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by Alane K. Dashner
We drive on them every day. We roll through Woodbridge as if it were just a suburb of Lodi. Our eyes flick past that old cemetery on the east side of Lower Sacramento Road. In this article, let’s visit with long-gone residents whose dreams, triumphs, and heartaches are over while their names live on. Turner Road: Frank Turner was a School Trustee In 1852, Missouri native Frank Turner crossed the overland route to California in hopes of striking it rich in the Placerville mines. Four years later he returned East for his wife, Louisiana native Victorine Ro-bicheaud Turner, and their children, this time return-ing by the Panama overland route. The family put down roots on 160 acres in Woodbridge. As a well-connected Freemason, Frank advocated for public education so strongly that in 1863 the new Turner School District was named after him. His school weathered floods and closures from diphtheria and scarlet fever before joining the Lodi Unified School District in the 1920s. Today from Lodi you can take Turner Road west to Ray Road to see the 1910 Turner School building on your right. By the US Census of 1880 Frank was no longer living on the family ranch. Frank and Victorine’s di-vorce was finalized on June 13, 1881. The Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery lists Frank as buried in an unmarked grave (plot 4.91) in 1880. Through the 1880s Victorine is seen in The Stockton Evening Mail as buying and selling Woodbridge real estate in her own name, confirming under California marital law that Frank was no longer alive, but no obituary for Frank is found. Victorine’s 1911 obituary says that she lived “a good and useful life” with no mention of Frank. Victorine and some of their children are also buried in plots 4.19 and 4.91 of the Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery. No descendants bearing the Turner name are known to be living in the Greater Lodi area. Kettleman Lane: David Kettelman was a Cattleman Born in Germany, David Kettelman sailed to New York and then the long way around Cape Horn to reach California in 1849. He had little luck in the Mokelumne Hill mines, then found success by partnering with Lodi’s Sylvester and James Tredway to transport hard-to-find mining equipment and supplies by bull-team from Stockton to San Andreas, Poverty Bar, and other mining towns. The partners purchased 7,400 acres west of Lodi and together traveled to Missouri to fetch cattle, horses, and gold-hungry drovers (cowboys who guide cattle over long distances). Thus began the Kettelman empire. Margaret Mehrten, also a native of Germany, was a cook and “house girl” for the Tredway family. David and Margaret married in 1864 and purchased their own cattle ranch with the lovely ten-room brick Sun-bonnet House on Cherokee Lane just north of today’s Kettleman Lane. (Note the spelling difference be-tween the family name and the street name.) A Freemason and an Oddfellow, David was a trustee for the Salem School District and also a founder of the Mokelumne Ditch & Irrigation Company, serving as its treasurer in 1875. David’s 1911 obituary says that he possessed nearly 3,000 acres and “a considerable fortune in securities, cash, and investments, all clear of indebtedness.” David and Margaret and many of their descendants are buried in Lodi Memorial Cemetery. Ham Lane: Professor Ham became Judge Ham William Jasper Ham was born in Iowa in 1850. He married Ellen Duke in 1872 and had one son, Fenton Mathias Ham. William graduated from Iowa’s Leander Clark College in 1877 and stayed on as a teacher before being admitted to the bar and practicing law in Cedar Rapids. The young family traveled to Wood-bridge around 1890 and sadly, Ellen soon died. William remarried Anna Hunter from Pennsylvania and they had a daughter, Hazel, in 1893. Anna quickly took the reins as hostess in William’s gracious home with orchard and six-acre vineyard “on the out-skirts of Lodi at the end of West Oak Street.” At the time, Lodi’s western boundary was the north-south street that today we call Ham Lane, previously named John Hutchins Road. We can surmise that the Hams’ house was approximately where the Zion Lutheran Church annex sits today. Anna joined the White Apron social club and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which was devoted to combating “the evil influence of alcohol.” A man of many talents, William opened a Lodi law practice and was on the faculty of Woodbridge’s San Joaquin Valley College for several years, serving as president of the College in 1894 and keeping the nickname of “Professor” for life. He became a leader in Lodi’s business community as a director of the San Joaquin County Table Grape Growers’ Association. He audited the books of the Lodi Fruit Products Company and sold Farmers’ Mutual Protective Fire Insurance. In keeping with Anna’s WCTU work, in 1903 it was written in the Lodi News-Sentinel that Professor Ham “does not believe in selling his grapes for wine-making.” In 1906 William was summoned for jury duty in Stockton’s infamous Emma LeDoux murder trial. He was excused before the trial started but she was found guilty of poisoning her husband, stuffing him inside a trunk, and attempting to ship his body away by train. That “murder trunk” is on display inside the Haggin Museum today. In 1909 William was appointed as Justice of Peace to serve out another judge’s term. Judge Ham ruled on serious cases such as theft and domestic abuse and also on minor cases that give insight into the times: He sentenced a polite vagrant known as “Rattle Snake Jack” to fifty days in the county jail, set bond when local boy Joe Bunch allegedly threw a firecracker that burned a hole in Byron DeForce’s trousers, and even fined a “cussing” Perry Gum $10 for speeding his “machine” (automobile) at least 20 miles per hour according to witnesses. In 1910 despite failing health and being confined to his bed, William ran for re-election. He lost and died one week later. William and Anna Ham are buried at Lodi Memorial Cemetery. Fenton Ham followed his father’s foot-steps as a Mason and business leader. He’s buried in plot 3.13 of Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery. William and Anna’s daughter, Hazel, married into Lodi’s Irey family and is buried with them at Lodi Memorial Cemetery. No descendants bearing the Ham name are known to be living in the Greater Lodi area today. Hutchins Street: The Hutchins Clan Ruled Real Estate In 1853, 19-year-old Canadian