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 149

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 149

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Mr. Draper is of English extraction, and is a lineal descendant of the Drapers of early colonial days in New England, who came over in the Mayflower. He was born in Texas, October 21, 1871, and was an infant in his mother's arms when the family removed to Oklahoma and settled in the Choctaw nation, going thence to Arkansas. He attended the public schools in Arkansas, but is a self-educated, self-made man. At the age of eighteen he went to the Choctaw country in Oklahoma and leased large tracts of Indian lands and engaged extensively in farming and stock raising. He was married in Oklahoma in 1893 to Miss Emma A. Gregory, a native of Tennessee, and they became the parents of three children: Frank, Bessie and Flossie. After meeting with reverses in Oklahoma, the family removed from the Cherokee country and came to California. With his wife and two children, and but eighteen dollars and ten cents in his pocket, he arrived at Los Alamitos, Cal., Saturday night, October 2, 1897, and the following Monday morning began working in the Los Alamitos Sugar Mill. He has resided in Smeltzer since 1906, and during that time has been engaged in ranching. He raises sugar beets and lima beans, sells his beets to the Santa Ana Sugar Company, formerly the Co-operative Sugar Company, and to the Anaheim Sugar Company. During the husiest season Mr. Draper employs as high as eighty men. He owns two forty-five- horsepower Holt tractors, and fourteen head of horses and mules. He has irrigation water from flowing wells, and in addition to his other enterprises is a well-borer. He has bored several of his own wells. He also owns 200 acres of land near Orland, in Glenn County. Fraternally, he is a member of Anaheim Lodge No. 207, F. & A. M .. and is a life member of Santa Ana Lodge No. 794, B. P. O. Elks. Politically, his in- terest is active in county, state and national politics, and he takes a just pride in the achievements of Orange County. A man of great force of character, he is necessarily prominent in all that he undertakes, and the good financial results realized from his many years of energetic labor and his efforts toward the betterment of the community in which his lot in life is cast entitle him to the esteem and popularity he enjoys among his many friends and acquaintances. Mr. Draper has seen the increase in value of farm land from $200 to $1,500 per acre and he has done his part to aid in this development.

ALBERT E. QUEYREL .- Among Orange County's able and efficient men who are examples of what self-made men can accomplish, is Albert E. Queyrel, of the firm of Queyrel and Piepenbrink, Federal Trucking Company, at Placentia.

Mr. Queyrel was born at Dauphine, France, in the high Alps, March 18, 1889. His parents were farmers and he was reared on the home place and educated in the excellent schools of France. When nineteen, in 1908, he came to California, arriving in Los Angeles in November. 1908, where he worked at gardening. Later he joined his brother Joachim in the Placentia district, and worked for him on the Mesmer grain ranch. They made their home at Placentia, and walked to and from their work each day. He afterwards worked for his brother in the Placentia bakery. He became manager of the twenty-acre orange ranch of his father-in-law. A. Piepenbrink, and helped develop and set it to Valencia oranges and bring it to a high state of cultivation; then in partnership with his brother he leased 350 acres at Yorba, devoted to raising hay and potatoes. He continued there two years and then formed a partnership with his brother-in-law. Otto Piepenbrink, and engaged in the trucking business. They own two Federal three-and- a-half-ton trucks and one Mack two-and-a-half-ton truck and are doing a large and

R de Diaper

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lucrative business in all kinds of heavy trucking, such as hanling oil well supplies, fertilizer, oranges, cement, etc., and had the contract to haul the 1920 crop of oranges and lemons for two Placentia packing companies, the Placentia Orange Growers Asso- ciation, and the Placentia Mutual Orange Association. Mr. Queyrel bought one of the first residence lots sold in Placentia, on North Bradford Avenue, and built a modern bungalow in which the family reside.

Mrs. Queyrel, who was Elizabeth Piepenhrink before her marriage, is a native of San Marcos, Texas, and the mother of two children, Albert E. Jr., and Leah. Mrs. Queyrel is the daughter of August and Emmy Piepenbrink, who came to California in 1909. Albert Queyrel's experience since coming to California illustrates what a young man withont means and imbned with sufficient determination to overcome obstacles, can accomplish in gaining a competency and establishing himself as a worthy citizen who enjoys to an unusual degree the confidence and esteem of his fellow-townsmen. He is an enthusiastic booster for Orange County, and one of its prosperous and suc- cessful citizens.

HARVEY SYLVESTER GAINES .- One of the best known lumber men of Southern California, Harvey Sylvester Gaines has twenty years' of experience in that business to his credit, and hrings to his responsible position in Placentia, Orange County, the knowledge gained by practical application as well as a thorough education. He is a native of Illinois, born in Henry County, August 11, 1868, and received his education in the public schools of his native state, and also in Grinnell University, Grinnell, Iowa, from which he was graduated in 1886.

Coming to Southern California in 1887, Mr. Gaines located in Los Angeles, and for seven years was traveling auditor for the Santa Fe Railway. He then went to Redlands, and for the next twenty years was engaged in the lumber business in that city, first as manager of the Newport Lumber Company; next as manager of the Russ Lumber and Mill Company, remaining with them eight years; he was one of the organizers and a member of the firm of Fox Woodson Lumber Company of Redlands and remained with them for eight years. In October, 1919, he accepted the position of manager of the Gibbs Lumber Company at Placentia.

The marriage of Mr. Gaines, which occurred at Riverside, Cal., united him with Mrs. Nellie (McNulty) Tracy, a native of Canada, and two sons have been born to them -Nelson and Richard. Fraternally Mr. Gaines is a member of the Redland Lodge, No. 583, B. P. O. Elks, and of the Masons and Knights of Pythias of that city. He is a member of the Southern California Retail Lumber Dealers Association and served as a director of that organization for a number of years.

CHARLES W. SADLER .- A recent settler in Orange County who has seen enough of the phenomenal advance in citrus ranching in La Habra and vicinity to hecome enthusiastically interested in a still more rapid and permanent development of the region, is C. W. Sadler, who was born near Ottosen, Humboldt County, Iowa, on October 15, 1893, the son of John Wesley Sadler, who had married Mary M. Sharp, a direct descendant of old Grandmother Sharp, the only survivor of the notorious "Spirit Lake Massacre." John W. Sadler, therefore, was an early settler of Iowa, where he purchased a relinquishment of Government land and became a very successful farmer. C. W. Sadler attended the county schools near Ottosen and helped his father on the home farm up to the time when he came to California. They bred thoroughbred, short- horn cattle and Duroc-Jersey swine, and J. W. Sadler still has some of the finest stock. purchasing his breeders in the East.

In 1911 father and son came to California and stayed a short time in Whittier. when the father returned to Iowa; but C. W. Sadler remained to work on various farms. On November 27, 1913, he was married in Los Angeles to Miss Lulu Box, a native of Hanford, and the daughter of John K. and Eliza J. ( Pratt) Box. Her folks came to California in 1885 and settled in Kings County, then a wild country; and Mrs. Sadler went to the grade schools of Hanford. After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Sadler made their home at Whittier, while he engaged in the care and pruning of orchards. They have one child, Harold Eugene Sadler.

In April, 1919, Mr. Sadler purchased fifteen acres near La Habra, eleven acres of which were devoted to Valencia oranges, one acre to lemons and three acres to walnuts; and in May his father purchased fifteen acres adjoining that of his son on the west. Twelve acres of the latter tract were in lemons, and three in oranges. Water for irrigation is supplied by the La Habra Domestic Water Company, and the La Habra Citrus Association markets his products.

Mr. Sadler believes in independent action, rather than according to party leanings. and decidedly favors trying, irrespective of partisanship. to get the right men for the right place, and to endorse only the best measures.

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C. G. ANDERSON .- The life which this narrative sketches began in far-away Stockholm, Sweden, on January 26, 1880. When C. G. Anderson, the successful paint- ing and decorating contractor of Fullerton, was sixteen years old he was apprenticed for four years to a painter to learn the art of decorating and house painting. While learning the trade the wages received by an apprentice are very small, but the knowl- edge he gains of mixing colors and important pointers about the art of decorating is very thorough and extensive.

Mr. Anderson followed his trade in Sweden until 1903, when he left his native land for America, landing in Boston, Mass., where he secured employment with the American Decorating Company, the leading painting contractors of the Hub City, remaining with them two years, and while there did work on many of the finest homes in the Back Bay district of Boston. Possessed of a desire to see more of the United States, and especially of the Far West, he came to Orange County, Cal., in 1905 and for a time located in Anaheim, where he was employed by J. L. Abbott. In the fall of 1905 Mr. Anderson came to Fullerton, where he has resided since, and it was here that he engaged in the painting and contracting business for himself. He has decorated many of the business blocks and many of the fine residences in Fullerton. Seven years ago he purchased four acres of land on West Commonwealth Avenue. At that time the Tand was in a raw state, but through the energetic efforts of Mr. Anderson the place has been brought under cultivation, and is planted to Valencia oranges, now six years old and in fruitful condition, and here he now makes his home.

