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 58

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 58

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Speaking of the war work in which Mr. Reyburn took such an active part, the Garden Grove News of April 11, 1919, had this to say:

"In all of the Liberty Loan drives, as in the case of the present Victory drive, Mr. George Reyburn has been the moving spirit, and has had charge of all the local business by direct appointment from the Treasury Department at Washington. And well and patriotically has he performed his duty. At all times Garden Grove has gone over the top with more than its quota, and that the place has sustained this record for liberality and generosity is largely due to Reyburn's indefatigable devotion to public duty without thought of compensation other than the abiding esteem of his fellow-townsmen and co-workers."

The Garden Grove News of May 16, also contained the following:

"Garden Grove's Honor Flag was received by George Reyburn, local chair- man of the Victory Loan Committee this week. The quota assigned this district was $30,375, the major part of which was raised the opening day of the campaign. At the close of the drive, Garden Grove had subscribed $33,500, or $3,125 above our apportionment. There were two hundred sixty-two subscribers to the last Liberty Loan in this locality."

WILLIAM H. WICKETT, M. D .- Since coming to Anaheim in 1907, Dr. William Harold Wickett has won and maintained a high reputation for skill in medicine and surgery. Through his association, with Dr. H. A. Johnston, of the Johnston-Wickett Clinic, he has made a valuable contribution to the medical profession of the Pacific Coast. The doctor has kept abreast of the most advanced medical thought and practice of the day, not merely because of the allurements which beckon the student on to that which is purely experimental, but largely from the standpoint of the humanitarian, who is actuated by the desire to alleviate human suffering.

Toronto, Canada, was the birthplace of Dr. Wickett, April 5, 1884, marking the date of his birth. His father, William Marwood Wickett, was born in England, and came with his father, William Wickett, to Brooklyn, Ontario, where he followed farm- ing during the days of his early manhood. He then engaged in the business of a tanner and currier at Brooklyn, later removing to Toronto, where he was extensively interested in the manufacture of leather, being a partner in the firm of Wickett and Craig. Here he continued until 1906. when he disposed of his business interests in Toronto and came to California, locating at Anaheim, where he has since devoted his time to citrus culture. Mrs. Wickett, who was Lillis Balfour before her marriage, was born in Fifeshire, Scotland, and crossed the Atlantic on a sailing vessel with her parents in the days when the journey was a matter of weeks instead of days. The family settled in Canada and here she met and married Mr. Wickett. Since taking up their residence in Anaheim, Mr. and Mrs. Wickett have been active in the work of the Pres- byterian Church of that city, Mr. Wickett being an elder of that body. Two children were born to them: Annie Marwood, who is the wife of Dr. H. A. Johnston, and Wil- liam H. Wickett, of this review.

Dr. Wickett was reared in Toronto, and his early education was obtained in the Lord Dufferin school. Even from a youth he had always had a strong desire to enter the medical profession, and when he had graduated from the Lord Dufferin school, he continued his studies at the University of Toronto to prepare for his medical course. In 1903 he came to California and entered the College of Medicine of the University of Southern California, and was graduated in 1907, with the degree of M.D. Coming to Anaheim, he formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Dr. Herbert A. Johnston, which culminated in the formation of the Johnston-Wickett Clinic; and so successful has been this work that the members of the staff have been compelled to give up their general practice and devote all their time to the clinic. Year by year the staff has been increased and new departments added, until it has become one of the largest clinics on the Coast, ten physicians and surgeons, each at the head of his special department, being in constant attendance. Drs. Johnston and Wickett have for some years been large stockholders in the Anaheim hospital and have recently acquired the Fullerton Hospital, a modern, fireproof building that is considered the most complete hospital of its size in the state.

In January, 1918. Dr. Wickett was commissioned a captain in the Medical Corps of the U. S. Army, and proceeded to the Mayo Clinic at Rochester, Minn., where he

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remained for two months. He was then appointed on the surgical staff at Camp Sheri- dan, Montgomery, Ala., later becoming attached to Evacuation Hospital No. 11, detailed for overseas service. Arriving in France, he was placed in charge of an operating team and sent to the Toul sector, serving throughout the St. Mihiel drive. At the close of activities in that sector he was sent to the Argonne Forest, where he was in active service until January, 1919, when he joined his old command at Le Mans. Here he remained on duty until he requested a transfer to the United States, returning as medical officer on the S. S. Roma, landing in April, 1919; then serving as medical officer in charge of a troop train to Camp Kearny, Cal. He received his honorable discharge from the U. S. Army April 18, 1919, and returned to Orange County to resume his practice. In 1920 he spent some tinie in Chicago, where he took a post-graduate course at the Bremmerman Urological Hospital.