John Hutchins crossed the North American plains to the Placer County mines. With four partners John managed to buy much of what we consider Lodi before the name “Lodi” had been dreamed of. John owned the 73 acres immediately west of today’s Sacramento Street and north of today’s Lodi Avenue, and then he bought the next 190 acres westward between today’s Lodi Avenue and Pine Street. Having enticed the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1869 to route its tracks through Lodi instead of through Woodbridge, John began selling small parcels of his land to the new hoteliers, grocers, harness-makers, butchers, and saloon-keepers who are now called Lodi’s founders. As Lodi expanded west, a fortune flowed landowner John’s way. John married Mary Anna Nevin from Iowa in 1867. They had two sons and three daughters. Of them, Edward became the most actively engaged in local real estate. After being born at Buchanan Hospital (that building still stands at 408 E Pine Street) and working on the family ranch as a young man, Ed attended Woodbridge’s San Joaquin Valley College and St. Mary’s College at Oakland. In 1894 Ed married Ada Corbin, a West Virginia native. Ada had been working as a linotype operator at the Lodi Sentinel. In 1906 Ada was one of the spirited founders of Lodi’s Woman’s Club and when she added her own business acumen to her husband’s, the great financial partnership of Ed and Ada Hutchins was born. After his father’s death, Ed and Ada carved out 75 acres from the family ranch and vineyards to create Lodi’s Hutchins Oak Street Addition and the Hutchins High School Addition, which today includes Hutchins Street Square. In 1921 Ed and Ada built 705 W Oak Street as their private home. The house still stands today diagonally across S Rose Street from the Hutchins Street Square bandstand. After Ed’s death in 1951, Ada kept the family business going. He’d left her an estate that in today’s dollars was worth $3.2 million. At this point it included land both north and south of Lodi Avenue and even west of Ham Lane (formerly called John Hutchins Road). In 1955 Ada carved out and developed the “exclusive” Hutchins Sunset Park tract bordered east-west by Mills and Virginia Avenues and north-south by Lodi Avenue and Tokay Street. She created 143 large lots for “better homes,” laying out the main streets in a large “H” to honor her husband’s family. She named the cross-street Corbin Lane after her own family. She also owned the land south of her Hutchins Sunset subdivision. In November 1962 Ada sold the Vine- wood Elementary School site to the Woods School District Trustees for $5000 per acre despite subse-quent wrangling over the drainage pond that today is Vinewood Dog Park. Ada was very vocal at City Council and Planning Commission meetings as she advocated for her vision of what “better homes” would be. Many of Ada’s quarter-acre “better homes” still stand today, cherished by their current owners. The Hutchins clan is buried at Lodi Memorial Cemetery. Ed and Ada had no children, and of Ed Hutchins’s siblings, only his sister Katherine Hutchins Larson had children. Thus no descendants of John Sr. and Anna bearing the Hutchins name are known to be living in the Greater Lodi area today.
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Long before we dreamed of Lodi, Woodbridge was a thriving town on the Mokelumne River. Take a pleasant stroll to enjoy Lodi's roots in Woodbridge. Many of the sites described here are discussed more fully in the Lodi Historical Society newsletter from Fall 1996, Early Woodbridge. Most of the people mentioned on this self-guided Walking Tour are buried in the Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery – see map.
by Byron Bostwick and Alane K. Dashner 1. Site of the first St. Anne’s Catholic Church, whose bricks were later moved to Lodi’s N Sacramento Street by Giacomo Peirano to build his first store. See Spring 2003 issue. 2. Site of Burt & Ivory’s first store, in a building leased from Horace Bentley. 3. Site of Burt & Ivory’s second store. In 1869 John Burt and Charles Oscar Ivory moved their store to the northwest corner of Sacramento and Pine Streets in Lodi. See Winter 2004 issue. 4. Built in 1868, the house of George and Lenora Rutledge – see #13. (They are buried in plot 2.48.) 5. Built in 1898, the house of Amos and Emma McClelland (plot 2.30). Amos was a longtime conductor on the San Joaquin-Sierra Nevada Railroad. See Fall 1994 issue. 6. Site of the original cabin built by Jeremiah and Phebe Woods (plot 2.55) – approximately on the front lawn of the McClelland home. Jeremiah was the founder of this town, “Woods’s Bridge.” See Fall 1996 issue. 7. The 1861 Oddfellows’ Building, built by John Levinsky of “fireproof” brick as a one-story general merchandise store. The second story was added as an Oddfellows meeting hall in 1874. In the northside brickwork, note the bricked-up doors and stairwell. The large addition on the left side of the current front door was built in the early 1980s. 8. Site of Jeremiah and Phebe Woods’s family house. 9. Roscoe’s/Woodbridge Trading Post, built in the early 1900s. Now Woodbridge Florist. 10. Site where William Wilkinson shot the Woods’s dog. When Jeremiah confronted him in an unnamed saloon, a brawl took up and Woods was killed at age 43. 11. Built in 1865, the general merchandise store of Horace and Susan Bentley (plot 3.71). The family lived upstairs. Horace gave up his practice as a physician to focus on merchandising and served as Woodbridge’s Wells Fargo express agent. An ad for Woodbridge’s Globe Flour (see #26) can still be seen on the north side. Two boxcars were added on the south side in the 1970s. Now Woodbridge Crossing. 12. Today used as Edward Jones Insurance (right side, built 1899) and Hair Mill (left side, built 1883), this double building has been variously used as the Woodbridge Market, the Thompson & Folger Butcher Shop, and for other purposes. The cold storage is still visible inside. 13. The 1867 Rutledge store, used through the years to distribute illegal liquor during Prohibition (allegedy!), as a church, as Jack’s Pool Hall, and as the California Horse Review publishers. Today it is Woodbridge Uncorked. The nails visible on the southern exterior are from a former wooden addition. 14. Site of the McIntosh Blacksmith and Wagon Maker in 1880s. (E.J. “Mac” and Malancy McIntosh are buried in plot 2.20.) 15. Site of the McMurtry Hotel in 1880s. (Louis and Margaret McMurtry are buried in plot 1.16.) 16. Site of James (a butcher) and Mary Ann Folger’s house (plot 1.12). 17. The Woodbridge Freemasons’ second building was constructed in 1882 like a Gothic Revival fortress with header bricks every 6th row and heavy-duty east-west iron tie-rods. This building replaced an earlier Masons’ building near the river. 18. Woodbridge’s first fire station and self-standing post office, built 1947. The recent renovation still shows the brick entryways used by firewagons. 19. Site of the Plummer Hotel in the 1880s. (E.H. and Mary Plummer are buried in plots 3.29 and 3.52.) Now the Woodbridge Inn, built in 1920. It was raided many times during Prohibition. 20. Site of Edson’s livery stable, where horses and buggies could be rented. (Frank and Jessie Edson are buried in plot 1.32.) 21. Site of the house of butcher John (plot 2.47) and Caroline (Stockton Rural Cemetery) Thompson. 22. Site of Nevada State Asylum for the Insane, active from 1871 to 1877 when Nevada didn’t have its own mental health centers. After the asylum closed, the building became a boarding house and was then used by the San Joaquin Valley College as a dormitory. 23. Site of a Chinese laundry in the 1880s. 24. Site of Chinese dwellings in 1880s. 25. Woodbridge Irrigation headquarters, built in the 2000s. The original 1930 headquarters building, a small one-story with clay-tile roof, is directly across Lower Sacramento St. See Summer 2001 issue. 26. Site of Woodbridge Flour Mill, which produced Globe Flour. 27. The headgates of the Woodbridge Irrigation Canal, built in 1882 by Chinese labor. See Summer 2001 issue. It was here in 1891 during a great ceremony that Byron Beckwith opened the gates to irrigate the Delta. (Although Byron isn’t listed in the Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery’s official record, his May 4, 1904, funeral there was covered by several newspapers including the Stockton Evening Mail, right. Other Beckwiths are buried in plot 4.106.) 28. The pump station that sends Mokelumne River water to Lodi. 29. Railroad bridge for the San Joaquin and Sierra Nevada narrow-gauge railroad. See Fall 1994 issue. 30. Site of the Woodbridge Seminary 1879-1882 and San Joaquin Valley College 1882-1897. See Winter 2004 issue. Now Woodbridge Elementary School. 31. The Woodbridge Grange building, built in 1918 as the Brown School in Galt, moved to Woodbridge in 1939. 32. The Woodbridge Masonic Cemetery was often called simply “the Woodbridge Cemetery.” Once fenced to keep out cattle and now fenced to keep out vandals, the gate is open on Saturdays from 10am until 3pm. Firefighters "pressure wash" Museum/firehall's bricks in preparation for repointing the mortar6/10/2024   After the German invasion of Poland in 1939, US military officials recognized the possibility that America would soon join the European defense. In September 1941 the entire US National Guard, over 300,000 soldiers, was “called up,” meaning that members were reclassified from being civilians who maintained military preparedness part-time to being full-time, active-duty Army soldiers. With this prewar mobilization, the National Guard provided the War Department with a wealth of trained, deployable units. Many former National Guard members fought valiantly as Army soldiers at the Pearl Harbor attack and other conflicts.
The 1941 departure of California’s National Guard members left a vacuum in California’s state defense. “All the armories would be left empty and… cities left naked of military protection,” thundered Colonel Rupert Hughes, a World War I veteran, on the need for additional state defense. Accordingly, plans were laid for a new, voluntary California State Guard. The California State Guard was composed of men who were not subject to being drafted due to being too young, too old, with family dependents, or disabled, and also included able-bodied men whose draft number hadn’t been called yet. A large proportion of the State Guard came from the American Legion, which describes itself as “a patriotic veterans organization devoted to mutual helpfulness.” When Lodi’s California National Guard Battery F of the 143rd Field Artillery departed, the Lodi Provisional Infantry Company of the State Guard took shape. Enlistments began at the Armory Building, 333 N Washington Street, in late September 1941 with Verne W. Hoffman commissioned as captain. (Hoffman was elected State Senator in 1951.) Many older enlistees had been members of the California National Guard in their younger days. Lodians were asked to contribute $2,000 as Monday-night drills commenced. “Many expenses will arise in the conduct of the unit for which there is no provision in federal or state money, and it does not seem right these men who are supplying their time should also have to dig down in their own pockets for the money that will be needed to properly operate the unit,” said Col. Walter Garrison, himself a veteran of three wars. With Lodians’ support, the State Guard recruits – including Lodi’s fatherson duo, Boyd Mitchell and Woodrow Mitchell – soon drilled proudly in their new uniforms. In November 1942, the members were formally inducted into the State Guard at the Armistice Day celebration at Lodi Stadium (another name for the Grape Bowl). Their unit would now be called the 10th Regiment of State Guard Company B. Despite these early efforts, Lodi’s State Guard unit would always struggle to have enough members to reach regimental strength. Following the December 7 Pearl Harbor attack, the new State Guardsmen were given 30 days during which they could resign, after which they would be subject to active-duty mustering within the state. Thirty-six members of Lodi’s 78 State Guardsmen resigned. Morale suffered as Guardsmen began struggling with the public perception that they were unnecessary and that local police should be able to defend the state. Legislators in Sacramento squabbled about the Guard’s purpose and limited enlistment to 7,000 active-duty California Guardsmen with 20,000 in reserve – these last to be called up only in the event of invasion or insurrection. Chronically understaffed and underfunded, in early 1942 Lodi’s remaining State Guards – mostly high school students – nevertheless quit their paying jobs and mobilized active-duty to protect California’s dams, reservoirs, and similar valuable property, relieving federal troops who could then be sent overseas. For this work, privates in the Guard were promised $2 /day. Almost immediately, California fell behind in paying its Guardsmen, resorting to the state emergency fund to catch up on