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 167

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

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ARTHUR WALDO PURDY .- From good old "down East" Nova Scotia have come much of the brawn and brain which at times have proven so efficacious in pro- moting needed enterprises in the Golden State along the most rational and successful lines, and Nova Scotians settling in California have taken a prominent part, in particular, in the development of California agriculture. Arthur Waldo Purdy is a living repre- sentative, in his aggressive operations as owner of the Fullerton Sanitary Dairy, of just what the thoroughly-trained farmer froni that favored section of America may do, given the almost unlimited opportunities of the Pacific Coast.

He was born in Digby County, N. S., on August 28, 1882, the son of Albert H. Purdy, a farmer, who married Miss Sophia Potter, by whom he had twelve children. Arthur was the ninth in the order of birth, and was educated partly in Nova Scotia, partly in New Hampshire, to which Yankee State he had gone when fourteen years of age. Later he attended the high school at Wilton, N. H., from which he was grad- uated with the class of '02, and after that he took a course at a first-class business college in Boston. Mr. Purdy, therefore, is in part the product of American institu- tions, as he is today the most intense and loyal of American citizens.

For a while he engaged in the lumber business with a brother, taking up all sides of it, even to the running of a sawmill, and then, for fourteen years, he was dairying, for six years caring for the estate of J. E. Devlin at Wilton. On the first of December, 1915, he came to Fullerton, and here he again engaged in dairying. Since that time he has developed his interests so that he now has three milk wagons and supplies the highest grade of milk to Placentia, Brea and Fullerton. When he started in the busi- ness here, he had fifteen cows and employed one assistant; now he keeps seven people busy caring for his 150 cows. In the beginning, years ago, he handled forty gallons of milk a day: now the output is 300 gallons. In the spring of 1920 he consolidated his business with the Excelsior Creamery Company, Santa Ana, of which company he is now a stockholder and director. Naturally, he is a member of the Board of Trade.

On June 17, 1906, the wedding of Mr. Purdy and Miss Evelyn G. Chesley, a native of Milton Mills, N. H., took place at Farmington, N. H., and they are blessed with one son, Roland C. Purdy.

LE ROY E. LYON .- A well-educated, well-read and altogether interesting gen- tleman whose enterprise and foresight have frequently been demonstrated in a striking manner, is Le Roy E. Lyon, who was born in Wilmington, Lake County, Ill., on Sep- tember 20, 1885. His father was Edward S. Lyon, also a native of the Prairie State, and he was a college graduate and an educator. He removed to Atwood, Rawlins County, Kans., and there became influential as a professor until his health failed, when he engaged in the mercantile business. Disappointed, that with the new indoor activity, his health did not improve, he went in for cattle raising and ranching in western Kansas and eastern Colorado; and thus occupied, he continued until his death. He had married Miss Julia Hegar, a native of Wisconsin; and of their three children-LeRoy is the oldest and the only one of the family in California.

Le Roy was brought up in Kansas and attended the grammar school until his twelfth year, when he removed with his parents to North Park, Colo,, and there attended the high school at Boulder. Having been graduated from the latter, he matriculated in the law department of the University of Colorado at Boulder, and continued to study there until his junior year: but on account of the bad effect upon his health by the con- finement, he abandoned the law course, and in 1911 came out to California to seek a permanent location.

During vacations, Mr. Lyon assisted his father and rode the range, and this gave him an excellent opportunity to practice shooting, so that he became very adept. When he started in high school, he continued shooting, and in the state matches won the Colorado state championship. Then as a member of the state team he represented Colorado in national matches, and for three years his team, and he also personally, won many honors. In the report of the National Rifle and Revolver Association of America both his portrait and pictures of the cups he won grace the volumes, and some of these cups he now has in his home. Mr. Lyon has won over seventy medals for expert shooting, some of them very difficult to attain.

He holds two seventy-five-yard revolver records-world attainments-having made ninety-three points out of one hundred, and also the world's fifty-yard record, where he made forty-nine out of fifty. By being an expert shot he put himself through high school and college in this manner, nor need he apologize for the means he provided, especially considering the educational target he was aiming at. In 1912 Mr. Lyon went back from California to Colorado to participate in the state championship match, and it was then that he made this wonderful record in shooting, and for the third time.

When, in 1911, he bought his present place of eighteen and one-half acres in the Commonwealth school district it was undeveloped land, partially covered with cactus.

Juan D. Ortega

Eduvige Ortega D

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

This he cleared off and leveled the land; then he bought an interest in a water com- pany, and with others developed water and installed an electrical pumping plant, distributing the water by means of cement pipe lines. The plant was incorporated as the Pilot Water Company, and of this organization Mr. Lyon is secretary and treasurer, and a director. It irrigates already 158 acres of citrus groves, so that it probably has an interesting future. Mr. Lyon set out the nursery stock, and budded them to Valencia oranges, and thus himself made his eighteen and a half acres a fine Valencia orange grove, now in good bearing. Until he got well started with his citrus industry, he raised vegetables of various kinds, particularly potatoes. He operates the ranch with a Ford tractor, and all his other machinery and implements are of the latest and best design. He is a member, and a very interested, progressive one at that, of the Placentia Mutual Orange Association, and supports its programs vigorously.

In San Bernardino County, Cal., Mr. Lyon was married to Miss Mildred Laney, a native of Missouri who came to California with her parents. She attended the Ana- heim high school, and grew up in the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Lyon is clerk of the board of trustees of the Commonwealth school district, and in national politics he is a Republican.

JUAN D. ORTEGA .- An interesting representative of one of California's oldest and proudest families is Juan D. Ortega, the experienced, efficient and genial manager of the famous James McFadden ranch south of Santa Ana, who is also related by mar- riage with another celebrated early house, that of Tico. He was born at Santa Bar- bara on March 8, 1843, the son of Emidio Ortega, who owned the Ortega grant of two leagues in Santa Barbara County. His father, the grandfather of our subject, was also Juan Ortega, a Spanish soldier who was captain of the troops at San Gabriel, where he died. The wife of Emidio Ortega was Concepcion Dominguez before her marriage, also a member of a very well-known Spanish family here, and she lived to be ninety-seven and a half years old.

Juan D. Ortega grew up in Santa Barbara County, and was married in Ventura to Eduvige Tico, the ceremony occurring in 1866; and she is happily still living, the mother of six children. Carlos B. was the eldest and kept the hotel on the Irvine ranch; he died on March 3, 1920, leaving a widow and two children. He formerly resided in San Diego County, where he was deputy sheriff. Juan B. is a rancher at Carlsbad, San Diego County. Frank is married to Miss Lillie Kelly, a native daugh- ter, and they assist their father on the ranch. Otilia is the wife of Frank Carpenter, and lives at Carlsbad. Maria A. is the wife of Phil Rutherford, the rancher, and they reside at Turlock, in Stanislaus County, and Petra is the wife of Juan J. Carillo, the rancher, at El Toro, in Orange County.

In 1869 Mr. Ortega came to San Diego County and there commenced a ranching experience of fifty years, during which time he knew Ernest Erastus Horton, the Spreckels and other leading men of the city and county of San Diego. For the past three and a half years he has managed the Jaines McFadden ranch, which is a land- mark at Santa Ana, being devoted to general or mixed farming. It was owned by the late James McFadden, the pioneer, who built the railroad to Newport Beach and owned the steamboat plying between San Francisco and Newport, and had much to do with the building up of Santa Ana and other parts of the Southland. His widow and daughter still own the ranch, and live at Altadena, and the family name is every- where held in esteem.

Mr. Ortega has always been as hard-working as he has been successful, and his foresight, industry and prosperity have entitled him to a reputation such as anyone might envy.

JOHN KNOWLTON BROWN .- A studions agriculturist who, at the age of eighty-one, is still active in California horticultural circles as the owner of three trim ranches, is John Knowlton Brown, the philanthropist of Anaheim, who was born on May 22, 1840, at Liberty, Waldo County, Maine. His father was the late Dr. Joab Brown, physician and surgeon, and formerly medical examiner for the U. S. Army, one of a continuous line of successful men and women whose ancestry leads back to Revolutionary War periods. Dr. Joab Brown married Ann Knowlton, and John's grandfather, John Knowlton, was a seafaring man and became master of his own vessel. When he married he quit the sea and located on Lake George, Waldo County, Maine, where he bought several thousand acres of Government land and founded the town of Liberty where he built saw mills, stave and heading mills and also a woolen and grist mill; he had eleven children and gave each of them a farm. He died at seventy-two years while his wife lived to be ninety-four years old. Dr. Brown practiced medicine and was a very prominent man and leader in local affairs until his death, at eighty-six years, his wife surviving him and died at ninety-one. J. K. is second oldest of their four children.

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Grandfather Joab Brown, born in Massachusetts, was a physician and also a preacher; he also located in Waldo County, Maine, and purchased a large tract of land where the city of Camden now stands. He married a Miss Ingraham of Rock- land, Maine, the second eldest of a family of four children. When sixteen years of age, John K. Brown finished his schooling, and although his father tried to persuade him to study either the law or medicine, he declined and commenced, instead, to earn his own support, and maintain himself. He even later turned down positions offered him as instructor in the city schools. Then he went to Haverhill, Mass., and was apprenticed to a shoe manufacturer. He worked and saved, wisely keeping his eye on the future; but his desire to get into more comfortable circumstances did not prevent him from offering his services patriotically to the Government when his coun- try needed help. At the age of twenty-one, he served as captain of the Home Militia of Liberty, Maine.

Mr. Brown next took up photography, made a business of it, and succeeded so well that he was active in that field for three years; and having accumulated a small fortune, he entered the retail shoe business at Lawrence, Mass., but he soon sold and located in Worcester, Mass. Whatever he did, seemed to prosper; he conducted at one time as many as four stores; and he has owned and sold fifty-one mercantile establishments. In 1887 he was a prime mover in the organization of the Retail Shoe Dealers' National Association of the United States, and its first president, during which time he was the father of the standard last measurement for shoes, which was adopted by the association. After he quit the retail business Mr. Brown traveled extensively over the United States for wholesale shoe houses. In 1909 he made his first trip to California and finally located in Los Angeles. In 1914 he purchased an orange grove and later bought another on West Broadway, Anaheim, where he makes his home. In 1917 he quit traveling and devotes all of his time to his orchards.

How successful he has been may be judged from the fact that he has been offered $70,000 for his ten and one-third-acre grove of citrus trees, and refused the offer. He assisted to start the Anaheim Lemon and Orange Association, and is still a member of the same. Besides his California holdings, Mr. Brown also owns a farm of 320 acres in Maine and several business and residence lots in Los Angeles; and he has some real estate in Worcester, Mass.

On March 23, 1861, Mr. Brown was married to Miss Ida P. Kincaid, a native of Skowhegan, Maine, and the daughter of George Washington and Lucy Ann (Nichols) Kincaid, whose ancestors, both paternal and maternal, came early to the coast of Maine from Scotland. Their older child, Walter L. Brown, is a graduate of the Worcester Academy, and married a Miss Hale, a Canadian lady, by whom he has had one child, Norman Brown. At present, he is representing C. H. Baker, the shoe manufacturer, at Los Angeles. Alice Rose Brown, the younger child, has become the wife of Dr. B. Paul Simpson, the dental surgeon of Malden, Mass. Mr. Brown is a Republican, and cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln. Mr. and Mrs. Brown are members of First Methodist Episcopal Church, Anaheim, and loyally supported the war work in the recent chaos of nations, and have been especially devoted to the Red Cross.

PETER JACOBSEN .- A hard-working rancher who owes his success largely to. his own honest efforts and unremitting, fatiguing toil, is Peter Jacobsen, of East Orangethorpe Avenue, who was born on the Island of Taasinge, northern Denmark, on March 17, 1871, the son of Jacob Petersen, who had married Miss Marie Hansen. His father had a dairy on the little island of Taasinge, a region devoted entirely to dairying, and was highly respected as a progressively industrious farmer. According to Danish custom, our subject changed his name in a manner rather puzzling perhaps to Amer- icans, but perfectly understandable to the Dane.

He attended the excellent graded schools of Denmark, and up to his eighteenth year remained at home on the farm. Then he struck out for himself and came to the United States; and having caught a glimpse of the East, pushed on to Lakeview, Pierce County, Wash., about ten miles from Tacoma, where he spent about one year on his uncle's farm. Then he worked for a couple of years in the brickyards on Ander- son Island in Puget Sound, after which he came down to Southern California in 1892.

Here he entered the employ of Charles C. Chapman and soon became the head orange-grader for the Chapman Packing House at Placentia. He gave such satisfac- tion, and was himself so well satisfied with the Chapman methods of industry and trade that he remained with that famous establishment for twenty-one years, and left them only when he determined to found a home place for himself.

