Santa Clara County
Biographies
JAMES CENTER
The eighty acre farm belonging to James Center is located one and a quarter miles from the station of Lawrence, and is devoted to the cultivation of grain and hay. Mr. Center is one of the many farmers of Santa Clara county who have brought about their personal success by application and industry, giving thought, time and attention to the cultivation of the land upon which they are engaged in agricultural pursuits. A Scotchman by birth, born in Aberdeenshire May 1, 1853, Mr. Center inherits from a long line of ancestry those qualities which have numbered the natives of Scotland among the steady and reliable people of a country, and in addition to which he has added the virtues of an American citizenship.
The boyhood of Mr. Center was spent among the scenes of his native land, where he attended the common schools. In 1870 he accompanied his parents to America, locating with them in California, near Alviso, where the father cultivated a ranch of five hundred acres. Mr. Center attended school in San Francisco for a time, after which he engaged in farming for himself, renting land in 1882. The following year he purchased his present property and has since made this his home. His wife, formerly Minnie D. Relfe, of Missouri, came to California with her parents in 1867. To Mr. and Mrs. Center were born six children, named in order of birth as follows: Mary Inez; Jennie Finley; Mildred Relfe; Carrie Francis; George Relfe; and Annie Leath, all of whom are at home with their parents. Fraternally Mr. Center is a member of True Fellowship Lodge No. 238, I.O.O.F., of Santa Clara, and politically is a Republican, in the interests of this party serving as school director for many years.
Transcribed
2-12-16 Marilyn
R. Pankey.
ญญญญSource:
History of the State of California &
Biographical Record of Coast Counties, California by Prof. J. M. Guinn, A.
M., Page 990. The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago, 1904.
ฉ 2016 Marilyn R.
Pankey.