partial back pay. Following a short initial assignment, Lodi’s Guardsmen were assigned to guard duty at Camp Christiansen, east of Sacramento. In February 1942 the Lodi Civitan Club drove up to entertain camp residents with a Valentine’s Day dance including orchestra, refreshments, and free cigarettes. Meanwhile the State Guard reserve members back in Lodi continued their Monday-night drills and accepted responsibility for training the local Civil Air Patrol – private citizens who were pilots with aircraft that could be used to fly sensitive missions along the coast, alerting US military personnel to enemy ships. As the months passed, the California State Guard’s inefficient management deteriorated. In Sacramento, accusations flew of Guardsmen misusing state automobiles, stealing firearms, and improperly accounting for expenses. It seemed many of Guard’s officers had been transferred from the State Relief Administration, which had been organized in the 1930s to distribute state and federal funds to remedy Great Depression woes, and these workers entered the State Guard at a higher level than they were qualified for in order to preserve their paychecks. In 1943 Governor Earl Warren called for a new Home Guard that would replace the State Guard. Active-duty Home Guardsmen’s service areas would be limited to the members’ own county. Reserve volunteers would be permitted to serve state-wide during emergencies if so desired. Lodi’s California State Guard 10th Regiment Company B was called back from active duty and abruptly dissolved. Members were informed that if 34 men of genuine ability re-enlisted, they’d be called the Home Guard 5th Battalion 24th Regiment B Company. Enlistments of rifle-trained Lodians who were between the ages of 18 and 65, of good physical health, and male citizens of California, began with the enticement that there would be no more sentry duty and that any active-duty call within San Joaquin County would likely happen only in the event of an enemy invasion, when everyone would jump to fight anyway. Eighteen men signed up immediately. As Company B struggled to reach 34 enlistments, recruiters touted the training they’d get and invited the public (males only) to see Baptism by Fire, a movie that showed typical deaths on the front lines and how to avoid such ends through proper training. Months passed and the Lodi News-Sentinel began blaming low enlistments on public complacency. Finally in January 1944 the new company was ready. Still short of funds, the members held a dance to raise money for their mess fund (food). The USO came to Eagles Hall at 217 E Lockeford Street. With a mission “to strengthen the well-being of the people serving in America's military,” the USO provided a dinner with orchestra for 70 Guardsmen and family members. On September 2, 1945 World War II ended. In 1946 Lodians received word that their National Guard heroes were headed home. As the California Home Guard stood down, Lodi’s Guardsmen were commended for their steadfast readiness, year after year. “Like an insurance policy that hasn’t been used,” Lodi’s home guard would have paid off handsomely if the need had arisen. World War II impacted every aspect of daily life in the United States. The economic disruption caused by more than 12 million American men leaving their jobs to fight overseas was profound. Household budgets squeezed tight as both scarcity and inflation roared. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” became a popular saying.
Many Lodi women suddenly found themselves financial stewards of their households. They coped with sugar, gas, and tire rationing, planted victory gardens, appeared bare-legged in public (silk stockings now being too luxurious) and scrimped on fabric with plunging necklines. If Lodi’s remaining men and boys needed a new suit, it came with thin lapels and cuffless pants. Families saved their newspapers, scrap iron, and rubber for recycling. And many mothers left their young children in a new Day Nursery to make time for paid employment working in Lodi’s fields, orchards, and packing sheds. While reading issues of the Lodi News-Sentinel during World War II, one is struck by the constant demands for time and money from the already hardpressed families. With the women now working, local air wardens went door to door to pressure residents into giving 10% of their income for war bonds. Daily appeals included: eradicate infantile paralysis (polio), Invite a Soldier to Dinner, give to the Scout fund, buy an American Legion Poppy for Memorial Day, support the USO and its Victory Books for Servicemen campaign, join the Women’s Ambulance and Defense Unit, volunteer at the Day Nursery… when Lodi’s Red Cross was unable to recruit volunteer knitters and closed its sewing room, one imagines the exhausted women of Lodi muttering, “I just can’t!” Residents received conflicting messages regarding proper use of their little spare time: No one wanted to appear frivolous during wartime, but must every minute be spent winning the war? Authorities encouraged teachers and state workers to spend their vacation time in the fields. Lodi considered closing the saloons from 6am–6pm to get more men into the fields. The State Board of Agriculture announced that Californians should be picking crops instead of enjoying county fairs. Finally, the health benefits of recreation were remembered. The Calaveras Jumping Frog Jubilee was allowed again and promoted as a relaxation “effort.” The Lodi Rotary Club officially encouraged recreation. Men’s softball teams from each of Lodi’s businesses vied for glory and women’s teams formed. The American Legion picnic and the Dakota picnic (for Lodi’s “Germans from Russia who lived a while in the Dakotas”) took place and motorcycle races began roaring in the new Lodi Bowl (now the Grape Bowl) despite concerns for gas and tires. Hedy Lamarr’s scandalous movie, Ecstasy, opened at the State Theatre at 23 W Elm Street (now Merlot Hall). One can only imagine the hilarity at the Lodi Theatre when the Lodi 20-30 Club recruited prominent businessmen – including Mayor C.B. Bull – to appear in Midnight Follies. The men performed a “cutie” chorus line dance, pranced about in the latest fashions, and elected a “queen”! Following Japan’s attacks on Pearl Harbor and other Pacific sites on December 7, 1941, the US decided to remove all people with 1/16th or more Japanese lineage from the West Coast. This wartime incarceration is well documented by sources such as the National Archives and the History Channel.
