USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 36
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 36
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He married Katherine Kuntz, who was born in Bavaria, Germany, in 1868, and came to America at the age of sixteen. She first lived in Brooklyn, New York, and twenty-three years ago came to Chino. She had to master the English language after coming to this country. Mr. and Mrs. Richenberger have three sons: Alvis, born August 16, 1890, was educated in the Chino schools, married Miss Hazel Hayes on October 1, 1921, and had answered the call to the colors and was ready for duty when the armistice was signed. He is now associated with his father on the farm. Harold was born October 24, 1895, was educated in the Chino High School and is a mechanic. Albert, born March 4, 1908, is a student in the Chino High School.
Mr. Richenberger had no knowledge of the English language when he came to this country. He worked long hours during the day and attended school at night in Bakersfield to learn to read and write. He has had no help except that given him by his industrious and thrifty wife, and together they have accumulated a comfortable and substantial competency. He and his family are members of the Catholic Church, he is affiliated with Pomona Council No. 877, Knights of Columbus, and has always voted the republican ticket.
ALBERT D. TRUJILLO, member of one of the oldest families of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, is a native son, and during the decade that his name has been enrolled as a member of the bar he has made a reputation as one of the ablest and best known criminal lawyers in Southern California.
Mr. Trujillo and his father were born at Spanishtown on the line between the two counties. His father, Dario Trujillo, has given his active life to mining and now lives at Perris in Riverside County, where he was identified with the early settlement. Dario Trujillo is the only survivor of four brothers. His wife Sarah Espinosa was also born at Spanishtown and is living at Perris. The six living children of Dario and Sarah Trujillo are: Frank, in the real estate business at San Bernardino; Albert D., Lupe, wife of Harry Hughes, a farmer at Perris; Esperanza, wife of Wilford Connell, a Perris farmer ; Sellio and Dario, Jr., contractors at Perris.
Albert D. Trujillo attended the public schools of Riverside County and the Perris High School, graduating in 1905. Following his school career he was employed as a clerk by the prominent business firm of Hook Brothers at Perris. At the same time he busily pursued the study of law at home, and was admitted to the California bar at Los Angeles in 1909. Since 1917 he has qualified for practice in the Federal courts. Mr. Trujillo opened his first office at Riverside in 1909, but a year later moved to San Bernardino, where he has occupied the same suite of offices ever since, located at 360 E Street. With a general practice, his work has figured more and more as a specialist in criminal law. He has handled many murder trials in all the counties of Southern California, and was one of the attorneys in the recently celebrated Ruiz criminal case.
Mr. Trujillo is a member of the Democratic County Central Committee, has been active in a number of county campaigns, but unlike many lawyers has never regarded politics as a source of liveli-
albert DIwyils
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hood or additional reputation. He is a member of Arrowhead Parlor No. 110 Native Sons of the Golden West of San Bernardino.
January 1, 1916, in Arizona he married Miss Amalia Imperial, a native of that state. Their two children are: Josephine, born in 1916, and Albert E., Jr.
J. C. REEDER .- The career of J. C. Reeder, one of the well known and substantial citizens of the Ontario District, has not been a steady and uninterrupted climb toward prosperity. Two of his early California ventures were complete failures. He returned to his task after seeing his savings dissipated, and this faculty of never giving up in defeat and his hopeful enterprise have largely determined the successful position he now enjoys.
Mr. Reeder was born at Lindsay, Canada, September 18, 1862. When he was two years old his mother died, and three years later his father, Daniel Reeder, moved to Michigan and settled in the northern woods, in what is now Missoukee County, sixty-five miles from the nearest settlement, Traverse City being the nearest town. He homesteaded land there. Daniel Reeder was for several years the only man of any educa- tion in the entire county. With the increase of population he mortgaged his farm in order to secure money to establish the county seat at his own town, Lake City, and he realized this ambition.
It was in such a country, of great woods, without any of the institu - tions of refinement, neither schools nor churches, that J. C. Reeder spent his boyhood. Altogether he attended public school only three months, and only by his own efforts in later years did he secure the equivalent of an ordinary education. He has been making his own way since he was thirteen. At seventeen he left home altogether. His early life was spent in a lumber town, where there were thirteen saloons and a brawl or fight amost always on the program. He worked alongside rough lum- ber jacks in the timber and lumber camps and on the river, and it is a tribute to his independent character that in spite of this environment he never used tobacco or intoxicating liquors. While still a boy he was employed on a lumber boom, and in six weeks his pay was raised to the same as that given to men two years in the service. It was the custom to gauge the rate of pay according to length of experience. From this work he returned to Lake City with a hundred dollars saved, and borrow- ing twenty-five dollars more and taking in a partner he established a drug store. Nine months later he sold his interest to his partner, netting a big profit.
After some other experiences Mr. Reeder went to Washington and for three years was in the logging camps of the Northwest. While in Washington he contracted the purchase of ten acres in the Barton District of Redlands, California. It was a tract of unimproved land, but the purchase agreement was that it would be set to oranges and developed while he was making the payments. In 1891 he came down to Red- lands to investigate, and found that everything he had put into the invest- ment had gone for naught. Thus relieved of the embarrassment of ac- cumulating riches and left with only fifty dollars, he went to work in the old Terricina Hotel, and six months later found himself the possessor of five hundred dollars. His next employment was with an engineering party in Bear Valley under Mr. Sargent, engaged in the Moreno Survey. By 1894 Mr. Reeder had nine hundred dollars, and this he invested in a small ranch property in San Diego County. Here again conditions were all against him, and after five years of struggle he left and went to Lakeside, forty-five dollars in debt. At Lakeside he worked with a
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surveying party, used his team for contract work and also operated steam pumps, supplying the city of San Diego with water. At the end of two years he had sixteen hundred dollars in the bank.
With this little fortune he established himself permanently in the field where he is located today. In January, 1901, he bought his present homestead, three miles west of Euclid Avenue in Ontario. He paid four hundred and seventy-five dollars for five acres of wild land on Holt Avenue, set it to oranges, built a home, and instituted other improvements. He then contracted to buy an adjoining five acres for eight hundred dollars, paying only forty dollars down. By borrowing and from his savings he paid out, and his ten acres, now completely developed as an orange grove, would conservatively be valued at thirty-five thousand dollars. Altogether Mr. Reeder now owns ninety-five acres of improved land, chiefly in oranges and deciduous orchards. He is a stockholder to the extent of seven thousand dollars in the San Antonio Packing Com- pany and holds in stock a number of other organizations. In twenty years he has accumulated a very substantial competency, due to his energetic labors and the wisdom with which he has estimated present and future conditions.
For the past sixteen years Mr. Reeder has served as district road boss. He has been a life long republican and a man of scrupulous in- tegrity in all his transactions. He is one of the most thoroughly practical horticulturists in this section.
In the spring of 1894 he married Miss Lulu B. Sharp, a native of Missouri, who came to Pomona, California, in 1891. Mr. and Mrs. Reeder can certainly be pardoned a justifiable pride in their splendid family of seven boys, from the oldest to the youngest perfect specimens of physical strength and well being, and all of them athletically inclined. the older ones having many distinctions in school athletics.
The oldest, Paul H. Reeder, born September 1, 1895, at San Diego, graduated from the Chaffey Union High School and at the time of the World war he enlisted in the Field Hospital Corps and for almost two years was in France. He was in the first unit to cross the line after the armistice was signed. He was prominent in the athletic and field contests of the army in France, and the day before his return he won five of the events in a great field day of athletic sports. He is a thirty- second degree Mason. Paul Reeder married Miss Agnes Baker, of Pomona, and they have one daughter, Pauline Agnes Reeder, born July 27, 1921.
The second son, Arthur J. Reeder, born November 12, 1896, at San Diego, also graduated from the Chaffey Union High School and he broke all the athletic records of that school and gained a state-wide reputation as a football player and in other sports. He volunteered and went into Field Hospital Corps in the same unit with his brother, and they were together all through the service. After his return he went to Arizona and proved up a homestead of agricultural land. He is a member of the Masonic Order.
The third son, Donald D. Reeder, born September 18, 1899, at San Diego, graduated from the Chaffey High School, also made his mark in athletics and was a volunteer for the war service and ready to go when the armistice was signed. Later he took over the management of the Avis Hotel Cafe, Pomona. In 1921 he married Miss Ruth Cooper, of Upland, California.
The younger sons are L. DeWitt Reeder, born at Ontario August 4. 1901, a graduate of the Chaffey High School and now a student in
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Pomona College; George, born at Ontario December 30, 1905; Teddy Lewis, born at Ontario October 4, 1907, and Stanley, born June 4, 1909.
JOHN CHESTER NOBLES after many years of business effort in the Northwest came to California more than twenty-five years ago, acquired property interests in Ontario and other parts ot the state, and lived here highly honored and respected until his death. His family are residents ot Ontario, where Mrs. Nobles and their only daughter reside.
The late Mr. Nobles was born in Indiana, February 25, 1842. His parents were farmers and in rather poor circumstances, so that all the schooling he could get was in the common schools, and the routine of farm duties faced him when only a child. When he was only twelve years of age John C. Nobles drove a team of oxen breaking heavy prairie sod. Under such circumstances he never learned to expect or await any finan- cial assistance, but depended entirely on his own labors and ability for his modest reward. His industry and earnestness brought him eventu- ally to a position of substantial success.
In 1870 Mr. Nobles went to Minnesota, and in the same year at El Dorado he married Miss Sarah Sharratt. Mrs. Nobles was born in Staffordshire, England, May 15, 1848, daughter of Francis and Maria Sharratt, who the following year left England and became pioneer settlers in Wisconsin. After their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Nobles settled on a farm near Winnebago City, where he put in ten industrious years. He then moved to Amboy, and for a number of years was a leading mer- chant of that town. His last place of residence in Minnesota was Man- kato, where he was a manufacturer and wholesaler of candy and con- fectionery. In these commercial lines he was eminently successful, and it was reasons of ill health that caused him to dispose of his interests in Minnesota and in 1895 come West. For several months he was in Salt Lake City investigating mining projects, but in September, 1896, he came on to Ontario, California. Here he rented a home for sixteen months, and then 1898 built a home at San Diego, where he lived until his death on November 27, 1907.
Mr. Nobles was a member of the Masonic Order, a life long democrat, and is remembered as a man of most charitable and generous disposi- tion, temperate in his habits, and was esteemed for his character as well as for his material achievement.
Soon after coming to California he invested in a magnificent five acre grove on North Vine Avenue in Ontario, and on this he built a modern home now occupied by Mrs. Nobles and their only daughter. The daughter, Myra, was born on a farm near Amboy. Minnesota, Novem- ber 21, 1871. She was educated in the grammar schools of Amboy, in the Mankato High School. and on September 28. 1895, became the wife of Henry Frisbee. Mr. Frisbee was born in Wisconsin and is now an orange grower at Ontario. Mr. and Mrs. Frisbee have three children. The oldest. Edna Maud. born at Salt Lake City. is a graduate of the Chaffey High School of Ontario and has specialized in Domestic Science. The second child. Ira Nobles Frisbee. born at Ontario November 7. 1897, is a graduate of the Chaffey High School, and graduated with honors and the A. B. degree from Pomona College in 1919. In June 1921 he completed a two years' course in business administration at Harvard University. During the World war he was enrolled as a lieutenant in the Students' Army Training Corps and is now connected with the San Francisco firm of Price Waterhouse Company as an expert accountant. Ira N. Frisbee married. September 1, 1920, Miss Helen Sheets, of Clare- mont, California, and they have a daughter, Helen Leonora, born in July,
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1921. The third child of Mr. and Mrs. Frisbee is Alice Elizabeth, born at San Diego December 3, 1906, a young lady gifted in music and a stu- dent in both vocal and instrumental. She attends the Chaffey High School.
JAMES BIRNEY DRAPER-That a good name is to be chosen rather than riches is in a peculiar sense exemplified by the career of Ontario's well known citizen James Birney Draper, who has lived in this com- munity for over a quarter of a century, and thus personally and through his business has earned a host of friendships and has enjoyed every degree of success.
