History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 99

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934

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Jose. In national political affairs, Mr. Lovell was a Democrat; but he always gave his loyal and enthu- siastic support to whatever was best for the com- munity. He passed away on September 5, 1921, mourned by his family and many friends.

JOAQUIN J. SILVEIRA .- Dairying has as- sumed an important place among the industries which are contributing to the development and up- building of Santa Clara County and among those who have made it a close study is numbered Joaquin J. Silveira, the owner of two valuable dairy farms, which in their equipment and operation are the ex- pression of the latest scientific research along this line. He was born on the island of St. George in the Azores, July 10, 1865, a son of Antonio and Marie (Encarnacion) Silveira. The father successfully fol- lowed farming and stockraising and passed away at the age of seventy-two, while his wife reached the age of sixty-eight years. In their family were five sons and two daughters, of whom the subject of this review was the third son. His oldest brother, Antonio Silveira, was a sea captain and his demise occurred in Brazil. The next son preceded Joaquin J. Silveira to Santa Clara County, where he still makes his home.

When eighteen years of age Mr. Silveira arrived in Boston, Mass., where he remained for six weeks, and then made his way across the continent to Marin County, Cal., to join an older brother. He obtained employment in a dairy and for a year was thus occupied, when he went to Monterey County, where he obtained similar work. At the end of a year he removed to San Benito County, where he resided for twelve years, and then went to Stanislaus County, purchasing a farm of 117 acres near Newman. Upon this place he conducted a dairy for six years and is still its owner. He next came to Santa Clara County and in September, 1906, bought his pres- ent farm of eighty-two and a half acres on the Lawrence Road. He has made many improve- ments on the property, greatly enhancing its value, and is operating a modern, well equipped dairy, keeping for this purpose high-grade Holsteins, now having 48 milch cows, he has had broad experience along this line and his specialized knowledge of dairying has been the chief factor in his present suc- cess. He also has financial interests, being a stock- holder in the Portuguese-American Bank at San Francisco, and he is likewise president of the Portu- guese Dairy & Land Company of San Francisco.

Mr. Silveira was married at San Juan, in San Benito County, when twenty-seven years of age, to Miss Mariana Nascimento and they have become the parents of ten children: Mary, the wife of Joseph Borbas, a rancher of Sunnyvale; Antonio; Mariana, the wife of Frank Dutra, who is conduct- ing a dairy farm in the Brady district. keeping a herd of sixty cows; Florence, wife of M. S. Simas of San Francisco; Willie, Annie, Ernestine and Arthur, Clara, who died at the age of five years, and Johnny. Mr. Silveria gives his political alle- giance to the Republican party and is a member of the I. D. E. S. at Santa Clara, the U. P. E. C. at Sunnyvale, of which he is president, and has also been a director of the S. E. S. at Santa Clara. His life record illustrates the power of honesty and diligence in insuring success. His labors have al-

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ways been constructive and intelligently carried for- ward and have resulted in placing him in the front rank of the progressive dairymen of this section of Santa Clara County.

MRS. ELIZABETH MacLEOD .- Many lives have entered into the development of the state of Cali- fornia and none of them are more worthy to be con- sidered in a history devoted to the early days than Mrs. Elizabeth Macleod, who is numbered among the most successful horticulturists of Santa Clara County. She was born at New Monkland, Lanarkshire, Scot- land, October 14. 1848, and was the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Spears) McAllister. The father, who was superintendent of engines in the coal mines there, passed away at the age of thirty-seven, Mrs. MacAllister passing away at her home in Scotland at the age of ninety, having reared a family of nine children. The third oldest of the family, Elizabeth McAllister attended the local schools until her father's death, when she was twelve years old, and as her two older sisters had gone into business for them- selves she naturally became her mother's mainstay, assisting on the farm and helping to care for the younger children. Fond of horses, she was in her element when she had the reins in her hands, and thus she came to do every kind of farm work pro- ficiently. When twenty years old she was married to Edward Macleod, a native of Dumfriesshire, Scot- land. He was a stationary engineer and was so oc- cupied in his native land until 1871, and feeling there would be better opportunities in America, he crossed the ocean and located at Summerville, Contra Costa County, where he worked as engineer in the mines. In 1872 Mrs. Macleod, with her two children, joined her husband, and after spending some time at Sum- merville, she came to Santa Clara County. She first purchased a place near the San Tomas schoolhouse, and after two years, disposed of it and purchased fifty acres in the Cupertino district, where she now resides. When she began improving her place she had very little means and it was a hard struggle. Energetic and with a brave heart, she set out the orchards; she had good credit at the Farmers Union and at the Bank of San Jose. and she says she will never forget their kindness. This credit enabled her to carry on the improvements and build up her place until she could get ahead and pay back the indebted- ness on it. A woman of great capability, she drove a six-horse team herself in the fields, so the work never failed to go on, although she had to do much of it.

Mrs. Macleod's property is set principally to prunes and her orchards are among the finest in the locality. They have been given the best of care and she is now enjoying a splendid income from them. She also was the owner of a forty-acre orchard at Millikens Corners which she disposed of at a good profit, and then bought a place of thirty-five acres across the highway from her home, which she later sold to her daughter and son-in-law; she has also owned various other properties and has always given them her personal superintendence, so that they were well cared for. Mrs. Macleod is a stockholder in the Farmers Union and for some years was a trustee of the Doyle school district. She is an enthusiastic member of the California Prune & Apricot Growers. Inc., and was one of the first to take stock in this enterprise which she assisted in organizing. In 1901 she made a trip back to Scotland where she had a pleasant time, visiting her relatives and friends, and

on her return to New York she made arrangements with commission merchants to ship prunes to them and for the next three years she was engaged in buy- ing and shipping them, with good success.

Mr. and Mrs. Macleod were the parents of four children: James, who was born in Scotland, passed away at the age of thirty-two; Elizabeth, also born in Scotland, is an artist of ability and assists her mother in presiding over the home; Winifred is the wife of A. Schoenheit and they have one child, Helen Mar; John MacLeod died in infancy. Mrs. Mac- Leod is an active member of the Presbyterian Church, and takes a great interest in the uplift of the com- munity in which she lives. She is a woman of re- markable business acumen, and has demonstrated her ability in the operation of her orchards and the hand- ling of her financial affairs in a most satisfactory way, so that she is a leader among the horticulturists of the valley. Well read and experienced, she is a very interesting woman, being well informed and an agreeable conversationalist.

EDITH LEACH TALBERT .- Popular among the successful members of the pedagogical fraternity at San Jose is Mrs. Edith Leach Talbert, of the Lowell School, who was born at Geneseo, Henry County, Ill., the daughter of William Leach, a native of Massachusetts, who married Miss Anna H. Blake, like himself a descendant of the sons and daughters of the American Revolution. Miss Blake, in fact, was born at Taunton, and in that town alone she had twenty-three cousins bearing such well- known down-east names as Blake, Hathaway and Palmer.

When a young man, William Leach came West to Illinois, and when his daughter Edith was a mere girl he moved on to Kansas where, as a mill- wright, he had the record of installing and starting nine mills at such places as Benton, Halstead and Perryville. He made a specialty of flour mills and elevators, and lived to be eighty-four years of age. He and his good wife had six children, among whom our subject is the youngest, and four of the family are still living.

When Edith Leach was still in her teens, her father came out to Santa Clara County and settled at San Jose; soon after he retired from active life. She attended the various grades of the San Jose schools, and was a graduate of the State Normal School in the class of '92. She then taught for ten years in Santa Clara County, most of the time in the Willow Glen district. On June 25, 1902, she was married at San Jose to Franklin Lilburn Tal- bert, a native of Iowa, and to this union were born two promising children, Edith Blake and Ernest William Talbert, both of whom are students at the San Jose high school. In 1913 Mrs. Talbert resumed teaching, for which she had such natural aptitude and such an exceptional training, and for a year was engaged in grammar school work at Los Gatos. She then came to the Hester school and taught there for a number of terms and ever since she has been a valuable and esteemed member of the staff of the Lowell School at San Jose. one of the best institutions of its grade in all California.

Mrs. Talbert, who is a member of the Eastern Star, makes her home with her sister, Miss Annie A. Leach, whose early education was almost identi- cal with her own. Also a native of Illinois, she attended a business college at Lawrence, Kans.,

Elizabeth Nice Lead

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

but she never followed a business career. She is a gifted painter, a student of the artist Culp at San Francisco, and she has become noted for her china decorating. After the death of her mother, who passed away at the age of seventy-eight, Miss Leach cared for her father, who died at the age of eighty- four; since then she has maintained the family home, where she continues her art work.

WILBUR LEE CAMP .- Occupying a position of prominence among the most influential citizens of Mountain View is Wilbur Lee Camp, the efficient and capable president of the Farmers and Mer- chants National Bank. A native of lowa, he was born at Swan, Marion County, February 25, 1876. His father, Jacob H., was a native of Pennsylvania and was an old-time school teacher and farmer. He removed to Ohio and thence to Iowa in 1851 where lie married Miss Martha Smith, and they were the parents of six children, the subject of this sketch being the youngest. The father passed away when Wilbur L. was a small lad of eight years, but the mother still lives in Iowa in the old home town.

Mr. Camp attended the public schools and later Highland Park College, where he took the regular four years' course, completing two courses, the busi- ness course and the college course. He then entered the Northwestern University law school at Evans- ton, Ill., but before finishing he entered the rail- way mail service. In April, 1898, he enlisted for service in the Spanish-American War and was stationed in the Philippine Islands for a year and a half. He enlisted from Knoxville, Iowa, in Company D, Fifty-first Iowa Volunteer Infantry, his regiment being assigned to the Eighth Army Corps and was sent on the transport Pennsylvania to Manila. During his stay in the Philippine Islands his com- pany saw active service in putting down the Philip- pine insurrection and took part in the battles of San Roque, Pasai, Malolos, East and West Puhlan, San Tomas, San Fernando and several other engage- ments. Returning to San Francisco on the trans- port Senator he was honorably discharged in Novem- ber, 1899, with the rank of corporal. On his return to lowa he again entered the railway mail service and was employed on the fast mail train on the Burlington route running between Chicago and Omaha and continued in this service until 1905 when he resigned to come to California. On his arrival he traveled throughout the state looking for a suit- able location in which to permanently settle, and finally decided on Mountain View as being the most desirable. Here he met J. S. Mockbee, an old-time settler and one of its foremost and wealthiest citi- zens; the acquaintance grew into friendship and soon developed into a business association and the Farmers Merchants National Bank was organized and incorporated with a paid-up capital of $25,000, Mr. Mockbee becoming president and Mr. Camp cashier, serving in this capacity until 1918, when Mr. Mockbee resigned the presidency on account of impaired eyesight and Mr. Camp was unanimously elected to fill this important position, the duties of which he has handled to the satisfaction of all concerned.

The marriage of Mr. Camp occurred in Los Angeles and united him with Miss Elizabeth Burns, the daughter of R. V. Burns, a prominent attorney who had practiced his profession for twenty years

in Mountain View. He passed away in 1918, and the mother still makes her home in Mountain View. Mr. and Mrs. Camp are the parents of three chil- dren, Virginia, Anna Lee and Reynolds, and the family resides in a modern, up-to-date residence built in 1908 on Mariposa Avenue. Fraternally Mr. Camp is a Mason and belongs to Mountain View lodge No. 194, F. & A. M .; he is also a member of the Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World, and was a member of the Spanish-American War Veterans in Burlington, Iowa. Mr. and Mrs. Camp are active and prominent members of the Presby- terian Church, in which he is serving as a member of the board of trustees. Mrs. Camp is a finished violinist and organist, presiding at the organ of the First Presbyterian Church. During the World War Mr. Camp served as chairman on the war work and liberty loan committees and through his energetic work Mountain View went over the top in all the drives. He owns a splendid eighty-acre farm near Mountain View of which thirty acres is in Bartlett pears and fifty acres in garden truck. His efforts have ever been along constructive lines and he has occupied a position of leadership, others being glad to follow the course that he points out, and he takes much pride in the particular locality which he selected for his permanent place of residence.

CHARLES F. LIETZ .- A business man to whom must be credited much of the prosperity for which Santa Clara and vicinity has long been noted, and whose operations have spelt success to others as well, is Charles F. Lietz, the affable and popular manager of the Santa Clara branch of Rosenberg Bros. & Company, wholesale dealers in and packers of dried fruits and nuts, at Santa Clara. His hard and conscientious work, and his faithful, painstaking attention to the wants of each and every patron. have enabled him to rise in the service of this well known and highly successful firm.

