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 129

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 129

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Mr. Andres remained on his uncle's farm until he was eighteen, and then worked out by the month in different places, wherever he could secure the best wages. After he had been able to save some money, he went to Beaver Creek, Rock County, Minn., where he rented a half section of land, farming it for three years. In the meantime July 3, 1901, he had been united in marriage with Miss Clara Hoefer, a native of Rock County, Minn., a daughter of Christian and Rosa (Krapf) Hoefer, natives of Wurtem- berg, Germany, horn near Stuttgart; coming to the United States when young people; they were married at Cedar Falls, Iowa. Afterwards they removed to and were early settlers of Rock County, Minn., where they homesteaded 160 acres on Beaver Creek which they improved and where they raised their family. Mr. Hoefer was prominent in the Evangelical church as class leader and Sunday school superintendent. They moved to Santa Ana in the spring of 1902, where the father died November 17, 1913, while his widow still survives. Their six living children are as follows: Mary, Mrs.

Chas. a. andres

Clara E. andres.

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August Eikmeier of Pipestone, Minn .; William, an orange grower in Santa Ana; Mrs. Clara Andres: Rose. the wife of Philip Lutz of Santa Ana; Arthur resides at Owensmouth and Helen, Mrs. Steadman, lives in Santa Ana.

Mr. and Mrs. Andres decided to try their fortune in California and in December, 1903, they arrived in Santa Ana. In the spring of 1904 he bought twenty acres on McFadden Street, in the southern outskirts of Santa Ana, part of it being within the corporate limits. It was an alfalfa field, full of gopher holes, but Mr. Andres improved it, building a good house on the west ten acres, which he sold. After building on the east ten acres, he also disposed of this and in the fall of 1912, he purchased his present ranch north of Garden Grove. This consisted of twenty acres, much of which was unusually rough land. Seven acres of it had been planted to eucalyptus trees and these Mr. Andres cut down, pulling out the stumps with a stump puller. There were two deep sloughs across it which he filled up and altogether it was a great undertaking and required a tremendous amount of hard work. Finally, however, he had it leveled up and ready for irrigation. Eight acres were sct to walnuts and ten acres to Valencia oranges, all now bearing. He also has two acres in lemons. His walnut orchard is interset with oranges, pears, plums, peaches and apples, and he also grew lima beans in between the rows when the trees were young, thus helping to pay expenses.

Mr. and Mrs. Andres are the parents of two children: Paul A., a graduate of the Santa Ana high school and now at the agricultural department of the University of California at Davis; and Viola E. The family live in their attractive home on North Bush Street, Santa Ana, which Mr. Andres erected in 1915. The family attend the Evangelical Church at Santa Ana and Mr. Andres is chairman of the board of trustees. He is a member of the Garden Grove Citrus Association, the Garden Grove Walnut Growers Association and the Garden Grove Farm Center. In political matters, he is an advocate of the principles of the Republican party. Although he was exposed to many hardships and temptations in his early days, he has risen above them all by his own unaided efforts and now stands in his community as an example of honest, exen- plary citizenship.

DR. WILLIAM M. POPPLEWELL .- Among the professional men who have retired from active professional life and engaged in the citrus industry in Orange County, California, is Dr. William M. Popplewell. He is a native of Missouri, born at Havana, Gentry County, September 25, 1862. His father. Barrett Popplewell, born in Kentucky, was a pioneer citizen of Missouri, and his mother, Eliza ( Hoyt) Popple- well, a native of the state of Maine, were married in Missouri. The father served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and now, at the age of eighty-three, with his wife, aged, seventy-five, still lives in the state in which his lot in life was cast in his younger years. Of their four children who are living, two sons and a daughter live in the Central West.

William M. is the oldest child and was reared on his father's farm. He attended the public schools in his native state, took a course in the Normal School at Stanberry, Mo., and taught five terms in that state. He had always had a desire to study medicine, so he matriculated at Ensworth Medical College, St. Joseph, Mo., graduating with the class of 1896, receiving the degree of M. D. He served as interne for fourteen months at Ensworth Hospital, and after five years of successful practice at New Hampton, Mo., took a post-graduate course at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. New York City, specializing in eye, ear, nose and throat. He afterward returned to New Hamp- ton and practiced successfully until he moved to Santa Fe, N. M., in the year 1902. where he continued until 1905. He had a keen desire to change his location to a country that had greater natural resources, and particularly along the line of horticul- ture, so in May of that year he came to Orange County, Cal., having learned of the great possibilities of the rich soll for growing citrus fruits.

His marriage, which occurred in 1889, at Stanberry, Mo., united him with Miss Nannie Ferguson, of Scotch descent, who was born in Tennessee and reared in north- western Missouri. She was a student at Park College, Parkville, Mo .. a Presbyterian school, and she also had an experience as a teacher to her credit. Dr. and Mrs. Popplewell are the parents of two children. Edith married Hugh Conger Thomson, a rancher in Villa Park Precinct, and they have three children. Margery Geiger is the wife of Elmer Horace Ball of Downey.

After coming to Villa Park Dr. Popplewell became prominently identified with the Valencia orange and the lemon industries. He is a director in the Central Lemon Growers Association, which he helped organize. and to which he gives his best ability. He cooperates with the other progressive people of his community in all that pertains to the general welfare, especially in the matter of water for irrigation purposes from Santiago Creek and from wells. He is a member of the Gray Tract Well Company and helped develop the water for irrigating the 530 acres comprised in this tract.

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They have drilled two wells and are drilling the third one. This water is held in reserve against periods of extraordinary drought, and there is one share of water stock to each acre of land.

Dr. Popplewell purchased thirty-one and one-half acres of land after coming to Villa Park Precinct, and afterwards gave his daughter, Mrs. Edith Thomson, five and one-half acres, and retained the twenty-six acres, which is devoted to the culture of citrus fruit, upon which he and his family live happily. In 1919 Dr. Popplewell and his wife took a 7,200-mile auto trip. They were gone three months and three days, traveling in their own auto, and visited their parents and friends in their old Missouri home. the historic and interesting places at Santa Fe and various places in the Central West. While glad to renew old associations and enjoy a visit with their parents and friends, they were more than satisfied to get back to their cozy Villa Park home. Dr. Popplewell's genial ways, sound business judgment, and keen interest in the progress of Orange County, combined with his earnest endeavors to uplift the community morally and socially, has made him a welcome addition to Villa Park. He has demon- strated his reliability, public spirit and rare. good fellowship, and is a favorite among his fellow-citizens.

PHILIP HERMANN KRICK .- A broad-minded and liberal-hearted resident of Anaheim, whose splendid foresight and energy have already accomplished so much for the development of Orange County in many lines is Philip H. Krick, who, as a progressive educator, did much to lay the foundations of the sound educational stand- ards of the county. Indeed he has been active in all movements tending to build up this section and as a believer in the excellent doctrine of "live and let live" he can count his friends by the score.

Mr. Krick was born in Elcho, Ontario, Canada, about twenty miles west of Niagara Falls. After completing the grammar schools, he entered St. Catherines Collegiate Institute, and following his graduation he took a course at the Hamilton School of Pedagogy. During the years of his college course, he was engaged in both farming and teaching, and after graduating he became a teacher in high schools of Ontario until 1894, when he decided to migrate to California, arriving in August of that year. Locating in Placentia, he became principal of the Placentia school, a position which he filled continuously until 1901. Resigning to accept a position as secretary of the Anaheim Union Water Company, he ably filled this position for the succeeding nine years. In the meantime he purchased city property on North Los Angeles Street, Anaheim, and here he still resides. He also became actively interested in real estate, buying, developing and selling a number of orange groves in the Placentia and Ana- heim districts, and at present is the owner of three splendid groves, which he has developed to a high state of cultivation.

In addition to his horticultural interests, Mr. Krick has contributed largely to raising the dairy stock of the county to its present high standard. On one of his ranches he maintains a dairy, and here he has what is considered the finest herd of registered pure-bred Holstein cattle in Orange County, comprising fifty head. One of the cows, King Pontiac Idyl Segis, holds the Junior four-year-old record for the state of California, having produced thirty-five and two-third pounds of butter in seven days. The registered bull which heads the herd comes from fine producing stock, his dam having been the first cow in the state to produce over 1,200 pounds of butter in one year. The herd contains ten of the granddaughters of the King of the Pontiacs, the greatest Holstein sire in the world. The Krick dairy, which is located on Garden Grove Road, about one mile from Anaheim, is modern and sanitary in every respect, with cement floors and all modern equipment, including milking machines. He is a member and Orange County representative of the Southern Cali- fornia Holstein-Friesian Association and also a member of the Holstein-Friesian Association of America.

