USA > California > San Diego County > San Diego county, California; a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume II > Part 14
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which together with heating and lighting plants cost twelve thousand dollars. The principle contemplated, which is incorporated in the rules governing the home, is that of cooperative partnership, which secures as absolute independence for the inmates as is compatible with effective government. The ambition of the founder was to establish a great colony of old people of both sexes, to create a retreat with the home atmosphere predominating, yet with various interests that would bring out the best in the members and secure to them by careful and sympathetic use of their activities the greatest possible amount of interest in life and giving them a proprietary right in the home they are helping to create. For such a home no more ideal site could have been chosen than that now occupied at Chula Vista, which has been rightly called the "Riviera of the Pacific." The buildings stand in the heart of a ten acre lemon and orange grove and command a magnificent view of the mountains, ocean and the bay of San Diego. A unique feature of the home is the fact that there is no crowded dormitory system or even a system of connected private rooms, for the mem- bers have the privilege of building a two or three room bungalow near the main building, thus securing a privacy and exclusiveness very much to be desired. Ten of these cottages have already been erected and others are in the course of construction or under contemplation. The complete plans call for a main building, with three large wings, the east wing of which has already been built by Mr. Timken, and a hospital completely equipped with every modern apparatus. This building is now in course of construction and will have electric Turkish baths, a massage room, a modern operating room and many other conveniences and accessories. It will accommodate fifty people and will be so built that the capacity can easily be enlarged. Besides this the plans for the home call for an assembly hall and a work shop in which may be edited a newspaper of home interest, and they also provide for the erection of many other bungalows and for the laying out of a fine park on the land on which the home is built, adding the adjoining five acres to the property. Another excellent feature of the Fredericka Association is the contributory system of insurance, which credits to the subscriber any amount given, this money to be available for entrance money in the event of any such subscriber desiring to become a member later in life. Any respectable person is eligible to membership and is encouraged to help in the extension of the work and to take an active interest in the project. It is the policy of the association to build up a community of intelligent aged people, who will take an active interest in making the home all that the promoters plan to make it, and it is the desire of the directors that each member will take pride in the growth of the enterprise and volunteer to do all that he or she can to make the home comfortable and adequate in every particular.
As a preface to the little book published by the association setting forth the aims and purpose of the home is the following poem :
"A late lark twitters from the quiet skies- And from the west, Where the sun, his day's work ended, Lingers as in content, There falls on the old, gray city An influence luminous and serene, A shining peace."
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"So be my passing ! My task accomplished and the long day gone, My wages taken, and in my heart Some late lark singing, Let me gathered to the quiet west, The sundown splendid and serene."
This is the secret ambition of many of the men and women who have reached old age. There can be no finer or more splendid one and no work can be worthier or better than that which steadily and quietly promotes its accomplishment.
ED FLETCHER.
In the changing standards of modern times, in the fine successes which men are achieving, in the development of cities, we are apt to lose sight of the primal influence in all attainment. Many opinions have been advanced concerning which quality above all others has the most effect upon that prosperity which places a man above his fellows and which through the individual reaches the multitude and effects general advancement, expansion and progress, but these many ques- tions have found their answer in the career of Ed Fletcher, gratefully and lov- ingly known to the people of San Diego as "Colonel Ed." The keynote of success is imagination. It exceeds in importance the other qualities of honesty, tact, shrewdness, foresight, tenacity of purpose, system and makes a man capable of planning on a large scale and doing large things. Mr. Fletcher owes his present prominence to his possession of this invaluable quality, for Colonel Ed is a dreamer of dreams, which he possesses the ability to make come true. He is one of the most extensive landowners in southern California, is called "the road builder" in recognition of the many miles of fine roads which he has planned and constructed and has been connected with more transactions in California lands than can be remembered.
Mr. Fletcher was born in Littleton, Massachusetts, on December 31, 1872, a son of Charles Kimball Fletcher, of that city. When Mr. Fletcher of this review was only two years of age his father moved to Worcester, Massachusetts, and thence to Boston, and finally to Ayer, where the family remained for three years. Mr. Fletcher grew up in different parts of Massachusetts and received his education in the public schools of the state. When he was fifteen years of age, however, he determined to seek his own fortune and, accordingly, crossed the continent to the Pacific coast, landing in San Diego with six dollars and ten cents in his pockets.
From the time Mr. Fletcher settled in San Diego he has made continuous advancement in the business world. A spirit of romance and a poetic instinct, which are forceful qualities in his character, have not in any way hindered his material success but have rather promoted it, since they have found expression in the development of beautiful view places, subdivisions and cities. However, his original capital was very small and he took the most effective method of saving it by depositing five dollars of it in the San Diego Savings Bank in San Diego, and
Ed Fletcher
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in the transaction making for himself a lifelong friend in M. T. Gilmore, the cashier. Mr. Fletcher's first position in San Diego was in the employ of Nason & Company, with whom he worked until he was twenty-two years of age. In that year he returned east and was there married. When he returned to San Diego he borrowed fifteen hundred dollars from J. E. Fishburn, the cashier of the First National Bank, and with this as a working capital started in the com- mission business with Omer C. Smith. In six months he bought out his partner and organized the Ed Fletcher Company. Three years later Mr. Doyle was ad- mitted to partnership and the name changed to the Fletcher-Doyle Company. After four years Mr. Fletcher decided that this business did not give him the necessary scope for his activities and he became connected with the Huntington interests as their agent in various transactions in San Diego county, such as the San Luis Rey water project and the purchasing of the coast lands of the South Coast Land Company. To this he added the general real-estate business and formed a partnership with William Gross. Together they bought Grossmont and Mount Helix, both of which are now owned by Mr. Fletcher alone. He planned improvements and carried them out along modern lines, building fourteen miles of beautiful boulevard road, which winds around the hills and affords to the motorist wonderful views of valleys, hills, mountains, city and the distant bay and ocean. At the time this project was completed the people of San Diego called Grossmont "Fletcher's Folly," but the success of the enterprise soon convinced even the most skeptical of Mr. Fletcher's real ability. The next enterprise in which he was interested was the designing and laying out of Del Mar, which is now one of the most picturesque places on the Pacific coast. As agent for the F. & W. Thum Company Mr. Fletcher built the Thum block and was also a partner with Frank Salmons and together they built the four-story block now occupied by the Holzwasser Company at Sixth and D.streets. Mr. Fletcher has had other important business connections in conjunction with George Marston, U. S. Grant, M. T. Gilmore and others. He bought and laid out Pine Hills, of which he owns twelve hundred acres southwest of Julian, and has there erected an attractive hotel, known as Pine Hills Inn and many cottages. With a syndicate composed of C. A. Canfield, James A. Murray, M. T. Gilmore, F. and W. Thum he owns about four thousand additional acres, constituting all the land between Detrick's and Cuyamaca lake. The lake is the property of the Cuyamaca Water Company, of which Messrs. Murray and Fletcher are the sole owners. Mr. Fletcher has now a drive through the pines from Pine Hills to Cuyamaca almost completed. The Murray Hill tract is another important enterprise with which he is at present connected. As one of a syndicate of twenty men he has purchased forty thousand acres in lower California and owns many hundreds of acres of land on the mesa, on old Palomar, has eight hundred acres near Eagles Nest, back of Warner's Hot Springs, and besides this controls a large amount of busi- ness and residence property in the city. He is now erecting his own office build- ing on Eighth street opposite the Library building. In partnership with Owen Wister he has purchased a tract of several thousand acres east of the El Cajon valley and this he plans to lay out in tracts of moderate size suitable for fine country homes. Mr. Fletcher has superintended the construction of more than sixty miles of fine roads in the various tracts in which he is interested and has well earned his title of a "road builder." However, all of the work of his past
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life is only preliminary to the accomplishment of his one great ambition-to bring water from the Santa Ysabel, Paumo and San Luis Rey water sheds to the thousands and thousands of acres of land in this county now without means of irrigation. The mesa lands in San Diego county across Mission valley lie in an almost frostless climate and would make an ideal location for citrus fruit ranches and winter vegetable farms if they have the necessary water. They are the more valuable from the fact that in the whole of southern California there are only one hundred and ten thousand acres planted in these fruits. Mr Fletcher considers that it is possible to irrigate sixty thousand acres more and thus secure an untold benefit for the city and county of San Diego.