In early January 1942 non-citizen US residents of German or Italian descent and almost all US residents of Japanese descent were reclassified as “enemy aliens.” Men in these groups who attempted to join the US military were turned away. (By the end of January second-generation males of Japanese descent regained the right to serve.) In February 1942 enemy aliens of German and Italian descent, and almost everyone of Japanese descent, who were living in military zones (including all of California) were restricted to traveling within five miles of their homes. In March Lieutenant-General J.L. DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 3, which established a curfew between 8pm and 6am for all enemy aliens and everyone of Japanese descent and forbade them from possessing firearms, radios, or cameras. Lodi’s Japantown, centered on Main Street at Pine Street, was barricaded off as authorities searched homes, looking for evidence of spying or covert communications. Farmers of Japanese descent were warned to continue their high productivity while a new nonJapanese farmers’ co-op made arrangements to take over their farms – this last proved difficult because many able-bodied non-Japanese farmers had already left for military service. In April, Works Progress Administration laborers stopped work on expanding Lodi’s sewers to begin building barracks at the Stockton Assembly Center (now called the County Fairgrounds). Soon Lodi received Civilian Exclusion Order No. 70, which detailed the plan by which Lodi’s residents of Japanese descent would be evacuated. The prospective evacuees were told they could bring only what they could carry. A scramble to sell property at fire-sale prices ensued and Japantown residents began hammering boards over their windows and doors. While the bank accounts of residents of Japanese descent had initially been frozen, the policy was reversed to encourage deposits as the camps would not have banks. A War Service Center opened at 125 N Stockton Street to help with the transition. Japantown’s families were summoned to the Armory at 333 N Washington Street for intake interviews. Starting on May 18, 1942 the families climbed aboard Greyhound buses headed for the Stockton Assembly Center, where they waited under guard until October while their final camp was being built. Most of Lodi’s approximately 800 residents of Japanese descent were sent by train to the Rohwer (Arkansas) internment camp for the duration. Two Lodians who today wish to remain anonymous told this writer that as children they were glad to go to the internment camp. In 1942 they were in elementary school and experienced or heard about racial taunting and rock throwing. One reports that a Terminous house inhabited by people of Japanese descent was set on fire the night before the residents left for the Assembly Center. The children were reassured by their parents that they were leaving California to go to a safe place that had high fences and guards to watch over them. At the time both children believed their parents’ interpretation of events. Lodians Isamu “Sam” Funamura and Eddie Masui were members of the new California State Guard before they were pulled into the internment system. In June 1942 Masui, previously known to Lodians as the “tomato king” and as the Guard’s “little corporal,” was interned in the Walerga Assembly Center near Sacramento. He worked as a police officer within the camp, writing to the Lodi News-Sentinel about his continuing night duty: “when we were in the Guards my shift started at midnight; well, [in Walerga] my shift starts at 10pm and runs to 6am, so that’s that.” In November 1942 Sam Funamura, also a farmer, wrote from Rowher: “Here we are at last – ‘Arkies’… This is really an immense place. Ten thousand acres of virgin soil and dense forest. The soil is adobe and clay and muck when it rains… We really miss the good old Lodi sand loam.” Funamura would spend only a few months in Rowher before he and a few other Japanese-Americans were chosen to work in Chicago as machinists. By mid-1944 10,000 Californians of Japanese descent were working outside of the camps in midwestern communities. Eddie Masui was employed in Ogden, Utah. When Sam Funamura returned to Lodi in May 1944, he said that seeing the first vineyards made him feel like crying, “it was so good to see home.” The lifetime achievements of Laura DeForce Gordon, Lodi’s most famous resident, were many and most are well covered in our previous newsletters. We are pleased in this edition to draw from recently revealed documents and recordings in the San Joaquin County Historical Museum archives. They describe a forgotten chapter in Lodi’s history: The Woman’s Land Syndicate of San Joaquin County...
