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 61
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The object of the Citrus Belt Milk Goat Association of Southern California is the social and mutual benefit of its members, and the in- telligent advancement of the milk goat industry along practical, hy- gienic and scientific lines. It aims to disseminate information as to the economic value of goat products, such as milk, cheese, meat, butter and hides, and so aid in the great work of conserving for the welfare of the commonwealth.
JAMES G. FERRELL
The recognition of the growth of Pomona by the world at large appears very plainly in the advent in that city of such enterprises as the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York City, with offices at No. 247 Investment Building. The district agent for this important company is James G. Ferrell, who has been engaged in the insurance business for the past twelve years.
He is a native of Illinois, born on a farm in Macon County, November 2, 1880. He was reared on the farm, attended the country schools and was thrown on his own resources at the tender age of thirteen. His first business experience was as traveling salesman for two years. He spent two years in Webster City, Iowa, and engaged
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with the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company at Los Angeles in 1909. Coming to Pomona in 1916, he organized a force of eight men to solicit for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, became local agent for the company and built up a large business, his agency be- coming among the most popular in the local field. March 6, 1919, he became district agent for the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, and his district includes the Riverside and San Bernardino dis- tricts of Pomona Valley. He is also agent for the General Accident Company of Scotland, and the Gerard Fire Insurance Company of Philadelphia. He represents the oldest and strongest companies in the world in the field of life, fire, health and accident, and each year shows substantial gains in the cash income, assets, reserve fund, etc., of the agencies under his efficient management.
His marriage united him with Miss Blanche A. McBee of In- diana, and the children resulting from their union are: Raymond, Harold W. and Marion Rosalind. He has recently purchased a fine home at 380 Kenoak Drive, one of the attractive residences pictured in the Pomona Chamber of Commerce literature. He is a live wire and a valuable addition to the business interests of Pomona. Fraternally he affiliates with the Loyal Order of Moose at Pomona, and is dictator of that society ; his fraternal relations being further extended to associa- tion with the Pomona Lodge of Knights of Pythias. He is also a member of the Chamber of Commerce.
AMZI S. SWANK
The foreman of the orange packing house of the La Verne Orange Association, at La Verne, Cal., Amzi S. Swank, was born at North Manchester, Wabash County, Ind., April 14, 1887. He was reared on the farm and educated in the public schools, and additionally had the benefit of the North Manchester High School. Up to the time of his marriage he was engaged in the occupation of farming; he then entered the employ of the Beyer Brothers Produce Company, one of the largest wholesale and commission houses in the state, and traveled for them as buyer.
In the year 1910 Mr. Swank came to Pomona Valley, Cal., and began working for the packing house of the La Verne Orange Association. Later, when the College Heights Orange and Lemon Association at Claremont established their lemon packing plant, he accepted a position as foreman of the plant. After two years he returned to La Verne, and since October, 1918, has been foreman of the Orange packing house of the La Varne Orange Association.
His marriage united him with Erba F. Fisher, a native of Packertown, Ind., and they are the parents of a son, Richard, who is five years old.
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B. LILLIAN SMITH, M.D., D.O.
Only a few persons fully appreciate the patience, the weight of care and anxiety, and the heavy responsibility which attend the life of the conscientious physician. Dr. B. Lillian Smith, of this review, an osteopathic physician of unusual ability, with offices in the Investment Building at Pomona, is a native daughter, having been born on her father's ranch at Cucamonga, San Bernardino County.
Her father, Francis G. Smith, now deceased, was a native of the state of Maine, and when a young man came to San Francisco, Cal. In 1880, he located at Cucamonga, where he followed ranching until his death in 1904. Her mother, in maidenhood, was Anna Mussel- man, a native of Canada and a daughter of Dr. Samuel Musselman, a California pioneer and the first resident dentist to practice in Po- mona, having located there as early as 1878. He passed away in 1886.
B. Lillian Smith attended Occidental College, is a graduate of Los Angeles Osteopathic College of Physicians and Surgeons, and of the Medical Department of the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. She has successfully passed the state board examinations in materia medica and surgery, also in osteopathy, and in her practice skilfully applies both sciences. For three years she practiced osteop- athy in Los Angeles and in 1917 located in Pomona, where she is build- ing up a lucrative practice. The science of surgery appeals most strongly to Doctor Smith and she fulfilled a cherished desire and took a post-graduate course in surgery under the famous Mayo Brothers, at Rochester, Minn., in 1919. Her sister, Dr. Alice Smith, of Up- lands, also took the course at the same time. Doctor Smith is a mem- ber of the State Association of Osteopaths as well as of the State Asso- ciation of M.D.'s. Fraternally she is a Rebekah and a member of the Order of the Eastern Star.
FRANK D. MOSHER
Though not a native son of the Golden State, Frank D. Mosher is as loyal to California as though he had been born here, and was only ten years old when he came to Pomona with his parents in 1894. He was born at Janesville, Wis., August 29, 1884, and is the son of Charles A. and Angeline (Jacobs) Mosher, both natives of the Badger State. The father, Charles A., was born December 25, 1852, on a farm in Green County, and when a young man, in 1874, went to Hutch- inson County, S. D., where he engaged in farming for the succeeding ten years. May 29, 1894, he came to Pomona, where he followed the occupation of fruit growing until he retired. His children are: Frank D., Irvin, Mrs. Lottie Whitaker and Mrs. Marion Fuller. Mr. Mosher is a member of the First Methodist Church. His sister, Mrs.
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Lucy C. Dyer, who died here some years ago, deeded to her brother's children six and one-half acres of valuable land on Monterey and Hamilton avenues.
Frank D. was educated in the Pomona schools, attended the high school from which he was graduated. For a number of years he fol- lowed diversified farming on rented land in the Chino district. At present he is farming his father's ranch in Spadra district, and raises tomatoes, corn and barley. His home place at 1295 West Monterey Street, in 1917 produced twenty tons of apricots from thirty-year-old trees-a record yield. He is a member of the Farm Bureau and takes an active interest in farming and horticulture as well as in everything pertaining to the interests of Pomona Valley. He is wide-awake and a live wire in the community, where he is known as a man of ability and energy and is widely esteemed for his public spirit. In 1911 he married Miss Ollie McCain, born in Pomona, but living near Chino at the time of her marriage. They are members of the First Methodist Church at Pomona.
RALPH E. GRAY
The enterprise and progressiveness of the citizens of Pomona are such as to demand the best in every line of business. The leading marble works in the Pomona Valley are situated at Fifth Street and Garey Avenue, and the proprietor is Ralph E. Gray, a young man of sound judgment and business acumen, who was born at Albia, Iowa, February 6, 1892. His memory of the East, however, is slight, as he was but four years of age when his father, Jacob E., came from Iowa to Los Angeles, Cal., in 1897. Jacob E., a stonecutter, worked at his trade in Los Angeles until 1909, then removed to Pomona and pur- chased the granite and marble works of the Stone Brothers, pioneers in their line of business in Pomona, who established the plant thirty years ago. The business grew under Mr. Gray's management and he was still engaged in it at the time of his death on November 17, 1918.
His son, Ralph E., attended the public schools of Los Angeles, and learned the stonecutter's trade with his father in Pomona. In 1915 he leased a 100-acre fruit ranch near Auburn, Placer County, Cal., and after the demise of his father, came to Pomona and was his successor in the marble and granite works.
He married Miss Glee Schroder, a native of Iowa, whose father conducted the Schroder Drug Store at Pomona a number of years before his death.
Ralph E. is thoroughly familiar with every detail of the business and the requirements of the trade, and the fine class of work turned out by him is notable. Among the artistic monuments we mention par-
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ticularly the one in memory of the late Peter Hoops, which was placed in Pomona cemetery, and which stands fifteen feet high and is sur- mounted by a beautiful Italian marble statue.
Under the skilful and wise administration of Mr. Gray the busi- ness is prospering and making great growth. He enjoys the highest reputation for personal integrity, and the general public know that they can rely on his work when they are in need of anything substantial, durable and artistic in his line of business.
JOHN H. HUNTER
La Verne's leading painting contractor and interior and exterior decorator, John H. Hunter, was born in Wapello County, Iowa, on July 5, 1875. His father, Jonathan Hunter, was a native of the Old Dominion state, removing to Iowa when a boy, where he grew to manhood. There he married Sarah E. Schofield, a native of Ken- tucky. They were pioneer farmers, residing fifteen miles south of Ottumwa, where the father died in 1919, aged seventy-six years, his widow surviving him. Of the four children born to this worthy couple John is the second oldest. He was educated in the local public schools and the Southern Iowa Normal, at Bloomfield, and after receiving a teacher's certificate followed the vocation of a pedagogue in Iowa and Oklahoma. In the latter state he also owned and operated a farm.
In 1901 Mr. Hunter came to California and engaged in the livery business at La Verne, continuing the occupation for three years. He then located at Long Beach, where he was engaged in the real estate business for a year. He then became interested in the painting and decorating business and for a number of years has been busily engaged in his field at La Verne and the surrounding cities with marked success. In his work Mr. Hunter uses the best material that can be obtained and maintains a shop in La Verne, where he carries a full line of paints, wall paper, etc. The large number of his patrons in La Verne and the San Dimas district attest his skill as a workman of exceptional merit, with the ability to execute all kinds of high-class work satisfactorily. One of the fine pieces of work he has recently completed is the artistic decoration of the beautiful new residence of Mrs. Catherine Trimmer on East Fourth Street, La Verne. He is the owner of real estate in La Verne, which includes the apartment house at 115 East Third Street.
In La Verne, September 8, 1913, Mr. Hunter was united in mar- riage with Ivy L. Martin, who was born in Sedgwick County, Kans. She came to La Verne when a child with her parents, John and Lizzie (Neher) Martin, natives of Muncie, Ind., who removed to Sedgwick County, Kans., where they were farmers until 1895. They then
John H. Hunter
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located at La Verne, Cal., where they were owners and proprietors of the College View Hotel, being actively engaged in business until 1919, when they retired to enjoy the fruits of their labors. Mrs. Hunter received her education at La Verne College. Mr. and Mrs. Hunter are the parents of one son, Stanley J.
ADELBERT J. PIRDY
The up-to-date city of Pomona is fully abreast of the times when it comes to educational matters. Its high school is well advanced in all lines of educational endeavor, but especial mention is made of the manual training department, under the supervision of A. J. Pirdy, whose painstaking and persistent work has fostered and developed this department to a standard of exceptional efficiency.
It was in 1904 that Mr. Pirdy inaugurated the teaching of manual training in the grade schools of Pomona, both his facilities and equip- ment at that time being very limited. The work was started in a small shop conducted in the basement of one of the school buildings and was equipped with a few hand tools. Under his able management the work has had a wonderful growth and today four shops are maintained as a part of the high school unit, in which are installed the latest machinery for cabinet making, woodworking, a fully equipped machine shop and auto repairing department and forge; also a mechanical drafting de- partment. The efficiency of Mr. Pirdy, as director and teacher of this very important branch of educational work, is attested to by the fact that he has continued as the head of this department for fifteen consecutive years.
Adelbert J. Pirdy is a native of the Empire State, having been born in Erie County, N. Y., February 16, 1874. He is a graduate of the Hamburg high school, Buffalo, N. Y .; and Buffalo State Normal school. He was principal of the city schools of North Tonawanda, N. Y., and for one year was associated with the Hancock Educational Center, Boston, Mass.
Believing that the Great West offered better opportunities to ambitious young men who had specially prepared themselves for their chosen work, Mr. Pirdy migrated in 1904 to California and located in Pomona. His self-reliance, persistency of purpose, coupled with a definite aim in life, helped him to accomplish his splendid success at Pomona. For a number of years, during his vacation time, Mr. Pirdy has been associated with Ward & Company in electrical construction throughout Pomona Valley. Later he became the secretary and treas- urer of the Pomona Fixture and Wiring Company, of which concern he owns the majority of stock. Mr. Pirdy designed and installed the beautiful electric fixtures of the Pomona Masonic Temple and has in- stalled fixtures in many of the fine residences of Pomona and Clare-
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mont. He is the owner of a five-acre orange grove on East Holt Avenue, which he has greatly improved since purchasing.
On August 9, 1910, A. J. Pirdy was united in marriage with Helen Clapham, a native of the state of New York, and they are the parents of two children, John A. and Marjory Ruth. Fraternally Mr. Pirdy is very prominent in Masonic circles and is past high priest of Pomona Chapter, No. 76, R. A. M., and commander of Southern California Commandery No. 37, K. T. Religiously he is a member of the Pilgrim Congregational Church.
WILLIAM CLYDE DOUGHTY
What sort of successful business men, absorbed with their own affairs and yet finding time to serve their fellow-citizens in offices of public trust, may spring forth in Pomona Valley, is well illustrated in the life and interesting career of William Clyde Doughty, himself the son of a former office holder who was widely-esteemed in his day. He was born at Keokuk, Iowa, on October 17, 1871, and his father was William G. Doughty, who was born in Kentucky but reared in Illinois. He was a teacher in Iowa, later removing to Kansas, where he both farmed and conducted a flour mill. In 1890 he came to La Verne, Cal., and set himself up as a merchant, and for six years he was postmaster under President Cleveland. He purchased raw land, developed water and set out an orange grove. May 9, 1906, he died, mourned by mary. He had married, in Keokuk, Iowa, Martha J. Yenawine, a native of Illinois, and she is now living in Los Angeles, the mother of seven children. Charles H. lives in Los Angeles; W. Clyde is the subject of our interesting review; Helen M. has become Mrs. F. G. Kimball; Grace is the wife of C. W. Tucker; and there are Paul E., and Maude and Harry, twins. In his first year his parents moved from Keokuk to what became Galva, McPherson County, Kans., where he was reared and educated in the public and high schools.
In 1890 Mr. Doughty came to La Verne, Cal., and since that time he has followed the orange industry and the real-estate business. He helped to pick the first carload of fruit taken from the Richards ranch in North Pomona, and for two years he was foreman of the old Ruddich & Trench Packing House, at La Verne. He himself owns a fine orange grove of fifteen acres in full bearing, all free from debt, one-half of the trees being Valencias, the other half Navels, that he improved, and if anyone wishes to see a small "show place" re- flecting creditably on the Valley, he need not go further than this citrus property.
Mr. Doughty has also been one of the leading real-estate dealers in the Valley for years, and has been most successful in the large sales of orange groves and alfalfa ranches, for which he maintains an office at La Verne and operates throughout the Valley. To know Mr.
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Doughty is to wish to do business with him; and it has been this confi- dence in his honesty and judgment that has laid the foundation for his business success. Besides having been president of the Board of Trade of La Verne for two years, he served as a grammar school trustee for nine years, and as a trustee of the high school for six; was clerk of the school board for year's, and is now, as he has been for the past four years, city clerk of the town of La Verne, and is a member of the La Verne Orange Growers Association.
When, on July 7, 1897, Mr. Doughty was married at La Verne to Miss Grace Myers, a daughter of D. L. and Mary Myers of Kansas, who were also early settlers of La Verne, commenced that domestic, happy life made still brighter by the advent of two children, Glenn and Ruby. Since then he has built a fine home costing $6,000; and as an enterprising, prosperous man of affairs, he has constructed and still owns other desirable houses in La Verne.
J. RALPH SHOEMAKER
A Pomona Valley rancher whose ownership of a fine California orange grove, with memories of sports there in boyhood days when he had no thought of coming to possess the land, recalls many romances of California life, is J. Ralph Shoemaker, who was born at Los An- geles on March 9, 1886, the son of Dr. Elisha T. Shoemaker, a native of Pennsylvania and a physician of repute, now deceased. Doctor Shoemaker, who was a graduate of the medical department of the University of Michigan, and who married Miss Mary E. Rivers, a native of Ontario, came to Los Angeles in the early eighties, and was one of the pioneer doctors and one of the first to practice on the east side of the city. His wife also was a graduate in medicine, her alma mater being the medical department of the University of Southern California, and she materially aided her husband in his practice.
Ralph was educated in the public schools of Los Angeles, after which he took a classical course at the Lewis Institute of Chicago, and then spent three years at Pomona College. He next graduated from the San Luis Obispo Polytechnic School, and then spent a year in Stan- ford University, and for a year was foreman of the Cudahy ranch at Huntington Park.
He has since followed irrigation engineering and orange growing, and been engaged in the construction of irrigating systems in the Po- mona Valley. He owns. a fine orange grove of ten acres, where the trees, Navels and Valencias, are seven years old; it is situated on Mountain Avenue, and was planted and developed by himself. It includes land on which, as a boy in 1903, he hunted rabbits. In part- nership, also, with W. A. McCormick of Pomona, Mr. Shoemaker is farming to grain 120 acres leased of the Louis Phillips ranch. He is a member of the Claremont Citrus Association.
