USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Pomona Valley, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the valley who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present > Part 47
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Mr. and Mrs. James A. Johnstone were the parents of six chil- dren, of whom William Arthur is the third child. He was born at Ameliasburg, Ontario, on December 15, 1869, where he was reared until 1880, when he removed with his parents to Winnipeg. Here they
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resided for a time, then going to Brandon, Manitoba, where he at- tended the Brandon Collegiate Institute, after which he spent two years in a law office. He was then appointed assistant deputy treasurer of the city of Brandon, holding this office for one year. On June 1, 1890, he came to San Dimas, Cal., where with his father and brothers he began to improve the 120 acres of land that his father had pur- chased into orange and lemon orchards. He gave the closest study to the care of these groves, the result being that the Johnstone orchards are second to none in the district that has become so famous for its production of a fine quality of oranges and lemons. He was interested from the start in the San Dimas Irrigation Company, successor to the San José Ranch Company, also the Artesian Belt Water Company, that sunk the first producing well in the San Dimas wash. Aside from his individual orchards, in association with Doctor Montgomery he owns foothill lands which they are also planting to citrus trees. On the organization of the First National Bank of San Dimas, as well as the San Dimas Savings Bank, he was elected a member of the board of directors, his valuable services being appreciated by the members of the directorate, who retain him as president of both institutions. He has been interested in the growth of San Dimas, and is the owner of several prominent business blocks.
In politics Mr. Johnstone is a stanch Republican of the pro- gressive type. His services were recognized in an appreciative manner during the autumn of 1902, when he was elected to represent the Seventy-sixth Assembly District in the State Legislature, being re- elected in 1904. He was not a candidate in 1906, as he carried out a much-cherished plan of a trip to Europe, where he spent considerable time visiting the British Isles as well as the Continent. In 1912 he was an alternate to the National Republican Convention at Chicago and attended the convention in June of that year as a supporter of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1912 he was again elected a member of the State Legislature and in the session of. 1913 was elected speaker pro tem. and was a member of the committee on rules. During the session he introduced the water code entitled the State Water Commission Act, which was duly passed and became a law ; he also introduced a number of other important bills and took a prominent part in enacting useful legislation, among them the fertilizer-control law, the forester law, the first appropriation locating the Davis School of Agriculture, the state and road law providing for cooperation between the state and county in road construction. He was appointed a member of the State Water Commission by Governor Johnson in 1915, an office that occupies much of his time and to which he gives his best efforts. Mr. Johnstone was one of the organizers of the San Dimas Orange Growers Association and was its president for fifteen years; he was also active in the organ- ization of the San Dimas Fruit Exchange. Always believing in the
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cooperation of fruit men, he was originally a member of the first association formed in the Valley, in the Claremont Orange Growers Association, the Indian Hill Orange Growers Association, and was a member of the San Antonio Fruit Exchange.
The marriage of Mr. Johnstone took place in Pomona in 1902 and united him with Miss Alice E. Bost, who was born in Excelsior, Minn. Her father, Theo Bost, was a native of Geneva, Switzerland, a descendant of French Huguenots who fled from France to Switzer- land at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Mr. Bost came to Minnesota, where he was a pioneer and frontiersman, passing through the hardships and Indian troubles incident to life in southern Minnesota in the early days. Mr. and Mrs. Johnstone are the parents of two daughters : Margaret Alice and Dorothy Adele.
Fraternally Mr. Johnstone is prominent, being made a Mason in Covina Lodge, F. & A. M., from which he was demitted and is now a charter member of San Dimas Lodge. He holds membership in Pomona Chapter, R. A. M .; Southern California Commandery No. 37, K. T .; Los Angeles Consistory, S. R .; and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. He is also prominent in club life, being a member of the Union League Club and the City Club in Los Angeles, and the Commonwealth Club, the Engineers Club and the Masonic Club of San Francisco. With his wife, he is a member of the Union Church at San Dimas, while Mrs. Johnstone is also active in civic and club circles, being a member of the Wednesday Afternoon Club of San Dimas and the Ebell Club of Pomona.
As a member of the State Water Commission, Mr. Johnstone's able services have been given to conserve the water-the greatest asset of California-and to render equal justice to all in the intricate ques- tions and problems that come before the commission. In every post of honor accepted by him he has given dignified and noteworthy service.
