Orange
County
Biographies
MARIUS BOISSERANC
Marius Boisseranc is a well-known
and successful ranchman of Placentia, Orange County, who came to Southern
California six decades ago. He was born
in Hautes Alpes, France,
August 22, 1856, a son of Joseph and Rosa (Escalier) Boisseranc, who were lifelong residents of France. Joseph Boisseranc, a farmer by occupation,
died at the age of eighty-four years, while his wife passed away when
seventy-seven years old. Their family
numbered seven children, of whom Marius Boisseranc is the only survivor.
Marius Boisseranc was reared under
the parental roof and acquired a good public school education. In December, 1872, when in his seventeenth
year, he crossed the Atlantic to the United States and made his way to Los
Angeles, California, which at that time boasted a population of three thousand
seven hundred. Large flocks of sheep
roamed over the land now comprised within Long Beach, Santa Monica and
Pasadena, and sheep herding was the only means of livelihood available to Mr.
Boisseranc, who was eventually offered a grazing ranch on the present site of
Pasadena for a dollar and a half per acre.
It was in 1885 that he came to what is now Orange County and purchased
thousands of head of sheep from the Kraemer Brothers and others. He was unfamiliar with the English language
and American customs and usages but was quick to learn and lost no time in
getting to work. He began his career as
a sheep herder and soon became the owner of herds of his own. He followed the sheep business for
thirty-five years in all, during which period he raised over fifty thousand
lambs in this vicinity. At first he bred
Merino sheep and later mixed Merinos and finally Shropshires. He made a fortune in the sheep business but
lost practically all of it in the slump which followed the adoption of a low
tariff on wool under the Cleveland Administration. At that time he sold his sheep at a great
sacrifice, bought one hundred and twenty acres of land, including his present
ranch, and here began over again to recoup his losses. He began to plant his land to walnuts, but
when he found that orange growing was practical and profitable, he took out his
walnut trees and planted Valencia oranges.
He had planted eighty acres to Valencia Perfection walnuts, but of these
he now has only eight acres, having planted all the rest of the land to lemons
and oranges. Later he pulled out the
lemon trees when he found the orange trees more profitable, and he now has
twenty-eight acres in Valencia’s. He has
also given forty-four acres of his land to his sons. Mr. Boisseranc is a member of the Placentia
Mutual Citrus Association. A
contemporary writer said: “He has
exercised sound judgment in all of his operations and none more than he has
deserved prosperity.”
In 1884, in Los Angeles, California,
Mr. Boisseranc was united in marriage to Miss Marie Nouguier,
who was also a native of the Hautes Alpes, France, and came to Los Angeles when nineteen years
of age. To their union were born ten
children, of whom Victorine died unmarried at the age
of twenty-five years. Marius Boisseranc,
Jr., died as a result of an attack of influenza. He had married Miss Josephine Pendleton, of
Placentia, California, and to them was born a son, Norman. Jean, who is also deceased, married Miss
Gertrude Richardson and to them was born a son, John Thomas, who now lives with
his mother at Iliff, Colorado. Ernest L. Boisseranc, who owns and cultivates
a ranch near his father’s place, married Ethel Pendleton. He enlisted in the United States Army for
service in the World War but was not sent overseas on account of a broken leg
which he suffered in camp and which necessitated his confinement in a hospital
for seven months. Eugene Boisseranc
married Miss Esperanza Yorba and they have three children: Alvin, Delar and
Noreen. Emile Boisseranc, who is engaged
in ranching at Yorba but resides in Santa Ana, married Miss Dorothy Goodcell, of Grand Meadow, Minnesota, and they have three
children: Dorothy, Emile, Jr., and
Beryl. Blanche is the wife of J. D.
McDonald, a hardware merchant at Placentia, and is the mother of a daughter,
Claire Marie. Louise is the wife of
Arthur Andrade, of Anaheim, California, and they have one child, Wayne. Leon, who resides on the home ranch and
assists his father, married Miss Thelma Lakeman, a
native of Nebraska, who presides over the household of her father-in-law. Mr. and Mrs. Leon Boisseranc are the parents
of a son, Leon, Jr. Marguerite
Boisseranc gave her hand in marriage to Charles Doldee,
of Santa Ana. In the year 1890 Mr.
Boisseranc took his wife and children on a visit to his old home in
France. The mother, Mrs. Marie
Boisseranc, passed away in 1918 at the age of fifty-three years. She was a devout communicant of the Catholic
Church and because of her kindly manner and helpful spirit was beloved by all
who knew her.
A public-spirited, enterprising and
progressive citizen, Mr. Boisseranc has withheld his cooperation and support from
no movement or measure looking toward community advancement. He is a director of the Yorba Irrigation
District and served as school trustee for fourteen consecutive years. He has membership in the Catholic Church and
is highly respected as a man of upright and honorable principles in the varied
relations of life.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 349-351, Clarke Publ.,
Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN
NUGGET'S ORANGE COUNTY BIOGRAPHIES