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 144

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 144

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The first improvement effected by Mr. Schnitger on his place was his barn, after which came the sinking of a well and the building of a water tank. In 1916, with the assistance of the late Benjamin Oertly of Garden Grove, he built his attractive bungalow without the help of any other carpenters or mechanics. The two friends not only did every part of the carpenter work, but also the porches, steps, chimney and other cement and brick work, and they executed all so well that the house is strikingly attractive and embraces many modern conveniences, provided in plans drawn to a scale hy Mr. Schnitger and his talented wife.

For several years Arthur Schnitger, with others, ran a bean threshing outfit, and while his partners sold out from time to time he, himself was interested in the business longer than the others. With the Belle City and the Rumely, both rebuilt machines, the men did a good business in their lines from Tustin to Buena Park and south to Wintersburg. W. E. Schnitger, assisted by Arthur A. Schnitger rebuilt and converted a steam threshing machine into a traction thresher using gasoline. The various men who at different times composed the partnership in threshing were Messrs. Dozier, Schnitger, Andres and Gibson.

At Garden Grove Mr. Schnitger. was married to Helen Schneider, born in Missouri, by whom he has had two children, twins, Barbara Joy and Fern Lucile. Leading upright, industrious lives, Mr. and Mrs. Schnitger find time for something beside the acquisition of material wealth, and take especial pleasure in active participation in all the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Garden Grove.

VERNON H. KING .- Among the ablest and most successful newspaper editors and proprietors of California, and one deserving in full the popularity he enjoys in his own and neighboring communities, must be rated Vernon H. King, the live wire manip- ulating the well-conducted Garden Grove News. He was born at Little Rock, Iowa, on May 7, 1884, the son of Charles H. King, who is still living and resides with the subject. Mrs. King, the mother, was Huldah Beeman before her marriage, and she died at Bellflower, Cal., two years ago. These good parents had nine children, and six are living today: Everett, the eldest, was until recently editor and proprietor of the Covina Citizen, and now resides at Los Angeles; Vernon was the second in the order of birth; Ethel has become the wife of Judge Hall, county judge of Brookings County, S. D .; Charles is the superintendent of the Los Angeles Creamery; Laura is the wife of Wallace Cornman, and lives at Los Angeles; Leonard is employed by the Union Oil Company at Los Angeles. Charles H. King was a native of Maine; and Mrs. King a native of Iowa. The father was a farmer and stockman, and moved from Lyon County, Iowa, to Grant County, S. D., where, from 1891 to 1896, he was located at Summit.

His first actual newspaper work was done on the Pipestone Leader, when he was for a while the "devil." or boy-of-all work, and incidentally learned to set type. He worked on both of the newspapers there, also the Brookings Press and the Brookings Leader, and added rapidly to his experience; and when the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway was building through South Dakota, he bought lots at Florence, S. D., pur- chased presses and other necessary equipment for a newspaper office, and put in his printing plant before the rails had been laid to Florence. That was in 1906; and at Florence he established the Florence Forum, and later bought the Wallace World and also the Crocker Tribune, making three newspapers of which he was editor and pro- prietor, at the same time. He continued to live in South Dakota until he sold out his newspapers to come to California, in 1912.

Settling in the Imperial Valley, in 1914 he established the Niland Review at Niland, formerly called Imperial Junction, and that was the first newspaper there. He con- ducted the Review until 1916, when he came to Garden Grove and bought out Walter Potter, the owner of the Garden Grove News. A most loyal American, first, last and all the time, and a Republican whose counsel is often sought by the local party leaders, Mr. King contributes what he can toward both a better citizenship and to the welfare of the community. He was chairman of the League to Enforce Peace, and participated actively in all war work. From 1917 to 1918 Mr. King was the wide-awake secretary of the Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce, and it is no wonder that the circulation of the News has doubled since he took hold of the paper. His printery includes all the equipment necessary for any variety of high class job and newspaper work.

In 1908 Mr. King was married to Miss Belle R. Ohnstad, a native of Codington County, S. D., and a daughter of the late L. K. Ohnstad, who died in South Dakota in 1918. She attended high school at Waubay and at Watertown, S. D., and there was well prepared for the duties of life. Two children have blessed the fortunate union, Orville and Velma. Upon coming to Garden Grove, four years ago, Mr. King pur- chased five acres, planted to Valencias, at present in a handsome stage of their growth; and recently he has bought residential property on Ocean Avenue.