In Fullerton, Mr. Anderson was united in marriage with Signe E. Holm, also a native of Sweden, and of this union two children were born, Robert and Edna. Mr. Anderson's success has been due entirely to his own efforts and especially in following a definite course in life, which he planned when a lad of sixteen, when he was appren- ticed to learn the painter's trade.

BYRON B. CORBIT .- Many years of practical experience in the fruit packing industry has especially fitted Byron B. Corbit for the important position of foreman of the orange department of the La Habra Citrus Association packing house. He is a native of the Buckeye State, born in Coshocton County, Ohio, April 21, 1882, a son of Edward and Eleanor Corbit. When eighteen months old his parents migrated to Cald- well County, Mo., where he was reared and educated. At the age of sixteen he went to Cameron, Mo., to live, following farming there until 1905.

Fifteen years ago Mr. Corbit came to California, locating in Riverside County where he entered the employ of the Rubidoux Fruit Company and, while with this well-known company, by his constant fidelity to duty he gained a thorough knowledge of the packing business in all of its varied branches. After severing his connection with this company, Mr. Corbit became foreman of the Pinkham-McKevitt Packing Company at Riverside, and later on accepted a like position with the Bradbury Estate Packing House at San Gabriel. His next move brought him to Fullerton, where he accepted the position of foreman of the Benchley Fruit Company's packing house and subse- quently he became the foreman of the R. T. Davies Packing Company of Placentia. After leaving Placentia Mr. Corbit spent two years in the oil fields in the Brea dis- trict, Orange County. On May 15, 1919, he accepted his present important post, as department foreman of the La Habra Citrus Association. He is an Orange County enthusiast and always ready to help, to the extent of his ability, all movements that tend toward the upbuilding of the county's best interests. On August 16, 1916, Mr. Corbit and Miss Ruby Mareen Hickok were united in marriage; she is a native daugh- ter of California and their union has been blessed by a son, Wayne Corbit.

WILLIAM T. WALLOP .- The earliest recollections of William T. Wallop, able superintendent of the Anaheim Union Water Company, is associated with California, where he has resided since he was a year old. He was born at Horntown, Accomac County, Va., February 14. 1882, and his parents, Asher T. and Eliza H. (Tuffree) Wallop, born in Virginia and Philadelphia, respectively, were planters in Virginia. They came to Placentia. Cal., in 1883, where the father was engaged in business until he retired; his wife died October 31, 1908.

The fifth child in a family of seven children, William T. was educated in the public and high schools at Anaheim, and attended a business college in Oakland, grad- uating in 1901. At the age of eighteen he was in an office in Oakland, where he remained two years; he then spent two years in Honolulu in office work, and was later engaged in the grocery business at Anaheim for five years. Disposing of his interest in this business he became manager of the Anaheim Gas Company for a year, and following this was in the employ of the Wells Fargo Express Company three years. In 1912 he assumed the position of secretary with the Anaheim Union Water Company, and in 1919 was appointed superintendent of the company by the directors.

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He is also interested in the citrus industry, and is the owner of a ten-acre orange grove on Anaheim Road and his home place of ten acres on South Walnut Street. He is also secretary of the Eucalyptus Water Company.

Mr. Wallop's marriage with Miss Ella Rea was solemnized May 19, 1909. She was born in El Cajon, Cal., a daughter of J. B. and Margaret (Wilkie) Rea, born in Ontario, Canada. Mr. Rea settled in El Cajon in 1872, and in 1896 he located near Anaheim, where he set out the Katella orchard, naming it for his two daughters, Kate and Ella. He died in Anaheim, where his widow still resides. Mr. and Mrs. Wallop are members of the First Presbyterian Church in Anaheim, in which he is a trustee. He is a member of the Anaheim Masonic Lodge, of Fullerton Chapter, R. A. M., and Santa Ana Council, R. & S. M. Politically he is a Democrat. He has a large circle of warm friends, and holds a position among the progressive men of Anaheim, to whose energy and resource- fulness Orange County's rapid strides may be ascribed.