In 1907 he had purchased two acres of land on East Orangethorpe Avenue for which he paid $150 an acre, and in 1919 he sold the same for $7,500, a price showing a phenomenal increase in value in a single decade. In 1917 he had bought five acres lying opposite to the two he had sold, and since then he has been developing this land in accordance with his careful methods and now has a splendid Valencia orange grove.

WW Kays

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

As a part of the improvement, he has erected there a modest, but comfortable home, adding decidedly to the attractiveness of the property. Besides caring for his own five acres, Mr. Jacobsen is also a grader of oranges for the Placentia Mutual Orange Growers Association.

On December 2, 1903, Mr. Jacobsen was married in Santa Ana to Miss Mary Petersen, who was born in Denmark in the vicinity of his own birthplace and attended there the same school to which he had gone. She was left an orphan when ten years of age. In 1903 she came to Orange County, having met Mr. Jacobsen at the time of his visit to his home in 1899-1900. Two children were born of this union: Alfred J., who is with his father on the ranch and who also works in the packing house, and Mamie K., a most attractive girl who passed away on December 13, 1919, just three days after her thirteenth birthday. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobsen are members of the Methodist Church of Fullerton.

WILLIAM W. KAYS .- An architect who has done much to elevate the standard of common sense taste in architectural art in Orange County, and to increase the safe- guards to life and property through other common sense measures and devices, is William W. Kays, a native of Old Kentucky, where he was born at Nicholasville, Jessamine County, on November 10, 1872. His father, George W. Kays, was a pros- perous farmer, who had married Miss Miranda Corman. They had eleven children, and William was the fifth in the order of birth. Both parents are now deceased, but still remembered and honored by many for the usefulness and beauty of their lives.

William mastered thoroughly all that he was asked to do in the practical public schools of his home district, and later took a course at the Alexander Hamilton Insti- tute in New York City .. From a youth off and on he was employed in a planing mill, and for five years made furniture. After that, with some older brothers he was in the building line until 1895. In March of that year he came to California and located at Los Banos, where he did construction work for Miller and Lux. For a year he followed civil engineering in the same county, and then he went to Fresno and for a year and a half engaged in building there. Next, for four years, or until 1910, Mr. Kays was the manager of the Union Lumber Company's mill, and after that manager of the manu- facturing department of the Pacific Tank.

In the fall of 1910 Mr. Kays came to Santa Ana and assumed the responsibilities of managing the Pendelton Lumber Company. He also engaged in architectural work. In April, 1917, he sold out his other interests and confined himself to the designing and supervising of new buildings. Since then he has erected many of the most notable structures in Orange County. He designed, for example, the athletic building of Poly- technic high school, Santa Ana, as well as the Bolsa grammar school, the John C. Tuffree residence, the Cross home at Fullerton, the Kraemer residence at Placentia, the D. Woodward dwelling at Loftus Station, the John Ruther home at Anaheim, the Bergerhof residence at Garden Grove, the home of Sherman Steven at Tustin, Fred Rohrs' building and store fittings for Spier and Company, as well as the fixtures in the American National Bank of Santa Ana, and numerous other buildings more or less costly in construction; these he both made the plans for and supervised, while they were being constructed. As his business has grown and branched out, he has for convenience, opened an office and sales service in the Pantages building, Los Angeles, so he divides his time between the two places.

The marriage of Mr. Kays took place on April 21, 1914. when he chose for his wife Hazel A. Kenyon of Iowa. Mr. Kays is both an Odd Fellow and an Elk, and in national politics is a Republican. Both he and Mrs. Kays, however, are active in the support of all worthy movements for local uplift and development, and in such com- munity endeavors know no partisanship, but endorse and work for the best men and women, and the hest measures.

WALTER H. KIDD .- One of the leading and most successful plastering con- tractors of Orange County, Walter H. Kidd is a native of Vernon County, Mo., where he was born April 3, 1883, a son of James and Nancy Jane Kidd. When one year old, his parents moved to Oregon, locating in Union County, and in the public schools of that state Walter received his early education. In 1899 he came to California to live, locating in Los Angeles, and while there learned the trade of a plasterer with the well-known contractors, Engstrom and Company. While in their employ Mr. Kidd worked as a plasterer on a number of large and important buildings in Los Angeles. among which mention is made of the following: County Hall of Records, New Orpheum Building, Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, and the new Jail Building.