Calleno Broz

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GUSTAVE J. CALLENS .- An excellent illustration of the advantages of coopera- tion in industry, especially among near of kin understanding each other and impelled by common, unselfish motives, is afforded in the operations of the Callens Brothers, Belgian-Americans, who have made good since they established themselves in Cali- fornia. The eldest of these is Gustave J. Callens, the rancher, who resids five miles to the north of Irvine Station. He was born near Kortryk in Flanders, Belgium, on November 13, 1879, the son of Henry Callens, a farmer, who was born and married in Belgium, and is still farming there. He had married Mathilda Seurinck, a worthy daughter of that country, whose fidelity as wife and mother was such that her end, in being run over and killed by an enemy truck, was pathetic in the extreme. They had eight children, two of whom died; and the other two who came to America are Adolphe and Joseph Albert. Adolphe was born about 1884, married Miss Alice Vander- beke, a resident of Anaheim but a native of Belgium. During 1920 they returned to Belgium for a visit, being among the few thus favored in early seeing the devastated, but still beautiful, country. The third brother of the group is Joseph Albert, whose birth occurred about 1890, also in Belgium. All three of these sturdy boys grew up in their native country, and enjoyed the usual educational advantages for which Bel- gium is widely known, studying in particular foreign languages, so that they read, write and speak Flemish, the language of the people, French, which is more generally used in business and officially, and English, now especially such a requisite in inter- course with the outside world.

Adolphe Callens was the first of the brothers to come to California, in 1907, and he was followed the next year by Gustave and Joseph Albert. They had many relatives in Oxnard, Ventura County, and there for a while they worked around on ranches; and in 1911 they came south to Orange County, where they began to rent six hundred acres of their present ranch. Since then, they have augmented the area of their valuable lease by clearing up and bringing under the plow a lot of land that previously was waste.

They are renting, in fact, two farms-one of nine hundred sixty-seven acres, and another of six hundred acres, making over fifteen hundred acres in all which they are operating. They also own a fine ranch of eighty acres at Greenville, in Orange County, devoted to the culture of lima beans, and a forty-acre walnut grove at Ana- heim. Of the 967 acres rented from James Irvine, one hundred sixty-five acres are set aside for lima beans, three hundred acres for black-eye beans, one hundred fifty-five acres for wheat, and one hundred fifty acres for barley. The balance is in pasture, or rough land, for this ranch lies close to the foothills. The scientific, economic and progressive manner in which these experienced ranchers handle their crops has been a source of instructive interest to fellow ranchers, and no one in the vicinity stands higher than the three Callens brothers.

Gustave Callens, besides being a successful rancher, with something definite to show for his intelligent industry, also has a war record of which anyone might be proud. In 1914, having returned to Belgium, he was impressed for military service; and having previously performed three years of military drill, he went into the front lines as a seasoned soldier. He campaigned for four and a half years in Belgium and France, and was in many very bloody engagements; but, luckily, he was never wounded. After a year's service in the Belgian infantry, he was transferred to the commissary department, in which he served as first sergeant during the last three and a half years of the war. The first year he was in the Third Company, Seventh regiment of infantry.

While in Belgium, on May 1, 1919, Mr. Callens was married to Miss Elie Devlies, who returned with him to California, and was nicely settled on the San Joaquin ranch, at the head of an ideal country home, but she died on June 22, 1920, mourned by all who had come to know her.

ADOLPHE CALLENS .- An energetic, able, "get-there" type of young man whose success has been phenomenal, is Adolphe Callens, one of the three well-known brothers, bonanza ranchers on the San Joaquin, and the first one to come to America and to lead the way for the other boys to reach California. He was born in West Flanders, Belgium, on August 6, 1884, the son of Henry and Mathilda (Seurinck) Callens, worthy farmer folks, who gave themselves to years of honest, exhausting toil. The father is still living in Belgium at the age of seventy-six; but the mother was killed during the World War when run over by a truck of the enemy. They had eight children and seven are living.

Adolphe's early life was spent in his native land, where he was given the best of public school educational advantages, especially in the matter of modern tongues, so that he learned French and Flemish before leaving for abroad, and for some time he worked on his father's farm.

