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 159

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 159

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In 1904 Mr. Borchard was married to Miss Marie Hauptman, a native of Connells- ville, Ill., who came to California with her parents, Henry J. and Margaret Marie Hauptman, when she was a girl of sixteen. She has been a great encouragement to him in his ambition and a great helpmate to him. Mr. Borchard has traveled not only over the Pacific Coast states but into Texas and Mexico and the Mississippi Valley as far east as Chicago, but on investigation he has found nothing to equal Southern California and particularly Orange County. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus at Santa Ana, and is a stanch Republican, and a member of Santa Ana Lodge, No. 794, B. P. O. Elks.

WILLIAM E. STORK .- A wide-awake young man, fortunate in a thorough un- derstanding of both the lumber and the building trades, and therefore unusually well equipped for the responsibilities of a superintendent, is William E. Stork, manager of the Orange Branch of the Hammond Lumber Company. He was born at Hartford, in Lyon County, Kans., July 14, 1889, the son of Phillip Stork, a contractor and builder of that town, who now, after a strenuous life, is enjoying the milder climate of Cali- fornia while residing with the subject of our interesting sketch. He had married Miss Etta Garrett; but she died in Kansas, the mother of three boys and a girl, among whom William was next to the youngest.

He was sent to the grammar schools and then to the Hartford high school, from which he was duly graduated, when he entered the employ of the telephone company, where he remained for two or three years. After that he learned the carpenter's trade; and as he was apprenticed under his father, he learned the trade well.

In 1913 Mr. Stork came west to California and at Orange hired out as a carpenter for a year, when he accepted an offer from the Orange Lumber Company as yard foreman, and as such continued until 1916. Then the Hammond Lumber Company bought out the Orange Lumber Company, and he continued with them as bookkeeper. In 1918, the company, recognizing both his special qualifications and his fidelity, made Mr. Stork manager of their plant, which is at 230 North Lemon street; and today, as a member of the Southern California Retail Lumber Dealers' Association, he is one of the influential factors in that live and useful organization.

Since coming to Orange in 1914, Mr. Stork was married to Miss Ethel Shields, a native of Hutchinson, Kans., and they have one child, Maurine. He was made a Mason in Hartford Lodge No. 193, at Hartford, Kans., and still retains an affectionate loyalty for the society and its fraternal associations.

The Hammond Lumber Company, from its entrance into this local field, has left undone nothing possible to anticipate the wants of the community, and to satisfy the many and sudden demands of builders and architects; with the result that Orange, known far and wide as a well-built town, has responded and given in turn to this con- cern an enviable and constantly growing patronage.

FRED C. BAIER .- A successful business man, using only modern machinery and up-to-date methods and fortunate in the assistance afforded him by his gifted wife, is Fred C. Baier, who came to Orange in 1909 and the next year began cement con- tracting. He was born at Caledonia, in Huston County, Minn., in 1885, the son of William and Caroline Baier, pioneer settlers and farmers there who resided in Minne- sota until 1920, when they sold out to live at Orange. They have seven children: William is a farmer in Dakota; Kate has become Mrs. Flynn and lives in Wisconsin; Mary is Mrs. Rudisuhle, and lives at LaCrosse; George is a business man in Orange; Louis, who also resides in Orange, was in the United States Army and served overseas in the World War; and Edward was in the U. S. Navy and served on the Wyoming.

Fred C. Baier was educated in the public schools, and at thirteen began to paddle his own canoe. In 1898 he moved west to Seattle and was there employed in the great lumber yards. He also took up farming, and in each field he demonstrated his ability to master the problems of the hour. At Spokane, in 1905 he learned the cement trade, and learned it thoroughly.

Four years later Mr. Baier moved south to California, and the next year started to contract for cement pipe work. He then manufactured everything by hand, and he

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also gave his personal attention to putting down the cement pipe. The high quality of both his labor and his materials, resulting in a strictly first class product, was soon appreciated, and before he knew it, he had more than he alone could do.

