USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 38
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 38
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Mr. Prior was born in Kansas, August 12, 1882. His father was an Englishman who came to America when a young man, and was a farmer and merchant. He is now living in Riverside, retired. Mr. Prior was educated in the public and high schools. in the University of Southern California and in a business college at Riverside. He was
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in the grocery business in Hemet for a while, in 1903-4, and then went to the University. His next move was to go into the insurance business, in which he has made such a notable success, preparing for this step by doing office work and accounting hrst. He is district agent of the Trav- ellers Insurance Company, and also does a general fire and all lines of first class insurance.
Mr. Prior is an active member of the Chamber of Commerce, of the Rotary Club, is president of the Riverside Insurance Association, the Present Day Club and is a member of the Knights of Pythias. He is a member of the First Methodist Church and one of its Official Board.
He married on November 8, 1907, Ethel G. Woodman, a native of Ohio and a daughter of W. H. Woodman, who is in the sheet metal business in Riverside. Mr. and Mrs. Prior are the parents of five chil- dren : Hubert Meredith and Herbert La Verne, twins, Gertrude Louise and Royce Woodman, all students, and Thelma Joyce.
D. A. CRAWFORD-The rewards of toil and patience are perhaps nowhere better illustrated than in the case of D. A. Crawford, whose achievements as an orange grower are in evidence at his home two and a half miles north of Rialto, on North Riverside Avenue.
Mr. Crawford never had any inheritance, and he and his wife con- structed their fortune entirely on the basis of thrift and labor. Mr. Crawford was born in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, July 26, 1865, son of Samuel and Mary (Howard) Crawford, his father a native of Canada, of Scotch ancestry, and his mother born in Dublin, Ireland. His father was a Canadian farmer. There were seven children in the family, and Mr. Crawford and his sister, Mrs. Margaret Day, of Los Angeles, are the only survivors.
D. A. Crawford had a grammar school education in Canada. In 1884, at the age of nineteen, he went out to Idaho, and for a number of years worked in the mines of that state, both in the gold and silver mines. Among others he was employed in the famous Anaconda Mine of Senator Clark. He became an expert ore sorter, culling high grade from ores of less value. This was a skilled work that was paid high wages. He continued in the mines of Idaho until the bottom fell out of the silver market. Then, in 1893, he came to Covina, California, where for eight years he tried orange growing. In 1900 he moved to Rialto and was employed by the German American Bank of Los Angeles in looking after some groves owned by that institution. At the time of his marriage Mr. Crawford possessed only one horse and buggy. He had the tremendously responsible and arduous task of caring for from 100 to 200 acres of young groves, and he set out many new orchards in that vicinity. After saving his first hundred dollars he made an initial pay- ment of this sum in 1910 on twenty acres of wild land. agreeing to pay the balance of $1,700.00 for land and water rights. This is his home grove, and he has developed it to a high degree of profitable cultiva- tion in citrus fruits. Later he purchased what is known as the Flint grove from C. M. Flint, one of the best orchards in North Rialto. This orchard is twenty-eight vears old. and has long been a show place in attractiveness and in productivity. Thus Mr. Crawford now has fortv acres in fruit. Some nine years ago, for the Riverside Company, he set out forty acres of oranges, and has had the exclusive management of this property ever since.
On January 3, 1903. in Pocatello, Idaho, Mr. Crawford married Mary Bolton, a native of England, who came to the United States in 1886. Both Mr. and Mrs. Crawford are people of such energy and judgment
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as are needed to subdue the wilderness of Southern California. Mrs. Crawford for an entire summer carried water across a ten-acre lot so as to afford the necessary moisture in starting a young Eucalyptus wind- break to their grove. Half of Mr. Crawford's groves are set to Valencia and half to Navel oranges. The water supply is obtained from Lytle Creek. Mr. Crawford built with his own hands a most artistic bunga- low, and he has other substantial ranch buildings. He is a democrat in politics, and for years has been a cooperating worker and adviser with his fellow fruit growers for the common welfare.
HARRY W. BRIMMER is one of the most widely known business men in the Rialto District, is the oldest real estate man there in point of con- tinuous service, and is an acknowledged authority on land, agriculture and horticulture, particularly citrus culture.