In 1850 when California became the 31st U.S. State, its married women quickly found their financial rights torn away. As a Spanish colony from 1769 until 1821, and as the Mexican territories of Alta and Baja Californias from 1821 until 1848, California had used the French-Spanish system of civil law in which married women kept control of assets they brought into the marriage. Each spouse could write a will naming separate heirs for their separately held assets. All assets gained by either spouse during the marriage were considered community property to be managed by the surviving partner if one spouse died. All that changed when the new American state of California became subject to common-law practices of the former British colonies Back East. California brides suddenly found that they disappeared legally when they said, “I do.” Lacking a legal identity, a married woman could not own property. Her husband took possession of any assets she brought into the marriage and he legally owned any wages or inheritances either spouse gained during the marriage. He could spend every penny on whatever he alone chose. Only if she outlived him would she gain limited rights to assets he’d accumulated – after she’d gone through the probate process and paid off whatever debts he’d incurred. The years between 1850 and 1870 brought much discussion of women’s status to the California Statehouse. Although the 1850 state constitution theoretically gave married women control over their separate property, the all-male State Assembly and Senate enacted laws otherwise. One chivalrous argument for not allowing married women control of assets was that women were by nature incapable: “it is due to every wife, and to the children of every family, that the wife’s property should be protected [by her husband].” Frank self-interest was at the heart of some men advocating for more female empowerment: “Having some hopes that I may be wedded... I do not think that we can offer a greater inducement for women of fortune to come to California. [Financial empowerment] is the very best provision to get us wives that we can introduce into the Constitution.” But by 1870, California’s married women were even less financially secure than the married women in America’s former British colonies. Laura and Clara: Equal Employment Rights Longtime readers of this newsletter are familiar with Laura DeForce Gordon’s exploits (The DeForce Sisters, Winter 1992, and Laura DeForce Gordon, Summer 1993 – both available on the new LHS website). Laura was Lodi’s most famous resident, usually in a good way. Born in Pennsylvania in 1838 and raised in Wisconsin, as a teenager Laura took her few years of schooling and parlayed them into a lucrative speaking career, fascinating crowds with her eloquent passion and spiritual trances. On the lecture circuit Laura met suffragists Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Laura soon dedicated herself to the cause of women’s rights. She married Dr. Charles Gordon in 1862 and in 1867 headed west with him, lecturing along the way. By 1870 when Dr. and Mrs. Gordon arrived in Lodi, Laura was a skilled orator, railing against the constraints on American women. She made herself well-known in the California Statehouse and travelled relentlessly, speaking on women’s need for the right to vote. She even attempted a run for State Senate in 1871 despite widespread outrage at the idea of a woman holding office. In 1879 Laura DeForce Gordon and her San Jose ally, Clara Shortridge Foltz, became California’s first two female attorneys. Around 1876 Clara’s husband had abandoned her and their five children. Around 1878 Laura divorced Dr. Gordon – it’s said that he had been revealed as a bigamist. With neither woman able to access California’s widow benefits, they must have keenly felt the frightening effects of financial jeopardy. Ingenuity and energy defined the American suffragist movement. Clara drafted what became known as the “Woman Lawyer’s Bill” and had her district’s state senator, who was sympathetic to women’s rights, introduce it early in the 1878 legislative session. Clara, Laura, and other advocates argued their position brilliantly. They succeeded in getting their bill through the Senate and Assembly and then enshrined in the California Constitution of 1878 with the wording that no person would be disqualified from entering “any lawful business, vocation or profession on account of sex.” Laura and Susie: Partners for Prosperity Laura’s busy legal practice stabilized her finances, but she continued her campaign for sweeping change in Sacramento. In 1884 she became the president of the California Woman Suffrage Society, a position she held for ten years. Enter Susie Moreing Burr, born in 1846 in Dubuque, Iowa. Susie was from one of Dubuque’s early pioneer families. In 1867 she married Professor David Peacock Burr, whose ancestors were with William Penn at the founding of Pennsylvania. David and Susie moved to California in the early 1880s and farmed and ranched near Stockton before moving to Lodi. When Susie Burr met Laura DeForce Gordon, sparks must have flown. Based on what followed, they must have asked each other “Why are we women not better represented in the business world?” and “Why do we passively allow only the men to get rich in real estate?” Together the two launched an ambitious campaign to increase local women’s power and prosperity. Step 1: On November 23, 1887, Susie and Laura gathered like-minded women in the Stockton Board of Trade room. They laid the groundwork for a Woman’s Co-operative Bureau, electing Laura as President and Susie as First Vice President. They tasked themselves with promoting business and tourism in San Joaquin County. As they prepared marketing exhibits for the 1889 National Education Association convention and for the 1894 World’s Fair, both in San Francisco, they asked that their expenses be reimbursed as men’s expenses would be. They ran into a wall of resistance to their work: “We ladies have begun a work that we expect to grow to magnificent proportions, and all we will ask is for the gentlemen to give us a little financial aid, which, in our infancy and feebleness, we so much need.” –Mrs. L. Basilio and Mrs. D.P. Burr, the Woman’s Co-operative Bureau, Jan 3, 1888 No record is found that they were paid. Step 2: Happily, the second part of their plan succeeded. On January 17, 1888, they incorporated The Woman’s Syndicate. The By-Laws read “The object of the Syndicate is to enable women to place their little surplus money in real estate, and under the supervision of a Board of Directors, which will give time to thoroughly look up all investments, and to take advantage of rare offers in real estate by reason of our co-operative investments, and to sell, or to improve and sell at the highest possible figure, thus giving a dividend to the members.” With this legal maneuver, the women created a legal entity capable of owning property. Syndicate members could use the entity in different ways:
The Woman’s Syndicate and its members began buying and selling property throughout California. Laura DeForce Gordon, Real Estate Magnate In the next years Laura, by then a financial powerhouse, bought and sold property in the foothills, Campo Seco, and many parcels in Lodi. According to her grand-niece, Merle Walker Hieb, Laura downscaled her legal practice to fit into her home on W. Lockeford Street (approximately where Duncan Press sits today) to give her more time to manage her landholdings. This brings us to the Woman’s Addition to Lodi. It was bounded by E. Lockeford Street to the south, N. Stockton Street to the west, Cherokee Lane – now called N. Washington Street – to the east, and Lawrence Avenue to the north. Today the Fraternal Order of Eagles and the Army National Guard buildings sit upon the site. Before that, it was a vineyard. Before that, it was… a colony for unmarried suffragists? Through the Syndicate, Laura bought 24 acres from Ezekiel Lawrence, a founder of Lodi, whose 1879 residence was on that property. She had the land surveyed and improvements added. According to the Stockton Evening Record, it was Laura’s “purpose to colonize the tract with unmarried suffragists exclusively.” We can imagine Laura’s high hopes as she measured the plots for her paradise of empowered, enfranchised women. Unfortunately, while multiple women bought the suffragist plots, no homes were ever built. On the city plat of 1909, we see that after Laura’s 1907 death the land had been annexed by the City of Lodi using the name “the Woman’s Syndicate Addition to Lodi.” It had also drifted from its original purpose as a hotbed of female activism. In 1909 Susie Burr (widowed in 1905) still owned plots 4 and 5 and Eliza Melone, also a founding member of the Woman’s Co-operative Bureau (widowed in 1900), owned plots 6 and 7. But by 1909 Frank Cordway had acquired most of the rest of the Woman’s Addition. He planted it as a vineyard and in 1923 petitioned City Council to abandon Laura’s original streets and alleys so that he could sub-divide the land into city blocks. By the 1930s, city plats described the area simply as the Lawrence Addition, and Lodians began to forget Laura and her ambitions entirely. Susie M. Burr, Real Estate Magnate Time has been kinder to Susie M. Burr. Susie’s husband, David, was apparently trustworthy and supportive: He championed Susie’s real estate aspirations and provided the legal cover for her to begin buying property as far south as Fresno. Susie Burr invested heavily in Lodi, buying much of Lodi north of Lockeford Street, west of Church. She created Burr’s Additions #1 and #2 to Lodi. If you live around today’s Van Buskirk Park or Vintage Church or call your area the “Burr neighborhood,” you’re on Susie’s land. Today we celebrate these early Lodi women for their vision, ingenuity, and courage, and we thank the California men who gave women the right to vote in 1911. Happy Women’s History Month! __________________________ The Editor notes the particular difficulty of researching historic married women and their legal status. With their absence from legal records and their various combinations of first names, nicknames, maiden names, and married names, each subject to the irregular spelling of the day, every confirmed finding is a joy. Gratitude goes to Gail Erwin, Archivist at the San Joaquin County Historical Society & Museum; the Dubuque (Iowa) Historical Society; and Donna C. Schuele, who wrote “None Could Deny the Eloquence of This Lady”: Women, Law, and Government in California, 1850-1890. California History Vol. 81, No. 3/4, Taming the Elephant: Politics, Government, and Law in Pioneer California (2003), pp. 169-198 (30 pages). Published By: University of California Press. Usually the Lodi Historical Society's monthly programs are held in the Holz Room at Hutchins Street Square.
In March 2024, we will use the Pisano Room. See you there!  As many of you know, the Lodi Historical Society has been working over the past year-and-a-half with Lodi’s Professional Firefighters Union and the City of Lodi to preserve and restore the old City Hall and Firehouse on Main Street. This historic site will be the future home for our new Historical Museum on the first level and the Firefighters Union Hall on the second level. And, steadily, we’ve been making good progress. Beginning in June of 2022 the Lodi Historical Society’s Board resolved to undertake this ambitious project. Since then, we have achieved the following key milestones:
As we progress in our plans, we are continuing to engage various businesses to see if they would be willing and able to partner with us. We are very grateful to those business leaders that have stepped forward to provide and pledge low-cost and free goods and services to help bring this wonderful building back to life. To date, these individuals have made significant contributions to help bring our vision to reality:
The Calm Before the Storm
Lodi in the early 1940s was a bustling railroad town. Its population had grown to more than 11,000 residents, most of German, Italian, or Japanese descent. Farmwork meant that Lodians of all backgrounds pulled together to plant, harvest, and pack the crops, forming new co-operatives to stabilize sales prices. Lodi’s famous Super Mold tire-retread equipment factory on North Sacramento Street had just expanded, with 4,500 tire shops worldwide using Lodi equipment. At Hale Park families relaxed at the Lodi Municipal Baths and danced at summer band concerts. At Lodi Union High School, graduating seniors played sports together and skipped school en masse on “Ditch Day.” But the shadow of world war hung over Lodi. Along Main Street tension simmered between residents of Chinese and Japanese descent due to the Japanese invasion of Chinese Manchuria. The Lodi News-Sentinel printed daily updates on the war between Germany, Italy, and Japan and America’s longtime allies Great Britain and France. Across America, suspicions were growing as neighbors questioned each other’s loyalty to the U.S. On December 5, 1941, FBI Special Agent T.S. Ferguson spoke at the Lodi Woman’s Club, warning the members against refugees who, having gained admittance to the United States, were serving their foreign masters through espionage activities. He asserted that people “who say ‘It can’t happen here’ are uninformed, misinformed, or living in a fool’s paradise.” Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor and Other U.S. and British Territories On December 7, 1941, Japanese air and naval forces attacked Pearl Harbor, Guam, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya (part of present-day Malaysia). Since Hawaii, Guam, and the Philippines were U.S. territories at the time, and Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaya were British territories, Japan’s actions were seen as a direct attack on the United States and Great Britain. The world quickly realized that the United States could no longer remain neutral in the great conflict. That day, Lodi’s Mary Jane Muller happened to be at Pearl Harbor for her wedding to Lt. Raymond E. Holsey. She witnessed the attack. The new Mrs. Holsey reported that the raid “was such a complete surprise that anti-aircraft gunners of both Army and Navy stood at their posts without firing a shot, unable to believe they were enemy planes.” Not all Americans sailors were paralyzed. Lodi soon learned that our own Samuel Gantner, an experienced fighter already with four years in the Navy, had been killed during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. According to eyewitnesses, Boatswain’s Mate Gantner had been firing his 5-inch anti-aircraft gun on the deck of the U.S.S. Arizona