Now Mr. Baier uses a McCracken cement pipe machine, the first set up in Cali- fornia, and is proud of having done the first centrifugal force pipe work in the state. He has also installed at Orange a rock crusher, with which he is able to provide a much better grade of rock for the cement used in pipes-a volcanic rock otherwise not at the service of every cement worker. He makes this pipe in all sizes, and some capable of withstanding such pressure that it easily replaces the steel pipe once in such demand. He sells his pipe from Oceanside to Riverside, hauling it in trucks within a radius of fifty miles, doing more than half of his business as a wholesaler, and has laid it under thousands of acres. He organized the Southern California Associated Concrete Pipe Manufacturers, of which he was president until he resigned in May, 1920, and is also a prominent member of the Associated Concrete Pipe Manufacturers' Association of Northern California.

At Spokane, Wash., on June 12, 1907, Mr. Baier was married to Miss Rebecca Adley, a native of Melrose, Minn., and the daughter of Napoleon and Lydia (Eaton) Adley, who had been born in Maine and New Hampshire, respectively, and were mar- ried in Minnesota. As a young man, Mr. Adley enlisted in a Maine Regiment and fought through the Civil War; and later he migrated to Minnesota, and there became a stockdealer. Then he moved to Spokane and was in the dairy business in that place until he died, in 1904. Her mother lived with Mrs. Baier in Orange, and died in 1918. Mr. and Mrs. Adley had six children, Christopher, a farmer at Seattle, being the oldest. Helen, now Mrs. Bisbee, of Spokane, comes next, and Leigh is also a farmer at Spokane, as is his brother, Arichibald. John was accidentally killed while threshing near Spo- kane. Rebecca, the fifth in the order of birth, was graduated from the Spokane High School and also from the Northwestern Business College of that place. One child, a daughter, Dorothy, blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Baier.

FRANK BLAIR DALE .- An interesting couple who have just completed a new and beautiful home, and who in many other ways have contributed to the building up of Orange, are Mr. and Mrs. Frank Blair Dale. A man of wide experience and a valu- able fund of information, Mr. Dale is good company as a conversationalist and an appreciated adviser to many in need of one kind or another of guidance; while Mrs. Dale is no less attractive to those who know her in the encouragement she has always given her husband in his ambitions and arduous labors.

Mr. Dale was born at Carthage, Hancock County, 111., on April 30, 1870, the son of William Dale, a native of the same county, and a grandson of Andrew Dale, one of the sturdiest of pioneers there. He owned a farm, and built a grist mill on the river east of Carthage; and he also had a carding mill, a saw mill, and a furniture factory. He served throughout the Civil War in an Illinois regiment, and died at the scene of his honorable activities. William Dale was also a farmer, and resided at the old homestead. He had married Miss Mary Wood, a native of Illinois and the daughter of Nathan Wood, who migrated from Pennsylvania, where he was born, and became a farmer in Illinois. Mrs. William Dale enjoyed life for a while in California, and died at Orange. She was the mother of five children, four of whom are now living.

The eldest in the family, Frank, was brought up on the home farm and from there went to the public schools. When he had finished with school books he came west to Denver, in 1890, and entered the employ of the Union Pacific Railroad Com- pany. and for a while ran as fireman ont of Denver. Later, he became an engineer, but in 1896 he quit railroading, and went to Kansas. He located near Channte, in Neosho County, and having taken up farming, continued there for about eight years.

On migrating to California, Mr. Dale located at Orange, where he built a residence on South Grand Avenue. He first built south of Palmyra Avenue, in an orange grove; then he worked as a carpenter and bought a ranch; but at the end of two years he returned to carpentering. Then he purchased a ranch west of Santa Ana, but at the end of two years returned to Orange.

Here he took up contracting and building, having a partner, O. A. Long; but when the latter removed from the district, he continued in business alone until 1917, when he made a partnership with C. W. Riggle, under the firm name of Dale & Riggle, and undertook general contracting-the erection of houses and the laying of first-class cement. Among the many fine residences put up by this firm may be mentioned Henry Terry's residence on East Chapman Avenue, and the Ryan residence at Villa Park, as well as numerous artistic bungalows. They remodeled the City Hall, Mr. Dale making the drawings himself; and he has now just completed, for the eighth time, a residence for himself-at the corner of Center and Almond Streets. He belongs, very naturally, to the important organization, the American Contractors' Association.