On June 2, 1910, Dr. Wickett was united in marriage with Miss Ethel Pearson Chapman, the daughter of Charles C. Chapman of Fullerton. Mrs. Wickett was born in Chicago, but from early girlhood has been a resident of California and Orange County. After their marriage Dr. and Mrs. Wickett spent four months in Europe, visiting the Royal College of Surgeons in London, and many places of interest on the Continent. Two sons have been born to them, Charles Marwood and William Harold, Jr. Some years ago Dr. Wickett erected the Marwood Apartments in Fullerton, later disposing of this property; he is at present interested in horticulture, in addition to his busy life as a surgeon, and is the owner of several ranches devoted to Valencia oranges.

Prominent in the ranks of the Masons, Dr. Wickett is a member of the Lodge. Chapter and Commandery at Fullerton, the Consistory at Bloomsburg, Pa., and Rajalı Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S., at Reading, Pa. He also belongs to Fullerton Post of the American Legion, and in his professional affiliations is an active member of the Orange County Medical Association, the Southern California Medical Society, the California State Medical Society and the American Medical Association. With Mrs. Wickett, he holds membership in the Christian Church at Fullerton, and is a deacon in that body.

SAMUEL Q. CONKLE .- The Conkle family trace their origin in this country to their Dutch ancestors who settled in Pennsylvania in early days, and S. Q. Conkle of Garden Grove is the representative of the California branch of his family. Mr. Conkle was born September 8, 1846, near East Liverpool, Columbiana County, Ohio. His father, Daniel, was a native of Columbiana County and his mother, who was Barbara Poor in maidenhood, was born in Westmoreland County and came to Ohio, where she was reared. His parents were married in Ohio, where the father, a stockman and farmer, owned a large farm and bought sheep for the Pittsburgh markets, in early days driving his droves and herds through on foot to that city. He also drove sheep into Missouri in the early fifties. The father, at the age of sixty-five, sold his farm and moved to Minerva, near Canton, Stark County, Ohio, where he lived retired until the time of his death in 1887, at the age of seventy-five. The mother died at the age of seventy. In the parental family of eight children, three girls and five boys. Samuel Q. Conkle is the youngest child, and the only one of the family now living. None of his brothers died under the age of seventy-five. His oldest brother was a civil engineer in Stark County, Ohio; some of the brothers were farmers, and Noah F. was a mer- chant at Topeka, Kans., for twenty years. Three of his brothers served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

Samuel Q. was educated in the district schools of his native state and at Mount Union Academy, and began life as a clerk in the produce business at Minerva, Ohio, in which he was employed three years, from twenty-one until twenty-four years of age. He then bought out his employer and continued to conduct a wholesale business as a shipper of butter, eggs, and poultry, shipping to the Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New York City, and Baltimore markets for ten years, and doing a profitable business. Having contracted asthma, he sold his interests in the East and came to Orange County, Cal., then a part of Los Angeles County, first settling at Santa Ana in 1885. After two years he moved to his ranch of twenty-two acres in the Bolsa district between Santa Ana and Bolsa, being a part of the Stearns' Rancho, where he engaged in farm- ing. He also owned eighty acres in the Black Star Canyon where he accumulated some 225 colonies of bees. He had learned the bee business in Ohio, but owing to climatic conditions found it was much different in California, and had to practically learn the business over again. He succeeded and became one of Orange County's most suc- cessful apiarists.

