Merced County
Biographies
ELGIN EVANS
No names are more worthy to record on the pages of history than the names of those who are producers of the means of subsistence. To that class belongs Elgin Evans who, for thirty-five years, was one of the largest grain producers of Stanislaus and Merced Counties. Strong, active, intelligent and public-spirited, it is to such men as he that California owes the development of her resources.
The fifth in a family of ten children, Elgin Evans was born in Mineral Point, Wis., on May 7, 1866. His father, John Ewell Evans, a native of Ohio, was one of the pioneer California gold miners. He returned to Wisconsin and married there Margaret Jane Davis, a native of Illinois. Her father, Ephraim Davis, a native of Wales, was a trapper who came to southern Wisconsin while Chief Black Hawk held sway. He crossed the plains and was a frontiersman in California. Grandfather and grandmother Evans were both born in Wales, and the former crossed the plains twice in the early days, but went back to Mineral Point, where he died in 1871, at the age of eighty-seven. His wife followed him at the age of eighty-three. Elgin Evans' father died when the son was six years old, and three years later his mother married J. H. Haskell. Then the family came via the Union and Central Pacific Railroads to California and settled first in Alameda County and in 1878 removed to Merced County. From that time on Elgin Evans farmed in Stanislaus and Merced Counties; the very first year he raised 30,000 sacks of grain, 23,000 of which were oats.
In 1890 Elgin Evans was married to Miss Wilhelmina Rosenquist, a native of Sweden, a dutiful wife and loyal helpmate who has borne her husband four children, as follows: Edwin Chester, who lives in Merced, married Miss Mercedes McNamara, a native of Merced County, and they have one child, Maryle Renett; Clara Ethyel became the wife of Frank Pelton Montgomery, has one child, Norine, and lives in Hollywood, Cal; Herby Elgin married Mamie Souza of Merced and has one son, Herby Elgin, Jr., and resides in Long Beach, Cal.; Gladys Elvira is a student in the Livingston High School. Fraternally, Mr. Evans is a member of the Masons, the Odd Fellows and the Elks lodges of Merced. In politics he is a progressive Republican. He is a Methodist, while Mrs. Evans adheres to the Lutheran faith in which she was reared. Mr. Evans quit grain farming in 1923, after he had raised 23,000 sacks of barley the previous year. He lost two harvesters and a caterpillar tractor by fire; and the price of farm machinery having increased while the price of grain had decreased, he thought it was a good time to retire.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 777-778
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
FRITZ E. OLSON
A thorough-going business man and the owner and proprietor of a paying grocery business in Livingston is Fritz E. Olson, who started in business in 1913 in the Wilson Building, then located south of the railroad tracks; in 1923 Mr. Olson moved his stock into the Walter B. Ward building, which is centrally located, and the business is gradually increasing in volume each month. Mr. Olson was born in Sweden, March 11, 1887, and was a babe in arms when he accompanied his parents to the United States. The family located at Riley, Kan., where the father managed the large creamery interests for the Continental Creamery Company of Topeka, Kan.; later he established a separator and ice business in connection, which was his own private property. Six children were born in this family, but only three reached maturity: Fritz E. our subject; Ales H., a rancher at Livingston; and Arnold A. The father passed away in Kansas January 4, 1907, aged fifty-two years.
Fritz E. Olson was attending the Grand Island Normal College, where he was pursuing the commercial course when his father passed away; he left school and returned home to take charge of the creamery and ice business. In 1908 the business was sold and the family removed to Merced County, Cal., where they bought forty acres of land on the Cressey Road which is now within the city limits of Livingston. Mr. Olson and his brothers engaged in dairying and farming for the next five years, but our subject secured a position as bookkeeper and cashier with the Star Meat Company in Turlock, after his first year on the farm. He was next connected with the Fresno Republican until he started his present business in 1913.
At Livingston in 1910, Mr. Olson was married to Miss Hazel Grinstead, born in Kansas, a daughter of Newton P. Grinstead, who was well known in Livingston and who passed away in January, 1925, aged sixty-four. They have a son, Harold Olson. Mr. Olson ranks with the citizens to whom much credit is due for the influence they exert for the moral welfare of the community.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 778-779
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
DAVID BENNETT
Among the active and able officials of Livingston is David Bennett, city marshal of Livingston and constable of the Fifth township of Merced County ; he also acts as deputy sheriff under T. A. Mack. He is a fearless officer who performs his duties promptly, according to law, asking no favors and granting none. His birth occurred in Jackson County, Oregon, July 2, 1873. His father, G. W. Bennett, was born in New York State and came to Oregon and then to California, where he mined in Amador County, and where he was married the first time, by which union there was one daughter, who is now deceased. He later located at Cressey, which was renamed Livingston. His second marriage, at Snelling, united him with Miss Elizabeth Cheidester, daughter of David Cheidester, born in Virginia, from an early family. David Cheidester removed from Virginia to Iowa and from Iowa he crossed the plains to California in 1850 and became a farmer at Snelling. There were thirteen children born of this union, eleven of whom are now living: Dora, David, Daniel, Mabel, Susie, Myra, Sylvia, Wesley, George, Lizzie, and May. Two children died in infancy.
At the age of eighteen David Bennett left the family home and came to Livingston and at first worked on various farms throughout Merced County; then he leased land and farmed for fourteen years, when he purchased his present home place of ten acres just outside the city limits of Livingston, which is devoted to raising alfalfa.
On January 11, 1894, Mr. Bennett was married to Miss Amanda Willhoit, a daughter of Benjamin Willhoit, a farmer now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett are the parents of five children; Myrtle is the wife of B. F. Johnson residing in Yakima, Wash; Violet is the wife of R. G. Rhodes of Livingston; Elsie is now Mrs. C. L. Benoni residing at Tia Juana, Mexico; Floyd; and one boy is now deceased. Mr. Bennett is a Democrat in politics and at the regular election in 1922 was elected marshal of Livingston. Mrs. Bennett is a regular attendant at the Episcopal Mission Church in Livingston.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 779-780
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler