USA > California > San Bernardino County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 68
USA > California > Riverside County > History of San Bernardino and Riverside counties, Volume III > Part 68
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In politics, with well fortified convictions, Mr. Brown has never wavered from the course of stalwart allegiance to the cause of the dem- ocratic party, and as a loyal and progressive citizen he has taken lively interest in public affairs, especially those of his home community and state. In the Masonic fraternity he is past master of Lodge No. 300. Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, at Redlands; past high priest of Redlands Chapter, No. 77, Royal Arch Masons ; and affiliated also with the council and commandery bodies of the fraternity, as well as the Mystic Shrine. He is also an active and popular member of Redlands Lodge No. 583, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
Mr. Brown was a most loyal and vigorous supporter of governmental agencies and policies during the period of the World war. He was personal representative in his community of Judge Lynch, of San Francisco, who was governor of the Twelfth District Federal Reserve Bank. Mr. Brown likewise represents the government department of justice in the territory comprising San Bernardino, Riverside and Im- perial counties, his duties in this connection involving numerous trips
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into Mexico. He was called to Washington, D. C., on several occasions, and received from President Wilson personal invitation for conference relative to productive conditions, his experience in marketing widely and his intimate knowledge of trade and producing conditions throughout the Union, having made his counsel of definite value. Mr. Brown served as chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee of his district, as one of the four-minute speakers in advancing subscriptions to the various gov- ernment loans, Red Cross campaigns, etc., and his brief addresses were invariably spirited, practical and productive of results.
August 17, 1897, recorded the marriage of Mr. Brown to Miss Lydia Hosking, of Redlands. She is a daughter of William Hosking and was born in Australia, her parents having been natives of England and she having been eight years of age at the time when the family home was established at Eureka, California. Her father was a prominent mining man and was representative of a large English corporation in this field of enterprise after he came to the United States. Mrs. Brown was graduated in Santa Clara College and the Pacific University of Music, at Santa Clara. She is a woman of not only exceptional culture and gracious personality, but also one whose broad sympathies and high ideals have been shown in earnest and effective stewardship of personal order. She has been for thirty years the able and loved organist of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Redlands, and has been active in the various departments of church work. Mrs. Brown was a leader in patriotic service at the time of the World war and was specially active in Red Cross work. She exerts at all times a helpful influence for civic betterment and takes deep interest in all things touching the welfare of her home city, where she is a popular factor in representative social activities. Mr. and Mrs. Brown have one son, Charles Milton, Jr., who was born June 7, 1899. This popular young native son of Redlands was here graduated in the high school, later attended Redlands University one year, and he is at the time of this writing, in the spring of 1921, a stu- dent in the law department of Leland Stanford University. He was in the Stanford ambulance service during two years of the nation's par- ticipation in the World war. In this connection he was stationed three months at Fort McDowell and six months at Allentown, Pennsylvania. After this preliminary training he was ordered to service overseas and sailed from New York City on the 4th of July, 1918. He was in active service in France about one year, with headquarters at Dijon, and after the signing of the armistice he finally was returned to his native land, his arrival in the port of New York City having occurred in June, 1919, and his honorable discharge having been received by him somewhat later.
Charles M. Brown, Sr., has gained prestige as one of the most active and resourceful business men of southern California. In connection with business affairs he has crossed the continent seventy-three times. He has succeeded through earnest and well directed personal effort, and looks upon honesty not only as a matter of duty to every man but also as one of expediency, for he believes that no success worthy of the name is to be gained save through honesty and fairness, which should be expected of every citizen. Beginning at the lowest round of the ladder, he has risen to independence and prosperity through able and earnest personal en- deavor, has been in the most significant sense the architect of his own fortunes, and, above all, has so ordered his course as to merit and receive the unqualified confidence, respect and good will of his fellow men.
PETER GEORGE MCIVER-Lawyer and justice of peace at Redlands, Peter George McIver has lived the most interesting period of his life
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in California, and his varied experiences, his versatile accomplishments and the influence he has exercised among men makes him a man of outstanding importance in Riverside County.
Judge McIver was born October 24, 1864, at South Cove, Victoria County, Nova Scotia. His father, Angus J. McIver, was a native of Scotland and early in life moved to Nova Scotia, where he married Miss Christie McIver, a native of Nova Scotia and of an unrelated branch of the McIvers. Their children consisted of six sons and three daughters. Angus J. McIver was a school teacher by occupation, and Peter George attended a country school taught by his father. However, his education as derived from schools was limited. Possessed of sound Scotch intellectual inheritance, Mr. McIver has sought knowledge by contact with the world as he has gone through it, and is a man of learning in the truest sense of the word. He early learned to be dependent upon his own exertions. For a time he was a sailor on ships in the coastwise trade. In the fall of 1884, he went to Maine, and for a time cut cord- wood, and for about two years was employed by the Knickerbocker Ice Company in harvesting ice on the Kennebec River, residing in Gardiner, Maine. During the winter of 1886 he worked in the woods on Dead River, Maine, for the firm of Putnam & Clawson who owned a saw mill at Pittston, now Randolph, Maine.
This in brief was the sum total of his experience when he came to California in the spring of 1887, reaching Redlands June 9th. It was a dull time in business and industry in California and elsewhere over the country. Some of the first work he did for wages here was shingling houses. Back in Nova Scotia he had learned as a boy something of the trade of shoemaking. In California he became acquainted with P. F. Bugee, and they bached together in a small cabin. Mr. Bugee was a shoe cobbler, and after his day of outside work Mr. McIver frequently assisted Mr. Bugee at the bench in the evening. On the 24th of October of that year, while teaming, his horses ran away, and left him by the side of the road with a broken leg and severe injuries. After a time he was discovered by John P. Fisk, a real estate agent of Redlands, and was cared for by Dr. W. L. Spoor. On partially recovering but before he was able to take active outside employment he devoted his entire time to shoemaking. About that time he and Mr. Bugee secured a sewing machine, and they manufactured the first shoes in Redlands, the first pair being made for Harry Brush, and they also made shoes for Scipio Craig, the pioneer Redlands editor. Business conditions continuing dull. Mr. McIver, after recovering from his injuries so that he could walk, accepted a suggestion made by an old acquaintance, George W. Danna, with whom he had boarded while at Gardiner, Maine, and who in the meantime had come to California and was operating Redland's first barber shop, and began learning the barber trade in 1888. After about two years he bought a half interest, and for one year was in partnership with Danna.
During his early life Mr. McIver was a member of the Methodist Church. As the result of much self searching of his mind and heart he found his views at variance with this church's teachings. After formu- lating to his own satisfaction his belief he engaged a hall and held services Sunday afternoon. Finding that many were attracted to these meetings he also held meetings in the evenings, and in that way became associated and worked with the First Day Adventists. Leaving his shop, he went to Nebraska in the summer of 1893, and with an evangelist, William E. Todd, traveled about holding tent meetings, at which he delivered lectures and sermons. Ever since 1893 Mr. McIver has been a preacher
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of Christian Adventist doctrines. He was a minister at Springfield, Nebraska, for several months and was then called back to Napa, Cali- fornia, and was pastor of the church there two years and seven months. He then went to the San Francisco Church on Church Street, between Twenty-ninth and Day streets, and in the spring of 1899, to Potter Valley in Medocino County, where he preached two years. While there he engaged in a discussion with an editor on the subject of Baptism. In the discussion he was at a disadvantage, since the editor led to points which were not permitted to be discussed. The church authorities then took a hand, and Mr. Mclver, holding to the honesty of his convictions, retired from the formal ministry.
In August, 1901, he returned to Redlands, but for three months supplied the Pasadena Church on Fair Oaks Avenue. Leaving the pulpit, he returned to his trade as a barber, being employed by J. P. Hird six years. While thus engaged he spent five years in diligent study of the law, and in February, 1908, left his trade and entered the Kent Law School at San Francisco. He was a student there from February to July, 1908, and then took the bar examinations in the Los Angeles District Court of Appeals. Among thirty-two applicants he was the first to receive a certificate. Judge McIver began practice at Redlands in 1908, and in 1910 was elected to the post of justice of the peace, an office he has filled continuously and with credit and efficiency since January 4, 1911. He had been in California a number of years before he completed the naturalization process and attained American citizenship. On March 4, 1904, Judge Bledsoe administered the oath of allegiance, Judge George E. Otis and Robert McGinnis being his sponsors.
On August 18, 1891, Mr. McIver married Miss Ruth Amy Rhodes, of Smith Center, Kansas, daughter of a prosperous farmer in that state. They are the parents of three children: Paul George; Ruth Amy, who was born at Redlands November 12, 1902, and is now a senior in the Redlands High School; and Robert Rhodes, born January 7, 1914, at Redlands.
Paul George McIver, who was born at Napa, California, January 26, 1895, graduated from the Redlands High School in 1912, from the law school of the University of Southern California June 7, 1917, and for a time was claim adjuster for the Maryland Casualty Company. In 1918 he entered the army, being trained as a machine gunner at San Diego, later was transferred to Camp Hancock, Georgia, where he was trained as a machine gun officer and commissioned second lieutenant. He was placed on the reserve list. He is now assistant district attorney at Phoenix, Arizona. December 29, 1920, he married Miss Ruth Amy Switzer, of Napa, California.
DR. MARY ADELAIDE STOLZ, a resident of Redlands for nearly twenty years, is a remarkable woman in many respects. Of strong character and personality, she has made her journey through life a most suc- cessful one, not alone from the professional and financial standpoint, but socially and in every walk of life she aspired to. By all who know her, Dr. Stolz is regarded as a noble woman, a splendid type of won- anhood, and the religious influences which surroundd her childhood have had much to do with the shaping of her life, for one of the prominent traits of her character is her faith in the great fundamental truths which lie at the base of the Christian religion and which to her are a vital and living reality.
She has always had a living, loving interest in people, and is al- ways interested in every movement for the uplift of humanity, and
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the wide and varied experiences of her active and interesting career show that all humanity with whom she came in contact interested her and awakened her sympathy. She has the gift of making of every acquaintance a sincere friend.
Few women left as Dr. Stolz was, with a family of children to rear unaided, could have accomplished what she has and given such children to the world, children who will, and have, made the world the better for their having lived in it, just as their mother did.
Dr. Stolz was born in the picturesque environment of Waimea, Island Kauai, of the Hawaiian Islands, on September 26, 1853. Her father was George Berkeley Rowell, a native of Cornish, New Hamp- shire, who was born in 1815. He was a graduate of the Andover Theological Seminary and of Amherst College, and was a missionary to the Islands from 1842 until 1884, a life time spent in splendid serv- ice, for he passed on in 1884, while still working for his people. The mother of Dr. Stolz was Melvina J. (Chapin) Rowell, a native of Newport, New Hampshire, born in 1816. She died in Crafton, Cali- fornia, in 1902. They were the parents of seven children, of whom Dr. Stolz was the youngest. She graduated from Mt. Holyoke, Mas- sachusetts, in 1875, and on January 1, 1880, in the Hawaiian Islands, she was married to Herbert Louis Stolz, of Brooklyn, New York, who was born in Buenos Aires, February 24, 1858. He was a teacher and also a sugar planter. In 1892, while performing his duty as a sheriff, he was shot to death by a former pupil, a leper. A reservation had been set aside for lepers, many of whom had taken refuge in the Kalalau Valley, and it was here Mr. Stolz was killed while attempting to take the man to the reservation.
After the death of her husband, Dr. Stolz returned to New York, as she had to support and educate her children. She studied medicine in the Medical College and Hospital for Women of the Homeopathic School in New York. She was graduated in 1897 with the degree of M. D. She practiced most successfully for three years in Brooklyn, New York, and then decided to make her home in California. This she did, in 1902 locating in Redlands and engaging in practice as a Homeopathic physician in general practice. She has made a success of her work in her adopted home and occupies a prominent place in medical circles.
In all civic affairs she has always taken a deep interest and is re- garded as a dependable factor in any work for the advancement or uplift of Redlands. She is a director of the Young Women's Christian Association, of the Day Nursery and of the Associated Charities, and an earnest worker in all the work pertaining to these organizations, for which she is fitted to a remarkable degree. Dr. Stolz is an active worker in the various women's clubs of the city, being a member of the Contemporary Club, the Spinet Club and the Post Meridian Club. She is a member of the Congregational Church.
Dr. Stolz was the mother of six children, of whom four died in childhood, Frederick William, Francis Carlos, Louis Berkeley, and Malcolm Rowell. Rosemary, born September 28, 1880, was a graduate of Stanford University. She was librarian of the Redlands High School and also of the Technical High School in Oakland, California. She was married to Leslie Abell, a teacher in the Oakland Technical High School, January 1, 1917. She died three months later, March 29, 1917.
The fifth child of Dr. Stolz is Dr. Herbert Stolz, a brilliant, tal- ented young man, well known not only in California and the east, but
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nationally and abroad as well. His career is in itself most interesting, and he has played a distinguished part in a comparatively brief span of life, a worthy son of a most worthy and devoted mother. He was born August 20, 1886, and graduated from the Redlands High School, entering Stanford University in 1906, and was graduated with the class of 1911. He took only one year out of college and in that he assisted in building the famous "Snark" of Jack London's, the noted author being a warm friend of his, and he sailed with him on that hazardous trip. He left the Snark at Honolulu and returned to his studies at Stanford University.
He was the private secretary to Dr. Jordan, president of Stanford University, and thus earned his own expenses for two years. He went with Dr. Jordan as secretary of the Fish Commission, adjusting the fishing rights between Canada and the United States.
He won the Cecil Rhodes scholarship to Oxford, England which, as everyone knows, required not only the finest scholarship, but.the highest personal character as well, and he passed the tests for both most brilliantly. After his years at Oxford he returned to Stanford University and took his M. D. degree. He was appointed professor of athletics of Stanford University. Of course, when the war broke out he joined the army, in the Medical Volunteers, serving at Fort Riley, Kansas, and Camp Cody, New Mexico, before going overseas, where his service was in keeping with his record. After the armistice was signed he returned to the United States and was stationed at Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas, until he resigned from the army June 1, 1920. He was then made assistant supervisor of physical education of California and stationed at Sacramento, and is now supervisor. While overseas he was director of some of the Inter-Allied athletic games carried on in the vicinity of Paris.
In 1915 he married Miss Margaret A. Post, a graduate of Stanford University and a former resident of Redlands. She was a grand- daughter of Mrs. Hotchkiss of that city. She died in 1918 and was buried in Redlands.
On June 1, 1919, he married, in a little American church in France, Miss Edgell Adams, a Young Men's Christian Association worker overseas. She was a pianist of note from Birmingham, Alabama, and formerly had a studio in that city.
The sixth child of Dr. Mary A. Stolz was Malcolm Rowell, who died in his infancy.
JOSEPH A. NELSON is one of the men of Riverside who is finding it profitable to grow oranges, and he owns a fine grove of five acres at 1253 Kansas Avenue. Here he raises oranges, all of his land being in navels with the exception of a quarter of an acre which is in valencia oranges. He gained his practical experience of horticulture working for others, and, therefore, when he commenced operating his own land he had a wide and varied knowledge of all of the details of the business.
Mr. Nelson is a native of Sweden, where he was born August 27, 1866, a son of Nels and Inger (Pernella) Nelson. Nels Nelson was a scholar and notary public, and was prominent in the community in which he lived. Both he and his wife are now deceased. Joseph A. Nelson attended school in Sweden, and when he was eighteen years old he immigrated to the United States. Coming as far West as Iowa after landing in this country, he worked at farming for a time, leaving that state for Klickitat County, Washington, and for a time worked in a saw-mill near Vancouver, across the Columbia River from Portland,
.
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Oregon. On January 11, 1891, Mr. Nelson came to California, and, locating at Riverside, began taking contracts for caring for various orange groves, including those of E. R. Shelley, Mr. Winterbottom and E. C. Love. After five years of contract work Mr. Nelson bought five acres of land on Blaine Street, near the grove of L. C. Waite. After seven years he sold it and moved to West Riverside, where he bought land and built a fine residence, and there he raised oranges, grapes and general farm products, including some of the finest sweet potatoes ever grown in the county. In 1910 he sold this property and bought his present grove, which he has improved, and made his home one of the most desirable in his part of the city. Mr. Nelson is a member of the California Fruit Ex- change, and takes his fruit to the Sierra Vista packing house. He is also engaged in poultry raising to some extent, and has always made a success of all his undertakings. In politics a republican, he is active in his party and stands very high in his community as a man of solid worth and high character.
On June 20, 1900, Mr. Nelson married at Long Beach, California, Miss Lottie E. Benedict, a native of Ohio, and a daughter of W. W. Benedict, a farmer and dairyman of that state and of Kansas. He came of an old American family of Revolutionary stock and English descent. Mrs. Nelson's mother, Mrs. Mary F. Benedict, survives her husband and is residing at Long Beach. Mrs. Nelson came to California with her parents in 1887, and from then until her marriage resided at Pasadena, where she was educated, and at Long Beach. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson have one child, Frances Pernella, who is a student in the Riverside High School, class of 1925. Mr. and Mrs. Nelson are consistent members of Calvary Presbyterian Church of Riverside, and Mr. Nelson has served it as elder for four years, while Mrs. Nelson has long been a teacher in its Sunday School. While residing at West Riverside she had charge of the primary class of the Sunday School. For many years Mr. Nelson has worked in behalf of the Young Men's Christian Association, and still maintains his connection with this organization at Riverside. Both he and Mrs. Nelson are earnest in their work for moral uplift, and are recognized among the worth-while people of the county.
J. HERBERT JOHNSON is a thorough Californian, though he claims only sixteen years of residence in the state. He was one of the technical experts in the telephone industry for a number of years, but finally his abilities as a salesman brought him opportunities that he has employed in building up a very successful real estate and insurance business at Riverside.
Mr. Johnson was born at Camden, New Jersey, March 21, 1884, son of George W. and Mary W. (Ellis) Johnson. His parents were of English ancestry and of old American and Revolutionary stock. His father was born in Pennsylvania and his mother in New Jersey, but is now living at Riverside with her son J. Herbert. George W. Johnson was an old-time printer, followed that business in Philadelphia, later in Los Angeles, and after retiring lived at Riverside until his death in 1920. J. Herbert Johnson acquired a grammar and high school education in New Jersey. After graduating from high school in 1901 he went to work in the technical and operating side of the telephone industry in the East. That was his occupation for four years, and in 1905, when he came to California, he took up the same line of work in different parts of the state. For a time he was wire chief for the telephone company in Santa Barbara, and for six years was wire chief in Riverside for the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Company.
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Resigning from the telephone company September 1, 1920, Mr. John- son became a salesman for the Riverside Realty Company and later was associated with the Metropolitan Insurance Company. September 1, 1921. he formed a copartnership with Walter W. Johnson under the name Johnson Realty Company, and opened offices in the Nevada Block, where they handle a very successful general real estate and insurance business.
While a young man, Mr. Johnson is one of the energetic boosters of the city and is always ready and eager to give his efforts to anything that will promote the common welfare. Though born on the Atlantic Coast, he says he is wholly Californian, since it requires but a short residence in this state for any intelligent person to understand that it is the most delightful part of the globe and commands the love and loyalty of all who come under its benign influence. Mr. Johnson is a republican, a member of the Woodmen of the World, and he and his wife belong to the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
September 24, 1905, he married Miss Stella F. Kelly. She is a native daughter of the Golden West, born in the Carpinteria Valley of Ventura County. Her father, William D. Kelly, is a landscape gardener now liv- ing at San Diego. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson have two children : Frances M., in high school, and Marion G., attending grammar school.
WILLIAM BUXTON. In the development and constructive enterprise that brought the largest degree of material prosperity to the Rialto community of San Bernardino County, a lasting debt is due the late William Buxton. That debt has been generally acknowledged since his death, and a leading newspaper said: "This valley has had few men of nobler character, more unassuming ways and wider influence than Wil- liam Buxton. In the development of the citrus-fruit industry and par- ticularly in marketing this fruit, he occupied a leading place and in everything he stood for improvements. both material and otherwise. William Buxton was always one of the elements of strength to be depended upon."
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