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In the Mission Chapel at Riverside in 1911, Mr. Shoemaker married Miss Eva Heartt, a native of Iowa, the daughter of Sidney and Jennie Heartt. She is a graduate of the Girls' Collegiate School in Los Angeles. Mr. Shoemaker is a member of the Congregational Church of Claremont. He was made a Mason in Pomona Lodge, F. & A. M., and demitting he was a charter member of Claremont Lodge No. 426, F. & A. M.
MISS L. WILTBERGER
Southern California has attained world-wide fame as an artist's paradise, where all requirements necessary to the pursuit of the artistic vocation are to be had. Pomona is especially fortunate in possessing an artist of such rare ability as is found in Miss L. Wiltberger, who has a studio at 543 North Gordon Street, known as "The Little White House Studio."
This artist is one of Kentucky's daughters, but was reared and educated in Chicago, Ill., where she attended a school for girls. Later she became a student at the Chicago Art Institute, where she studied art for three years, afterwards taking a course in photography with the famous photographer, Francis Place of Chicago.
Miss Wiltberger, with her mother, came to California and locat- ed in Pomona in 1904. After purchasing the home at 543 North Gordon Street, Miss Wiltberger built her studio, where she has been actively engaged in the pursuit of her profession ever since. The fact that she never has a dull time in her business during the entire year bespeaks her capabilities as a finished artist of unusual merit who understands all departments of her work. Her slogan, "The Real You," indicates what she so successfully strives to achieve in. the atten- tion given to character and expression in reproducing her subjects. That the high-grade work achieved at her studio is appreciated by her customers is attested by the fact that during war time, when other busi- ness enterprises were retrenching because of lack of custom, Miss Wilt- berger's business was better than in previous years.
She makes a specialty of baby pictures and mothers from miles around bring their little ones to her studio to be photographed. Many eastern tourists who winter in Pomona have had their babies' pictures taken, and incidentally their own, and two or three years later have returned to again have them photographed. She numbers among her customers many people from Los Angeles and other nearby cities. She has achieved wonders in her art in reproducing the graceful atti- tudes and natural expression of childhood.
She is a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Pomona and is stanchly loyal to the city in which she has achieved such artistic and financial success.
BRUBAKER BROS., MACHINE-MADE CONCRETE PIPE, SAN DIMAS, CALIFORNIA
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HENRY J. AND JOHN B. BRUBAKER
Foremost among those who have brought the manufacture of concrete pipe forward as a California industry, while advancing its state scientifically and technically, must be mentioned Henry J. and John B. Brubaker, under the firm name of Brubaker Bros., whose office is at 25 Acacia Street, San Dimas. Henry J. was born on a farm in Franklin County, Kans., on March 6, 1886, while his brother, John B. Brubaker, was born on January 16, 1884. Their parents were Joseph L. and Mary S. (Garber) Brubaker, natives of Tennessee and Illinois, respectively, who were farmers in Iowa, and later in Kansas.
The family early moved to Wyoming, and after four years pro- ceeded, in the fall of 1890, overland to California, being three and a half months on the way. They spent a year at Fresno, and then they were at Norwalk until 1893. For another three years they remained at Little Rock, Antelope Valley, on the Mojave desert, and in 1896 came to San Dimas, where the father died; his widow survives him.
Henry obtained his education in the public schools of California, but at fourteen he went to work, and the balance of his studying was in the great school of life and human experience. For five years he clerked in a general merchandise store with his brother, and all the time was preparing for the later and more important work of his life.
In 1907 Brubaker Bros. established their business here, and it has been conducted in this vicinity ever since, the operations extending in particular over Riverside and Los Angeles counties. They employ an average of thirty men, and their pay roll runs over $2,000 a month. In 1912 Brubaker Bros. perfected a new concrete pipe making machine, which they patented and now use in their business. This machine facilitates the manufacture as well as makes a stronger and superior pipe. It is equipped to run by power. The manufactured pipe is shipped into different parts of Southern California and as far north as Kern County and is in much demand for its superior quality. The machine has been adopted by the state of California in the manufacture of concrete pipe for the state land settlements. Being much interested in the development and growth of Pomona Valley, they have the satis- faction of knowing that they have contributed something definite to bring about definite results.
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