seven years, however, he moved onto a farm near Elyria, Ohio, and there Alfred attended school.

The young man had other tastes than those of agriculture, and so went in for interior decorating, evidencing his talent in the execution of commissions in his home vicinity. He commenced to work for himself, in fact, when he was fifteen years old, and he remained an interior decorator in Ohio until he came to California, in 1904. Then, in partnership with his father, who had also come here, he established a grocery and meat market at the corner of Sixteenth and Arlington streets, Los Angeles. When his father died, on March 7, 1908, Mr. Finch continued the business alone until the following February.

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History of Orange County, California : with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its earliest growth and development from the early days to the present, Part 110

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs Publication date: 1921 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1700

Author: Armor, Samuel, 1843-; Pleasants, J. E., Mrs
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1700