Mr. Brimmer was born at Saukville, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin, June 2, 1875, son of Porter and Elizabeth Ann (Wadsworth) Brimmer. On both sides he represents New England ancestry, the Wadsworth family having come to America in the early years of the seventeenth century. Porter Brimmer was a Wisconsin pioneer, was born in Jef- ferson County, New York, March 4, 1830, spent his boyhood there, and as a young man removed to Northern Wisconsin, where he homesteaded and cleared up some of the heavy timber to make room for his crops. Out of the virgin forest he created a good farm and home. Two years after locating there he married Elizabeth Ann Wadsworth, on January 13, 1853. She was a native of Wayne County, New York. They re- mained on their farm in Ozaukee County for thirty years, and in 1884 moved to. Humeston, Iowa, and ten years later, in 1894, started for Cali- fornia, which for many years had been the goal of Porter Brimmer's ambition. He settled at Rialto, and before his death had achieved a reputation as a successful fruit grower. He was in every way a sub- stantial citizen, public spirited, thoroughly honest and a strict prohibition- ist. He purchased a young orange grove on coming to Rialto, and before his death had it in a profitable condition. His widow is now living at Long Beach, at the age of eighty-nine. The only daughter is Mrs. Amelia B. Kendall, and the three sons are Merton E., Harry W. and Arthur H., all of Rialto.
Harry W. Brimmer acquired his early education in a log schoolhouse in Wisconsin. He was about eight years old when his parents moved to Lucas County, Iowa, where he remained on the farm and also attended school, graduating from high school and from the Humeston Normal University. He was about nineteen when the family came to California. and his father gave him a ten acre orange grove, part of the Jordan place. He bestowed a great deal of study and hard work on this prop- ertv, and became a practical and thoroughly successful citrus grower before he began handling lands as a dealer. He has been an active real estate man of Rialto for fifteen years. He has handled many large transactions, and is thoroughly conversant with conditions all the way from Fresno to the Mexican border. He has owned a number of orange groves at different times, buying and building up these properties and then selling them. He is a leader in both horticultural and civic affairs.
June 26, 1900. Mr. Brimmer married Miss Beatrice Dunn, who was born in Atwood. Ontario, Canada. and graduated from the high school of that city. Her parents were of Scotch and English ancestry. Her father was born at Stratford. Canada, in 1838. and died at Rialto in 1921. Her mother was born at Peebles. Scotland. January 24, 1841. and is still living at Rialto. The parents came to this section of California
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in 1895, and became orange growers here. Mr. and Mrs. Brimmer find a great deal of satisfaction and honest pride in their two sturdy sons, both of whom are splendid young specimens of physical manhood and possessed of the best traits of their Scotch ancestry. The older son, Lorne Wadsworth Brimmer, was born at Rialto June 23, 1901, is a graduate of the San Bernardino High School and is now in his second year at Pomona College. He has been a good student and also excelled in athletics, having been a member of the baseball, football and track teams in college. The younger son, Burleigh Hamilton, was born at Rialto December 4, 1906, and is emulating his brother both in his studies and in athletics. He is now a student in the San Bernardino High School.
PETER E. WALLINE-In the recent death of Peter E. Walline San Bernardino County lost a citizen of distinctive power and influence in the affairs of this section. He came here many years ago with the capital he had acquired as a merchant in Illinois, but greatly extended and amplified his business interests in California. The use he made of his capital and energy was in every way constructive. It is repre- sented today in the development of ranches and fruit farms and financial organizations.
His early life was one of comparative poverty in financial resources, though in point of industry and good character he was possessed of a fortune even then. He was born in Sweden, January 6, 1850. At the age of seventeen he came to America, reaching Halifax, Nova Scotia, with only two dollars and fifty cents. A few months later he was working in Illinois as a railroad section hand at seventy-five cents a day. Thrift was imposed upon him by necessity, and also by the strong urgings of his ambition to perfect his knowledge of American ways and make his Americanism an honor to himself and to his adopted country. He put aside some of his modest earnings as capital for the future, and at the same time was associating with men of better edu- cation and was a constant student of the American language and the American institutions. In those early years of struggle he laid the sound foundation of his later prosperity. After leaving railroad work he entered a mercantile house, learned the business from the ground up, and for a number of years conducted a prosperous business of his own at Cambridge, Illinois.
This business he sold, and on account of his wife's ill health moved to California in 1894. Mr. Walline at once located at Upland, where he employed his capital in the orange and deciduous fruit business, and bought and speculated in lands elsewhere. He was president of the Upland Feed & Fuel Company and the Chino Feed & Fuel Company, was the first president of the Magnolia Building & Loan Association at Upland, and was instrumental in the organization of the Commercial National Bank of Upland, being on its first board of directors. He and Mr. Morris organized the San Bernardino Mutual Fire Insurance Company,, and he labored hard and earnestly to put this organization on its feet financially, and the first seven years his annual salary as president was only a hundred dollars. The solid prosperity of this com- pany is in no small degree due to the financial ability of the late Mr. Walline. All of these interests represent great financial importance, and they grew from his modest start as a railroad laborer in Illinois. Among other holdings he had an eight hundred and eighty acre stock ranch at Bishop in Inyo County. and during his later vears his time was divided between this stock ranch and his home at Upland.
Mr. Walline died February 6, 1921. and is survived by a widow and five children. In November, 1873, he married Miss Jennie S.
FroBrowell.
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Mascall, a native of Illinois. The oldest of their children is Emily, wife of T. C. Knoles, of San Jose. The second is Austin Walline, the third is Fannie, widow of Leslie Gay. The two youngest children are Harold and Rolland, who are prosperous farmers and stockmen, all living at Bishop, California, and engaged in the livestock business in Inyo County.
Austin Walline was born October 31, 1884, and was ten years of age when he came to California. He acquired a high school educa- tion, and in 1907 graduated Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from the University of Wisconsin, where he also specialized in chemistry. He became closely associated with his father's broad business interests, par- ticularly fruit growing. From 1909 to 1913 he was on the stock ranch at Bishop. His chief success, however, has been gained in horticulture. He owns 310 acres on Archibald Avenue and Riverside Boulevard, which he developed from wild land into fruit bearing. Austin Walline offered his services as a chemist to the Government at the time of the World war, passed his examination on the first of November, but the armistice was signed on the 11th of the same month and he was dismissed. He is one of the very patriotic citizens in his home community, is clerk of the School Board of Ontario, and is a director of the California Fruit Growers' Association, comprising about six hundred ranch owners, of which Benton Ballou is president and Mr. Anderson vice presi- dent. This company owns and operates canneries at Riverside, Hemet, Elsinore, Fallbrook and Ontario, and does an annual business of about two million dollars.
On November 29, 1908, Austin Walline married Miss Bertha I. Stevens, of Upland, California. They have two children, Millard, born May 22, 1912, and Robert Stevens, born May 30, 1921.
The late Peter E. Walline was not only a successful business man but a citizen of sturdy moral fiber, an ardent prohibitionist, a friend of education, and did much to strengthen the moral and religious institu- tions of his community.
GEORGE B. ROWELL, M. D., was one of the oldest practicing physicians and surgeons at San Bernardino. That community for thirty-four years appreciated his great professional ability and service, while a great following of devoted friends acknowledged him as one of the most generous and kindly of men. His death in January, 1922, marked the passing of one of the best loved and most popular physicians San Bernardino has ever known.
Doctor Rowell was known as a brilliant student and investigator in the field of medicine and surgery even while in college. He was a native of Canada, born July 19, 1859. His parents, Spaulding and Martha (Ball) Rowell, were both born in Vermont and of old Amer- ican families. The ancestors of Spaulding Rowell came from England to America in the early sixteen hundreds. His grandfather was an officer in the Colonial army in the Revolution. Spaulding Rowell was a farmer and moved to Canada to operate a lumber mill in the province of Quebec, this mill being owned by himself and father in partnership. Martha Ball's father had two uncles who made names for themselves in Vermont. One of them came to California across the Isthmus in 1849, became wealthy in the mines and returned to Vermont and rose to be a financial power and extensive land holder.
Dr. Rowell was educated in the public schools of Canada and in 1884 graduated from McGill University at Montreal with the degrees A. B., M. D. and C. M. Then followed a year of post graduate
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study in London, where the degree M. R. C. S. was conferred . upon him. On returning to Montreal he practiced for two years and at the age of twenty-six was appointed professor of anatomy in the Bishops College of Montreal, holding that chair two years.
Dr. Rowell came to California in 1887, joining friends at River- side where he practiced a few months, and then located permanently in San Bernardino. He was one of the organizers in 1904 of the present College of Physicians and Surgeons at Los Angeles, was one of the original trustees of the school, and for four years held the chair of medicine in the faculty. From 1888 to 1894 he was surgeon at San Bernardino for the Santa Fe Railroad.
Amid the busy duties of a general practitioner he for several years, was best known as a specialist in gynecology and surgery. He devoted years of research to the subject of cancer, and has done something to advance the knowledge of that malignant disease and make some progress toward the problem of its cure. Dr. Rowell owned the Sugar Pine Sanitarium, located at Sugar Pine Springs amid the huge pines and giant oaks on the north slope of the San Bernardino mountains. This is an ideal location for a sanitarium, the air being bracing and balsamic, and has an even temperature night and day, while the nearby springs furnish water of healing power. At present the sanitarium has an equipment of between twelve and fifteen buildings, with accommodations for fifty people, but the facilities are greatly overtaxed and plans had been made for enlarged accommodations.
Dr. Rowell was for two years health officer of San Bernardino. He was a republican, a member of the American Medical Associa- tion and the Brittish Medical Association, and in 1883 was made a Mason, being a member of St. George Lodge No. 11 Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. He was a member of the Zeta Psi college fraternity and for three years, 1881-84, was a member of the Prince of Wales Rifles. His religious affiliation was with the Episcopal Church.
At Riverside, June 14, 1888, Dr. Rowell married Miss Florence Wood, a native of Canada. At Los Angeles, September 11, 1913, he married Miss Louise Winkler, who was born in Vienna, Austria. One son, George B., Jr., born in 1917, was the issue of the second marriage.
W. H. JAMESON .- It is difficult for a traveler through the wonderful citrus-bearing territory of the San Bernardino region to realize the heart- breaking problems which confronted the pioneers into this part of California. To those who appreciate the extent of the work accom- plished, and its value to the country, some idea comes of the broad vision, the optimism, the willingness to work unceasingly and the kindly, neighborly interest for all, which almost immediately created community action, possessed by those who had the courage to go into the dry mesa and through individual and concerted action bring about a change which is nothing short of miraculous. Throughout the two counties of River- side and San Bernardino there are to be found many instances of what has been accomplished through the efforts of these workers in the front ranks of those engaged in blazing the way in agricultural development, but nowhere are they more apparent than at Corona, early known as the South Riverside Colony. Here much of the credit for the remarkable and gratifying progress is given to George L. Joy and his son-in-law,
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W. H. Jameson, and their early endeavors are being ably continued by Joy G. Jameson and W. H. Jameson of the third generation.
George L. Joy was born at Townsend, Vermont, in 1832, and died at Corona, California, in 1896. He was one of the originators of the South Riverside Colony, now Corona, and from 1888 until 1896 served as president of the South Riverside Land & Water Company. Before coming to Corona he had been a successful business man of Saint Louis, Missouri, and Sioux City, Iowa. His characteristics were optimism, foresight and enterprise. He did much to change the dry and barren mesa into a well-watered and prosperous colony, which he loved as a community of his own planting, and never ceased to labor for its further development. A man of broad sympathies, he did not confine his interest to his own holdings, but felt the same chagrin in the failure of an in- vestor as he would in his own, just as he rejoiced over another's success.
W. H. Jameson, son-in-law of George L. Joy, was born at Boston, Massachusetts, in 1846, and died at Corona, California, in 1912. In 1880 Mr. Jameson left San Francisco, California, where he had begun his business career, and went to Saint Louis, Missouri, which continued the scene of his labors until 1887, when he came to Corona, during that period conducting a successful wholesale lumber business. On his arrival at Corona he began planting citrus groves, and demonstrated his belief in the future of the colony by making practically all of his investments in this locality. He was interested in the greater part of the public utilities of Corona, with which he was associated almost from its be- ginning, having come to the colony soon after its establishment as super- intendent of the Temescal Water Company. For many years there- after he battled with the numerous problems common to pioneers in a new enterprise of this nature, and took pride in being able to solve the majority of them.
The W. H. Jameson interests at Corona are looked after by the two sons of the family, Joy G. Jameson and W. H. Jameson, both of whom are in all projects for securing the welfare of the community. Joy G. Jameson is giving largely of his time and efforts to the different co- operative enterprises of Southern California and Corona, including the Temescal Water Company, the Queen Colony Fruit Exchange and the Exchange By-Products Company, and is president of all three concerns. His brother, W. H. Jameson, is a graduate of the College of Agricul- ture, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, and has been largely influ- ential in building up the dairy interests around Corona, as well as being associated in the management of the citrus orchards and packing house connected with his father's estate, which are among the largest in the community. During the World war he held the rank of captain of the Twenty-third Machine Gun Battalion. Both young men are recognized as worthy successors to their grandfather and father, and enterprising and capable young business men of this region.
RAYMOND E. HODGE .- One of the younger generation of attorneys in San Bernardino, Raymond E. Hodge has already established himself as second to none in legal acquirements and as a master of the law. He has created confidence in himself by his handling of cases given to him. and his increasing patronage shows that the public recognizes his skill. His recreation seems to be hard work and research and, blessed with fine intellect, educational advantages and a determination to succeed, he is well known as a worth-while man. His friends predict many honors in store for him in the not distant future.
Mr. Hodge was born in Denver, Colorado, Mav 18, 1884, a son of Morgan C. and Enima J. (Wood) Hodge, the father a native of Ohio
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and his mother of New York. Morgan C. Hodge was a traveling sales- man until he came out to California and located in Rialto. Here he entered the scholastic field, becoming a teacher in the public schools of that city. He taught for ten years, and now has retired and is living in Rialto. His wife died in 1908. They were the parents of three children. Of whom the subject of this sketch was the oldest, Harry is assistant manager of the Colton Globe Mill at Colton, and Victor is athletic instructor in Santa Rosa, California.
Raymond E. Hodge was educated in the grammar and high schools of San Bernardino, from whence he graduated, going then to the Leland Stanford, Jr., University. He was graduated from there with the class of 1908, with the degree of A. B. He took the pre-legal course and then entered the law offices of W. J. and J. W. Curtis and was admitted to the bar in July, 1908. He was with them nearly a year, when he was appointed deputy district attorney under Rex Goodcell. He re- mained in the office of the district attorney until Januray, 1915, and then formed a partnership with S. W. McNabb, which has since continued successfully. The firm does a general practice and is all the time forging ahead.
Mr. Hodge was united in marriage in June, 1910, with Bernice Anna Knoll, a daughter of Edward and Clara Knoll, of Riverside. Mrs. Hodge was born in Illinois, came to Riverside, California, as a child with her parents, and was educated in the public and high schools of Riverside. She is a member of the Women's Club of Rialto. Mr. and Mrs. Hodge are the parents of two children, Robert E. and Geraldine E. Mr. Hodge is politically a republican and in religion is a Methodist. Among his fraternal connections are those of San Bernardino Lodge No. 836, B. P. O. E., and the San Bernardino Lodge No. 348, A. F. and A. M. He is also a member of the San Bernardino Bar Association, the Delta Chi college fraternity and the Progressive Business Club, National.
SAMUEL G. MATHEWS .- The name of Mathews is associated with some very successful experiments in alfalfa raising at Arlington Station, and these and other activities have given Samuel G. Mathews a well- deserved position among the prosperous farmers of Riverside County. He is a native of Chillicothe, Missouri, where he was born December 27, 1854, a son of Stephen Mathews, a native of New York and a Union soldier during the war between the North and the South. The family is an old American one, his ancestors having participated in the Revolutionary war, but is of English descent. Stephen Mathews married Mary Harriet Trammell, a native of Kentucky, also of Revolutionary stock, but of Irish descent.
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