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He first came to America in 1907, and proceeded west to Ventura County, Cal., and the following year he was joined there by his brothers, Gustave and Joseph. The three were not long in hiring themselves out to work on farms, and being intelligent, strong and willing, they became favorites with those who employed them. In 1910 he came down to his present locality, and in partnership with his brothers rented a ranch from Mr. Irvine. Now they are operating two large ranches on the San Joaquin, and they also own an excellent ranch of eighty acres at Greenville, Orange County, on which they grow lima beans, and they own and operate a grove of walnuts forty acres in size, near Anaheim.

At Anaheim in 1916, Mr. Callens was married to Miss Alice Vanderbeke, a native of Belgium and the daughter of Angelus Vanderbeke, who was actively engaged in farming until he was eighty-two and now lives retired at the advanced age of ninety- two years. His devoted wife, who was formerly Juliana Vermeerch, passed away April 8, 1919, in her seventy-fourth year, leaving three children: Adiel, a farmer in Orangethorpe; Alice, Mrs. Callens, and Adila, who presides over her father's home.

After completing her education in Flanders, Mrs. Callens came to Newton, Jasper County, Iowa, in 1910, and in 1911 came on to Anaheim, Cal., arriving July 4 of that year. She graduated as a nurse from the Anaheim Hospital, where she practiced her profession until her marriage. Three daughters have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Callens, and they are named, Angela, Agnes and Anita. Mr. Callens is a member of the Knights of Columbus, affiliated with the Santa Ana branch.

During 1920, Mr. and Mrs. Callens made a trip to Belgium to see the familiar spots and faces, or such as were left of them, again. On their return they landed at New York City on the Fourth of July; but they soon embarked for the West and made such good time that they arrived in their favorite home place in California on July 8.

AUGUST L. MARTEL .- A French-American with an interesting history and experience having to do with both the Old World and the New, and with both North- ern and Southern California, is August L. Martel, the livestock man, butcher and land- owner of Talbert. He was born at Gap, in the Hautes-Alpes, in the southeastern part of France, on February 4, 1865, and had the good educational opportunities of that country. His father, Louis Martel, was a farmer and a stockman, who married Veronica Boudoir, their birth and marriage, as well as their death, taking place in their native France. They had four children-three girls and a boy-among whom our subject was the second in the order of birth.

At nineteen years of age, he came to San Francisco in 1884, where he served an apprenticeship as chef and when he was proficient he served in that capacity for the celebrated Bohemian Club, of San Francisco, and also for the Palace Hotel and Maison Dore, and coming south to Bakersfield, he also was chef for the old Southern Hotel, and was there when the city and the old hotel burned. He then ran a restaurant there for several years. Removing to Los Angeles, he displayed his culinary art to the patrons of the old Hollenbeck Hotel, and thousands knew of his tasteful dinners and lunches, and his skill in manipulating great banquets.

Three years before he came to Los Angeles, or about twenty-two years ago, Mr. Martel went down to Fountain Valley and immediately he bought his ten acres, of which he has since had such good reason to be proud. Thereon he has erected a store building, which contains his meat market and grocery, residence and barns, and where he employs three men in the business. The balance of the acreage he has brought to a high state of cultivation. Always a hard worker, he has reaped the usual fruits, in success of intelligent, persistent labor. He takes a live interest in the duties of a citizen, and while voting on national issues under the principles of the Republican party. he casts aside partisanship in local campaigns, and supports whatever or who- ever is best for the community. Besides dealing in staple and fancy groceries-the finest and best are none too good for him-and fresh and salt meats, in the selection of which he is naturally an expert, he buys and sells, and also butchers, beeves, hogs, sheep and calves.

While living at Bakersfield, Mr. Martel was married to Miss Mamie Lincoln, by whom he had one child, who passed away; and in Fountain Valley this good companion passed away. He was married a second time, in Los Angeles, January 24, 1910, to Mrs. Millie Mueller, the daughter of John and Lou F. (Motley) Heaston, who are now residing at Huntington Beach, honored as among the oldest pioneers in this western part of Orange County. Mr. Heaston, who was born in Missouri, is now eighty-two years of age, and Mrs. Heaston, who hails from Old Virginia, has attained her sixty- second year. Mrs. Martel was born near Richmond, and lived there until she was seven. Then, after a couple of years spent in Missouri, she came west to California and grew to young womanhood in San Diego County. There she met her first husband, Emil Mueller, D.D.S., a graduate of the dental department of the University of Southern

Robert L. knapp.

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California at Los Angeles. He practiced dentistry at Spring and Fourth streets, Los Angeles, and at the same time was professor of dental surgery at the University of Southern California until the time of his death, at the age of thirty-eight, in 1906. She had one child by her first husband, Mary, now nineteen years old and a graduate of the Huntington Beach high school, now Mrs. Emil Keslenholtz of Anaheim. Mrs. Martel has six brothers and sisters, all of whom have been prosperous. One is Mrs. George Bushard; another, James Heaston, who resides at Los Alamitos; a third, Cleve, who is a resident of Los Angeles; a sister, Mrs. Frank P. Borchard, of Santa Ana; a brother named Fields M. Heaston, a rancher of Lancaster, Los Angeles County; and the youngest of the family, John W. Heaston, a rancher of Kern County.

ROBERT L. KNAPP .- Numbered as one of the ambitious, industrious and progressive men of the younger generation of ranchers in Orange County, Robert L. Knapp is rapidly advancing to the front rank of successful orchardists in the Anaheim district, his ranch being located on Nursery Avenue in the Katella school district. He was born in Canada on December 6, 1896, the son of the late Peter B. Knapp, who came to California and located in Los Angeles County, as there was no Orange County at that date-1888. The mother was in maidenhood, Christine Livingston, who, like her husband, was a native of Canada. There were seven chil- dren in the Knapp family, all born in Canada, and five of them are living: Mary M., Mrs. G. W. Dorr; J. Allen; Rachel J., Mrs. E. M. Christensen; Elmer C .; and Robert L. George and Annie are both deceased. Mr. Knapp died in 1903 and his widow still lives on the home place with her son Robert L. After Peter B. Knapp and his son George had been in Orange County about twelve years the other members of the family came here to join them in 1900, and they moved on the ranch where the family now lives.

Robert L. Knapp attended the public schools in Orange County, and he at once began making improvements on the ranch after the death of his father. Under his skillful hands, assisted by his brother, Elmer C., who was born in Canada on May 20, 1894, the thirty-acre ranch has been set to Valencia oranges and lemons. While the trees were maturing they raised beans and peppers between the rows to meet ex- penses. The trees are now in a very thriving condition and much is expected from the model ranch as the years pass. With the exception of the buildings on the place, every improvement has been placed thereon by the Knapp Brothers, and is being oper- ated by them, they having bought the property from their mother and each looks after his portion. Robert is public-spirited and lends his aid to all movements for the betterment of conditions and the upbuilding of the county, and his friends repose the highest confidence in his integrity, and his standing in the community is deservedly the highest. It is in the hands of such men that the future of Orange County is placed and the results they will obtain are certain to be of the highest order.

HUNTINGTON BEACH UNION HIGH SCHOOL .- Few institutions of learn- ing in California have done more to help shape the destiny of the younger and fast- growing communities than has the Huntington Beach Union High School, whose excellent standing as an accredited high school, admitting to colleges and universities without further examination, is due in part to the scholarly, thorough work of Mc- Clelland G. Jones, its principal. The grounds include ten acres, a mile northwest of the business center of the beach, while among the buildings on that site is the two- story brick and concrete structure devoted to manual arts work. There are excellent facilities for athletics, including a basket ball ground and three tennis courts, together with a football and baseball field, and fields and track for general athletics. The high school course includes four years of work beginning with the ninth and extending through the twelfth grade; and there is also an opportunity for graduate work. As in most modern high schools the program includes a commercial department and a depart- ment of domestic science; as well as courses in art, music and agriculture. The precinct of the high school takes in all the beach and coast from Seal to Newport Beach, and the school furnishes transportation for those pupils coming from the.cities and places on the line of the Pacific Electric Railway, namely, Balboa, Newport Beach, Sunset Beach and Seal Beach. The school also operates two auto busses, gathering up the pupils from the outlying country districts. The enrollment December, 1919, was 163 pupils, and there are twenty-three seniors in the class of '20. The average daily attendance is 155 pupils.

The board of directors of the Union high school are: President, E. R. Bradbury ; clerk. C. A. Johnson; and the balance of the trustees. W. T. Newland, Sr., R. E. Larter, and H. L. Heffner. Meetings of the board are held the second Friday in each month. The principal, as has been stated, is McClelland G. Jones; and the remainder of the faculty is as follows: Miss Nettie Owen, Mrs. T. B. Talbert, Miss Ruth Munro, Miss

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Margaret Keen, Miss Francis Douthit, Miss Martha Trafford, Miss Florence Larter, Frank Smith, Leon Olds, Ray Walker, and Dr. Paul White. Mrs. Julia M. Payne is secretary to the principal.

Principal Jones was born at Delevan, Cattaraugus County, N. Y., on December 14, 1885, the son of Evan Jones, who was born in Wales. He became an educator, having migrated to America, and was graduated from the Geneseo, N. Y., Normal School, after which he taught school in western New York for ten years. Then he went into business in the same region and engaged in the manufacturing of butter and cheese. Mrs. Jones, now deceased, was also a native of the Empire State and was popular as Miss Adda Gibby; she graduated from the Franklinville Academy, and was a teacher before her marriage. In the spring of 1914 she passed away, mourned by five children, among whom the subject of our interesting review was the second in order of birth.

McClelland Jones was graduated with the class of '04 from the Delevan, N. Y., high school, and for three years engaged in business. Then he entered the the Liberal Arts department of the University of Michigan, and was graduated in June, 1911, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He served as principal of the high school at Owosso, Mich., from 1911 to 1915, in all four and one-half years, when he was advised by phy- sicians to seek out-of-door life; but remaining in central Michigan until January, 1918, he suffered a complete breakdown.

On March 7 of the following year Mr. Jones came west to Los Angeles, and for several months he pursued graduate work in the University of Southern California. On July 1 of the same year, he entered upon his present position.

While in western New York, Mr. Jones was married to Miss Mabel Cheney, a native of Bradford, Pa., although at the time of her marriage, a resident of Delevan, N. Y. She is a graduate of Ithaca, N. Y., high school, one of the best of New York's secondary institutions, and has thus been able to enter intensively into the work of her husband.

JAMES E. BROWN .- Among the well-known residents of the Bolso voting precinct, Orange County, is James E. Brown, a representative of that very important class of American farmers who have won success through industry, frugality and self- denial. Beginning life handicapped by many disadvantages he has made a success and his sterling traits of character have won recognition among his associates in the twenty-four years of his residence in Orange County.

Mr. Brown is a native of Virginia, born near Middletown, Warren County, February 22, 1869. His father, James E., for whom he was named, served as a soldier in the Confederate army. and died when his son James was but a year old. The widowed mother moved with her three children to Lincoln County, Mo., where she married William Swiger, a farmer. James grew up on the home farm in Lincoln County, and his educational advantages were limited to the short time in winter when it was too cold to work. At the age of seventeen he began to work out on the neigh- boring farms by the month, and afterwards went to Pike County, Ill., where he was married, August 2, 1891, to Miss Mary C. Helm, a native of that county, whose father, William Helm, was a native of England, and whose mother, Elizabeth (Reeder) Helm, was born in Scott County, III. Her father was a carpenter, who followed farming after his marriage, and she is the second child in a family of three daughters and one son. Her mother died when she was six, and when sixteen death claimed her father.

Mr. Brown rented land for four years in Pike County, Ill., and farmed until he came to California in 1896 and purchased the home place of ten acres. Mr. and Mrs. Brown have three living children: Eliabeth J. graduated from the Santa Ana high school in 1917; she is a stenographer and a very capable employe of the First National Bank at Garden Grove; Virgil E. is a graduate of the Santa Ana high school, class of 1914. and also graduated from the agricultural department of the University of California at Davis in 1917; Harriet M. graduated from the Santa Ana high school with the class of 1917, and is now a senior in the University of Southern California. She also graduated from the Junior College at Santa Ana in 1919; Virgil enlisted in the Twenty-first Com- pany of the National Guard of the Coast Artillery, July 23, 1917, trained at Fort Mc- Arthur, was transferred to the Fifty-fifth Ammunition Train, Company C, and sailed from New York, September 8, 1918, landing at Brest, France, September 21 of that year. He was at Cluffes, France, when the armistice was signed, and remained in France until February, 1919, being honorably discharged at Camp Kearny, San Diego, March 17, 1919. Virgil and his father jointly own thirty-four acres adjoining the forty acres owned by Mr. Brown, which they purchased January, 1920. The father takes ten acres of this property and the son retains the other twenty-four. They leveled the property and planted ten acres of it to Valencia oranges in 1920, and expect to plant the remainder of it to Valencias. Mr. Brown grows beans, peppers and sugar beets.

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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 144

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