Since 1911 Mr. Kidd has been engaged in contract plastering for himself at Ana- heim. He has been very successful in his chosen line of work and has done an exten- sive business, both in exterior and interior plastering. Being a man of unquestioned

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integrity of character in his business relations, Mr. Kidd believes in putting his best efforts in every piece of work, regardless of its being a large or small contract, and he thus has attained an enviable reputation for satisfactory workmanship. Among the important buildings in Orange County for which he received the plastering contract are the following: German-American Bank Building and St. Boniface Catholic Church, Anaheim; La Habra, Olive and Bolsa school buildings. He also had the contract for the plaster and cement work on the Polytechnic Building of the Fullerton Union high school, on which he put 5,000 feet of cement moulding. Among the high-class houses plastered by this enterprising contractor are the beautiful residences of Charles H. Eygabroad and Alexander H. Witman, Jr., in Anaheim; but the greater part of his work has been done on the new ranch homes located in the Fullerton, Placentia and La Habra districts. His extensive operations keep a crew of thirteen men busy.

Mr. Kidd's marriage occurred in Los Angeles when he was united with Miss Juletta Vivian, a native of England. Two sons, James and Herbert, have been born to them. The family attend the Seventh Day Adventist Church.

JACOB RUEDY .- A prosperous orange grower who previously had made an equal success as a planter in Virginia, raising peanuts, is Jacob Ruedy, of East Orange- thorpe Avenne, near Raymond, Fullerton, who was born at the famous Falls of the Rhine, Schaffhausen, Switzerland, on October 27, 1858, the son of J. J. and Annie Ruedy. His father was a farmer, and our subject assisted him while he pursued his grammar and high school studies.

In 1879 he came to America and joined a sister, Mrs. Annie Weber, at Pittsburgh, Pa., with whom he lived for a couple of years, and in 1882 he removed to the vicinity of Petersburg, Va. There he purchased a farm of 600 acres, and he raised peanuts and cotton and stock. This ranch was near where the present Camp Lee is located; and there he lived for thirty-five years.

At Petersburg, on March 7, 1882, Mr. Ruedy was married to Miss Elizabeth Vogel, who was also born in Schaffhausen in Switzerland, and was reared and educated there. In 1915 the San Francisco Fair drew Mr. and Mrs. Ruedy; and after they had seen the Golden State, they returned to Virginia and sold their interests there. Then they came to California, bought five acres on East Orangethorpe, Fullerton, and also six acres on Placentia Avenue, in Placentia. Both have Valencia orange trees, and both are under the Anaheim Union Water Company.

Mr. and Mrs. Ruedy are members of the Methodist Church of Fullerton, and delight in taking part in good works for their neighbors and the community generally. They have also done what they could to maintain a high civic standard, and to instill patriotism, and during the recent war they did good war work.

FRANK J. DAUSER .- The ever-interesting pioneer history of California is recalled in the story of Frank J. Dauser and his family, of East Commonwealth Avenue, Fullerton, for his father came here when the land was covered with wild mustard, sage and cactus, and he was among the earliest to demonstrate that raisin grapevines have a longer endurance than those designed for the production of wine. The grandfather of Mrs. Danser was also an early settler in the Golden State; hence, California and its stirring past has ever been a theme in the Dauser circle, where the brilliant and certain future of the state has also been present to inspire to renewed activity.

Mr. Dauser was born on December 29, 1877, near Faribault, Rice County, Minn., the son of Francis X. and Mary (Stueckle) Danser, and his father, a farmer, was a native of Pennsylvania who removed first to Wisconsin and then to Minnesota. There he raised for the most part wheat, and being a progressive agriculturist, prospered; but attracted by the still greater advantages of California, he and his good wife came out here when Frank was seven years old.

Settling in what is now Fullerton they purchased within six months after their arrival some twenty acres on Cypress Avenue, east of Fullerton, which they planted to raisin grapes; and such was the greater hardihood of the vines, as compared with some of the wine grapes, that they continued to yield for five years after their period of full bearing. As the grapes died out, Mr. Dauser sensibly planted Valencia, Navel and St. Michael orange trees, setting out one tree for every twenty-four feet, and around the edge of the grove placed a row of walnut trees.

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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 167

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