ALBERT JOHN HANIMAN .- A recent comer to Orange County whose interest in things Californian has been intensified through the associations of his father, who was one of the best known and most influential business men in Los Angeles in early days, is Albert John Haniman, who was born in the "City of the Angels" on May 3, 1883, the son of Albert and Lena Haniman. His father was a native of Michigan, who came to California from Detroit a few years after the first discovery of gold, and while busy as a merchant in Los Angeles, founded the Haniman Fish Company in operation today. Albert attended the Los Angeles schools, and although he lost his father when he was only nine years old, he succeeded in studying at the high school.

The death of his father, however, affected his fortunes to the extent that he struck out for himself while in his teens, and in 1892 he removed to St. Paul, where he started a cafe. Success rewarded his efforts from the start, and for twenty-five years he was noted as one of the ablest caterers of that city. Many of the leading citizens of that city so famous for its contact, through travel, with both the East and the West, used to regale themselves regularly at Al Haniman's well-kept restaurant, and it may well be said that he thus identified himself in one of the pleasantest manners possible, with the history of that growing town.

On Christmas Eve, 1908, Mr. Haniman was married at Los Angeles to Miss Stella Grace Ketchem, a native of Iowa, who came with her parents to California when she was three years old. After this eventful step, Mr. Haniman returned to St. Paul and continued in the cafe business. In 1918, however, he sold out his Minnesota interests and came on to California. Since then, Mr. Haniman has been in the commissary de- partment of the Standard Oil Company, which department is charged with caring for the meals and other comforts of the men employed by the Standard Murphy Coyote Company, southwest of La Habra. He makes his home on La Mirada Avenue on the Harris ranch, and is always "on the job."

Mr. Haniman has long belonged to the Modern Woodmen, the Masons and the B. P. O. Elks, while in political affairs he believes in emphasizing the fitness of the man above the claims of party.

W. R. ROGERS .- Among the most progressive growers of sugar beets and lima beans in Orange County, and decidedly a leader among those who, while operating for themselves, have also helped to open the field to others, is W. R. Rogers, the president of the board of trustees of the Diamond school district. He has for years been impelled forward in his successful career hy up-to-date ideas, and in fact has often had the vision and the courage of action to anticipate and outrun his competitors, while his generous impulses have won him a host of admiring friends.

He was born in New Madrid County, Mo., on March 5, 1880, the son of W. S. Rogers, who was a farmer and a lumberman that contracted to supply the Government with cypress piling in southeastern Missouri. He married, in Missouri, Miss Sallie La Valley, like himself a native of that state. He died in Missouri, to which he had returned after a visit to California; but Mrs. Rogers passed away in Orange County. They had three children: Estella resides at Santa Ana; Ruth became the wife of John L. Taylor and died at Los Angeles in 1905, leaving one child, Merl; while the third in the order of birth is William Reginald, the subject of our sketch.

When he was eight years old, he came out to California with his parents, and for a short time lived at Ballard, in Santa Barbara County. About 1890 his folks came down to Santa Ana, and they bought the ten acres upon which he is now living and which is owned by Miss Estella Rogers and himself. He attended the public schools and grew up to know a deal about California farming. These ten acres are devoted mainly to the culture of sugar beets, and they are on Brystol Street.

As one of the most successful growers of lima beans and sugar beets south of Santa Ana, Mr. Rogers also rents and farms ten acres half a mile to the west, and five

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acres to the south, both of which tracts he devotes to sugar beets, and five acres imme- diately west, where he grows lima beans. He is a member of the firm of Fickas and Rogers, and they rent of the Haven Seed Company forty acres for beet growing.

Four children make still more glad the happy home of Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. They are Reginald W., Edwin, Ellene, and Noma, and they stimulate Mr. Rogers' interest in all the children of the neighborhood. In 1919 he was elected president of the board of education of the Diamond school district, and ever since he has worked for the best educational advantages for the little ones.

