GEORGE H. SMITH

Sacramento County

Biographies

GEORGE H. SMITH

GEORGE H. SMITH.--A successful asparagus-grower, who has been able to point the way to others, while progressing himself, is George H. Smith, widely and well-known on Sherman Island. He was born at Lockeford, in San Joaquin County, on April 11, 1886, the son of Hans Christian and Caroline (Jessen) Smith, both of whom were natives of Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark. They came out to California over forty years ago, and here Mr. Smith made a good, if hard, living, as an able and honest blacksmith. They had three children, Amelia C., George H., and Cathalyn D., now Mrs. F. H. Turner, of San Francisco.

George H. Smith attended the Elliott district school of San Joaquin County, and for a year he went to the Salem high school at Lodi, and for a short time to the Oakland Polytechnic School of Engineering. At the age of sixteen, he started out for himself, and he worked as a mechanic in the Gwin mines of Calaveras. He then became chief motorman of the Mokelumne Dredging Company at Wallace, Cal., and next, in rotation, spent a short time in each of the following jobs: round-house mechanic of the Southern Pacific Railroad in their Oakland shops, Southern Pacific fireman running out of Portland, and in the erecting engineers’ department, and as a commercial traveler with the United Iron and Engineering Works at Oakland. After that he was chief engineer of the Venice Island Land Company of San Joaquin County, and he then served the Sampson Iron Works for a short time as a commercial traveler. Returning to the home farm in Elliott district, he was called to be engineer for the Ryer Island Reclamation district and spent seven years in dredging and ditching work for them. Finally, after working a short time for John W. Rush, of Tyler Island, he decided to take up farming for himself, and six years ago secured a long-term lease on 300 acres of land on Sherman Island, where he now lives, and a second parcel of 260 acres, on Sherman Island. This land is devoted to truck garden, and Mr. Smith is developing asparagus beds, and has so far set out eighty-five acres to asparagus. He is a Republican, believing in that part for industrial protection.

At Stockton, on November 3, 1917, Mr. Smith was married to Miss Georgia Jordan, a native of San Joaquin County, where she was born near New Hope, on August 12, 1892. Her father was George A. Jordan, a native of San Joaquin County, and he married Miss Caroline Titherington, from Liverpool, England. Her grandfather was an early settler and farmer in the Taisen section of San Joaquin County, before Thornton was founded. Her father and mother are still living, and reside on Sherman Island, where they enjoy the esteem of all who know them; and Mrs. Smith has one brother, John Rolland Jordan. Mrs. Smith attended the Stockton grammar school, and late pursued the excellent courses of the Normal School in the same city; and the latter experience has assisted her in the problems of her own children, Elizabeth, Ann and James Harrison. Mr. Smith is a member of Rio Vista Lodge No. 208, F. & A. M., and he belongs to Antioch Chapter No. 262, R. A. M. Mr. And Mrs. Smith are both members of Rio Vista Chapter No. 222, Order of Eastern Star. Mr. Smith is a believer in cooperation for the marketing of farm products and is one of the original members of the Asparagus Growers’ Association of California. A friend to the cause of education, Mr. Smith has consented to serve as member of the board of trustees of Riverside school district and is clerk of the board. The district has just succeeded in bonding itself for a new school-house, which is in process of erection.

Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.

Source: Reed, G. Walter, History of Sacramento County, California With Biographical Sketches, Pages 915-916. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA. 1923.