His marriage, which occurred in Sandyville, Ohio, January 24, 1872, united him with Miss Normanda McFarland, a native of Tuscarawas County, Ohio, and daughter of John McFarland, a hotel keeper at Sandyville. Six children were born of their union, five of whom are living, the second child dying in infancy. Ura Bertie is the

William J. Cheney

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HISTORY OF ORANGE COUNTY

wife of Frank Mills, a prosperous rancher at Garden Grove; Hazel is the wife of Samuel McKee, of Los Angeles; Lemon L. runs an auto truck in Los Angeles, is married and lives in that city; Mellie is the wife of John Bedabach, a dealer in stock, and their home is at Pasadena. Roscoe lives in Los Angeles, and is single. Owing to his wife's failing health Mr. Conkle disposed of his home ranch and they made their home with Mrs. Mills, where Mrs. Conkle died in 1910. Mr. Conkle then came to Garden Grove and built a comfortable bungalow on Pine Street, where he now resides. Mrs. Conkle was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Mr. Conkle still owns ten acres south of Garden Grove which is leased. In 1918 he suffered a stroke of paralysis, and lay unconscious for three weeks, but his great vitality enabled him to make a good recovery. He was well acquainted with the late ex- President McKinley, who was his legal adviser while he lived in Ohio. One of Garden Grove's most highly respected citizens he has the satisfaction of knowing that his long and useful life has been well spent, and his children, who were born with a good in- heritance, are living useful, active lives, honored and esteemed by their friends and acquaintances. In his political views Mr. Conkle is a Republican. He never was sued nor ever sued any person, nor did he ever serve on a jury or hold office of any kind.

WM. J. CHENEY .- A successful rancher operating extensively and enjoying a popularity shared by his estimable wife and children, is Wm. J. Cheney, who was born near what is now Downey, and is one of three sons, all the living children of Tilford D. Cheney, a native of Arkansas, who married Emma Ryle, a belle of Kentucky. Til- ford Cheney came with his parents from Arkansas to California in 1856, driving a mule- team, and proceeding along the northern route, by way of the Black Hills; and while they were passing through that country, a most unusual accident took place. A bolt of lightning struck the lad, while he was walking along the side of the wagon train, and he fell unconscious to the ground, where he was picked up by his mother, and although a heavy rain was falling, her mother-love would not permit her to give him up, and for three days she worked over. him, until she brought him back to consciousness and eventually restored him to health.

The family settled at first in Napa County, where the subject's grandfather, Wm. W. Cheney, was engaged for several years in ranching, and then they lived in Salinas, Monterey County, and in San Luis Obispo County, before they came to Los Angeles County in 1865. Thus the Cheneys were pioneers in those sections. The mother died in Los Angeles County twenty-one years ago, at the age of fifty-one; the father still lives in Tulare, having passed his eighty-first birthday. Two younger brothers, H. C. and C. D. Cheney, are ranchers in Tulare County.

Wm. J. Cheney is the only one of the family living in Southern California, and here he attended the public schools, topping off with a course at Woodhury Business College in Los Angeles, from which he was graduated in 1896. Ever since he finished his schooling, he has been engaged in agricultural pursuits, at first farming 300 acres of his father's at Calabasas, in Los Angeles County, at which he continued for three years. There he became acquainted with James Irvine, from whom he rented 960 acres; now he operates 600 acres of the Irvine ranch, where he has farmed for seventeen years.

Five years ago Mr. Cheney bought ten acres on Prospect Avenue. Tustin, the beginning of his home place, and two years ago he bought the twenty acres across the street. He has set out 815 Valencia orange trees on the ten-acre field, and 1600 Valencias on the twenty acres west of Prospect Avenue. This land was formerly planted to Navels and walnuts, but the trees being old and neglected, he grubbed them all out, and now has two of the finest young orange groves in the country. In partnership with James Utt he is operating the nursery which is devoted to the raising of Valencia orange trees, of which they now have 12,000. This nursery comprises two acres he owns at Tustin.

On some of the Irvine ranch leased by Mr. Cheney, he has planted 359 acres to lima beans, 150 acres to black-eyes, while the balance of the acreage is set out to barley and hay. He is the secretary of the San Joaquin Lima Bean Growers Association, and was one of its organizers in 1916, as well as the first secretary. Before its organization, farmers got only three and a quarter to four and a half cents per pound, while the price in 1919 was fourteen and one-half cents. As a successful business man, Mr. Cheney is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Santa Ana. He is also a member of the Tustin Hills Citrus Association, which owns a packing house on the Southern Pacific Railway. With Santa Ana and Orange associates he was one of the organizers of the Wyana Oil Company, of which he is president. The company is now drilling for oil on their own holdings in the Lost Soldier oil field in Wyoming.

On December 11, 1907, Mr. Cheney was married to Miss Eva F. Fraser, a native of Iowa, and the daughter of Francis Peter and Rebecca Ann (Scott) Fraser. She came

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to California when about nine years of age. Her father died in Santa Ana on May 30, 1919, and his widow is still living on East Second Street, in Santa Ana. Two children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Cheney, William J. Cheney, Jr., and Edra Evelyn. Mr. Cheney will soon erect a pressed-brick residence at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. He is a life member of Santa Ana Lodge No. 794, B. P. O. Elks.

Mr. Cheney also owns and operates 300 acres four miles south of Tulare, in Tulare County, on the State Highway, which he farms to wheat and corn and where he raises mules. He uses mules of his own raising in both Tulare and Orange counties, keep- ing twenty-four head of Percheron brood mares. He raises about sixteen mules every year, and in partnership with Leo Borchard and Guy W. Wilmot, he owns the imported jack, "Burr Oak," bred at New Boston, Mo., and valued at $3,000, without doubt the finest jack in the county.

P. W. EHLEN .- A successful, prominent business man of Orange, a town in whose progress he takes an enthusiastic pride, is P. W. Ehlen, also one of the pillars of the Lutheran Church in this city. He came to Orange as far back as the booming middle eighties, and since that time his advancement and that of the community have been common in objective and character. He was born in Hanover, Germany, on October 11, 1863, the child of devoted parents who spent their last days with him in Orange and died here. He was educated at the public schools of his native district, and went through the gymnasium where he prepared for teaching; and for two and a half years he presided over classes, until he decided to leave the Old World for the New. In 1882 he crossed the ocean to New Jersey, and spent three years at Bayonne, where he clerked in a grocery. In 1885 he pushed on to the West and California, and located at Orange, then a small town. He was employed by McPherson Brothers at McPherson, one and a half miles east of Orange, and while there he packed oranges and raisins in their packing house.

In 1887, at the crest of the "boom," Mr. Ehlen started the general merchandise business at McPherson, known under the firm name of P. W. Ehlen, and two years later he removed his store to Orange, where he located on the site of what is now the Schaffert Building on South Glassell Street. He rented a building for the pur- pose, and the same year Henry Grote became interested with him in the business, and the firm became known as Ehlen and Grote.

The partners removed their store, in 1901, to the corner of South Glassell and the Plaza, where the Mission Pharmacy now stands, and in 1906 Mr. Ehlen incorpo- rated the Ehlen and Grote Company, with himself as president and manager. In 1908 he built his present large business block known as the Ehlen and Grote block across the street from his former location. For 140 feet the lot fronts on South Glassell Street, and for fifty feet on the Plaza. Here he has built up a very large business with the different departments of groceries, hardware, shoes and gents fur- nishings, and no one who knows his ability as a merchant, and his fidelity in endeavor- ing to serve his numerous patrons, will envy him his exceptional success. Having started with a capital of $350 he built up the sales, prior to selling out, to over $1,000 in value a day. The strain proved too great for him, however, and finding that his health was being impaired, he disposed of his interests in 1910, and retired from the strennous life.

Since then Mr. Ehlen has been interested in lands and their development. He incorporated the Ehlen Land Company, which has extensive holdings in the Imperial Valley, which they lease, devoted in part to the raising of cotton. They also own valuable lands in the Sacramento Valley, on Grizzly Island, Solano County, where they have constructed six miles of good canal, thereby reclaiming a large tract of land. Mr. Ehlen is a stockholder in and director of the National Bank of Orange, and he is president and director of the Orange Savings Bank.

Since he took up his residence at Orange, Mr. Ehlen was married to Miss Marie Eggers, a native of Illinois, who was reared in Oregon. They have had four children. His two sons, Henry and Edward are both graduates of Concordia College, Oakland, Cal. Henry, after finishing at the Lutheran Normal School at Seward, Neb., taught school in Detroit, Mich. During the World War he enlisted and served fifteen months in the navy. Edward is now an automobile mechanic; and Adele and Sophia are students in the Orange Union high school.

Mr. Ehlen is a prominent and influential member of St. Johns Lutheran Church of Orange having served as elder and trustee for over twenty-five years and most of the time as secretary of the congregation. He is president of the Lutheran Layman's League for the California and Nevada District and is also the financial secretary of the California and Nevada district of the Missouri Synod for Southern California.

