Merced County
Biographies
JOSEPH LOUIS PERRY
A well-known dairy farmer in the Livingston section of Merced County is Joseph Louis Perry, who owns one of the best appointed dairies of forty-six acres to be found in this section. He was born on the Island of Tuchido, of the Azores group, on April 14, 1876, a son of J. L. Perry, a soap maker who had married Emila Augusta Dutra, and they had three children; Joseph Louis; Samuel S., still in the Azores; and Emila Augusta, also at home. The father died in 1880 at the age of forty-three years. Mrs. Perry passed away in February, 1923, aged sixty-six, at her old home.
Joseph L. Perry, our subject, learned the blacksmith's trade in his native country and when he was twenty-five he came to America and California, arriving in San Francisco in October, 1901. He went to Sausalito and the next day after his arrival secured a job in a blacksmith shop, continuing there for a year. He then went to Oakland and bought out a restaurant, which he later disposed of and went to work for wages as a cook; he was cook and general employer for the Oakland Y. M. C. A. for nearly two years. On account of ill health Mr. Perry had to seek outside work and he came to Livingston and bought his ranch and has been active in its development ever since. His improvements are all of the best and have been put there by himself or under his direction. He has a bungalow house surrounded by a fine lawn and shade trees and shrubbery, and has a family orchard, a large dairy and cow-barn, milking sheds and the various yards and sheds needed on an up-to-date dairy farm. He has two good wells sufficient for his domestic needs and for his stock, an eighty-ton silo, tanks, troughs etc., all of which show the master mind who directed the laying-out and building of the home place. In his herd he has a registered Holstein bull, and also young stock.
Joseph L. Perry was married in San Francisco in 1910, to Mrs. Maria Lewis, widow of Frank Lewis, of Gloucester, Mass., and daughter of Martinho Costa, born on the Island of Pico, where he was a farmer and where his daughter was also born. She came to America when a young girl and was married in Massachusetts to Mr. Lewis, by whom she had three children: Frank E.; Marie, wife of Frank Golart of Livingston; and Henry, at home. Mr. Perry is a member of the U. P. E. C. Society.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 789-790
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
REV. SOREN EMANUEL SORENSEN
Among the ministers of the Gospel in Merced County, none is more widely known or more successful in his chosen calling than Rev. Soren Emanuel Sorensen, who is serving as pastor to the newly established congregations of the Lutheran faith at Waterford, Stevinson and other places and by the sterling traits which distinguish his character has won the esteem of all with whom he comes in contact. He was born in Norway, on December 1, 1849, a son of Soren Torinessen Gjerdal and Elisabeth Katerina Sorensen, born in Minnesota. When Rev. Sorensen came to the United States he settled in Minneapolis, Minn., and there studied theology at the Augsburg Theological Seminary; later he was duly ordained as a minister in the United Norwegian Lutheran Church and held several important pastorates before coming to California in 1903.
Rev. and Mrs. Sorensen are the parents of ten children, all born in Minnesota: Elizabeth, Mrs. L. F. Peterson; Camille, Mrs. Floyd Stevinson and the mother of Anita, Deta Dell, James, Samuel, and Soren Sorensen; Soren C., who married Ida Ness and is the father of three children, Loren, Soren C., Jr., and Floydine; Hulda, Mrs. E. H. Williams and the mother of Mercedes, Luther Wallace and Elmer H., Jr.; Luther, who married Maude Fox and has three children, Bernice, Georgia and Luella Maude; Joseph, who married Gertrude Pedrotte; Tonnis Oscar, who married Theresa Pollick and has two children, Garland and Margaret; Emma, wife of Harry Cochran and mother of Anna May, Dorothy and Elizabeth; Martin, proprietor of Sorensen and Co., in Livingston; Anna, who married Lars Mattson and has two children, William and Betty Ann. Reverend Sorensen, with the help of his sons, has developed a fine ranch in Merced County, consisting of forty acres located about ten miles west of Livingston, where he makes his home.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 790-791
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
JOHN BAISA
The success of the San Joaquin Concrete Pipe Company at Chowchilla is due in no small part to the energy and expert direction of John Baisa, who is one-third owner of three factories, at Chowchilla, Livingston and Herndon. A more detailed account of the company is given in another place in this book; suffice to say here that it has a capacity of a mile a day of excellent pipe for irrigating, drainage and sewerage which endures the celebrated "Hi-Test."
