USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 14
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 14
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The two younger children of Mr. Ketcheson are Howard, born at Upland November 4, 1903, and Edna, born September 1, 1909. The son was educated in the grammar school and the Chaffey Union High School.
Mr. Ketcheson came to Bernardino County when land was wild and cheap and wages for labor were low, with long hours, and under such conditions he bought and paid for his first land and eventually made him- self secure in property interests and the good citizenship of the locality.
JOHN H. KLUSMAN has been and is one of the men of power and influence in the shaping of the characteristic destinies of that great fruit growing community of Southern California, Cucamonga.
Mr. Klusman was born in Germany November 9, 1872, was reared there and received his early education, and had some training that fitted him for the position of a skilled worker when he came to America in 1894 and located at Cucamonga. His first employment was in the Haven vineyard. While working in the vineyard he estimated with shrewd foresight the remarkable promise of future prosperity that would come to the vineyardist and wine manufacturers of this region. Somewhat later, in association with M. E. Post, he bought 1,000 acres of wild land. This land was cleared and prepared under his supervision, the labor being performed by Chinese and Japanese. This was the foundation and nucleus of the famous Mission Vineyard Company's properties. Mr. Klusman and Mr. Post set the entire tract of 1,000 acres to wine grapes, and also erected the noted Mission Winery, one of the finest and most modern plants of its kind on the Pacific Coast. This winery has a capacity of 1,500,000 gallons, some of the individual tanks holding 55,000 gallons. It is the last word in modern construction. The plant while in active operation consumed not only the products of the Mission Vineyards but great quantities raised by other growers, and paid from $11.00 to $12.00 a ton for these wine grapes.
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In advance of the prohibition wave Mr. Klusman and his associates sold out in 1918 to Garrett & Company, who have converted the property into a plant for the manufacture of unfermented grape juice.
Mr. Klusman, after selling his interest in this business, turned to other lines and now owns fifty acres of citrus orchard and is president of the Cucamonga Building & Loan Company, is a director of the Cucamonga Water Company, and is one of the owners of the new Sycamore Hotel. He takes an active part in social and civic affairs, is a director of the Country Club, and a member of Pomona Lodge No. 789 of the Elks. Mr. Klusman came to Cucamonga a stranger in the country, and he worked for small wages as a farm hand until he could make use of the small capital representing his savings to get into an industry whose possibilities he could realize. His great energy enabled him to overcome many difficulties in the path of the success of the Mission Vineyard Company.
On July 25, 1911, Mr. Klusman married Miss Elizabeth Craig, of a prominent Los Angeles family. She was born in Freedom, Pennsylvania, January 11, 1884, and was educated in the public schools and a girls' school in Los Angeles, California. Her father was Stephen Craig, and her mother Fredericka Miller. The father is deceased, but the mother lives in Los Angeles. Mrs. Gertrude Wellman, a sister of Mrs. Klusman, also lives in Los Angeles. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Klusman made an extensive tour of Europe, in the course of which Mr. Klusman visited his old home, and also traveled through England. France, Belgium and Switzerland. Mr. and Mrs. Klusman have two children, both natives of Cucamonga, John, Jr., born December 27, 1912, and Margaret, born March 22, 1916.
THOMAS KIRK VERNON, a resident of Upland over thirty years, coming to manhood here, Thomas Kirk Vernon is an orange grower of practical experience and of more than usual success, is a citizen who takes a practical view and yet has fine ideals about community affairs, and he not only enjoys that esteem paid to a prosperous business man but also exercises his wholesome influence in behalf of better schools and better conditions generally in his community.
Mr. Vernon was born at Wellington, Ohio, November 28, 1874, son of James and Ida (Kirk) Vernon. His father was a minister of the Christian Church. Thomas Kirk Vernon when one year of age went to live with his grandfather, Thomas Kirk. His grand- parents came to California in 1889, when Thomas was fifteen years of age. They settled at North Ontario, now Upland, where Thomas Kirk bought twenty acres of land on Fifteenth Street and Euclid Avenue. Thomas Kirk died here in 1892, but his widow is still living with her grandson and in her vigor belies her age. She was born in Wellington, Ohio, ninety-five years ago.
Thomas Kirk Vernon finished his education in the Eighteenth Street School at Upland. He had only the advantages of the common schools, but reading and practical experience fitted him well for the duties and responsibilities of life. Almost ever since coming to Cali- fornia he had been identified with orange growing, and he knows that business from the standpoint of one who has worked in every department and has developed groves from wild land to prosperous production.
Mr. Vernon married at the age of twenty-one and then bought ten acres on San Antonio Avenue and Sixteenth Street. This was wild land and very stony, and he did all the work of clearing and
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removing the rock and then prepared it for setting out to citrus orchard. This was the beginning of his career as an orange grower, and since then he has cleared a large amount of other land. He personally supervised and performed much of the labor of developing his home place of ten acres on Sixteenth Street between San Antonio and Euclid avenues. He now has thirty acres of orange groves. His maximum production for one season from this thirty acres was nineteen thousand boxes.
Mr. Vernon married Miss Emma Palis, of Henderson, Kentucky, and member of an old Kentucky family. She was born in Henderson, Kentucky, October 8, 1874, and was educated in the public schools and is a high school graduate. To their marriage were born two children : William Vernon, born December 1, 1900, at Upland, grad- uated from the Chaffey Union High School, spent one year in Pomona College, and is now in his third year in the Colorado School of Mines at Golden, preparing for a professional career as a mineralogist. During the World War he was a member of the Students' Army Training Corps. The second child, Ida Vernon, was born May 7, 1910, and is in the seventh grade of the grammar school at Upland.
Aside from his business Mr. Vernon has had an active part in the civic affairs of Upland since the town was incorporated. He was made first secretary of the townsite, a member of the first City Council, serving six years, and was mayor and chairman of the board three terms. He is now a member of the grammar school board and for eight years was a road overseer in San Bernardino County, and was superintendent of the construction of the Mountain Avenue Road. He is a stockholder and treasurer of the Camp Baldy Company, a popular mountain resort in San Antonio Canon. Mr. Vernon and family are mem- bers of the Presbyterian Church. He is a stockholder in both of Upland's banks.
DR. E. W. REID was a well qualified and successful practitioner of medicine, but after coming to California did little or no professional work, and the achievements that give him a high place in San Bernardino County were in the fundamental development work in one of the county's prominent horticultural districts, Alta Loma.
Mr. Reid was born in Madison County, Illinois, December 16, 1852, son of William and Maria (Cox) Reid, also natives of Illinois, where his father was a farmer. Dr. Reid acquired a good education, graduat- ing A. B. and A. M. from Shurtleff College in Southern Illinois in 1875. In 1878 he received his M. D. degree from St. Louis Medical College, and then for several years enjoyed a growing practice in his chosen vocation.
It was to seek relief from a chronic affliction of asthma that he came out to California in 1882. After investigating a number of districts he bought twenty acres on Hellman Avenue in the Alta Loma district. No development work had been done in this section, all the land lying in a wilderness state. Dr. Reid had the enterprise and the courage to go ahead with development for which there were few precedents. He cleared and planted his land to citrus fruits, and subsequently bought and planted another twenty acres. When he located here the Southern Pacific Railroad was the only transportation line available, and the near- est station was at Ontario. The story of development along Hellman Avenue begins with his settlement there. Dr. Reid in 1883 built a small home on his property, and he and his family lived in this for
Ett. Reid
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eleven years. Then, in 1894, he erected the more commodious and attractive residence where Mrs. Reid and her. daughter reside.
Dr. Reid was not only a worker on his own property, but was inde- fatigable in his efforts in behalf of the general and prosperous develop- ment of the entire colony. The community owes him much for his successful efforts in securing and insuring reliable water rights for the colony. In politics he voted as a democrat for a number of years, but was a sound money man and after 1896 joined the republican ranks. On that ticket he was elected county supervisor in 1902, and he filled that office capably and faithfully until his death ten years later. He was not only one of the early growers of citrus fruits, but was extremely interested in the handling and marketing of the crop, and succeeded in organizing the first local packing house in his district. While Dr. Reid came to California primarily for his health, he was practically free from his affliction thereafter, and lived usefully and in the enjoyment of his work and his home here for nearly thirty years. He died September 2, 1912, and because of his attainments and the wisdom and good judgment he had shown in his relations with the community his death was a dis- tinct loss.
November 18, 1876, Mr. Reid married Miss Mary Jane Rennick. Mrs. Reid was born March 1, 1851, in St. Francis County, Missouri, daughter of George W. and Priscilla (Barry) Rennick. She is also a graduate of Shurtleff College of Illinois, receiving her A. B. degree in 1876. Mrs. Reid has two daughters, Gertrude, born at St. Louis, Missouri, January 13, 1878, was educated in several public and private schools, graduated A. B. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1902, and for a time taught in the high schools of Whittier and Ontario. On her father's death she returned home to assume the respon- sibilities of looking after the property, and she has demonstrated unusual business ability and efficiency in handling the forty-acre orchard, which is in a model and profitable condition.
The second daughter, Eunice Reid, was born in Illinois, October 29. 1880, was educated in the same schools with her sister, spent two years in Pomona College and graduated from the University of California. She taught for two years in Santa Monica. June 19, 1906, she was married to R. C. Owens. Mr. Owens is a native of New York State, graduated from Pomona College in 1900 and from the Hastings Law School in San Francisco in 1902, and is now a prominent member of the San Francisco bar.
Mrs. Reid and family are active members of the Baptist Church, and for many years she was associated with Dr. Reid in civic and philan- thropic undertakings, and is still prominent in church, club and civic matters.
HENRY G. KLUSMAN .- Cucamonga is a word that suggests orange groves and vineyards, and perhaps one of the most highly developed horticultural sections of the world. This development is the result of years of patient labor and the expenditure of much capital, and in that development the character of men has been tested. Among those who stood the test in the days of toil and hardship one is Henry G. Klusman, a strong, able and respected man in the community today.
Henry G. Klusman is one of four brothers who came out of Germany, and all achieved more than an ordinary degree of success. He was born January 31, 1875, son of William and Johanna Klusman, who spent their lives as farmers in Germany. Henry G. Klusman
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acquired a common school education and early determined that his lot should be cast in free America without the necessity of enforced military service. At the age of sixteen he came to America, and there were no stops on the way for any length of time until he had reached Cucamonga. Here he went to work in the old Havens vineyards at $15.00 a month and board. He had no knowledge of English, but he exercised the skill and strength of his hands to toil through the daylight hours in the vineyards, and frequently worked into the night and on Sundays in the winery. About two years later he secured employment on an adjoining ranch at $25.00 a month and board. Out of his savings he made his first purchase in 1896 of forty acres of wild land, at $12.50 an acre. He set this to vines, and his first crop of grapes he delivered to the Guasti Winery, hauling them through the deep sand and getting $6.00 a ton, $2.00 in cash and $1.00 a month until paid. Mr. Klusman kept this vineyard until 1915, when he sold it for $125.00 an acre.
In 1900 he bought the four acre tract on Turner Street in Cuca- monga, where he has his home today. He set this to oranges and has built a modern home. About fifteen years ago he established a plant for the manufacture of concrete irrigation pipe, and he has developed this into a flourishing and important industry, the capacity now being 2,000 feet daily. Employment is given to twenty people in the concrete pipe yards.
In San Francisco January 1, 1902, he married Miss Olga Forester, who was born at Eau Claire, Wisconsin, July 8, 1883. They have four children: Emma, born November 25, 1902, now grown to a most engaging young lady, a graduate of the Chaffey Union High School; Henry W., born January 15, 1905, already an active aid in his father's business; Catherine, born January 10, 1907, a student in the Chaffey Union High School; and Vivian, born May 25, 1909, who has about completed her grammar school work.
Mr. Klusman is a member of Upland Lodge No. 98, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and in politics is a democrat. When he came to America on borrowed money, $360.00, which it cost him to reach Cucamonga, the work of his early years was to repay this fund. Persistent application has brought him its due rewards, and in char- acter and citizenship he stands one of the leading men of Cucamonga and one who deserves a great deal of the credit for redeeming this desert to unexampled productiveness.
EDWARD H. PINE .- On other pages are recounted the experiences of that energetic and stalwart pioneer Samuel C. Pine, Sr., in the San Bernardino Valley. One of his sons, Edward H. Pine, is one of the oldest surviving native sons of this region, and his life has been on a par with his father's in point of substantial worth and influence.
He and his brother Edwin are twins and were born July 28, 1860, in old San Bernardino, on the noted Cottonwood Row. Edward H. Pine had his first conscious recollections of frontier times when the first settlers had located in this vicinity. He recalls when there were no stores between Los Angeles and San Bernardino and no roads, only sand blown trails. He recalls the incidents, recounted elsewhere, where his faher made a hurried exit with his family from the mill in the San Bernardino Mountains on account of Indian depredations. Mr. Pine had limited school advantages, but has always kept in touch with the life of his vicinity and the world around him. His career has been that of a rancher, and he now owns and occupies a portion
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of his father's original claim at Rincon. This has been greatly improved, and his business is farming on an extensive scale.
On September 5, 1883, Mr. Pine married Miss Ella C. Walkinshaw, who was born in San Bernardino June 24, 1863, daughter of Thomas B. and Jeanette (Henderson) Walkinshaw, also numbered among the early settlers of this vicinity. Her parents were born in Scotland and came to America in early youth. The Henderson and Walkin- shaw families crossed the plains with ox teams and settled in San Bernardino during the early Mormon occupation of the early '50s. Edward H. Pine and wife had six children: Mamie, born August 10, 1884, is the wife of Frank Wall and has a family of six children ; Roy Edward Pine, born February 18, 1889, married Ruth McGuire, and is the father of three children; Jennie, born October 17, 1892, is the wife of John Ramey and the mother of three children; Willie Samuel, born October 11, 1895, married Blethen Reynolds and has three children ; Margaret, born June 25, 1898, died November 24, 1898; Lillian W., born December 14, 1899, is the wife of William D. Johnson and has a daughter, Geraldine, born November 6, 1921. All the children of Mr. and Mrs. Pine were born on the Rincon ranch in the Chino Valley.
The title to their home has never passed out of the family name since his father acquired it as a pre-emption. Mr. Pine is a member of Corona Lodge No. 291, Knights of Pythias, he and his family are members of the Christian Church, and he takes pride in the fact that he has always voted the republican ticket in national elections and is a stanch upholder of that political faith. During his early youth he and his older brother and father would sometimes take a team and go across the desert to the foothills for wood, carrying a rifle for every axe in the equipment to protect themselves against Indians and outlaw Mexicans. It was a three days' journey to purchase and bring home supplies from the nearest store at San Bernardino, and there was not a house between Rincon and that town. There were no railroads, goods being hauled in wagons drawn by mule teams. Mr. Pine is hospitable, generous and honest, absolutely fearless, and a fine type of pioneer character, and is everywhere known for his integrity and personal worth. He was among the first to develop a supply of artesian water in his district.
WALTER SHEARING knew the country around Redlands before there was a Redlands townsite, and in his long experiences here he has met and overcome many obstacles to success and has prospered apace with the country and has helped in the developments that constitute the real history of this county.
Mr. Shearing is a native of England, and was three years of age when his parents moved to Canada. He grew up in Canada, being one of a family of four sons and three daughters, and is the only one in California. In 1887 he came West, and for the first six years was ranch foreman for Doctor Craig at Crofton.
In 1892 Mr. Shearing married Miss Louise Durston. She was born in England June 25, 1861, daughter of Giles and Martha Durston. Her father was a miner in England. Mrs. Shearing was the third in a family of four sons and two daughters. The family came to the United States and located at Boston in 1881, and in 1888 came to California and to San Bernardino. Her father was employed as a landscape gardener until his death in July, 1892. Mrs. Durston Vol. 111-7
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lived with her daughter, Mrs. Shearing, at Redlands, until her death in 1921, at the age of eighty-seven years.
After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Shearing, leaving Crofton, went to Moreno and acquired ten acres of land, which they set out to fruit. They remained there eight years, at the end of which time frost, drought and grasshoppers had devastated their orchard. Coming to Redlands and subsequently selling their Moreno property, Mr. Shearing engaged in ranching, and fourteen years ago bought a ten acre grove of Washington navel oranges on West Colton Avenue. He still owns this, and it is a splendidly productive property. In May, 1919, he bought his modern home at the corner of East Colton Avenue and Sixth Street.