FRANK W. BALFOUR
A pioneer of Pomona Valley, and one of the most prominent men of the district during his lifetime, Frank W. Balfour left a record of achievement in public-spirited work for the advancement of the welfare of his city and county which stands for all time in the annals of this section of California. A native of England, with some of its best blood in his veins, Mr. Balfour was born in London, April 30, 1865; his father was a general in the English army, and his mother a lady of title in that country, and Mr. Balfour was related to Sir Arthur J. Balfour. He received his early education at St. Edmund's College, and finished in an institution in France, graduating as a civil engineer. Later he took a course in the Electrical Institute, London.
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After finishing his education, the young Englishman sought newer fields in which to begin his career, and his first move was to Canada, where he engaged in the cattle business. Two years later, in 1887, he came to Los Angeles. The "boom" was then in full swing in that city, and he immediately became identified with the civil engineering firm of James T. Taylor & Company, and took part in platting this county and laying out its towns. He had been in Pomona when the town was laid out, and helped in that first development work, and returned to the Valley and spent five years in the orange industry; and also served as assistant postmaster for that length of time. He then became the first district manager of the Southern California Power Company, which was succeeded by the Edison Company, and for fifteen years he held this position, up to the time of his death, which occurred April 24, 1915. He was a veteran district manager of the concern, and was highly regarded by the company.
Mr. Balfour's first business in life being that of an engineer, he naturally took an active interest in all good-roads movements after making his home in the Valley. He took the initiative in most of the public meetings which led up to the concentration of effort on the system of highways which now unites the cities of this and adjoining counties. He was a member of the State Executive Committee of the Tri-State Ocean-to-Ocean Highway, and always attended the meetings of that body. He was at the front of the campaign for the State High- way, which now connects all the citrus cities with the world at large.
In recognition of his public-spirited efforts for the advancement of the welfare of his district, Mr. Balfour was chosen as president of the San Gabriel Valley Associated Chambers of Commerce, in which were represented sixteen towns and cities. Among other public duties, he was chairman of the board of health of Pomona, and reappointed to that office shortly before his death.
The marriage of Frank W. Balfour, which occurred in 1890, united him with Louise E. Maddock, a native Californian, born in Oakland, the daughter of a pioneer who crossed the plains with ox teams in early days and helped lay out the city of Oakland. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Balfour: Lillian, now the wife of Henry Parry, who was in France in the Medical Corps of the United States Army; and Clyde of San Francisco. Mrs. Balfour is prominent in club circles in Pomona, and in church work as well. She is a member of the Ebell Club.
Fraternally, Mr. Balfour was one of the most prominent mem- bers of the Knights of Columbus in this end of the state, having served the order as treasurer of the state lodge, and for three terms as district deputy of this, the ninth, district, which office he held at the time of his death; in the Pomona Lodge he had filled every office. He was a charter member of the Elks, and filled all the chairs of that order,
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being a past exalted ruler and one of the most active of its workers. He was also a member of the Foresters and of the Fraternal Aid Association.
In the death of Mr. Balfour, Pomona lost one of its most valued citizens, and public recognition of his loss was shown by the act of Mayor Vandegrift in ordering all flags on city buildings to be placed at half-mast; to have business brought to a standstill during the funeral service; and his fellow-citizens immediately started a movement to have a suitable engraved bronze tablet placed in the Elks' home in Pomona, in recognition of the valuable services he rendered the lodge. Hundreds of messages of condolence were received by his family from all parts of the country, at the passing of one of Pomona's most honored citizens, and his loss was keenly felt in the community where he had been prominent for so many years.
ALBERT ALLEN BECK
A full and eventful life has been the portion of Albert A. Beck, who has weathered both prosperity and adversity, and has built his fortunes anew with unfailing optimism. Born in Canajoharie, Mont- gomery County, N. Y., May 21, 1844, he was raised on a farm in that state. At the outbreak of the Civil War he enlisted in Company B, One Hundred Fifty-seventh New York Infantry, and served three years, receiving his discharge May 24, 1865, after seeing action in several of the important battles of the war; among them the battle of Honey Hill, S. C., on November 30, 1864, when he was wounded through the leg, his officers being Col. Philip Brown and Capt. Charles Van Slyke; the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellors- ville, Gettysburg, and Morris Island, opposite Fort Sumter. In August, 1865, he enlisted again in the regular army, in the Sixth United States Cavalry, Company I, and saw service in New Mexico and the Indian wars, under Captain Adna R. Chaffee, who later be- came commander-in-chief of the United States Army. He spent three years on the border and saw active service in many Indian wars.
After leaving the military service, Mr. Beck located in Cowley County, Kans., where he was engaged in freighting into the Indian Territory ; in 1871 he took up government land in Cowley County and farmed and freighted until 1874, when he came to California. For three years he was in Los Angeles, and while there he came to Pomona in 1875, then but a small village. He returned to Kansas and again took up land and improved a farm. During the time he was there he leased his farm and went to Colorado, where he mined for about six months, but did not realize his ambitions, so he returned to his farm and farmed until 1887, when he once more came to California. Hc
hor and has Wilbert a. Back
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settled in San Diego for three years, and during that time he spent the year of 1888 in the placer mines in Lower California; he did not get rich, but he made wages, and he wears a nugget as a souvenir of his mining days. In 1890 he located in Pomona and for a time worked at drying fruit. He had lost everything received from the sale of his Kansas farm in the real estate boom in San Diego in 1888-1889, and when he arrived here he had just fifty cents as his capital. He worked at any kind of labor to get a start, and soon bought two acres of land on West Orange Grove Avenue, to which he added, in 1898, four more acres, all of which he planted to oranges and walnuts. All of this is now in the city limits of Pomona. He succeeded in his ranch- ing with his limited area, and in 1918 his walnut crop netted him over $1,000.
Though the years have brought him many trying times, he is well and hearty at the age of seventy-five and is enjoying his declining years in the peace and prosperity of beautiful Pomona. A member of the G. A. R. Post of Arkansas City, Kans., having joined in 1878, he was transferred to the Post in San Diego, but when he came to Pomona he transferred to Vicksburg Post No. 61, of Pomona, of which he is still a member. He is a member of the First Christian Church. Mrs. Beck was active in church work as well as in the Women's Relief Corps.
On November 17, 1877, A. A. Beck was united in marriage with Mary E. Brash, born in Illinois, and of their six children five are still living. William H. now lives in Pomona, and is the father of a daughter; Fannie M. is the wife of William Horsewood of Los An- geles and the mother of three children; Bertha became the wife of G. Blewett and she has three children; Albert H. was a member of the supply train division of the United States Army, served with the Thirty-second Division of the Army of Occupation in Germany, and was overseas for eighteen months. He was honorably discharged and is now at home; Roy A. is on the home ranch with his father. Mrs. Beck passed away on November 17, 1909, after an active and useful life, and was mourned by a wide circle of devoted friends.
On July 3, 1913, while on a visit East in attendance at the fiftieth reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg of the Blue and the Grey, Mr. Beck dug up a small cedar tree which he sent to Pomona, and it was planted in Garfield Park, on East Holt Avenue. In 1919 he selected a California boulder, had an appropriate plate engraved and set in the rock and it was placed as a monument by the tree he had secured from the historic battlefield by Park Superintendent Paige, whose father was also in the Battle of Gettysburg. Mr. Beck made another trip back East to attend the G. A. R. Convention at Columbus, Ohio, leaving Pomona on October 4, 1919, and after spending three weeks meeting relatives and old friends he returned to his Pomona home, well satisfied that he had cast his lot in the Golden State.
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JOHN S. ADAMS
A man who has attained the ripe age of seventy-five cannot fail to have had a rich and varied experience in the school of life. John S. Adams, Pomona's septuagenarian orange grower, was born June 14, 1844, in the territory of Iowa, two years before it became a state, and now, when seventy-five years young, he is spending the afternoon of life amidst the orange groves of Pomona Valley.