when among the bomb hits and exploding ammunition he was killed in action. Gantner was a graduate of Lodi High School and a young husband and father. In 1943 a destroyer-class escort was named in his honor. Gantner’s widow, Janie Gantner, traveled to Boston to attend the christening and launch of the new U.S.S. Gantner. The day after the attacks, President Franklin Roosevelt solemnly intoned from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, “Yesterday, December 7, 1941—a date which will live in infamy—the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.” At his request, the U.S. Congress declared war on Japan. On December 14th, California Governor Culbert Olson proclaimed a state of emergency and described California’s geographical position, industrial and agricultural might, and abundant natural resources as a target for invasion. In Lodi, able-bodied men were encouraged either to go to the army and navy recruitment centers in Stockton or to enlist in the California State Guard. On December 18th the California State Guard Company B, 10th Infantry Regiment of Lodi was called up for service, leaving the next day for “unknown destinations.” Six members of the Japanese-American Citizen League enjoyed a send-off party that night. In what he thought was his final column, Lodi News-Sentinel journalist Sy Marq advised the remaining Lodians that local firms would be hit hard by the withdrawal of Guard personnel and suggested that “you be patient if you find them short-handed.” At the last moment, the call-up was cancelled until New Year’s Eve, when the men were sent to a “snowy” site in California. Lodi Police Chief C.S. Jackson received a telegram from Earl Warren, Chairman of the California Defense Council Committee of Civil Protection, urging him to be vigilant against possible sabotage. The telegram read, “Sabotage is as much a part of Axis warfare as are military and naval operations.” In particular, Lodians worried about the Pardee Dam being destroyed, knowing that the crashing water would flood Lodi a half-hour later. Japanese Bombers and Submarines Head for California When 60 enemy planes were heard droning off the coast on December 8th, San Franciscans performed their first complete blackout. Lodians quickly followed suit. A loud new air horn was installed at the Fire House on North Main Street and Lodians memorized the code: one long and two short blasts meant “alarm!” and one short and two long blasts meant “all clear.” Four hundred Lodi men registered with the police to be neighborhood wardens as Lodians performed nighttime drills. Soon residents were advised to tie up their watch dogs for the wardens’ safety during inspections and Lodi’s blackout area expanded to include the headlights of cars driving toward Lodi. The Lodi Retail Merchants Bureau asked City Council to enact an ordinance closing all stores at 6:00pm so that workers and shoppers could be home before nightfall. Police Chief Jackson assured residents that Lodi’s blackouts would not be for fear that we’d be bombed directly, but to prevent Lodi’s lights from showing the way to Sacramento and Stockton during their blackouts. Along with rehearsing blackout drills, Lodians began training to identify enemy aircraft on sabotage missions. Multiple aircraft observation posts—some just a small shack or wagon—were staffed by Lodi men and women 24 hours a day throughout the war’s duration. Observers memorized diagrams of aircraft and struggled to stay awake during the long night shifts. Luckily, no enemy aircraft was sighted over Lodi. On February 23, 1942, a Japanese submarine rose from the Pacific Ocean and began shelling the Ellwood Oil Field near Santa Barbara. Damage was minor, but Major Bernard “Barney” Hagen, formerly a coach at Lodi High School and resident of 127 South Orange Street, earned the Purple Heart award for a thigh wound incurred during the attack. He was the only U.S. serviceman to receive the decoration for wounds received from enemy action within the U.S. in World War II. After being hospitalized for six weeks, Major Hagen returned to active duty with the 40th Division artillery. Lodi Agriculture: Supplies and Labor Within days of the U.S. declaration of war against Japan, officials were warning Americans of coming shortages. Food prices immediately jumped. The coconut oil and palm oil normally imported from the Philippines would have to be replaced by domestically produced soybean, cotton, and flaxseed oils. With 25% of U.S. sugar coming from the Philippines, sugar would need to be sought from Cuba and Central America. After feverish trading in agricultural futures in Chicago, the prices of wheat, soybeans, butter, eggs, and flaxseed were artificially fixed to go no higher than their 12/22/41 prices. According to the 1940 census, at the outbreak of World War II California was producing 99.9% of U.S. almonds, 82% of the walnuts, and 91% of the grapes. Lodi’s local agricultural report counted 39,071 acres of vineyards and 3,350 farms in the Lodi area. Of particular concern to Lodi was the war’s potential interruption of our robust agricultural production. The San Joaquin County U.S.D.A. urged farmers to repair their machinery while materials were still available, saying that new farm machinery would be less available in 1942. With rubber production diverted toward the war effort, the U.S. Office of Price Administration announced that only a limited number of “essential citizens” would be allowed to purchase new tires and tubes in 1942. The rest of the country would have to drive less, retread their tires, or buy used tires. (Lodi’s Super Mold retread business was expected to boom.) In January 1942 the State Defense Council warned California farmers of an impending shortage of burlap bags, saying that fewer than half of the bags needed to store and ship crops would be available at harvest time. Even worse than agricultural supply shortages was the sudden absence of experienced farm labor as able-bodied men rushed to enlist or otherwise support the war effort. “The draft and defense industries have drained farm labor supply so that an acute shortage threatens during the coming harvest,” said Lodi resident Harold Angler, past secretary of the Associated Famers of California. Central Valley farmers described the labor shortage this way: Good workers preferred to take higher-paying defense jobs, leaving the farmers to make do with workers “who can’t make the grade somewhere else.” To fill the fields, the federal government began welcoming Filipino workers escaping the Japanese attack on Manila and reversed its efforts to repatriate Mexican families. In 1942 the U.S. Bracero Program began issuing temporary work visas to Mexican men willing to work in U.S. agriculture. By February 1942 suspicion of Japanese and Japanese-American farmers had reached new heights. The San Joaquin County Farm Federation declared that Japanese farm owners and workers were not necessary and that it was “obvious” that the money they used to purchase land had come from alien sources. Filipino workers began flatly refusing to work for Japanese farmers, with Mexican workers soon following suit. “Lodi During World War II” will be continued in a future issue of The New Lodi Historian. |
AuthorSAlane K. Dashner, Editor Archives
September 2024
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