Mr. Lietz was born at Chicago on July 17, 1886, and having come to California, settled at San Jose, in 1903. He had received the best of public school advantages in the city by the lake, and had had the advantage of office experience with the B. F. Cum- mins Company, manufacturers of perforating ma- chines, in that city; and on resuming work here, he became a bookkeeper. His marriage united him with Miss Mabel Wight, a native of Iowa, and they have two children: Harold and Laura. The happy family reside at 32 Lenzen Avenue, San Jose, and are justly popular as neighbors fond of dispensing a hearty hospitality. Mr. Lietz belongs at present to San Jose Lodge No. 10, F. & A. M.

Like the other members of his family, Mr. Lietz holds the friends he makes, and forms friendships and friendly associations rapidly; and he has done much to further expand the gigantic operations of Messrs. Rosenberg Bros. & Company, undoubtedly the largest independent dried fruit firm in California. They have a very large establishment at Santa Clara, with tracks for switching to and from the Southern Pacific; and have a gigantic plant in Fresno and in many of the other largest fruit producing sections in California. All in all, theirs is an institution in the highest degree creditable to California, serving the public well, appreciating its employees, and being in turn appreciated by both those employed and the public that patronizes.

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

CHARLES D. BEVERSON-Californians delight to honor the intrepid and far-seeing pioneer, whose courage, ambition and progressive industry have made possible so many of the blessings of today, having paved the way for those who were to come after; and among such worthy early settlers the name of the late Charles D. Beverson will find an enviable place. As has already been said of him, his career was remarkable, for he began the battle of life at an early age in a foreign country, and without capital worked his way gradually and steadily into the foreground until he easily ranked among the most prosperous and successful stock raisers and fruit growers in Santa Clara County, where he had lived since the late '60s.

Mr. Beverson was born at Bremen, Germany, on April 10, 1850, the son of Clause and Mata (Jus- ton) Beverson, natives of the same locality, where they passed all their days. His father had a farm of 100 acres, rather large for that time and section, and by following agricultural pursuits supported his family of five children. The fourth child of the family, Charles, had only a common school educa- tion and at the age of fourteen left his home and crossed the Atlantic, and in New York he found such employment for three years as enabled him to support himself. Having heard much of California, however, he set out for the Pacific Coast in 1867, crossing by way of the Nicaraguan route, and final- ly reached the Golden Gate. He went into the San Joaquin River district for a while and spent the first season near Alice. Then he come to Santa Clara County and took up a claim of 160 acres twenty-three miles east of Milpitas, where with keen foresight he began to raise cattle. He succeeded from the first and little by little made additional purchases, and thus came to own a fine ranch of 2,000 acres in that locality, and to keep 300 head of choice cattle and a number of horses. He also owned some eighty-six acres devoted to dairying at Laguna, where he milked twenty-five cows and made a fine grade of butter.

Mr. Beverson was twice married. At his first wedding he became the husband of Mrs. Jennie L. ( Gallea ) Williams, a daughter of Hiram D. and Amanda (Kennedy) Gallea, the former a native of New York, the latter born in Ohio, both of Scotch origin, and they were the parents of seven children: Betsy. Mrs. Bancroft, died in Montana; Mrs. Helen Simpkins died in Michigan; Statira, Mrs. Harrison, died in Michigan; Mrs. Jennie L. Beversou died in California; Olive, the present Mrs. Beverson; Mrs. Orsie M. Ross of Michigan; Ebert died at the age of six months. Hiram D. Gallea engaged in farm- ing and stock raising at Belvidere, Ill., for five years, and while there raised a yoke of white oxen that were a dead match, and which took the blue rib- bon at every fair they were exhibited. Wishing to locate in Allegan County, Mich., he drove this span of oxen through to his destination, where he set- tled upon Government land, living there until his death at the age of sixty-seven, Mrs. Gallea passing away the same year, having reached her sixty-fifth year. Both were devout members of the Baptist Church. Mrs. Jennie L. Beverson first saw the light at Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and when she passed away on the home ranch in Santa Clara County she was the mother of two surviving children: Robert L. Williams, always called Bob Beverson, was educated at the San Jose high school and Stanford University, and is now a popular young business man, engaged in the automobile trade at San Jose; Meta Ruth Bev-

erson, a graduate of the San Jose State Normal and a member of the State Teachers' Association, is teaching the Orchard School. Mr. Beverson's sec- ond marriage united him with Miss Olive S. Gallea. a sister of Mrs. Beverson; she was also a native of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, but was reared at Wat- son, Mich. Since her husband's death, on July 17, 1921. she has continued to live at the home place on the San Jose-Oakland Highway, devoted to his mem- ory and looking after the large interests left by her husband and carrying out his plans and ambitions. In her earlier years she was engaged in educational work, teaching school in Michigan, so she is natur- ally much interested in the career of her daughter. Miss Meta Beverson. Having been reared in an atmosphere of culture and refinement, she emanates an influence for good, and her stand for high ideals and morals is well known. Her patriotic zeal dur- ing the World War was helpful in the various war drives, and especially in the local chapter of the Red Cross, of which she was president. Of a pleas- ing personality, she is well known and much es- teemed, and her influence has been felt in her ac- tivity in social and civic circles.

A Republican in politics, Mr. Beverson was broad- minded in local affairs and served as a nonpartisan school trustee up to 1909. He was a charter member of the Fraternal Brotherhood and at the time of his death had been a member of that order for twenty- one years. Mr. Beverson always attributed most of his financial success in life to the devoted as- sistance of his wife, who capably looked after the financial end of his large business, thus making it pos- sible for him to devote all his time to stock raising and the improvement of his lands. A man of great energy, he was never idle and was active in his busi- ness affairs until a week before his passing away.

ROBERT A. FATJO .- An interesting representa- tive of an early Santa Clara family is Robert A. Fatjo, the affable manager of the Santa Clara Branch of the Bank of Italy. He is a son of the pioneer, Anton V. Fatjo, once a director of the old Santa Clara Valley Bank at Santa Clara, which was later absorbed by the Bank of Italy. He was town treas- urer for many years, and at his demise, in 1917, our subject succeeded him as city treasurer. He came to Santa Clara from Chile. South America, where he was born, and as he grew up here, he entered heartily into the building up and the upbuilding of both the city and county; and being public-spirited, and in no wise a politician, he gave his salary as city treasurer to the Library, the Woman's Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the firemen of Santa Clara, and his son, Robert, is a chip off the old block, and does likewise.

The Fatjo family tree goes back to Barcelona, in Catalonia, Spain, and to the thirteenth century, and although many of them have since figured as mer- chants and bankers, our subject's ancestors were for the most part orchardists, viticulturists, agriculturists and dairy farmers. Grandfather Anton Fatjo was born in Spain, where he attended the Spanish schools until he was fourteen, when he began to prepare for the priesthood; but owing to his ill-health, it was determined to send him to Chile with a friend of the family, a merchant well acquainted there, and thus he rose to be a merchant himself, dealing in drygoods, and to marry Miss Marians Salcedo, a Chilean lady. In time they made a trip to Spain.

Olive G. Beverson

& D, Beverson

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HISTORY OF SANTA CLARA COUNTY

and while they were there, their youngest child, Luis M. Fatjo, was born. They had five children, and the second in the order of birth was Anton Fatjo, Robert A. Fatjo's father.

In 1849, Grandfather Fatjo came North from Chile to California, and at San Francisco he engaged in wholesaling general merchandise, and he also estab- lished a retail store at Santa Clara, being one of the first extensive merchants here. He also started the first tannery in Santa Clara, the Eberhart Tan- ning Company, being its successor. He died in Santa Clara at the age of seventy-three, mourned as one of the truly "first citizens" of town and county. Anton V. Fatjo, the father of our subject, mar- ried Mrs. Refugio (Malarin) Spence, a native of Monterey, a gifted and attractive woman who made many friends and was greatly missed when she died at Santa Clara in 1910. These good parents had two boys and a girl; Robert A., our subject. being the eldest, while the others are named Del- phine and Eugene.

Robert A. Fatjo was born at Santa Clara on December 13, 1876. and was educated at Santa Clara College. After this he took his place in the Santa Clara real estate office of Fatjo & Lovell, when his father went into banking; and later, in 1910, he organized the Mission Bank and was its president until 1917, when it was sold to the Bank of Italy. Since then, he has been the manager of the Santa Clara branch of the latter bank. He is also the vice-president of the Santa Clara Building and Loan Association, in which his father was treasurer, and he is a director in the Santa Clara Chamber of Com- merce. In national politics a Republican, he is ever ready to "boost" the locality in which he lives.

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History of Santa Clara County California with biographical sketches, Part 99

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co. Number of Pages: 1934

Author: Sawyer, Eugene T
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Los Angeles : Historic Record Co.
Number of Pages: 1934