F.W. Ehlen

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EDWARD W. HARMON .- A very successful farmer who has made a specialty of dairying, following the last word in science and sanitation and getting far superior results both in his products and in the economy of operation, is Edward W. Har- mon, son of Jonathan Harmon, the well-known pioneer, who came to Santa Ana and vicinity in the late eighties, bought sixty acres of land and added to that until he had 140 acres, and whose sketch appears on another page in this work.

Edward W. Harmon was born at Petaluma, in Sonoma County, on January 12, 1871, and came to Santa Ana when he was nine years old and attended the local public schools. He was married to Miss Martha May McGuire, a native of Petaluma, and a woman of accomplishment and charm, who has become the mother of their four children, Ralph L., Gale W., Lawrence Norton and William Warren McGuire Harmon.

He was engaged in dairying with his father on the home ranch for twenty-one years until the elder Harmon wished to retire, when they sold out. For two years Edward raised sugar beets, but found it did not pay as well as the dairy business, so he purchased cows and has now built up a splendid herd of sixty head; the milk is all sold to the Sanitary Dairy in Santa Ana. The Harmon ranch is equipped with pumping plant yielding 110 inches of water, and also has a complete cement pipe line system for irrigating.

In national politics a Republican, in local affairs a nonpartisan worker for what- ever seems best for the community, Mr. Harmon is always an American, and therefore one of the best "boosters" imaginable for California and Orange County.

ELMER HAYWARD .- It is not given to many men to attain in their own home district the success enjoyed by Elmer Hayward, a resident of Orange for more than forty-four years, who is prominent as a school trustee in the same district where he went to school as a boy, and is the president of the board of trustees of the city of Orange, which has grown up since he came here as a boy. He is now one of the best- posted citrus growers in the county, and, because of his valuable experience and success, his advice is much sought by those desiring to emulate his example. Affable and popular, and thoroughly wide-awake, he is pronounced in favor of the perpetuation of historical records which may show what was done in the building up of the great California commonwealth, and who did the hard work of construction.

He was born near what is now Dysart, Tama County, Iowa, on February 25, 1865, the youngest of twelve children, the son of Joel Hayward, a native of New Hampshire. He had married Mary Barrett, who was born at Salem, N. Y., and whom he met in Michigan, where they were married. After setting up their household, they engaged in farming in Lenawee County, Mich., cleared a farm of the timber, and after twenty years became early settlers in Tama County, Iowa, where they remained another twenty years. A son, DeWitt C. Hayward, came to California in 1872 and settled in Orange County; and three years later Joel Hayward and his family followed, and soon after- ward located in Orange and bought a ranch, and engaged in horticulture. On their arrival in California, they stopped for a short while at Sacramento, and from there journeyed by boat to San Francisco, after which they took the steamer to San Pedro, and came ashore on a lighter bound for Wilmington.

Nine of the twelve children referred to above grew to maturity, and eight came to California. Charles served in the Civil War as a member of an Iowa regiment, and eventually died in that state. DeWitt C., who came to California in 1872, died at San Jose. Alonzo, who pushed west soon after DeWitt, also died here. Jennie E. came to California about 1873 and married Millard Parker, a pioneer, and now resides on East Palmyra Street, Orange. Julia is Mrs. A. M. Hayward, and lives at Escondido; Minerva resides in Monrovia; Norman is living at Van Nuys; Mary, or Mrs. Taylor, lives near Minerva; and Elmer is the subject of our review. Joel Hayward died here, aged seventy-one; and Mrs. Hayward also passed away in Orange.

Elmer was ten years old when he came here and began to attend the local schools; and his first teacher was Mrs. Samuel Armor. When old enough to do so, he assisted his father to improve the place they had bought in 1880, and where the original house was built in 1881-a comfortable structure that has long since given way to the present fine home place; and when he was twenty-one, he took charge of the homestead. In acquiring his present valuable knowledge of horticulture, he went through all the early trying experience necessary to learn just what was best to do with the land. For a while they had a vineyard; then they cultivated apricots, peaches and apples; but finally they decided to raise oranges and walnuts, and therein attained the best results. Mr. Hayward has now set out all the land to Valencia oranges, to which he finds the land best adapted. Eight acres were cleared of the sage brush when they came; and the balance they have cleared since. Joel Hayward paid forty dollars an acre for the land, and $6.10 for water stock, and since his death one of the finest orange groves in 22

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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 58

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