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On December 9, 1915, Mr. Dale was married at Oceanside to Mrs. Nina (Robinson) Frankforther, a native of Topeka, Kans., and the adopted daughter of Miss Kate Hubbard, now of Orange, but formerly of Glasco, Kans. Miss Hubbard was born near Dixon, III., the daughter of Thomas S. Hubbard, a native of New York City, who came to Illinois in 1837, and there married Miss Catherine Kessler, a native of Reading, Penn., who came out to Illinois with a married sister. After farming there for a few years, Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard in 1846 removed to Independence, Buchanan County, Iowa, and bought land, which he improved and made into a farm. Four years later he removed to near Monticello, Jones County, lowa, where he was a farmer and a justice of the peace. In 1879 he and his family moved again, this time to Glasco, Cloud County, Kans., where he was a farmer until he died, in 1900, at the age of eighty- five years. Mrs. Hubbard died in Kansas in 1907, at the age of eighty-nine, the mother of four children-Catherine, or Kate, and Victor, who reside in Orange; Florence, now Mrs. Lawrence of Dixon, 111., and Charles, who lives at Ontario. Miss Hubbard came in 1879 to Kansas, where her father had a farm; and in 1908 she located at Orange and bought the corner where she has lived, highly honored by all who know her, ever since. She has reared and adopted three daughters: Hester, who is now the wife of Alfred Rogers, of Glasco, Kans .; Nina, the wife of F. B. Dale of Orange; and Gladys, or Mrs. Joseph McDonald, who lives near Santa Ana. Mrs. Dale was married the first time in Kansas to Levi Frankforther, who was the editor of the Glasco Sun until his death; and they had one child, Nina Catharine. After Mr. Frankforther's demise, she came to Orange, to join her adopted mother, who had moved there.

Mr. Dale is a member of Orange Lodge No. 225, I. O. O. F., where he is a past grand, and of Santa Ana Encampment, and with Mrs. Dale belongs to the Rebekahs, in which organization she is a past noble grand. She is also a member of the Yeomen and the Royal Neighbors, and she belongs to the Christian Church. Mr. Dale is a Republican, but nonpartisan in local issues.

CHARLES W. RIGGLE .- A progressive carpenter and builder, whose ideals and methods have been such that he could hardly have escaped success if he would, is C. W. Riggle, a native of Coshocton, O., where he was born in 1873. His father was Edward Riggle, a thoroughly patriotic American, who served in the One Hundred and Twenty-second Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War, and was wounded at Cold Harbor. After the great conflict, he took up agriculture, and for a while farmed at Macon City, Mo .; and now resides near Springfield. Mrs. Riggle was Mary Lyons before her marriage, and she died in Missouri in 1919. She was the mother of five boys, and among them C. W. Riggle was the eldest.

He was brought up in Missouri, and attended the public schools of Macon County. Later, he learned the carpenter's trade, and when twenty years of age, came out to Kansas City, and was made foreman for an important construction company, which was constantly erecting extensive business blocks, and his opportunities for experience of a varied kind were exceptional.

Having been well equipped, therefore, for original work, Mr. Riggle came to California in 1913 and located at Orange, where he began on his own account as a contractor and builder; and three years ago he formed a partnership with Frank Dale, under the firm name of Riggle & Dale. They not only make their own designs, but furnish working plans for others. Both the style and the quality of their work being such as to appeal to the intelligent patron looking for the best, they have been more and more sought, especially for building enterprises involving risk and responsibility.

At Kansas City, Mr. Riggle was married to Miss Dovie Barnett, a native of that municipality, and they have been blessed with two children. Harvey, who is a grad- uate of the Orange high school, is attending the Y. M. C. A. school of Los Angeles, and is taking a mechanical course; and Mary is still in the high school. Both Mr. and Mrs. Riggle are members of the Baptist Church at Orange, of which Mr. Riggle is a trustee. Mr. Riggle is a Mason, having been initiated in Mountain Dale Lodge No. 554, A. F. & A. M., at Seymour, Missouri.

JOHN F. RICHARDS .- An interesting Californian of the genuinely American type is John F. Richards, who was born near Manhattan, Kans., in 1872, the son of A. and Adeline Richards, the former a native of Kentucky, who in 1857 became an early settler of Pottawatomie County, Kans., and there improved a farm which was originally a raw prairie. He engaged in stock raising and was so successful that he came to own 5,000 acres of land. He is now living retired at Orange, his good wife and companion having died in Kansas. They had nine children, and John was the third youngest of them all.

After completing the courses of the public schools, he took a course at the State Agricultural College at Manhattan, after which he entered Pond's Business College at

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Topeka, from which he was gradnated in 1890, attaining the highest honors. He then engaged in mercantile business at Blaine, Kans.

At Fostoria, in 1893, he was married to Miss Annie Price, a native of Missouri, and at once took up stock raising. He established headquarters at Olsburg, Potta- watomie County, and for seventeen years was extensively engaged in buying and feeding cattle, running from 500 to 1,000 head a season. He raised hundreds of acres of corn, and bought thousands of bushels of corn, to feed the cattle he bought as feeders, and he had his feeding yards not only as Olsburg, but also at Fostoria and Blaine, becoming the owner of some 2,000 acres of land in that county. He shipped to Kansas City, Chicago and New York, and some of his cattle sent to New York were reshipped for the foreign trade.

During this time he was engaged in general merchandising in Olsburg, as well as at Blaine, and after disposing of these establishments he engaged in the lumber business in Olsburg until he came away. He also organized the Farmers State Bank of Olsburg, of which he was vice-president until he resigned to come to California.

Mr. Richards was a justice of the peace for four years in Pottawatomie County until he resigned, and he also showed his public spiritedness by serving as a school trustee. In 1910, he sold his interets in Kansas and located in Orange, California, where he resides on East Chapman street. He owns forty-nine acres in Santa Ana Canon, devoted mostly to the culture of oranges, the balance being in walnuts; and this splendid orchard property he himself superintends. His ranch is fortunately situ- ated in a field of oil development, and although he has had some flattering offers for a lease, the adjoining farms being already leased, he has refused to lease it, preferring when the time is ripe to handle the proposition himself.

He is interested in the Liberty Petroleum Company at Newport in the Heffern Oil Company at Richfield and in the Mid-Central Oil Company at the same place, as well as other oil companies here and in Texas. Two children have blessed the for- tunate union of Mr. and Mrs. Richards: Frances May is Mrs. Mix of Orange; and Lyde assists his father. Mr. Richards is a member of Manhattan Lodge No. 1185, of the B. P. O. E., and is a member of the Knights of Pythias of Orange. He is also a Republican. Mrs. Richards belongs to the Presbyterian Church.

RODOLFO C. MARQUEZ .- A hard-working and trustworthy citizen, of con- servative bachelor habits, but fortunate in his genial temperament, is Rodolfo C. Marquez, who lives on his own beautiful ranch of three and a half acres, planted to olives, Valencias and walnuts, six miles to the northeast of Olive. He shares it with a brother, Feliz C. Marquez, and a sister, Aristea, all of them fit representatives of one of the finest of old-time Spanish families.

His father, Jose R. Marquez, was born at San Jose del Cabo, in Lower California, came here in 1847, and was married in Los Angeles in 1861, when he was joined to Trinidad Peralta, who was born here on the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana-a famous farm beautifully located in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, on the Santa Ana Canyon Boulevard, which runs right along the irrigation ditch of the Santa Ana Valley Irrigation Company. She was one of the heirs to the above ranch, being a granddaughter of Juan Pablo Peralta, the owner of the grant.

The original grantee of the Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana was Juan Pablo Grijalva, who was a lieutenant in the Spanish army who had come to San Diego; his daughter married Pedro Peralta, also a lieutenant in the Spanish army, and their child, Juan Pablo Peralta, inherited the above rancho, and in time located on it and eventually built his residence at what is now Olive, where he died, leaving his vast estate to his children.

Jose R. Marquez conducted the general store at Peralta, and later one at Yorba, where he was in partnership with Prudencio Yorba. After dissolving this partnership he was again in business at Peralta. He died about 1900, aged eighty-four years, having survived his wife ten years. They had ten children, but only seven grew up, and three are now living.

A brother of Rodolfo was Romualdo P. Marquez, who was one of the first justices of the peace of Fullerton Township, what is now Yorba Township being a part of it, holding the office until he died. He was also a trustee of Peralta district for eighteen years.

