Otho Shaw Grim

 

Otho Shaw Grim, rancher of Lee Township, was born in Ohio January 20, 1833, his parents being Andrew and Polly (Morrison) Grim, both deceased, the mother several years ago, in Iowa, and the father, in Nebraska, about 1883, aged seventy-six. O. S. Grim was reared on his father’s farm, first in Ohio and afterward in Iowa, and in 1852 came across the plains to California. In the same party when made up at Council Bluffs was the Timmons family of four sons and two daughters with their father, the mother having died in Iowa. With the help of a minister whose station they reached on the way, O. S. Grim was married August 10, 1852, to Miss Sarah Frances Timmons, born in Illinois, February 3, 1836, daughter of Henry and Elizabeth (Caldwell) Timmons, and reared in Lee County, Iowa, whither her parents moved in 1837, being among the first settlers of that county. The father died near Richland, on the Sacramento, in 1858.  On their arrival in California, in the fall of 1852, Mr. and Mrs. Grim went to work to make their first “stake,” she in domestic work and he as a miner in Plunket’s Ravine. After three months they rented a small place on the Sacramento River, near Richland, where Mr. Grim went to raising vegetables. In 1854 he became owner and continued the same business until 1866, when he sold out, and moved to Placer County, near Auburn, afterward to Modes to in 1875, to Stockton in 1877, near Stockton in 1881, and in 1883 to the place they now occupy in Lee Township, then owned by William Edward Timmons, the brother of Mrs. Grim, who needed her care, being in broken health. He had always been rather weakly and had never married, and at his death, September 11, 1884, Mrs. Grim inherited his ranch of 160 acres, where the family has since remained. It is well adapted to general farming in all kinds of grain, and Mr. Timmons had some success in fruit-growing, but the orchard has not been renewed. Mr.  and Mrs. Grim are the parents of seven living children, all born in this State: William Ira, born February 16, 1855, married in Stockton.  January 2, 1878, to Miss Nancy Elizabeth Tew, born in California December 27, 1860, and now living in Woodland, Yolo County; has two children ¯ Laura Emily, born December 6, 1878 and Walter, born October, 1880; Mary Ann, born April 23, 1858, was married in Modesto, October 3, 1874, to Bergen Brocaw Halsey, now of Clipper Gap, Placer County: has one child ¯ Earl, born June 16, 1883; John Henry, born October 28, 1860; Charles Augustus, November 10, 1867; George Andrew, May 10, 1869; Frank Edward, April 10, 1875; Albert, June 16, 1880. All the children have received a district-school education.