USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume II > Part 30
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume II > Part 30
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Mr. Holbrook was educated in the public schools of Warren County until he was fourteen years old, when he struck out for himself, going to Oklahoma, where he worked at various things and managed to attend business college at night. He then learned the printer's trade and followed that for some time. He started a grocery business, built up a fine trade and then sold out and went to Kansas City. There for some years he was in the employ of the railroads, but he was not satisfied here and determined to come West.
In 1907 Mr. Holbrook located in Redlands, where he was engaged by the county in fumigating, and he also worked for the street car com- pany. He was also the county jailer under Sheriff McMahon for two years and a half. During the war he worked for a copper company in Miami, Arizona. In 1919 he located permanently in San Bernardino
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and opened a real estate and insurance office, and has been in that business since. He handles real estate all over the state as well as in San Ber- nardino city and county, and is doing a big business. Mr. Holbrook is a director in the San Bernardino-Colton Oil Company.
On June 4, 1913, Mr. Holbrook was united in marriage with Rachael Keller, a daughter of F. M. Keller, of San Bernardino. Mrs. Holbrook is a native daughter. They have one child, Margery. Mr. Holbrook is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of Redlands and of San Bernardino Lodge No. 836, B. P. O. E. He is also a charter member of the Loyal Order of Moose. In politics he is an upholder of republican principles, and when in Oklahoma, represented the party in a county con- vention.
J. DALE GENTRY. The man who builds up a sound and reliable busi- ness, no matter in what line, is rendering a valuable service to his com- munity, for in so doing he is adding to its prestige as a commercial and industrial center, is setting an example which stimulates others to like action, and affords employment to some of his fellow citizens, thus en- abling them to become producers. Every man does not succeed in his own business, although he may make a good employe under another's direction. All men are not executives or money getters. Certain definite characteristics are required in order that man forge ahead, distancing com- petitors and building up a name for his special line of endeavor. Faith in himself and a natural liking for his work must come first, and closely allied with them in importance is a persistence, a far-sightedness and a knowledge of human nature. When the owner of a business is brought into direct touch with his trade it is necessary for him to have a pleasing manner, an accommodating spirit and a sincerity of word and action in or- der to win and hold his customers. Some of these salient characteristics are possessed in marked degree by J. Dale Gentry, proprietor of the large automobile agency for the Ford cars and tractors, with a fully equipped repair department attached, at 437 East Street, San Bernardino.
J. Dale Gentry was born at Sedalia, Missouri, April 12, 1884, a son of Clark and Emma (Parker) Gentry, natives of Sedalia, Missouri. The family came to San Bernardino about 1890, and from then on J. Dale Gentry was reared in this city. After he was graduated from High School he took a two-year special course in banking at the University of South- ern California at Los Angeles. For a short time after completing this course he worked at steamfitting, and then was employed by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company on construction work, having charge for two years as superintendent of the construction on the Colorado River irriga- tion dam project, and then for two years more was engaged in railroad construction work in Mexico.
While engaged in construction work Mr. Gentry traveled from Mexico to Alaska, but finally decided to return to San Bernardino, and in 1906 established his present business of buying, selling and delivering auto- mobiles. In 1910 he secured the Ford agency, starting with a contract for not less than six cars. His business has so increased that today he is selling 1,200 cars annually. Mr. Gentry also handles the Fordson tractors, carries a full line of accessories, and has a fully-equipped repair department in which he is doing a thriving business. All the year round he employs fifty persons, and his establishment is second to the Santa Fe Railroad in San Bernardino in the number of men employed.
Mr. Gentry is not married. Fraternally he maintains membership with the Masons and Elks, and is popular in both orders. In addition to his auto business he has other interests and among them is his connection with Vol. 11 11
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the Farmers Exchange National Bank of San Bernardino, of which he is vice president. He also maintains membership with the San Bernardino Chamber of Commerce, and is one of the active forces in that body. Mr. Gentry is enthusiastic about his home city, has faith in its future, and is proud of the part he has played in its past.
GEORGE D. PARKER-Not a community or state merely, but an entire nation, can take pride in the achievements of such an inventor as George D. Parker, the man of genius at the head of the Parker Ma- chine Works at Riverside. This is the only firm in the United States specializing in automatic box machines and box handling devices. Mr. Parker stands out first and foremost among all who have had any thing to do with box making machinery. To his genius is due the credit for some of the most essential features of fruit packing houses of the present day, and especially the citrus industry. He has between fifty-five and sixty patents, is engaged in working out others, and has taken out thirteen patents in nine foreign countries.
A native son of California, George D. Parker was born at Mariposa, February 2, 1870. His father, Robert Parker was of English ancestry, a native of Canada, and came to California in 1868. The mother, also deceased, was born in Canada and was Henrietta Patterson. Her father's cousin, Sir John Patterson, was an official of the Bank of England and one of the original promoters of the Panama Canal.
When George D. Parker was two years old his parents moved to Orange County, and he grew up there and received a public school education. After school he was employed in farm and orchard work until he was twenty-five, and he therefore knows the fruit industry of California from other practical standpoints than that of an inventor of packing house equipment. At the age of twenty-five he began and completed a thorough apprenticeship as a mechanic and machinist in shops at Los Angeles. He remained there until 1900.
About that time he developed his first box making machine. After working four years to develop this machine he came to Riverside with the idea that all his troubles were at an end. He found that he had only made a start, and then ensued another period of four years in which he was studying and contriving means of perfecting the machine to meet the most exacting tests that could be imposed. His first machine was sold to the Riverside Heights Packing House No. 10 seventeen years ago, and that machine is still in good running order. Without recounting all the details in the growth and broadening ap- preciation of Mr. Parker's box making machine it is sufficient to say that there is not a carload of fruit shipped from California or Florida which does not pay tribute to Mr. Parker through the agency of his devices.
For a number of years he did his experimenting and some of his manufacturing in the Stoner Iron Works, then the only machine shop in Riverside. It was afterward sold to Mr. Landwehr and became the Riverside Foundry and Machine Works. Mr. Parker bought in 1909 all other interests in the plant, and gave it the name Parker Machine Works, which manufactured all the varied lines of packing house ma- chinery covered by his patents and became the controlling factor in the citrus packing house equipment.
In December, 1920, Mr. Parker consolidated the citrus packing honse business with the Fred Stebler interests. The consolidation was considered beneficial to the industry as a whole, as it eliminated com- petition, the purchaser now being able to buy the best of the machines
Geo Darker
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furnished by the two companies. The present Stebler-Parker Com- pany is a close corporation with Fred Stebler and Mr. Parker as principals. At the time of the consolidation Mr. Parker was employing a hundred and twenty-five mechanics and manufacturing citrus pack- ing house machinery exclusively. His plant is still manufacturing and developing box making machines and box handling devices, and is the only firm in the United States specializing in automatic box making machinery.
The basic patents of Mr. Parker are all established and settled by court examination and decision. His were the first machines placed on the market. He has many patents on automatic nailing machines four on a fruit separator, eight on fruit sizers, three on fruit sorters, seven on fruit dryers used largely in the citrus trade and demonstrated as the only practical ones in use. Other patents are on box presses, fruit weighers, conveying systems, box emptying and elevating, com- bined box elevator and conveyor and pasting machines. His auto- matic machines have a normal capacity of twenty-five boxes per minute, and Mr. Parker expects to increase this efficiency to an output of thirty per minute. Machines manufactured under the Parker patents make seventy-five per cent of all fruit boxes in California. The business involves a tremendous amount of material.
Mr. Parker is a member of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce and the Business Men's Association, is a republican, and is affiliated with the First Methodist Church. He is one of the public spirited citizens of Riverside, and his own work is an important source of Riverside's prestige both in California and abroad. Mr. Parker married in Washington, June 6, 1900, Miss Clara Barr. She was born in Oregon, of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry, and is a daughter of George Barr, now deceased.