H. PERCY THELAN .- A hard-worker, who keeps healthily active for the love of labor and not on account of the necessity of the thing, is H. Percy Thelan, known widely as not only having "made good" as deputy game warden, but as having set au excellent example of just how such a responsible office ought to be conducted. A native son, he was born in Santa Ana at the home of his father, a pioneer saddler and harness maker of Santa Ana, who then owned the house and resided at the corner of First and West streets, now the corner of First and Broadway. He first saw the light of day on June 5, 1879, and was lovingly cared for by his parents, Charles Columbus and Emma (Palmer) Thelan, and welcomed into this world by the late pioneer, Noah Palmer, his esteemed grandfather. Noah Palmer came to Santa Ana in 1874, and C. C. Thelan followed two years later. He died on October 16, 1897; and Mrs. Thelan, be- loved by all who have ever known her mind and heart, remarried and is now Mrs. George J. Mosbaugh.

H. Percy Thelan finished his studies in the grammar school now historic as the oldest in Santa Ana, and then took a commercial course under Prof. R. L. Bisby in the Orange County Business College. In 1898 he left Santa Ana to work in Kern County during the "boom" in the oil-fields, and there he continued for four years. He was a tool dresser on the Monte Cristo lease at Maricopa, and going to San Francisco, he had no difficulty securing a good engagement with Messrs. McNabb & Smith, foundrymen and machinists, as a machinist's helper, which post he held for another three years.

He then became a member of the firm of Thelan & Merrit, proprietors of the garage at Twelfth and Oak streets, Oakland, running that successfully; but he came back to Santa Ana in 1910 and two years later started the Thelan Machine Shop and Garage, now the Mayo Machine Shop, on East Fourth Street. When he sold out, he became deputy county game warden for a couple of years.

Mr. Thelan then bought a couple of fishing and towing outfits at Newport Beach, and is now the owner of the popular boats, "Ray II." a tug-boat, fifty feet long, and the "O. U. I.," a fishing trawler thirty feet in length. He was formerly a member of the Chamber of Commerce at Santa Ana, as he is now of the Chamber of Commerce at Newport; and with plenty of faith in the beach towns, he remains one of the most ener- getic and loyal of all "boosters" for Orange County. He owns a business block at Laguna Beach.

In 1911, Mr. Thelan was married to Miss Edith Yost, a daughter of W. R. Yost, of Santa Ana; and they have one child. Ray Palmer Thelan. Mr. Thelan owns the resi- dence in which he lives at 632 North Broadway, and has, besides, a summer home at Laguna. A desire to be most useful to society, therefore, impels him to daily toil, through which he keeps himself thoroughly in touch with the rest of the world.

EUGENE O. AHERN .- Among the most progressive and prosperous grain farm- ers of Southern California must be rated Eugene O. Ahern, for fifteen years past one of the principal tenants on the Lewis F. Moulton and Company ranch, two miles south- east of El Toro, where he owns the farm buildings and all the necessary harvesting machinery for handling the 2,000 acres which he has under lease. A native son of Cali- fornia, he was born near Saticoy in Ventura County, April 28, 1874, the son of Thomas Ahern, a native of Ireland, who came to America from the Emerald Isle, and direct to California, when he was eighteen years of age. He married Miss Honora Purcell, also Irish by birth, and they had fourteen children, among whom Eugene was the sixth. Mr. Ahern has gone to his eternal reward; but the mother still lives at Anaheim.

Eugene Ahern's boyhood days were spent in Los Angeles, when the present metropolis was comparatively a small place. receiving his education in the public schools. When nineteen years of age, he came to Orange County in 1893 and began working on farms in the vicinity of El Toro and by experience and contact with the world, and through keeping his eyes and ears open he has become a well-informed man. His father ranched at various times in Contra Costa. Ventura, Los Angeles and Orange counties, and very naturally Eugene gave him the greatest assistance he could, mastering at the same time all kinds of ranch work. Finally at Santa Ana he was married, Februry 2. 1899, to Miss Margaret Anna Kelly, born in New Zealand, the daughter of Wm. and Margaret (Nichols) Kelly. born in Edinburgh. Scotland, and the Isle of Man,

Dr. J. Thelan

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respectively. Her father, Capt. Wm. Kelly, was a seafaring man and rose to master of the vessel. For some years he made his headquarters in New Zealand. It was in 1884 he came to Newport, Cal., where he became particularly well known, piloting vessels 'over the bar. Captain Kelly and his good wife now live in Santa Ana. Mrs. Ahern is the third oldest of eight living children and she was reared and educated in the public schools of Orange County. Two children came to add to their marital happiness: Laura who married Drennan Krauchi, now deceased, and now resides at the Ahern home at Tustin; and Juanita.

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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 149

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