Mr. Draper was born May 16, 1855, in County Gray, Ontario, Canada, son of Charles and Eleanor (Birney) Draper. His father was a farmer who moved to the village of Drayton in County Wal- lington, and died before his son James was twelve years of age. The latter had only a common school education at Drayton, and at the age of eleven went to work for a farmer, his wages being three dol- lars a month for a period of nine months. Out of this meager income he saved twenty-five dollars, which he invested in sheep, subsequently destroyed by dogs. He continued working as a farm laborer until he was about twenty years of age, and then learned the tailoring trade in the village of Chesley, Ontario. Subsequently he was in business for himself in the country village of Pinkerton, where he met his future wife, Miss Louisa Mutrie.
From Pinkerton he returned to Drayton and for eight years had charge of the tailoring department of John Whyte's department store, and in the spring of 1889 went west to Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, to open a men's tailoring and men's furnishing goods and fur store. He remained in that western province five years, and in the spring of 1894 arrived in Ontario, California, and on the 13th of May of that year engaged in business as a merchant tailor.
In the fall of 1898 Mr. Draper bought the undertaking business of Fred Clark, succeeding Isaac Garbuth, who had charge, but was in- capacitated through illness, and Mr. Draper had voluntarily assisted at a number of funerals and his qualifications for the special service demanded of a funeral undertaker were so evident that though he had no funds to buy the business several Ontario townsmen gave him the money needed without requiring security. He has since developed a model funeral service, and in the spring of 1911 he erected a building of his own, containing an appropriately equipped chapel, at a cost of twenty-seven thousand dollars. The building is ideally located for his business, away from the main thoroughfare but accessible to all points of the town. During the first year Mr. Draper directed thirty funerals, and his business patronage is such that he now handles on an average three hundred such occasions annually. Recently, at the urgent request of ministers of all denominations, bankers and busi- ness men, he bought the funeral establishment at Upland from L. C. Vedder, and his son, Fred E., now has charge of the Upland business, and Mr. Draper's youngest daughter, Ella, has charge of the books. Mr. Draper has in every sense been a self-made man, and the integrity of his life has justified the confidence so frequently reposed in him.
He was president of the Southern California Funeral Directors Association, also vice president of the State Funeral Directors Asso- ciation, and was a member of the legislative committee that was in- strumental in placing the present embalmers' bill on the statute books. He is also a member by invitation of the National Selected Morticians, with headquarters at Pittsburgh, Pa. He has for years been bitterly
Bleof Mr. Cooley .
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opposed to the liquor traffic, is a republican in politics, and a member of the Official Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He was the first treasurer of the Volunteer Fire Department of Ontario.
Mr. Draper married Miss Louisa Mutrie at Pinkerton, Ontario, Canada, in 1884. They had a family of five children, three sons and two daughters, named Harold Mutrie, Olive Louisa, Ella Martin, Fred Earl and Ewart Blake. Harold M. was killed in an automobile accident on October 16, 1916. Mrs. Draper was born in the Township of Nichol, County of Wellington, Province of Ontario, Canada, January 28, 1858, and was educated in public schools there.
GEORGE MILLS COOLEY-In the San Bernardino Valley the prestige accorded George Mills Cooley is due to his veteran service in the mercantile field, to a success that has mounted steadily through the years, to the character and reputation for pushing affairs with ex- ceptional vigor. At the bottom of all has been the integrity that has brought him the esteem of all his associates during his almost lifelong residence in this part of California. The history of his personal career and that of his family possess more than ordinary interest. George Cooley and Ellen Tolputt were natives of Kent, England. They were probably converts to Mormonism while in England, and they left that country to join a Mormon settlement in the Far West. While on shipboard crossing the Atlantic and in midocean they were mar- ried, and while they were in Utah their child, George Mills Cooley, was born December 23, 1855. George Cooley remained in Salt Lake about four years, until he with ten other English families became dissatisfied with Brigham Young's policies. It is reported that Young got up in church one Sunday and said that Franklin K. Pierce might be President of the United States, but he would be damned if he was President of this territory. Mr. Cooley is said to have retorted in church, that polygamy was the curse of the community. The bishop of the church answered "Yes and your blood shall atone for those remarks before the setting of the sun tonight." George Cooley lost no time in moving to Nephi, ninety miles south of Salt Lake City, and when he applied to the bishop of the church at that point, the latter who was very much of a gentleman, gave him papers with permission for the entire party to leave the territory. When they had gone seventy-five miles and were west of the line of Utah a posse of officers stopped them, accusing them of attempting to leave the territory on forged papers. The party was compelled to wait while some of the officers took Mr. Cooley back to Nephi. The bishop declared the papers to be genuine and ordered the officers to escort him back to his party. With these incidents and delays the Cooley family arrived in San Bernardino, May 11, 1857.
It was in the beautiful ranch home of his parents south of San Bernardino that George Mills Cooley grew to manhood. He mastered the art of education, studied at home, his elementary education being due largely to his father's teaching. As a young man he and Alfred Hunt rented a thousand acres between San Bernardino and Redlands and from the proceeds of this venture he acquired sufficient money to go through Heald's Business College in San Francisco. After leaving business college he entered the service of the Ruffen & Brays Hardware Store in San Bernardino. He worked in that store from 1875 until 1885, having the responsibility of the business on his shoulders. He bought out the firm in 1885, and since then for over thirty-five years has been sole proprietor, the business being conducted
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under his own name for many years and recently under the name of the George M. Cooley Company.
Historically this is the oldest store in San Bernardino County. It was establised about 1854, and has a consecutive history of nearly seventy years. Mr. Cooley has greatly expanded the business under his proprietorship. He has a thorough knowledge of hardware in all its related lines, and his energy and personal supervision have enabled him to look after the business of every department. His stock represents a capital investment of many thousands of dollars and comprises everything in shelf and general hardware. With his ample credit resources he has been able to buy direct from the manufacturers in large quantities and this advantage he transmits to the benefit of his customers.
Mr. Cooley started in the hardware business with practically nothing but his credit, and this he has kept untarnished, and today he enjoys the higest rating given by commercial agencies. He owns the property where his business is conducted, and his trade has in- creased so steadily as to necessitate many additions in floor space. The store is one of the largest, most thoroughly stocked and complete in the state. For more than half a century the business has been con- ducted at the same place, and it has been under the ownership of Mr. Cooley over thirty-seven years. Of the incorporated company, George M. Cooley is president and general manager ; Frank L. Cooley, his brother, is vice president and manager of the Plumbing depart- ment ; Allan Grover Cooley is secretary-treasurer and in the absence of George M. Cooley, acts as general manager; and Marshall B. Cooley is manager of the Sheet Metal department.
One of the most important features of the business is plumbing. A staff of expert mechanics is maintained and until recently George M. Cooley made his own estimates and supervised the work in the plumbing department, but this is now being handled by his brother Frank. In 1890, Mr. Cooley competed with twenty-nine pipe dealers to sell the city of San Bernardino the pipe necessary for the new waterworks. He secured the entire contract since all other bids were from four thousand to fourteen thousand dollars higher than his. Mr. Cooley has also done much real estate development and has erected six dwellings on the two acres owned by him at the corner of Sixth and D Streets, four of which had been sold.
Mr. Cooley is a student and an authority on soil and derives his greatest pleasure in growing plants. His particular hobby is potatoes. Like Luther Burbank he has been attracted into the fascinating subject of propagating new species, and has some singular results to his credit. His trial grounds, and also the scene of his practical efforts as a grower, is a sixty-four acre farm at Little Mountain between San Bernardino and Highland. The east side of the mountain is ter- raced and set out to Rostrata Gum trees, some of which are over 100 feet high. On the southern side he has built a reservoir to store sev- eral million gallons of storm water. On this ranch is an extensive Valencia orange grove, also groves of apricots, peach and olives, all under a high state of cultivation and with a wonderful irrigating system of pipes and flumes so that the use of water is easily handled and con- trolled. In the management and direction of this farm Mr. Cooley is absolute manager.
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