He was reared and educated at Cedar Falls, Iowa, and can recall many interesting experiences in his early life that occurred in his native state. He followed the occupation of carriage making in Waterloo, Iowa, and was also general agent for Iowa for the St. Paul Harvester Company and sold many of their harvesters in Iowa. In 1887, a young man in his prime, he came to San Diego, Cal., where he fol- lowed the trade of carpenter and wheelwright, and helped build the Coronado Beach Hotel, later setting up all the machinery and working as wheelwright in the shop owned by the hotel company. While living in San Diego County he owned two ranches, one at Campo and the other at Lyons Peak. He returned to Waterloo, Iowa, and after sojourning there four years came back to California, this time selecting Pomona as his place of abode, where he was employed in the carriage shop of the Pomona Implement Company. Being an expert interior wood-worker, he was called to Los Angeles to do the finishing on many of the fine homes in that city. While in Pomona he owned a five-acre orange and lemon grove in San Dimas, which he sold later. His present ten-acre lemon and orange ranch is located on North Glen Street. Mr. Adams does all his own budding and has recently budded 250 trees to Valencia oranges. In 1918 his 500 six-year-old lemon trees yielded $1,000 worth of fruit.
He has been twice married. His first wife, who was Miss Phobie Beckley of Waterloo, Iowa, before her marriage, bore him six chil- dren : Jessie and Jennie, twins. Jessie is Mrs. Mock of Glendale, Cal., and the mother of four living children; Jennie is Mrs. Skeele of La Jord, Saskatchewan, Canada, and is the mother of four living children; John B., of Morrillton, Ark., was city postal deliverer of Waterloo, Iowa, for about ten years. He has eight children; Anna, formerly a school teacher, later a graduate from Hahnemann Hos- pital, New York, who is now a professional trained nurse in Bakers- field Hospital in charge of the X-ray department. One son, Darwin, was in the railway mail service and later a fumigator, and Katie died in San Diego. Mr. Adams' second wife was Miss Alma E. Harroun, a native of Minnesota, but a resident of Mason City, Iowa, before her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Adams have many warm friends, and they have the confidence and esteem of all who know them. They are Re- publicans and advocates of temperance, and members of the Christa- delphian Church.
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JOSEPH MORGAN PAIGE
A proficient and influential public official of Pomona who is much interested in the development of Pomona Valley, is Joseph Morgan Paige, superintendent of parks, whose efficiency is shown in the suc- cessful care of more than 120 miles of trees. He was born near Sedalia, Pettis County, Mo., on September 13, 1867, the son of Charles Anson Paige, a native of Vermont, who married Louisa Morgan, a New Yorker. Charles Paige was a farmer and the first school teacher in his county. He was a member of Company E, Fourth Vermont Volunteer Infantry, serving over three years, and was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness. He died at the age of seventy-three. Mrs. Paige is still living at seventy-five, the mother of seven boys and two girls.
The oldest child, Joseph was educated at the rural schools and followed farming until he was twenty. After that he moved to Texas and was engaged in agriculture, and then he went to Kansas City, where he worked for a short time at the tinner's trade. He made good progress and prospered in all that he undertook, but he had a love for flowers and resolved to enter a field where he might build permanently.
Removing to St. Louis, Mr. Paige entered the famous Botanical Gardens established in 1870 by Henry Shaw, the English-American philanthropist, and consisting of 190 acres, and for thirteen years and seven months he prosecuted work there, having charge of the depart- ment of construction for the last six years of the course. Mr. Paige was then connected with the Forestry and Fish Department of the Lewis and Clark Exposition, in Portland, as one of the assistant super- intendents, and at the close of the fair he went to Watsonville, Cal., where he was in the employ of the Ford Mercantile Company. Then he went back to St. Louis for a year and while there did post-grad- uate work.
In 1907 Mr. Paige came to Pomona, and on January 1, two years later, he took charge of his present responsible work. He laid out Lincoln and Garfield Parks, artistic conceptions of his own crea- tion, the grounds around the City Hall, the borders of many public roads, and conceived the idea of building the Greek Theater in Ganesha Park. He has been president for three terms of the Arboro Horticultural Association of Southern California, and is chairman of the Parks, Roads and Improvement Committee of the Chamber of Commerce in Pomona.
Mr. Paige is a director of the Pomona Chamber of Commerce and also of the Associated Chambers of Commerce of the San Gabriel Valley, and president of the Boy Scouts Council of Pomona Valley. He is a director of the local Red Cross, and helped as captain in all the war drives. He is superintendent of the First Baptist Church
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Sunday School, and vice-president of the Southern California Baptist Sunday School Convention, and also a director of the Y. M. C. A.
