USA > California > Sacramento County > History of Sacramento County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, 1913 > Part 88
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It was in the public schools of San Jose that Mr. 'Aram ob- tained his primary education. He was graduated from the Univer- sity of the Pacific in 1870, with the A. B. degree, and soon after-
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ward took up the study of law with Judge D. S. Payne, then county judge of Santa Clara county, and was admitted to the bar in 1873. For some years he practiced his profession at San Jose, but in the early '80s went to Arizona and in 1885 was elected a member of the territorial legislature. Returning to California he resumed his practice in the state at Woodland, Yolo county, and in 1894 was elected senator to represent the Sixth Senatorial District, compris- ing Yuba, Sutter and Yolo counties, and served during the sessions 1895-97. A little later he located in Sacramento, where he has since practiced his profession. . He was a partner of the late Gen. A. L. Hart until the latter's death. He gives his attention to. general practice and has numbered among his clients some of the most prom- inent men and concerns in the state. Politically he is a strong Re- publican and has been a delegate to various state and county con- ventions, and in Yolo county he was a member of the County Cen- tral Committee. During his senatorial term he had charge of the appropriation of $300,000 for the improvement of the Sacramento river, the first appropriation for that purpose.
In 1875 Mr. Aram married Miss Lizzie Jasper, of Yuba county, and she died in 1892. Fraternally he affiliates with the Elks. Some- thing more should be said in this connection of Captain Joseph Aram, Senator Aram's father. He and members of his overland party of 1846 had known members of the Donner party before the latter had left for the West. The leaders of both parties had agreed to meet on Green river and make the rest of the journey in com- pany. The Donner party made slow progress and, a meeting not being effected, came on by way of the Hastings cut-off. By advice of Kit Carson the Aram party came on by way of Fort Hall, and when it reached the Truckee river was told by Indians that the Don- ner party was a long way back and it would be useless to wait for them. Aram and his party crossed the mountains and arrived at Sutter Fort early in October, 1846. The Donner party arrived at Donner Lake and was snowed in and lost.
WALTER THEODORE FOSTER
The intimate ties of ancestral and personal identification with England were severed when the Foster family became established in the United States during the early half of the nineteenth century. With the head of the household came his family, which included a son, John, then eight years of age. Reared amid frontier conditions in Missouri, he became associated with general farm pursuits in
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Pike county, that state, where his parents remained until their deaths; but he, with the adventurous spirit of the pioneer, sought newer lands in the far west. Establishing himself near Capay, Yolo county, he bought a small tract of land and later added to his pos- sessions from time to time until he had the title to about two thou- sand acres of raw land. A portion of this has been sold, but he still owns fourteen hundred acres, representing the energetic efforts of his lifetime. Retired from active labors, he and his wife reside in Berkeley, where they are surrounded by the comforts rendered pos- sible by their own laborious and long-continued efforts.
Among the seven children comprising the family of John Fos- ter there was a son, Walter Theodore, whose birth occurred at Woodland, Yolo county, Cal., in September, 1872, and whose edu- cation was secured in the public schools of that county, the Pierce Christian College at College City, Colusa county, and a business college from which he was graduated in 1892. His marriage, Sep- tember 8, 1893, united him with Miss Maggie Kirtland, and they settled on a farm in Yolo county. For a time he leased fifteen hun- dred acres owned by the Bank of Woodland and while acting as foreman for that institution he also became the personal owner of three hundred and twenty acres of valuable land in Yolo county. For a time he operated both his own property and that of the bank, but at the expiration of twelve years he began devoting himself exclusively to his own tract. Two years later he came to Sacra- mento and settled in Oak Park in October, 1906, since which time it has been taken into the incorporation of Sacramento, but at that time was outside of the corporate limits.
Coming to Oak Park in 1906, Mr. Foster was a member of the real-estate firm of Becker & Foster until 1908 and since the latter year he has conducted real estate activities alone, hav- ing his office on the corner of Thirty-fifth and Cypress streets. When he first became a resident of the suburb he bought for $800 a tract 40x75 feet in dimensions and on this site he erected a two-story modern office and store building, for which after its completion he was offered $25,000. Opposite the block he owns another corner, which likewise has become very valuable. Recently he paid $12,000 for a location near his office building, and here he is now erecting a modern fireproof moving-picture theatre, containing all the latest ideas in such buildings and leased for three years to C. E. Hoff- man, of Reno.
The family of Mr. and Mrs. Foster consists of four children, namely: Lester, Grace, Meryl and Ruth. The son is not only a student in school, but also successfully superintends the insurance business in charge of his father. In politics Mr. Foster has been a lifelong adherent of the Democratic party and a stanch supporter of its principles. Although enjoying the opportunity of holding of-
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fice he has never aspired to such positions, his tastes inelining him rather toward business pursuits. In fraternal relations he is con- nected with the Eagles and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. From early life he has been a believer in the doctrines of the Chris- tian Church and has identified himself with its missionary and char- itable movements. No one has more faith than he in the future of the Sacramento valley and the expansion of a Greater Sacramento, enjoying all the advantages and conferring all the opportunities within the power of a capital city that is progressive, prosperous and far-reaching in its activities.
WILLIAM R. GORE
On a slight elevation overlooking the beautiful valley to the south a visitor to the Fair Oaks district notes with admiration the attractive residence owned and occupied by Mr. Gore, who in se- lecting the location bore in mind the need of a soil adapted to his specialties in fruit, but at the same time did not fail to note the advantages of the eminence as the site of a modern country home. Adjacent to the residence are the three fruit ranches which have come under his ownership and to which he devotes considerable at- tention, personally directing their management and overseeing the harvesting of the fruit. In the main, however, he has given his time to business pursuits. For a time after his arrival in Fair Oaks he conducted a general mercantile establishment and in this he. still owns an interest, although no longer its proprietor. Recently he has been interested in the management of the lumber business which he has bought and now manages with the same keen comprehensive energy characteristic of him in every commercial association.
The birth of this influential citizen occurred in Clark county, Ohio, November 18, 1858. At an early age he was taken to Illinois by his parents, who settled on a farm in Sangamon county near the city of Springfield. There he passed the years of youth and received a common-school education, supplemented by attendance at the Spring- field high school. Immediately after completing his studies he began to learn the profession of a pharmacist, in which he soon acquired proficiency. For some twenty years he carried on a drug store at Mechanicsburg, Ill., near Springfield, and meanwhile he devoted his leisure hours to the supervision of a valuable farm of one hun- dred and sixty acres which he had bought with the profits of the business. At Mechanicsburg he was also a local leader of the Demo- cratic party and a well-known politician, serving as a delegate to
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numerous conventions and influencing the decisions of many as- semblies of local party men. The only office which he consented to hold was that of assessor, but he aided his friends in their candi- dacies and kept himself thoroughly posted in regard to all impor- tant political measures.
Having made visits to California in 1896 and '98 and having purchased property in Fair Oaks in 1896, Mr. Gore located perma- ently in California in the year 1900. Settling at Fair Oaks, he iden- tified himself with the district by the purchase of a tract which he has since developed and still owns. His activities have been varied, for he has been a fruit rancher, merchant and owner of a lumber yard. In addition he promoted the organization of the Fair Oaks Bank, bought stock in the concern and now serves as one of the di- rectors. A further proof of his devotion to the community is given in his zealous promotion of the Fair Oaks Fruit Company, in which he was one of the first to buy stock and to which he has tendered time as well as means with a firm faith in its importance to the com- munity. Indeed, every enterprise of value to the town has felt the impetus of his energy and sagacity and he even has found leisure to promote numerous commercial ventures outside of Fair Oaks, for while this place naturally receives the principal share of his time, thought and investments, he posseses the broad patriotic spirit that foresees the general prosperity of the commonwealth and desires to aid in its permanent up-building. Sharing with him in the good-will of the community are his wife, a woman of culture, and his dangh- ter, Miss Hortense S., who is a graduate of Mills College. The only other child in the family, Flutie, died during infancy. Prior to their marriage, which was solemnized at Springfield, Ill., December 6, 1882, Mrs. Gore bore the name of Miss Lizzie McDaniel. The fam- ily of which she was a member bore a part in the early upbuilding of Sangamon county, where she was born and where during girl- hood she received the educational training, afterwards graduating from St. Mary's College at Knoxville, which forms the foundation of her broad fund of general information and her wide scope of men- tal attainments.
WILLIAM GEARY
Perhaps no occupation presents more difficulties to the amateur or imposes greater responsibilities upon the expert than that of phar- macy. The fact that, during a very long and close identification with the drug business, Mr. Geary has met with exceptional suc. cess in the work proves his natural qualifications of accuracy, in-
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telligence and trustworthiness. When he left school, scarcely more than a boy, it was for the purpose of studying the drug business, and as the years passed he displayed an increasing knowledge of the occupation. From that he rose by thrift and energy into a finan- cial association with an old-established drug establishment, and eventually he acquired a large interest in a western house. When it is remembered that he began without means or influence and rose from a humble station into prominence and business success, it will be realized that he possesses abilities of a high order, and such indeed is his reputation throughout the country tributary to the city of Sacramento.
It was during 1881 that Mr. Geary first became a resident of Sacramento, where later he achieved business success of a high order. For a long period prior to his removal to the west he had been identified with Canada and the eastern states, but his residence in our own state has covered so many years that he is now a typical Californian, loyal to the progress of the commonwealth, interested in any movement for the general welfare and a contributor to proj- ects of permanent value to the people. Of Canadian birth, he was born in London, Canada, in March of 1837, and received his educa- tion in the schools of that city, but at the age of fifteen left school in order to learn the drug business. When nineteen years old he went to Philadelphia, Pa., and secured employment with a large drug firm. As a traveling salesman for that house he visited the principal cities of the east and gained a comprehensive knowledge of all that section of country. The west, however, proved so much more alluring to him than the older-settled east that in 1862 he be- came a resident of San Francisco, where he made his home for al- most twenty years, meanwhile being connected with a wholesale drug firm. Upon coming to Sacramento and assuming the manage- ment of the wholesale drug house of H. C. Kirk & Co., he became a partner in the business, the title of which was thereupon changed to Kirk, Geary & Company. Since then he has built up one of the most important drug houses of its kind in the state, and he has es- tablished a wholesale trade whose customers comprise retail deal- ers throughont California, Nevada and Southern Oregon.
EDWARD H. GERBER
The intimate identification of an honored pioneer family with the interests of Northern California finds expression in the mani- fold activities engaging the attention of Edward H. Gerber, a life- long resident of the state and a native son of Sacramento. Belong-
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ing to the younger generation whose task it is to develop the weighty interests secured by their fathers, he has been wholly exempt from the privations of the pioneer era and from the vicissitudes incident to a frontier environment. His has been an enjoyment of twentieth- century advantages, an appreciation of present-day opportunities and a familiarity with the culture and refinement typical of every portion of the state in the present period of development; at the same time, with these advantages, he has faced great responsibili- ties, all of which he has met and discharged with tact, energy and forcefulness of purpose.
A son of W. E. and Hattie (Lyon) Gerber, the former from Buffalo, N. Y., and the latter from Boston, Mass., Edward H. Ger- ber was born March 25, 1883, and received his early education in Sacramento, after which he attended St. Matthews College at San Mateo until the completion of the regular curriculum of that insti- tution. With his entrance into the business world there began an association of some duration with a firm of wholesale hop dealers in San Francisco. In the interests of their business he traveled in Europe for two years and on his return to the United States re- mained in New York City for some time as superintendent of their branch office there. Returning to California he became interested in general ranching and had the supervision of extensive tracts of land and herds of stock. An organization of which he acts as presi- dent and which has its offices at the California National Bank, Sac- ramento, is incorporated under the title of the Tehama Investment Company. This company has laid out and built up the town of Ger- ber, Tehama county, a point planned by the Southern Pacific Rail- road Company as a division center with passenger and freight connections from Red Bluff. Mr. Gerber is a director in the California National Bank and is vice-president of the Farmers' and Mechan- ics' Savings Bank. In addition he is the owner of the Buckley- Gerber Abstract and Title Company, one of the oldest concerns of the kind in the entire state. Varied as are his business interests and comprehensive as are his activities, he nevertheless finds leisure for participation in social functions and with his wife enjoys a popularity as broad as the circle of his acquaintances. The Bo- hemian Club of San Francisco and the Sutter Club have his name enrolled among their members. The Masonic order also has the benefit of his identification with its measures, particularly those relating to the work of Washington Lodge No. 20, F. & A. M., in which he has been a member for some years. His marriage, Sep- tember 8, 1908, united him with Miss Gertrude Whitaker, of Galt, daughter of the late Andrew Whitaker, a citizen whose wealth and fine personal qualities brought him into prominence throughout his section of the state.
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FERDINAND KOHLER
An almost universal progressive tendency in business circles and an expansion of commercial affairs commensurate with local development have been noticeable in the history of Sacramento dur- ing the opening years of the twentieth century. One of the very few exceptions to the otherwise universal rule of expansion has been the history of the milling industry, which has been injuriously af- fected by the lessened wheat acreage in Northern California. The land having proved adapted to erops exceedingly remunerative in value has been taken from its original cultivation in grain and has been devoted to more profitable uses. As a result many mills have discontinued business and of those still in operation the Phoenix is one of the few that shows a constantly increasing patronage. The cause of this prosperity is not difficult to ascertain. It is a result of superior business management and the securing of a product of un- surpassed quality.
The secretary and treasurer of the Phoenix flouring mill is a native of Germany, but has made America his home since 1872 and at the expiration of two years in Montana he came to Sacramento in 1874, since which time he has risen to prominence among the business men of the city. The firm of George Schroth & Co. pur- chased the mill in 1881 and incorporated the business under the name of the Phoenix Milling Co. in 1892. The original president was George Schroth, who died in 1902. Ferdinand Kohler, who was the first secretary and treasurer, has continued in the office up to the present time and has given his time closely to the upbuilding of the business. The first directors were J. G. and W. C. Schroth and J. H. Arnold, in addition to the president and secretary. The com- pany met with a severe loss in 1885, when the plant burned to the ground, but in rebuilding a more substantial structure was erected and more modern equipment provided, so that every facility has been secured for the attainment of satisfactory results.
The fact that the company has agents and warehouses at Placer- ville, Chico and Oakland proves the importance of its business and the expansion of its interests. The output averages three hundred and fifty barrels per day, twenty-five tons of rolled barley and twenty tons of other mill feed. The reputation of the mill has been greatly enhanced by the manufacture of their famous specialty, White Rose wheat flakes, a favorite cereal among the people of Northern Cali- fornia and a product whose superior quality has resulted in an enormous sale in every locality where introduced.
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WILLIAM F. GORMLEY
The county of Fermanagh, around whose history there cluster legends of romance and tales of tragedy, formed the environment familiar to the childhood days of William F. Gormley, who was born in the village of Irvinestown, March 5, 1862, and belonged to an old family in the north of Ireland. Memories of those early years, as they mingle with the interesting activities of maturity, form a pleasant background to life's bright picture of earnest purpose and manly action. The first eventful change in the family affairs came in 1871 with the departure of the father, Thomas Gormley, from the old Irish home. For years he had worked in Fermanagh as a mill- wright and pattern-maker and his removal to California was the result of a contract to look after the mining interests left by Will- iam Hughes, one of the pioneers of Eldorado county at a camp known as Georgia Slide and who had some years previous been struck by a large rock in the mine and received fatal injuries. The following year the mother with their two sons and one daughter followed him to America and joined him in Eldorado county.
It was in 1874 that the family came to Sacramento, where the father entered the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad shops as a machinist and later was pattern-maker. He is now making his home in Sacramento, his wife, Mary Ann Gormley, having passed away November 2, 1903. William F. Gormley was but twelve years old when his parents brought him to Sacramento, and he entered the city schools to complete his studies. During 1877 he became an ap- prentice in a bookbinding establishment and at the expiration of his time he continued at his trade in the state printing office, where he remained for a period of nine years altogether. When the state established a bindery in 1886 he secured a position there in a very humble capacity and at low wages. Although at that time he voted the Democratic ticket while the head of the department, A. J. John- ston, was an ardent Republican, owing to his efficiency in the busi- ness he rose to be assistant foreman and the difference of his politi- cal views with those of his superiors was not allowed to jeopardize his position. Eventually, when he was assistant, he tendered his resignation in order to enter other lines of business.
The undertaking business which he still conducts was estab- lished by Mr. Gormley October 1, 1897, and later he erected the sub- stantial structure at No. 914 Eighth street, where he established a public morgue, the first in the county. Elected coroner in 1902, he was re-elected to the office at the expiration of his term four years later and during 1910 he was chosen for the third term, which he now fills. During February of 1911 he purchased the former 50
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home of Grove L. Johnson, father of the present governor of Cali- fornia, which is located at No. 720 H street. Through various im- provements and enlargements he has built up one of the finest es- tablishments of its kind in the northern part of the state and to add to the convenience of his equipment he recently purchased an automobile ambulance. During the period of his association with the bookbinding business he attended the convention of the Inter- national Brotherhood of Bookbinders at Buffalo, N. Y., in May of 1895 and in that session he received the honor of election as vice- president. For one term he held office as president of the Feder- ated Trades Council.
With the honored Bishop, Thomas Grace, acting as officiating clergyman, the marriage of William F. Gormley and Mamie E. Fogarty was solemnized January 8, 1896. They are the parents of three children, namely: William Manogue, born February 1, 1897; Thomas Grace, March 27, 1898; and Mary Frances, August 20, 1901. Mrs. Gormley is a member of a pioneer family and is a niece of Rt. Rev. Patrick Manogue, remembered with affection as the first bishop of the Sacramento diocese, embracing all of Northern California and Western Nevada. With his family Mr. Gormley holds membership in the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at Sacramento. That
prominent and successful Roman Catholic fraternity, the Knights of Columbus, has in him a loyal and generous member. Recognition of his ability has come in his selection to serve as grand knight of the local council. He is a member of the local branch of Catholic Knights of America, of which he has served as both secretary and president. In 1895 he was honored by being chosen by the state convention as representative from California to the National Convention of the Catholic Knights of America at Omaha, Neb., and his influence was apparent in many of the measures adopted by the assembly.
BERNHARDT P. KOCH
With the inheritance of a name indicative of his Teutonic an- cestry Mr. Koch also inherited the national characteristics of thrift, industry and unwearied perseverance; and although he came to the new world in young manhood and identified himself thoroughly with the interests of his adopted country, he never lost the attri- butes of character which are found in the German race the world over. In the German town, where his birth had occurred in 1857, it was his good fortune to attend the national schools, which prepared him for the responsibilities of life and enabled him to conduct his
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own business affairs with accuracy and promptness. After he had left school he learned the trade of tailor, and this he followed for some years in his home land. Meanwhile he had heard much con- cerning the opportunities offered by the new world and finally he decided to cast in his fortunes with those of the people beyond the sea; accordingly he bade farewell to old friends and relatives, took passage on a ship bound for New York and landed in due time in the metropolis of the new world, where he found employment with- out delay. After a time he removed to Pennsylvania and there in August of 1887 he was united in marriage with Miss Engla Yahm, who like himself claimed Germany as her native land. Their union was one whose mutual happiness and helpfulness was broken only by his death in May, 1896, ere yet old age had claimed him for its own and while the future had seemed to offer many more years of usefulness in his chosen work.
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