Mr. Fletcher's wife was in her maidenhood Miss Mary C. Batchelder. Their acquaintance began when they were still children going to school and had its inception in a romantic incident which resulted some years afterward in their marriage. They have eight children, Katherine, Edward, Charles, Lawrence, Willis, Stephen, Ferdinand and Mary Louise.
Mr. Fletcher is president of the San Diego Associated Charities and was an organizer and is now interested in the Southern Trust & Savings Bank. He has won eminent success in business ; he has influenced the growth of the state of California ; has built up and developed San Diego; his splendidly trained mind has steadily grasped the needs of his city and state; his imagination has found a remedy for these needs and his shrewd business foresight has worked out the plan ; his prosperity has been great, his service greater, but both are secondary in importance to the methods and standards which have influenced them-the loyalty, the honor, the public spirit, the purpose broader than individual attainment. Mr. Fletcher has also won friends-friends who are bound to him by his optimism, his cheerful outlook and his friendly and genial qualities-and he has gained their real love and grateful remembrance. There can be no truer success.
CHARLES F. O'NEALL.
Valuable business experience along various lines combines with native shrewd- ness, iron energy, irrepressible optimism and old-fashioned honesty and industry to make the life work of Charles F. O'Neall important not only as an individual success as counted by financial returns but even more so in relation to its effects upon the growth and welfare of San Diego, which has been his field of operation and his home since 1906. Young in years, he has become an acknowledged factor in real-estate circles here and in his line of business, which in its nature is more or less promotional, effecting and benefiting general conditions, has become one of the leading men of the city. He has left a deep impress upon affairs touched by his activities, be it of a commercial nature or of public interest, and even the social life of the city in its lighter vein has felt his stimulating influ- ence. His business is naturally guided by a policy of expansion, creating values and wealth, and he has therein attained a position in the city and among its people which may well be envied by one who was to achieve the same result in a long career of success.
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Charles F. O'Neall was born on November 12, 1875, in Birdville, in the Lone Star state, which seems to have endowed him as a birthday gift with that aggressiveness of spirit and ruggedness of nature typical of that great borderland of the west. It may be said that he was born with the Texan spirit and that it has carried him to success. His parents were James M. and Annie E. O'Neall natives of Tennessee and Kentucky. Charles F. O'Neall attended the public schools of Dallas, Texas, and after bidding vale to schoolroom and studies sought and found a position in a general merchandise establishment, where he became acquainted with the various lines of goods handled, with the buying and selling end of the business and commercial principles in general. He abandoned thiis position to enter upon a term of employment with a book store in the same city and there acquired an additional amount of education, rounding out the learning he had received in school. In Midland, Texas, he again became connected with the mercantile business but shortly thereafter took up stock-raising-that industry which virtually put on the map the great state of Texas. He was for years active in this connection and on March 3, 1906, made another removal, coming to San Diego. Having gathered valuable experience in various business pursuits, he at once sought his opportunity, after coming to this fast-growing land of the western slope, and decided upon the real-estate business as his life work. That he made a wise selection is thoroughly proven by his subsequent success and the prominence he has attained in the business world of this city. Energy and innate ability led the way, and as all his deals were guided by absolute honesty and integrity, he has succeeded in building up a realty business which is second to none in the city. He made himself acquainted with local conditions and values and carefully studied his field of operation, and today his judgment is widely respected and his advice sought and heeded. He has become an authority upon the subject of real estate not only in the city but also in the surrounding country, and he has induced outside capital and investors to interest themselves in a number of propositions hereabout to the great benefit of the locality. In doing this he has been one of the most powerful instruments in promoting the growth and expansion of the city and the district. He himself is financially interested in various land propositions and is the secretary of the West Side Land Coni- pany. He is also a promoter and part owner of Dixieland in Imperial county, California. The foremost position Mr. O'Neall occupies among the realty men of the city cannot be better illustrated than by the fact that he at present serves as president of the San Diego Realty Board, to which position he was elected for the terni from 1911 to 1913.
On May 14, 1900, Mr. O'Neall was married at Midland, Texas, to Miss Annie May Townsend, a daughter of S. E. and Sue E. Townsend, the former of whom was extensively interested in the stock business in Texas. He special- ized in raising high-grade Hereford and Durham cattle and became well known in this relation among those who are interested in that industry. To Mr. and Mrs. O'Neall were born three children: Ella Norine, Annie May and Charles F., Jr. The family attend the Christian church.
Although the business interests of Mr. O'Neall are extensive, he finds time to devote to other interests. Public-spirited and deeply interested in the welfare of the city, he has been a member in the municipal government, serving on the board of fire commissioners under Mayor John F. Forward. He is democratic
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in his political affiliations and occupies a prominent place in the local councils of that dominating party, serving with efficiency and circumspection as chairman of the democratic county central committee, and it was under his chairmanship and greatly due to his vigorous efforts that San Diego was carried for Wilson and Marshall during the recent presidential election. He also is chairman of the democratic congressional committee of the eleventh district, which he has so ably organized that he has been able to elect a democratic congressman therefrom. His political activities, however, only form a phase of his outside interests, his activities as a promoter of commercial expansion being equally important and dear to him, and beside serving as president of the San Diego Realty Board, as above mentioned, he fills the important position of director of the Chamber of Commerce, making his influence felt in every relation that might contribute to bring about a more rapid growth and commercial development. There is also a military chapter in the life history of Mr. O'Neall, for he served in the Dallas (Texas) Artillery Company when in that city in 1896. Mr. O'Neall has attained high rank in the Masonic order, having reached the thirty-second degree, and he is also a Shriner. His other fraternal relations include membership in the Odd Fellows, the Elks and the Knights of Pythias, while he seeks recreation and purely social intercourse at the Cuyamaca and Cabrillo Clubs. Vigorous and decisive, Mr. O'Neall's actions and activities speak for themselves and redound to his credit and honor, and it seems trite to mention that his advent in the city of San Diego and his subsequent participation in its commercial and public life in its various relations has been of such far-reaching effect and benefit that it cannot be too highly estimated.
ALPHEUS N. GASTON.
The rapid development of San Diego in the past two or three decades has given excellent opportunities to real-estate dealers and has attracted to the city a class of enterprising men who in handling realty interests here are con- tributing in substantial measure to the upbuilding and improvement of the district along lines which not only contribute to its material development but also to its adornment., These men encourage in every way, city building accord- ing to the most modern and approved methods, and their labors have been a most important cooperative factor therein. A well known and prominent representa- tive of this class of men is Alpheus N. Gaston, who was born in Sheet Harbour, Halifax county, Nova Scotia, on the 23d of July, 1878, and is a son of Wallace W. and Melissa Gaston. The parents removed to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, with their family in 1888, and there the son attended the public schools until he reached the age of fourteen, when he started out in the business world on his own account, securing a position as clerk in a hotel. He was thus employed for a year, after which he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, and for three years acted as clerk in the Windsor Hotel of that city. He next settled in Chicago and entered into business relations with the Wetson & Little Art Company, which he represented upon the road as a traveling salesman for two years. Returning to Eau Claire, Wiscon- sin, he then organized the Ideal Art Company, of which he became the president,
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but after two years sold out. He next entered into partnership with F. B. Simonds, a manufacturer of art medallions, and under the firm style of Gaston & Simonds, medallion manufacturers, the business was continued until 1905, when the senior partner sold his interest. In that year he returned to his native city, where he opened the Central Roller Skating Rink, which he conducted for one year and then sold, for he had heard the call of the west and in 1906 made his way to San Diego. For a year following his arrival he was manager of the Auditorium Skating Rink in this city, after which he spent a year as salesman with the Columbia Realty Company. He severed that connection to become a partner of Jolin Fitzpatrick in the real-estate business, under the firm name of Fitzpatrick & Gaston, but after two years he sold out and embarked in the real-estate business on his own account under the name of the A. N. Gaston Company. Six months later he admitted Ed Dehm to a partnership that was continued for one year, when Mr. Dehm withdrew and Mr. Gaston was joined by Mr. Carlisle under the firm style of Gaston & Carlisle, which still main- tains. They handle city property of all kinds and have exclusive control over the Gaston & Dehm tract, the Olive Hill tract, the Montrose tract and the Combination land tract. They have placed upon the market some fine additions to the city and have been instrumental in promoting the development of various beautiful residential districts.