Mr. Paige was married on April 26, 1900, at St. Louis, Mo., to Miss Mary L. Harding, by whom he had a daughter, Edna May. He was married the first time in St. Louis, August 24, 1891, to Marie Elizabeth Beaumont, who died in 1896, leaving one son, Clyde Anson, a corporal in the United States Army, a member of Company A, Twelfth Infantry, Eighth Division, and was on board a transport when the armistice was signed. He received his discharge and is now in the office of Architect R. H. Orr. The family attend the Baptist Church.
HERBERT CLARE FOSTER
The life history of the early pioneers of California is indeed inspiring, demanding as it did perseverance and resourcefulness to meet the new and untried problems of their day, but no less important in its way has been the development of a new generation, trained to handle the developing resources of the country, for to the men who have organized the citrus industry of this state is due a large measure of credit for putting this great industry on a prosperous and profitable basis. Prominent among the men who have had a guiding hand in this organization is Herbert Clare Foster, well known through his connec- tion as manager of the San Dimas Fruit Growers Exchange.
A Canadian by birth, Herbert Clare Foster was born in Simcoe, Ontario, on June 20, 1876, and is the son of William O. and Helen J. (Austin) Foster. The father was of Scotch-Irish descent and the mother came of an old Maryland family. Her death occurred in 1919, and William O. Foster now resides with his son Herbert, the subject of this review. Herbert Clare Foster was fortunate in receiv- ing an excellent education which has proved to be an invaluable asset in all his later undertakings. He first attended the public schools at St. Thomas, Ontario, and then took a preparatory course in the Col- legiate Institute at St. Thomas, after which he was with his father in the drug business. In 1894 he came to Cleveland, Ohio, where he was the representative of a typewriter exchange for about two years.
In 1896 Mr. Foster entered the employ of the Southern Cali- fornia Fruit Exchange at Buffalo, N. Y., and in 1897 he was trans- ferred to the Chicago office of the exchange, where he was actively engaged until 1900, when he was made district manager of the Cen- tral Illinois District of the exchange, with headquarters at Peoria, Ill. Being desirous of coming to California, he resigned his position in 1912, and coming here he accepted the position that had been tendered him as secretary and manager of the San Dimas Fruit Exchange, which had just been organized; thus he was the first manager of the exchange after its organization, a position that he has held uninter- ruptedly ever since.
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Mr. Foster's marriage in Chicago, Ill., united him with Mrs. Florence (Maxwell) Rutter, of whom he was bereaved in 1915; one child was born of their union, a son named Herbert M. Mr. Foster's second marriage occurred in August, 1919, when he was united with Miss Helen England, a native of Valley Falls, Kansas.
Politically, Mr. Foster espouses the platform of the Republican party and in fraternal relations he affiliates with Pomona Lodge, Knights of Pythias. Force of character and business acumen are the traits that have contributed to the success he has attained in life, and have made him a valued member of the community. He takes a con- structive interest in all things pertaining to Pomona Valley, is public spirited and esteemed by all who know him.
FRED E. AND FRANK E. ELLSWORTH
Two thoroughly wide-awake and progressive business men, rep- resentative in every way of the Pomona spirit, who are well and favor- ably known throughout the Valley, to which they came when they were just attaining manhood, are Fred E. and Frank E. Ellsworth, pioneer building contractors, natives of Greene County, Wis., where they were born on August 29, 1862. Their father, Lorenzo Ellsworth, who came from New York, followed a mercantile business at Rochester and later moved to Wisconsin, where he located near Monroe, in Greene County, and took up farming. In 1870, he moved to Goodhue County, Minn., about twenty-five miles from St. Paul, and in 1887, the time of the great boom in realty in California, he pushed still further West, to La Verne, in the Pomona Valley. The smiling acres and other favorable conditions incidental, brought him prosperity; and he was able to retire as the years passed by. He died at Pomona, in 1907, at the age of ninety-two, while his wife lived to be eighty-five years old. She had been Miss Sarah Jane Taft. They had five children : Emma, who became Mrs. Hartman Loomis of Minnesota; Minnie, the wife of Eri Loomis, also of that commonwealth; Fred E. and Frank E., the subjects of whom we now write; and Ida May, afterwards Mrs. A. E. Barnes of Pomona.
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