Rodolfo C. Marquez was born at Yorba January 29, 1866; he received a good education in the public schools, and also made himself useful in the store, thus becom- ing familiar with the mercantile business, assisting his father after they moved to Peralta, where he is now among the old settlers. The place is still known as "Peralta," and it has a number of residences so favorably located that they overlook the Santa Ana Valley. He has built a quaint, good-sized adobe house for a storeroom, which stands as a landmark. The Peralta School is an up-to-date school near by, and well

Rodolfo C. Marquez

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serves the district in which it is placed. Mr. Marquez was trustee there for several years, as he was also justice of the peace of Yorba judicial township for two terms. Always a Republican, as was his father before him, he is a member of the Catholic Church, at San Antonio Mission. With others he succeeded in getting the suburban telephone built up the Valley to accommodate the farmers. Mr. Marquez has always stood for progress and has done his share towards any movement for improvement in his section. During the World War he was appointed by the United States govern- ment a licensing agent of explosives through the Explosives Bureau of the Department of Mines.

As an experienced apiarist, with some 115 stands of bees, Mr. Marquez derives a substantial profit from the sale of honey. He has been active in that field for over forty years, and in the science of bee culture in Orange County owes something today to his unwearying experiments and efforts to reach the highest standards.

CHARLES F. RAMSEY .- An old-timer in Southern California, long prominent in politics as a Democratic leader and honored as both an efficient and conscientious officeholder, is Charles F. Ramsey, the representative of a fine old family in the South, with interesting progenitors on both the paternal and maternal side. His great uncle was James Gattys McGregor Ramsey, the well-known author, who was born in Knox County, Tenn., in 1796, and died at Knoxville in 1884. He was the son of Francis A. Ramsey, who had emigrated to the West when a young man, and had become secretary of the state of Franklin, which was subsequently admitted to the Union under the name of Tennessee. While becoming trained both as an M. D. and a banker, James Ramsey began to collect materials for a history of Tennessee; and at Charleston, S. C., in 1853, he published the "Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century." He also founded the first historical society in the state. He joined the Confederate Army on its retreat from Knoxville, and in his absence his house was burned and all the valuable historical papers, as well as much other property, were destroyed.

The father of our subject, who was a regimental commander in a Tennessee regi- ment during the Civil War, was also named Frank A. Ramsey. He spent eight years in California and then went back to Missouri, where he married Mary Kaylor, a native of Virginia and the representative of a well-known family in that state. She now resides with Charles F. Ramsey, the center of a circle of admiring friends, and the mother of seven children, among whom Charles F. is the fourth in the order of birth.

He was brought up at Cameron, Mo., where he attended the grammar schools and eventually graduated from the Cameron high school, after which he attended Fayette College. In 1896 he came to Los Angeles, and for a while followed various lines of business, engaging, in the end, in real estate and brokerage.

In 1919, Mr. Ramsey came to Orange and bought the Colonial Theater, which he remodeled and enlarged and managed it for a little more than a year. In May, 1920, he formed a partnership with J. E. Coe, under the firm name of the Coe Realty Com- pany, and which does a general real estate brokerage business. Their office is located at 111 South Glassell Street. A live wire for the upbuilding of Orange County, Mr. Ramsey is a member of the Merchants and Manufacturers' Association.

At Los Angeles Mr. Ramsey was married to Miss Hazel Wright, a native daughter from Napa, Cal., and their fortunate union has been blessed with two children-Virginia and Eunice. The family attends the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Mr. Ramsey is a member of Redlands Lodge No. 583, B. P. O. Elks.

EDWARD HARTMAN .- Among the progressive citizens of Stanton, Orange County, is Edward Hartman, owner of a highly improved ranch of ten acres located on Magnolia Avenue, and devoted to the growing of oranges and walnuts. The prop- erty is improved with good buildings and a pumping plant that supplies sufficient water for all purposes. The land was purchased by Mr. Hartman in 1909, and was a part of a large ranch and unimproved in any way, so that when he became the owner he at once leveled and prepared the land for his oranges and walnuts. The trees are in a splendid condition and bearing more and more with each succeeding year, and he is adding needed improvements as his means will permit.

Edward Hartman was born in Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Germany, on May 15, 1852, the son of Henry and Sophia (Seidel) Hartman, also natives of that locality, where their five children were born. The father died in 1870, and in 1872 Mrs. Hart- man and other members of her family came to America to join her eldest son, our subject, who had come here in 1868 and settled in Green Bay, Wis. Upon his arrival in America, Edward was engaged in making building bricks until 1873, the year of financial depression, when it became impossible to dispose of their product, so he decided he would begin farming. He bought forty acres of land at Glenmore, Wis.,

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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 159

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