Butte County
Biographies
VERN
LEE WISER
VERN LEE WISER.—Another son of Wisconsin who has made his contribution to the long roll of honor of those pioneer agriculturists from that state, prominent in the development of California, is Vern Lee Wiser, who was born in Green Lake County, Wis., on December 15, 1872, and moved with his family, when three years old, to Worth County, Iowa, where for twenty years he labored as a farmer. He made a specialty of raising cattle and hogs for the market, shipping them away in car-load lots; being there associated with David Williams, his father-in-law. During all these years of strenuous labor and the customary ventures and risks, Mr. Wiser was exceptionally successful; so that when the wonderful opportunities of California began to attract him, he was financially able to respond to the lure.
Arriving in Gridley, in 1907, he bought a ranch of forty acres, five miles southeast of the town, and there he now resides. In the spring of 1917, he bought ten acres more from his father-in-law, who had also come to California, and ten acres from C. W. Van Note, and in addition he owns twenty acres in the Watt Colony, on Feather River, in Butte County, and two and a half acres near the town of Gridley.
Having become thoroughly familiar with agricultural conditions here, Mr. Wiser sensibly raises diversified crops of alfalfa, beans and oat hay; and being blessed with enterprise, he rents twenty-six acres of the George Thresher ranch. This he planted in the winter of 1916-17, and, the last summer, he took off a cut of eighty-three tons. This fall he will be harvesting a fine crop of beans on the same land, making two crops in the year from one and the same acreage. On thirteen acres of his home ranch he baled forty-two tons of oat hay in the summer of 1917—a fine record, considering especially the conditions under which the crop was obtained. Still another tract of thirty acres in the district he rents and plants to alfalfa and oat hay. All these operations have earned for Mr. Wiser the enviable reputation of being one of the most successful farmers in the county. Since 1912, he has represented the North Western Mutual Fire Association, doing a large business.
While in Worth County, Iowa, on May 6, 1896, Mr. Wiser married Edith Williams, born in Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, and educated in the public schools and Mason City high school. Their union has been blessed with four sons: Roy V. and Ray B., who are natives of Iowa; and Henry David and Glenn W., who were born in California. [Since this was written Mr. Wiser met with an accident which resulted in his death at the White Hospital, Sacramento, August 9, 1918. On August 2, 1918, he accidentally slipped and his right leg went into the cylinder of a threshing machine, lacerating the leg. The loss of blood was so great that he died from the effects. He was buried in Live Oak Cemetery, at Gridley, August 12, mourned by a host of friends and relatives.]
Transcribed by
Marie Hassard 07 December 2009.
Source: "History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C.
Mansfield, Pages 1311-1312, Historic Record Co, Los
Angeles, CA, 1918.
©
2009 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's
Butte County Biographies