Mr. Krick's operations are not confined alone to Orange County, but he also has interests in several other sections of California. As early as 1905 he became interested in farm land in Kern and Tulare counties and was a pioneer in the development of pumping plants for irrigating in the Wasco section of Kern County. He was a director of the Fourth Extension Water Company, this company making the first united effort to sink wells and by means of pumping plants put water on a large area of land. Mr. Krick improved his land to alfalfa, also setting out a vineyard. At the same time he also improved a ranch at Alpaugh. Tulare County, which is irrigated from flowing wells and where he raises grain and alfalfa.

The marriage of Mr. Krick which occurred at St. Catherines, Ontario, in 1891. united him with Miss Edith M. Beckett. a native of that place and the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Beckett. the father being a well-known manufacturer of woolens of St. Catherines. Two uncles of Mrs. Krick, John and Alfred Beckett, were pioneers

P. H. Krich.

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of Orange County, coming here as early as 1876 and locating at Alamitos, where they were engaged in general farming and horticulture. Representatives of old Penn- sylvania Quaker stock, they took a leading part in the building of the Friends Church at Alamitos, and gave it their generous support. Familiarly known as Uncle John and Uncle Alfred, they both reached the advanced age of eighty years, and were loved and esteemed by every one who knew them.

Always a leader in progressive and constructive movements, Mr. Krick was one of the organizers and a stockholder of the Anaheim Sugar Company. He was also a charter member of the Anaheim Orange Growers Association, since changed to the Anaheim Cooperative Orange Association, and has served as president of the Anaheim Center of the Orange County Farm Bureau. Fraternally Mr. Krick is prominent in Masonic circles, being a Master Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner. He was initiated into Masonry at Wardsville, Canada, and has served three consecutive terms as master of Anaheim Lodge, No. 207, F. & A. M., and for three years was inspector of this Masonic district.

In early days Mr. Krick was secretary of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce. and he has never ceased to give of his best efforts toward advancing the interests of his community, always standing for a high standard of the moral betterment of its citizens. Both members of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Anaheim, Mr. and Mrs. Krick have always taken an active part in its good works, giving generously both of their time and means to its support.

JOHN LESLIE HAVER .- What the Fullerton Meat and Grocery store is doing for the comfort, health and prosperity of the citizens of that city, those only who have traded there for some time are able in full to comprehend. Its proprietor is John Leslie Haver, who came from Kansas, where he was born at Highland on December 18, 1883, and brought with him to his task some of the invaluable Middle West spirit, the inheritance of knowledge and traits from a father who was a successful business man, and a go-ahead force of his own. His father was J. H. Haver, who came from Pennsylvania to Kansas, and he married Miss Elizabeth Vernon, whose native place was also Pennsylvania.

The second in the order of birth, John Leslie received his education at the grammar and high schools of his home town, and in October, 1906, came to California. For three years he lived at Riverside and worked for Messrs. Newberry and Parker, and then he was in Santa Ana for a year. In 1910 he came to Fullerton, and at the same time, in partnership with A. C. Gerrard, Mr. Haver started the Fullerton Meat and Grocery Store. In 1916 they started the groceteria at 243 North Spadra, known as the Fullerton Groceteria, but in April, 1917, he bought out his associate in both stores, and since then he has been conducting the entire business himself. In the two places he employs ten people, and even then is kept mighty busy catering to the wants of his many and increasing patrons. He is one of the livest members of the Board of Trade

In Santa Ana, on October 10, 1907, Mr. Haver was married to Miss Mary E. Babbitt, a native of Hiawatha, Brown County. Kans., and the daughter of Worth Babbitt, who with his wife now live in Santa Ana. Mr. and Mrs. Haver have two children-Forrest Elden and Dorothy Jean, and attend the Christian Science Church. A Republican in national politics, Mr. Haver has never sought nor accepted public office, although extremely public spirited. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias, and is fond of fishing and outdoor life.

HAROLD ARLINGTON WATSON .- The long-honored name of Jonathan Watson, one of the most distinguished of Orange County's pioneers, is worthily borne by his youngest child, Harold Arlington Watson, who may himself boast of an enviable record for service in the great World War. As a rancher he is a successful citrus fruit and walnut grower, operating the home ranch in connection with his brothers. He was born in 1899, and was a junior in the Orange Union high school when, on the declaration of war on Germany by Congress, he enlisted on April 7, 1917, as one of the first to volunteer from Orange and Orange County-sharing with Percy Atwood and Earl Granger of Orange the honor of being one of the first three. He joined Company L of the One Hundred and Sixtieth California Infantry as a private, and later became corporal, and after sixteen months' training at Camp Kearny. sailed from Hoboken. N. J., on the "Nestor," for France. He landed first at Liverpool. and then reembarked for Havre, on August 26, 1918. He trained at various places in France preparatory to going to the front, and at the time of the armistice. narrowly escaped death from the "flu." He landed at New York on March 24. 1919, and was honorably discharged at Camp Kearny, in California, on April 16, 1919.

Mr. Watson then doffed the corporal's uniform and went to work on his father's ranch, which had been turned over to the three boys, Floyd E., a member of the auto-

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electrical firm of Thompson & Watson, Errol Trafford Watson and our subject. The latter two sons assume active control, aided in various ways by Floyd. They raise oranges, lemons and walnuts, and nowhere for miles around may fruit of a higher quality be found. Having mastered the details of ranch work when he was a boy. as did his brothers before him, Mr. Watson has found no difficulty coping with the many agricultural problems of the day.

From his father, whose record for endurance and accomplishment is so remark- able in many ways, Mr. Watson has inherited not only his love for the great outdoors, but his proficiency as a marksman. He was, therefore, one of the best five rifle shots, with Springfield rifles, in his regiment of over 3,500 men, and was a prize marksman at all the ranges. He is a member of Post No. 132, American Legion, at Orange.

Just before leaving for France Mr. Watson was married to Miss Bernice Wilbur, a native daughter, of Orange, and one child was born to them, Jeanne M. Mrs. Watson, as a popular belle, was the daughter of Dr. D. F. Royer of that city. A most distress- ing accident deprived these devoted young parents of their little daughter, Jeanne, only fourteen months old. The little one, with their parents, was visiting at the home of the beloved grandfather, when an automobile, backing out, ran the child down. The baby was rushed to the Anaheim hospital for operation, but died soon after reaching there. The tragedy brought the deepest sorrow to a host of friends, as well as to the bereaved parents.

JOHN C. KEEFE .- A clear-headed, able-bodied man of three-score and fifteen years, whose mental vitality is demonstrated in the valuable. patented inventions to his credit, and whose physical vigor is equally well shown in his personal management of a forty-acre farm, is John C. Keefe, a type of American always an asset to any commonwealth. and especially to a rapidly-expanding empire like that of the state of California. He was born in Chicopee, Hampden County, Mass., on June 27, 1845, the grandson of a sturdy lrish emigrant who left the historic and picturesque County of Cork in 1798, and pushed out for the New World. He had a son, Cornelius Keefe, the father of our subject, who married Miss Hannah O'Connell and died at Chicopee when John was five years old. He had been a skilled worker in the plant of Ames Bros., long better known as the firm of Oliver Ames & Sons, Oliver Ames having been a blacksmith, who early acquired reputation in the making of shovels and picks. The Civil War in particular gave them an extensive field for supplying both shovels and swords to the Federal Government.

After the death of her husband, Mrs. Keefe moved from Chicopee to the upper part of New York City known as Harlem, where they lived with Mrs. Keefe's sister and John's uncle, and during this period the lad had a chance to ride on the first car of the new street railway running from New York City proper to Harlem, a distance of seven miles. and drawn by mules. In 1851, with his grandfather, Timothy O'Connell, his mother, two aunts and an uncle, John traveled further west, and lived on a timber claim of 640 acres in Washington County, near Milwaukee, Wis., and as a sturdy boy. he helped clear and develop that land. In 1853, the Black Hawk Indians returned to Washington County, and they had a tribe pow-wow. He saw a good deal of the Red- skins, for their acreage was full of berries and game, and naturally became the hunting grounds of the savages.

While thus living in a log cabin, he worked during the summer time and went to school in winter: and being considered a good student, at eighteen he was given a teacher's certificate and for a couple of years taught school. In 1868, he matriculated at the University of Wisconsin, where he was graduated in 1872 with the B. S. degree. The next year he was made principal of the Barton high school.

