IDA POOL GARDINER

Sacramento County

Biographies

IDA POOL GARDINER

IDA POOL GARDINER--California has never been remiss in honoring such worthy pioneers as Mrs. Ida Pool Gardiner, now one of the distinguished residents of Sacramento County, and a natural leader at Isleton. She was born on Andrus Island, three miles above Isleton, on the Pool Rancho, the daughter of Josiah and Sarah (Freeman) Pool, the former a native of Tennessee, the latter born in Illinois. Josiah Pool was a veteran of the Mexican War. He came to California about 1852, and for a couple of years mined in the Calaveras and San Andreas country. In 1857, he settled on Andrus Island, on the Sacramento River, and at first acquired 164 acres. In 1869 he moved to a ranch near Rio Vista, remaining until 1874, when he traded it for an 800 acre ranch at what is now Isleton. Mr. Pool laid out the town of Isleton in 1875, and he and his old friend, John Brocas, named it Isleton, for its site on the island. The flood of 1881, however, ruined him, and he lost his property. He later went to Tucson, Ariz., to live and died there at the age of eighty years. His gifted and devoted wife, Sarah Freeman Pool, died at a very young age. Mrs. Gardiner is the only surviving member of a family of three children born of this marriage. Ella passed away at the age of eighteen; and Grant breathed his last some ten years ago, at the age of forty-five.

After the death of his lamented first wife, Mr. Pool married a second time, choosing for his mate Mrs. Anna Eliza (Carter) Wells, a widow of a Civil War soldier who had died during the great struggle, and by whom she had one daughter, Laura, who died in 1879. By his second marriage Mr. Pool had eight children: Frank, deceased; Margaret and Joseph; Anna, deceased; John and William (twins), the latter deceased; and Adolphus and May, both deceased.

Ida Pool attended the public school of Andrus Island, and on July 2, 1878, was married at Isleton to Philip Hogate Gardiner, a native of Unionville, now Aura, in Gloucester County, N. J., where he was born on August 29, 1846, the son of John W. and Sarah (Hogate) Gardiner. John W. Gardiner's father, Andrew, lived to be seventy years of age; and his mother, who was Uphan (Dubois) Gardiner, was eighty years old when she died. Sarah Hogate Gardiner's father lived to be ninety-three. Philip Hogate Gardiner's mother died in 1853; but the father, who was born in August, 1818, lived to be eighty-five years old.

Philip Hogate Gardiner arrived in San Francisco on January 1, 1868, and worked for about a year on a farm in Contra Costa County. In 1869 he went to Nevada, and spent two years prospecting in the White Pine Mountains; but he did not strike anything rich enough to induce him to stay. In the spring of 1871 he returned to the Sacramento Valley, and leased a farm near Rio Vista for one year. On June 17, 1872, he began farming on his own account, and rented 250 acres at Brannan Island, where he raised grain and vegetables. Early in 1874, in partnership with J. F. Wilcox, he built the store at Isleton, the first business enterprise in that settlement; and on March 5 he opened it for trade, with a liberal stock of general merchandise, under the firm name of Gardiner & Wilcox. On January 9, 1878, he bought out his partner, and from that time until his death, in 1906, he was independently engaged in general merchandising. After his demise, his sons took charge of the business. From the time when a postoffice was established at Isleton, on March 13, 1879, Mr. Gardiner was the postmaster, having been instrumental in securing a postoffice for the place; he served for seventeen years in that official capacity, to the satisfaction of everyone. He was agent for the California Transportation Company and the Southern Pacific Railroad Company until his death, and the Gardiner Company are still agents; and he was also agent at Isleton for the Wells Fargo Express Company. He was one of the citizens instrumental in establishing a school district for Isleton, and he served as a trustee of the school for many years. It was natural that with all this hard work, during many years of venture and responsibility, he should acquire considerable land, and he left as part of his estate some 1,000 acres of delta lands, which are still held by the family. He died on March 1, 1906, esteemed and mourned by a wide circle of friends and associates. In keeping with his record for pioneer enterprise, he aided materially in building the levees, at first with Chinese labor and the use of the wheelbarrow; and at length, about 1881, he was instrumental, as a member of the district, in the building of the first levee by means of a dredger, following the flood of that time. In politics, he was a Republican. He was a veteran Odd Fellow of Sacramento, and about 1900 built the Odd Fellows hall in Isleton, being a charter member of the lodge there and a past grand. He was also a member of the Masonic order. He thus left an enviable record and an honored name to his children, of whom he had seven: Eva May, born on August 21, 1879, passed away on January 8, 1881; Lucretia was born on July 5, 1881; John Wilbur first saw the light on February 15, 1884; Philip Herbert was born on February 8, 1886, and died on August 3, 1900; and Ida Jewell was born in 1901. Lucretia was married at her home, on December 31, 1903, to Paul G. de Back, a native of Holland, where he was born in 1879, and the son of J. W. de Back and his good wife, Marie. His parents brought him to California when he was nine years old, and in 1888 they settled at Vorden, where Mr. de Back was a carpenter. Paul was reared at Vorden, and attended the Walnut Grove schools and the night school, or business college thus acquiring a more advanced education largely through his own efforts. Now for years he has been the representative of the Pioneer Fruit Company for the Sacramento Delta Section. Mr. and Mrs. de Back have one son, Philip Gardiner, who was born on July 5, 1909. Paul de Back is a member of the Odd Fellows of Isleton, and the B. P. O. Elks of Sacramento, Lodge No. 6. Mrs. Lucretia de Back is a past noble grand of the Rebekah Lodge; and her sister, Ida Jewell Gardiner, is also a member of the Rebekahs.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Page 572. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.