HORACE MCDONALD HAYS, D. D. S., whose professional work as a dentist covers a period of eighteen years equally divided between Colton and San Bernardino, is a native son of California and, while a compara- tively young man, has been an interested witness of the changing develop- ments in the San Bernardino Valley, where he has lived since boyhood.
He was born at San Jose, November 28, 1879, son of Wilson and Tacie (McDonald) Hays. His parents were natives of Pennsylvania. where his father was born in 1839 and his mother in 1837. They were married in 1872, and the same year started for California, crossing the Isthmus on the Panama Canal Railroad and settled at San Jose. They lived at San Jose until their son Horace was five years of age, when they moved to Banning, where Wilson Hays helped organize the town and develop its water supply. Then, in 1885, when Dr. Hays was six years old, the family moved to Colton, where his father for many years was engaged in the fruit canning business. Thus Horace McDonald Hays has lived in the San Bernardino Valley thirty-five years. His father died in 1912, at the age of seventy-three, and his mother is still living at Colton, aged eighty-four.
Horace McDonald Hays grew up at Colton, acquired a grammar and high school education, and as a youth he was employed in the fruit farming industry at Colton and later was assistant postmaster under his father, who was Colton's postmaster for sixteen years.
Dr. Hays recalls that when he was a boy he and his mother accom- panied his father to Crafton to see a lone orange tree reported to have at least eleven boxes of oranges on it, and they were among the many visitors to that marvel marking a pioneer step in the progress of the
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great horticultural development of Southern California. Dr. Hays recalls a time when Redland was a wilderness site of red hills and sage brush, while a practical desert intervened to the west as far as Pomona Valley. As a boy he rode many times on the old Concord stage between San Bernardino and Colton, with the late James Cole as the driver. For years Colton was the nearest railroad point to San Bernardino. He was a member in 1894 of the first party that camped at Rogers Camp, now Skyland, on the Rim of the World, and all supplies and provisions had to be hauled up with teams, while the members of the party walked. Dr. Hays with his parents spent part of one summer at Flemings Mill in Little Bear Valley, the mill standing on ground that is now the middle of the lake.
After his early business experiences Horace Hays entered the dental department of the University of California and graduated with the Doctor of Dental Surgery degree in 1903. He immediately returned to Colton and practiced there nine years, and since then at San Bernardino. At the time of the Spanish-American war in 1898 he enlisted, but was not called for service. During the World war he was dental examiner for the United States Draft Board, and is dental examiner and dentist for the United States Public Health Service. Dr. Hays is a member of the San Bernardino Board of Education for the term 1921-25, and he was a member of the Colton Fire Department from 1903 to 1912. He has always voted as a republican and is a prominent member of San Bernardino Lodge No. 836, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, serving as exalted ruler for 1920-21. He has been a member of the Modern Wood- men of America since 1907, and is president of the Horseshoe Band Club in the San Bernardino Mountains.
At Los Angeles May 11, 1910, he married Daisy Groves, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Harry Groves, of San Bernardino. Mrs. Hays was born in England, was brought to California when an infant, and has twice been back to her native country. She has three living sisters. Dr. and Mrs. Hays have one daughter, Florence Kathrync, born in 1911, and he also has a stepchild, Audrey B. Hale, aged fifteen.
JAMES E. RUSSELL is one of the men who has been connected with the orange industry for a number of years, as was his father before him, and he is also connected with much of the development of Riverside during the past few years, especially in connection with the operations of the reliable firm of E. V. Bean & Company. He was born in Newton County, Indiana, March 27, 1877, a son of Zadock Hiram and Jane (Roberts) Russell, both of whom were born in Indiana. Zadock H. Russell was a farmer by occupation, who came to Riverside in January, 1888, and here became a horticulturalist. At different times he owned four orange groves, two of which he planted and brought into bearing. One of these was on Sedgwick Street and the other on Massachusetts Street. Until within a short time of his death, which occurred in April, 1917, he con- tinued in the orange industry, and was recognized as one of the leading business men and prominent citizens of the city. He was'a Mason and a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Russell family is of Revolutionary stock and English descent, while the Roberts family orginated in Wales, but was founded in this country during the Colonial period.
Coming to Riverside in his boyhood, James E. Russell attended its public schools and made himself useful under his father's instruction, in this way learning the orange industry in all of its phases in a practical manner, and he has always been interested in it. He now owns a seven
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and one-half acre orange grove on La Cadena Drive, and a twenty-acre alfalfa ranch on North Orange Street, which is a part of the Bandini Donation and is under the Trujillo water system.
In addition to his horticultural work Mr. Russell is engaged with the real estate firm of E. V. Bean & Company, and has been one of its salesmen since July, 1920. For the two years prior to that date he was field foreman for the Riverside Heights Number 10 Fruit Packing As- sociation, of which he is still a member.
In politics Mr. Russell is a democrat, but has never taken an active part in his party's labors, as his personal affairs have so fully claimed his attention. Fraternally he belongs to the Modern Woodmen of America. Grace Methodist Episcopal Church of Riverside holds his allegiance and affords him an expression for his religious faith.
On February 15, 1902, Mr. Russell married Miss Stella Van Fleet, a native of Riverside and a daughter of M. B. Van Fleet, who for twenty- five years was agent for Wells, Fargo & Company at Riverside and is now living in comfortable retirement at Huntington Beach, California. Mr. and Mrs. Russell have three children, namely : Cecil, who is a student in the Riverside High School, class of 1921 ; Muriel, who is also a student in the Riverside High School, class of 1923; and Adele, who is the youngest.
Mr. Russell has one sister, Clara, who is the wife of Dr. C. O. Water- man, a practicing physician and surgeon of Long Beach, California.
NEWMAN JONES is a California lawyer with a wide experience in general practice in a number of counties. For the last nine years his time has been fully taken up in corporation law as attorney for the Southern Sierras Company, and his duties and character make him one of the citizens of high standing at Riverside.
Mr. Jones by an interval of eighteen months only escaped being a native son of California. His father, Lewis F. Jones, was a California forty-niner. He was born in Petersburg, New York, and sailed around Cape Horn in 1849 in search of golden treasure. After some adventures in the mining regions he returned East and married, and in the fall of 1854 brought his little family to California. His son Newman Jones was born at Pawlett in Rutland County, Vermont, May 8, 1853. The wife of Lewis F. Jones was Sarah Allen, a native of Vermont and of an old American family, like her husband. She died in 1909.
Lewis F. Jones on returning to California continued his active mining interests until 1861, when he was elected County Judge of Mariposa County, and at the expiration of his term as such he entered upon the practice of the law and practiced in Mariposa County, and achieved some- thing more than local prominence there and over the state. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1879.
Newman Jones acquired his early education in the public schools of Mariposa County. His law studies were pursued in his father's office, and when he reached the age of twenty-one he was admitted to the bar and took up the practice of the law in Mariposa County, where he resided until 1889, after which he practiced at Fresno and Los Angeles and elsewhere in this state.
In 1912 Mr. Jones was appointed attorney for the Southern Sierras Company, and since 1913 has been performing his duties for the company at Riverside. He is a republican in politics and served two terms as district attorney in Mariposa County.
September 21, 1895, at Hanford, California, Mr. Jones married Miss Lelia Park. She was born in Tennessee, her father, Rev. Andrew G.
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Park, being a Methodist minister. Mr. and Mrs. Jones have three children, Vera, Laura and James Carlton Chase Jones.
GLENN ARTHUR SCHAEFER-It has been said that "Land is the basis of all Wealth." It must therefore be apparent that any business which deals with this commodity is one of utmost importance in the develop- ment of the community.
Satisfying investors that the title to the lands situated in Riverside County are perfect is the important work performed by Glenn A. Schae- fer, active vice-president and general manager of the Title Insurance Company of Riverside and the Riverside Abstract Company. That this is a work of magnitude is made clear when it is considered that River- side County is an empire of nearly eight thousand square miles-larger than any one of several Eastern states, and that the yearly real estate transactions mount to millions of dollars.
Glenn A. Schaefer was born in Ord Valley County, Nebraska, July 8, 1880, the only son of Arthur Henry Schaefer and Florence Ferguson Schaefer. Mr. Schaefer's parents were identified with the first efforts at settlement in the central part of Nebraska. Mr. Schaefer's father served as county clerk of Valley County several years following its organ- ization. Previous to that time, and following his arrival in this country from Germany, he enlisted in the Regular Army of the United States, and was stationed at frontier posts in the states of Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska, assisting in holding in check the activities of hostile Indians. Moving to Salem, Oregon, in the year 1893, he was engaged in the abstract of title business in that city for more than ten years, or until the date of his death in 1905, and it was in the office of his father that Glenn A. Schaefer gained his first experience as a title man, work- ing in his father's abstract office after school hours and during the vacation season.
Mr. Schaefer's mother married M. E. Getter, a business man of Long Beach in the year 1913, and now resides at that city.
Mr. Schaefer moved to Riveside in the year 1906, and became iden- tified with a local title company. After serving as a title searcher for about one year he accepted an important position with the Union Title Company of San Diego.
The lure of Riverside, however, could not be resisted, and after arriving at San Diego he began to devise ways and means of returning to Riverside, and finally conceived the idea of organizing a new title company. With the assistance of W. H. Robinson of Riverside and L. O. Harvuot, a former resident of this city, this dream was realized in the organization in the fall of 1908 of the Union Title and Abstract Company, with an authorized capital of $50,000.00. Probably no business of this nature has ever been launched under less favorable conditions. To quote Mr. Schaefer : "I had less than $100.00 in my pocket when I arrived at Riverside to take up this work, and Capital proved exceedingly reluctant to assist in the organization of the new venture." Nevertheless, by dint of hard work and many sacrifices the company grew year by year, and soon numbered among its patrons many of the most influential residents of the county. In the year 1917 the Union Title and Abstract Company purchased a controlling interest in the Riverside Abstract Company and a merger was effected, which placed Mr. Schaefer in the active management of the consolidated company.
The rapid development of property interests in Riverside County and the influx of many homeseekers brought to Mr. Schaefer and his asso- ciates a realization that the old methods of transacting title business must
Glenn a Schaupar -
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yield to the march of progress, and during the latter part of 1919 the Title Insurance Company of Riverside was organized, with an additional capital of $100,000.00 and it is significant to note that this entire capital was subscribed for and paid up in cash in less than ten days after it was offered for sale. Mr. Schaefer was selected as active vice-presi- dent and general manager of the new affiliated company, the two insti- tutions having nearly 100 representative stockholders, and employing a paid-up capital and surplus in excess of $265,000.00 of which $100,000.00 is deposited with the state treasurer of California, as a guarantee fund for the protection of clients.
The successful organization of this company is one of Riverside's noteworthy business achievements placing Riverside on a par with the larger communities of the state and nation in the matter of safeguarding land titles, thereby encouraging the investment of capital for develop- ment purposes by creating confidence in titles.
Mr. Schaefer's ability as a title man has been recognized all over the State of California. He was elected president of the California Land Title Association at the Thirteenth Annual Convention of its mem- bers, held at San Francisco in the year 1919, and has been twice sent East as the California delegate to the convention of the American Asso- ciation of Title Men. Mr. Schaefer is now a member of the executive committee of the American Association of Title Men. He has twice addressed the members of the California Association on pertinent topics relating to the title business, and made a noteworthy address at the National Convention held at Des Moines in September, 1921.
Mr. Schaefer is a director of the Riverside Chamber of Commerce, and has served two terms as president of the Riverside Realty Board, and is an enthusiastic member of the Kiwanis Club of Riverside and a member of the Victoria Club and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
In October, 1914, he was joined in marriage with Miss Marie Esther McLean, a native of California and a daughter of John McLean, form- erly of Seattle, Washington. Mr. and Mrs. Schaefer have two sons, Glenn A., Jr., born in 1916, and Robert A., born in 1919.
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