On the 12th of December, 1902, in St. Paul, Minnesota, was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Gaston and Miss Lena Priebe. They have become parents of four children, as follows: Norton and Edward, who are eight and six years of age respectively and attend public school; Bernice, who is four years old; and Jerome, one year of age.
Mr. Gaston is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and also has membership relations with the Knights of the Maccabees. He votes with the republican party and keeps well informed on the questions and issues of the day but is not ambitious for office. His religious belief is indicated in his membership in the Presbyterian church. In the years of his residence in San Diego he has gained a wide acquaintance socially as well as in business con- nections and has won the friendship and warm regard of many with whoni he has been associated. He is recognized as a man of enterprise and ambition whose labors are of a character that contribute to public prosperity as well as to individual success. Starting out in life on his own account when but fourteen years of age, he has never been afraid of earnest, persistent labor and that close application which must underlie all business advancement. He stands as a high type of the American business man, alert and energetic, whose utiliza- tion of opportunities has led him continually forward to the goal of success.
JAMES JACKSON, M. D.
Dr. James Jackson has attained prominence in medical circles in San Diego remarkable for one of his age and his success must be largely accredited to innate ability, a brotherly spirit of helpfulness and an excellent medical training received both in American and European schools.' His practice is largely among the best
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people of the city and among his most noted patients may be mentioned Father Horton, whom he attended during his last illness-the man to whom all San Diego owes such a great debt of deep gratitude. Dr. Jackson is a native of Iowa, his birth occurring in the city of Council Bluffs on January 7, 1879. His parents were Andrew Milton and Cornelia Jackson. He received his profes- sional training in the University of Missouri and Jefferson College of Pennsyl- vania, and graduated from the University of California in 1903. In 1907 and 1908 he took thorough post-graduate courses in the famous schools and hospitals of London and Vienna, where he studied the methods of some of the most eminent men in the profession. Returning from Europe he came direct to San Diego where he has received that recognition among his fellow practitioners and the general public which is his due on account of his experience. His suc- cess has been rapid and his practice has not only resulted in gratifying financial returns to himself but has been of distinct benefit to the many who have employed his services in time of trouble and sickness. Dr. Jackson is of a genial nature and inspires that confidence which plays such an important role in bringing about recovery. He is careful in diagnosis and seems to be guided by an intui- tion which makes him do the right thing at the right time. He is kind-hearted and patient and yet in cases of emergency acts decisively when needed. There seem to exist no outside interests to occupy his attention and it may be truly said of him that he is wedded to his profession. He is a deep student not only of books but of human nature and keeps in touch with all the latest methods and discoveries made in the world of science pertaining to his profession. He seeks distinction only in his life work and his only fraternal connections consist of memberships in the San Diego County Medical Society, the California State Medical Society and the American Medical Association, in which relations he exchanges his views on topics of importance with his colleagues to mutual advan- tage. Judging from his present attainments Dr .. Jackson bids fair to attain eminence in his chosen occupation in which center all of his interests.
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