Alameda County
Biographies
ALEXANDER FRIEDMAN.
Alexander Friedman is senior partner in the Yosemite Wine Company. A native of Oakland, he attended the public and high schools, passing through consecutive grades until graduated at the age of seventeen years. He then engaged with Fibush Brothers, wholesale tobacconists, in the position of salesman and so continued for four years, at the end of which time he resigned and embarked in the retail cigar business at Thirteenth and Washington streets. There he continued until February, 1913, when he and his brother, Morris Friedman, bought out the interests of the Yosemite Wine Company and are now engaged in the wholesale and retail liquor and cigar business. They also have a branch store at No. 488 Seventh street. They are very successful and conduct a high class business, catering to the best people around the bay. Their patronage is now extensive and each month marks an increase in their trade.
Mr. Friedman was married in Oakland in 1902 to Miss Lydia H. Meyers, and they have two children, Verna and Harold. Mr. Friedman is well known in Oakland, where he has spent his entire life and where he has a circle of friends that includes many that have known him from his boyhood to the present.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 298
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
ERGO ALEXANDER MAJORS, M. D.
Dr. Ergo Alexander Majors, whose suite of offices is in the new Dalziel building of Oakland, was born in Santa Cruz, California, June 2, 1877. He had a cousin, Joseph Majors, who settled in that city in 1843, while his great-grandfather, Benjamin Majors, came to the Golden state in 1850 and was one of three who died on the banks of the San Joaquin with cholera in that year. His grandfather, Alexander Majors, instituted the famous Pony express, which he owned and ran, in April, 1860. Dr. Majors' father is Greene Majors, who wended his way to this peerless commonwealth in 1873 and here married Miss Cora C. Reese in 1875. It is thus seen that Dr. Majors is very thoroughly Californian through early family association as well as by birth.
As a boy he showed such a consuming curiosity in studying the anatomy of crabs, birds, gophers and other representatives of animal life at every opportunity that his parents were constrained to enter him in the medical department of the University of California, from which he received his professional degree in 1902. At the close of his college course he entered upon country practice, riding over the hills and through the valleys for five years and gaining the experience that can be obtained in no other way. In 1907 he drove his stakes in Oakland as his permanent home. Since coming to this city Dr. Majors has taken his well earned position in the front ranks of his profession both as a surgeon and physician, acquiring a practice in both that is at once enviable and very lucrative.
Dr. Majors was married September 7, 1902, to Miss Anna Belle Rader, of Siskiyou county, and three lovely children have blessed their union. Dr. Majors spent a number of his boyhood years in the lovely city of Alameda, where he attended the public school and where his parents have lived for the past twenty-three years.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 298
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
HARRY S. ANDERSON.
Harry S. Anderson, creditably filling the position. of commissioner of public works of Oakland and prominently connected with mercantile interests of the city as the proprietor of a large carpet business, was born in Oakland, September 3, 1877, and has spent his entire life here. Following the completion of a public-school education he entered the carpet business with his father, S. Anderson, and has been connected with this line of work since that time. His present enterprise was established in the old Masonic Temple building, whence after three years it was removed to 1114 Broadway. There it remained for twelve years and at the end of that time was moved to its present location at No. 405 Thirteenth street. Mr. Anderson gives a great deal of his time and attention to the conduct of this concern and, thoroughly understanding the business in principle and detail, has met with gratifying and well deserved success. In 1911 he was elected commissioner of public works of Oakland, and he has since filled this important position, giving to the city a businesslike administration. He has charge of the construction work on the new two million dollar city hall, the development work on the water front, the construction of all new schoolhouses and full direction of all matters pertaining to wharves, docks and shipping, these being some of the most important enterprises within the control of the municipal government.
On the 23d of April, 1901, Mr. Anderson was united in marriage to Miss Edna Frances Camp of Oakland, and both are well and favorably known in social circles. Mr. Anderson is a stanch republican, and although this is his first elective office, he has been active in politics for some years past. He was secretary of the county republican central committee of Alameda county, secretary of the Seventh Ward Republican Club and of the last state republican committee's convention under the old regime, before the direct primary law went into effect. He is well known in fraternal circles, being a member of the Elks and all the branches of the Masonic order, besides holding membership in the Moose, the Owls, the Fraternal Brotherhood of America, the Royal Arcanum and other representative fraternities. He also enjoys the distinction of holding the position of "speaker of the senate" of the National Union, which is the third highest gift of the order in the United States. He is one of the most active men in the city in furthering the cause of athletics and is one of the directors of the Oakland Baseball Association. He is a man of energy, resource and capacity and whether in business, official or social relations holds the good-will and confidence of all who are associated with him.
Past & Present of Alameda County, California – Vol II, S. J. Clarke Publ. Co., 1914
p. 301
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler