Siskiyou
County
Biographies
C. C. NELSON
C.
C. Nelson, who is one of the most valuable employees of the Long-Bell Lumber
Company at Weed, and is held in high esteem throughout the community because of
his personal worth, was born in Butte County, California, on the 16th
of December, 1895, a son of William Thomas and Tillie (Brown) Nelson, the
former born in Iowa, the latter born in Germany. The father’s family started from Iowa for
California when William T. was two years old and on the way stopped in Utah for
about a year. While there the father
died and the widowed mother then brought her family to California, coming with
a train of one hundred wagons. During
the journey they had considerable trouble with both Indians and Mormons.
C.
C. Nelson was educated in the grade and high schools at Oroville, California,
and then located in Marysville, where he worked as a machinist for about two
years. In 1916 he enlisted in Company I,
Second Regiment California Infantry, and was sent to the Mexican border, where
he remained for about four months.
Returning to Marysville, he resumed his position in the machine shop in
which he formerly worked, but three months later was called to the colors
again, the United States having entered the World war. With the same company which he formerly
served he went to the Presidio, San Francisco, where he was in training for a
while, later being transferred to Camp Kearney.
After eight months there, he was sent overseas, landing at Liverpool,
England. There he was transferred to the
Twenty-seventh Division, bound for the front, and was scheduled to go “over the
top” on the following Wednesday, but the Armistice was signed on Monday. Mr. Nelson embarked for home at Brest on
February 28, 1919, being mustered out of the Presidio, April 11, 1919, with the
rank of sergeant, after approximately three years of military service.
On
returning to civil life Mr. Nelson went to work for the Union Construction
Company at Oakland, California, with whom he remained
until August, 1919, when he entered the employ of the Great Western Power
Company at Lake Alamanor. Four months later he entered an electrical
school, the Hemphill Auto School, at Oakland, attending for eight months. He then took up ignition work and opened a Willys service station at
Roseville, which he operated for three years.
Selling out there, Mr. Nelson went to the state of Washington and from
that to the present has followed welding.
He spent a year in Bellingham, Washington, and in 1928, he came to Weed,
where he has since been in the employ of the Long-Bell Lumber Company as a
welder. He is kept busy, putting in much
extra time, and he is recognized as an expert in his line of work. Mr. Nelson has proven a good citizen, in
the best sense of the term, being a consistent supporter of those things which
make for the betterment of his community.
He is fond of outdoor sports, particularly of fishing and hunting, and,
being an expert shot, has killed many a deer.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 2 Pages 226-227. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Siskiyou County Biographies