In 1873, he became the private secretary to William E. Cramer, editor of the Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin, and a year after that was made a reporter on the paper, and then, in 1875, the financial editor. And in the Centennial Year he became city editor of this paper. He has a splendid flow of language, is well read and traveled, and with his retentive memory is an interesting conversationalist. He writes in an easy and flowing style and his articles, while he was a journalist, were very favorably com- mented on by critics.

On September 1. 1878, Mr. Keefe was married to Miss Helen Marie O'Neal, a native of Milwaukee, and the daughter of Edward and Hilda (Johnson) O'Neal. Mr. O'Neal had been mayor of Milwaukee for six terms, and at the time of their marriage. was a banker in that city. He sent his daughter to the Convent of the Holy Name in Milwaukee, and there she was given the education deemed necessary for a lady in polite society and a practical world.

With Mr. O'Neal's aid. Mr. Keefe built the Milwaukee Cracker and Candy Com- pany, but in 1892, when it had so grown that it was doing a business of a quarter of a million dollars a year, he sold out his interest, and went in for the making of metal

John & KEefe

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furniture for bank vaults and offices. He patented a knife that would cut sheet brass, at the same time that it bent it into a half-round shape, making a metal used in office furniture facing; having previously made two other notable inventions: a patent oven, for quick baking, put out in 1879, and a patent bill-file, now extensively used in offices, and given to the commercial-stationery world in 1894.

When Mr. Keefe at length disposed of his holdings in this metal-furniture factory, he spent the following two years in handling realty in Milwaukee, and first came to California and West Orange in 1900. Then he traded some iron mine property in Northern Michigan for a ranch of forty acres, now his home place, and there he himself has since planted five acres of walnut trees, ten acres of Navel oranges, five acres of Valencia oranges-now rather old trees-five acres of young Valencias, and two acres of lemons, leaving the balance vacant land. He also built his own home. His inventive faculty has frequently stood him well in stead, and has doubtless inclined him to experiment in the production of new fruit, among them a seedless lemon, as well as developing sugar pears and a new kind of walnut from the buds of the Eureka and Placentia walnuts.

Three children have blessed this fortunate union and Mr. and Mrs. Keefe. Edward Neil Keefe has charge of the branch postoffice at the corner of First and Rowan streets in Los Angeles, and there are Clarice and Alice Keefe, the former named after Sister Clara Keefe, the renowned war-nurse who, with the aid of an aged man and old horse and wagon, brought in many wounded soldiers from the battlefield of Antietam, taking them into a hospital at Baltimore. Mr. Keefe is a member of the Catholic Church of Santa Ana, and while in Milwaukee was the principal founder of the Knights of Wisconsin, a Catholic order begun in 1892 and since developed into a large organization. While not a spiritualist in the accepted term, Mr. Keefe has been in communication with the spirit world for the past five years.

JOHN PEMBERTON BAUMGARTNER .- California owes much of her mar- velous and rapid development to her journalists, prominent among whom may be mentioned John Pemberton Baumgartner, the principal owner, general manager and editor of the Santa Ana Daily Register, the largest and leading daily newspaper of Orange County, and the only daily published at the county seat. Before coming to Santa Ana in 1906, he had achieved exceptional success in the development of newspaper properties in several of the larger Southern California towns. He published a model and very successful weekly in Riverside for several years, and then consolidated that paper with the Riverside Daily Press, of which he became part owner and business manager. A few years later, when he had greatly enlarged and improved the Press, he sold his interest and bought the Pasadena Daily Star; and in seven years he developed the Star into a fine newspaper property, which he then sold. A few months later he bought a controlling interest in the Long Beach Press, and, although he never lived in Long Beach, he directed the development of that property, under the manage- ment of C. L. Day, into one of the finest papers of its class on the Pacific Coast. Meantime, he had purchased the Santa Ana Daily Register, which he was giving his personal attention, and to which, a few years later, when he had sold the Long Beach Press, he devoted his entire time. Since the Register passed into Mr. Baumgartner's control it has been developed from a paper with a circulation of 800 copies to a semi- metropolitan publication with a circulation of nearly 7,000, and it is conceded by newspaper men to be the biggest and best newspaper of its class in the country.

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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 129

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