Mr. Shearing knew this country when the nearest railway was at Colton and the only irrigation system was the old Zanja, built in Indian times. There were no oil roads, and the highways were dust and dirt thoroughfares filled with chuck holes and bumps. Mr. and Mrs. Shearing accepted their lot in that period with contentment, and enjoy their present prosperity all the more for the hardships they passed through. Mr. Shearing secured his naturalization papers as soon as possible, and has always acted and worked as an American citizen. He is a stalwart republican, is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Redlands and attends the Christian Science Church, while Mrs. Shearing is a Baptist. Mr. Shearing left Canada and came to California to benefit his health, and for many years has enjoyed robust, good health. Mr. and Mrs. Shearing have two children : Milton L., born March 15, 1898, was educated at Redlands and is in the employ of the Pacific Electric Company. He married Miss Inez Ramsey, of Colton. The daughter, Martha A. Shearing, born November 9, 1896, attended the Redlands High School and in June, 1919, was married to Lawrence E. Williams, an orange grower in the Redlands district.
ERNEST OMERIA AMES .- There are very few persons who are not interested in the public schools, for the majority of them have acquired a part if not all of their educational training from them ; many have children who are pupils, or prospective ones, and those who have no direct connection with the system are beneficiaries from these schools because in them are, and have been, educated the people with whom they are associated. Without the training of the public schools present-day civilization would not be possible. It was not until the public school system was properly inaugurated that the people began to emerge from the dusk of ignorance into the bright light of knowledge. There are many ramifications and details with reference to the conduct of a number of schools in any of the cities of the country. Not only is it necessary to provide excellent instructors and courses of study, but even more important than these are the buildings in which the children are housed for so many hours. If they are not kept in the best of repair and provided with adequate equipment the health, and many times the lives, of the children suffer, and, therefore, those in authority are exceedingly careful with refer- ence to the kind of man they place in a position of importance to see that the proper means are taken to insure the welfare of the pupils. Since 1903 this very responsible position with reference to the public schools of San Bernardino has been filled by Ernest Omeria Ames, the efficient and experienced city supervisor of public school buildings.
Marcher
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Ernest Omeria Ames was born in San Bernardino, February 2, 1860, and there he acquired his education as a pupil in the public schools of his native city. Going into the contracting business, he carried it on very successfully until 1903, when he was induced to assume the responsibilities of his present position, and he now has the following schools under supervision : The four buildings, attended by from 700 to 800 pupils, comprising the San Bernardino High School, the F Street Grammar and Technical, the Base Line Grammar, the Fourth Street Grammar, the Highland Avenue, the I Street, the Meadowbrook, the Metcalf, the Mount Vernon, the Ramona, the Terrace and the Urbita. Mr. Ames has grown up with his work, and it would not be easy to replace him. He has the responsibility of seeing that all of the city school buildings are kept in proper repair, necessitating a regular inspection of all of the buildings so as to insure a proper and prompt attention to all details.
DR. FRANK M. GARDNER, health officer of the City of San Bernardino, is one of its native sons who had devoted himself entirely to the practice of medicine since his graduation until accepting his present position, and now has a good and growing practice in addition to his official duties.
While he is a loyal native son of California in all that the name usually implies, he had the misfortune of having to pass a number of years in the frozen East. He could not successfullly object to this, as he was only one year old when taken back there, was educated there and afterward formed attachments and business association which held him there for some time. But he returned just as soon as he could, and he is one of San Bernardino's most ardent boosters, ready and eager at all times to do all he can for the advancement of the city of his birth.
Dr. Gardner was born in San Bernardino May 29, 1878, and his par- ents removed with their family to New York in the following year. In 1886 he returned to San Bernardino, where he attended grammar school until 1887, and then returned to New York. In that city Dr. Gardner attended school, and after graduating from high school at once entered the New York Homeopathic Hospital as a student. He was graduated with the class of 1904, and then spent two years in the famous Hahne- mann Hospital, after which he branched out into a practice of his own. He located in Bay Shore, Long Island, and while he remained there enjoyed a rapidly growing practice, but soon decided to return to his real home, which he did.
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