Mr. Baisa is of Spanish-Mexican blood and was born in Texas in 1887, and he came to California in 1901. His parents, Catarins and Remigia Baisa, reside in Livingston and he lives with them as he is still unmarried. He began very early to work for this company and has been with it continuously up to the present and has become a highly efficient expert in laying concrete pipe. He personally attends to the outside work and has from four to twelve men under him. Politically he supports the men and measures of the Republican party.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 791
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler
SAMUEL J. ANET
A prosperous rancher of Merced County, who came here to the United States from his faraway home in Switzerland, when a boy of seventeen, and has made good in his chosen line of work, Mr. Anet, entirely unaided, has reached a position in life above the average, and can look back at his early struggles with pride in the fact that he surmounted all obstacles by hard work, unceasing thrift, and the combining of both with intelligent management. A native of Aigle, which is situated six miles east of beautiful Lake Geneva in Canton Vaud, Switzerland, he was the second of seven children born to Henry Vincent and Anna (Blanc) Anet, the former born in 1842, and died in 1917, and the latter born in 1843, and died October 30, 1908. There were seven children: Louis, Sam, Rosine, Fanny, Alice, Alfred and Benjamin. Both parents were of well established families in Switzerland, who had four centuries earlier fled from France during the persecution of people of their belief as French Huguenots, and took up their life again in Switzerland, where today their descendants have made beautiful the natural resources of the Rhone Valley, and there is where "Sam" Anet was reared. Of the well-to-do class, his father was a foremost authority on viticulture in his day, and owned and operated large vineyards.
Sam. J. attended the public and high school of his home place, receiving at the latter the benefit of thorough courses in literature. He worked on his father's property during harvest, a busy time, and also in the making of choice white wines from the small white wine grape, usually producing 800 gallons of liquid per acre. They also conducted a dairy, and were occupied in cheese and butter making. During the summer months, he went with the herders to the higher altitudes on the mountain slopes, returning in October. His brother, Louis, served twenty-five years as gendarme in Switzerland, but is now retired. Sam decided to come to the larger republic of the United States, and sailed, via Havre, on the Steamship La France, crossed the Atlantic, and arrived in New York May 27, 1883. He went direct to Knoxville, Tenn., to a countryman of his named Buffet, who owned large ranch property six miles out of that city. Saving all he could out of his earnings of $8.00 per month, after three years he made his way to Texas, where he earned $40.00 per month, working in the cotton fields. There he was stricken with fever, and was obliged to return to Knoxville. On regaining his health, he entered the employ of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia railway, and after three years on the road as fireman, brakeman, etc., he entered the main shops of the company, where were employed 600 men, and worked at the bench.
In May, 1893, Mr. Anet moved with his family to California, located at Merced, and soon after went to work in the Grange Company's warehouse, then in charge of W. L. Turner. That fall he went into the flour mill of the Merced Milling Company, where for the next nine years he was foreman; it was while in charge of the mill that the name of just "Sam" was given him, an appellation which has remained his since that time; all knew Sam and Sam knew everyone while in the mill.
In the meantime he invested his savings in land around Merced, and now owns some very desirable property. His first buy was eight acres of Southern Pacific railway land on the edge of south Merced, where now stands his home, rebuilt since 1908, when it was a fire loss. He has added thirty-four acres to the original acreage, and has fig and peach trees now bearing which are twenty-five years old. He also owns other residence property in Merced, and his unbounded faith in this district still grows, for he has never regretted his decision to settle in this fertile district. Twenty years ago he conducted a city retail milk route from his small dairy; the town has grown to three times its size since that date.
The marriage of Mr. Anet, which occurred December 31, 1889, at Knoxville, Tenn., united him with Miss Alice E. Hoffer, a native of Knoxville, and daughter of Rev. W. A. and Susan (Smith) Hoffer, descendants of old families of planters in the South. Before her marriage, Mrs. Anet taught in the high school for fifteen years. Three children have blessed the union of Mr. and Mrs. Anet: Henry L., born in Tennessee, served in the Ordinance Department during the World War as sergeant, and was absent about eighteen months from Merced; he married Miss Rosina Collins, of Hornitos, daughter of Supervisor Collins of Mariposa County. Eugene E., the second child, died at the age of five years; Ann Eleanor, now Mrs. Earl Kittrell of San Jose, has one son, Robert Sheldon.
Mr. Anet received his citizenship papers at Merced, in 1901, and he has always taken an active interest in public affairs and advancement; for the past fifteen years, he has served as county roadmaster of district No. 2.
History of Merced County, California – Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 1925
page 791-793
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler