San
Joaquin County
Biographies
GUY ADAMS
A hard-working rancher, whose
intelligent foresight, industry and thrift have been crowned with success, is
Guy Adams of Lodi. He was born about six
miles from Riverside, California, on July 14, 1888, a son of C. F. and Laura
(Jones) Adams. C. F. Adams was a
blacksmith by trade and dealt in irrigation pumps; he was also an expert
well-borer. He left Monroe, Iowa, and
came to California about 1885. There are
three children in the family: Guy;
Ralph, residing at Acampo; and Florence.
Guy Adams obtained his education in
the district schools near Riverside and Corona, and after finishing the grammar
school attended the Corona high school.
At the age of eighteen he started out for himself, going to Seattle,
Washington, and while there took a business course. He then found employment with the electric
railway of Seattle, which occupied him for one and one-half years. Returning to California and to Acampo in
1912, he spent eighteen months in the fruit sheds, after which he leased and
worked a number of ranches in the Acampo district.
Mr. Adams’ marriage in Acampo, on
July 29, 1914, united him with Miss Elizabeth McKindley, a daughter of Josiah
and Emma A. (Mattice) McKindley. Mr. McKindley is an old and honored pioneer,
who came to California in 1853 with his parents. When twenty years of age, he hauled
provisions and lumber, besides doing a general freighting business from Volcano
and other points to the mines in the early days. Later he became an extensive farmer, at times
cultivating as many as 4,000 acres at once.
In 1901 he purchased 196 acres southeast of Acampo, a grain farm in a
very run-down condition, which he immediately began to improve, building a fine
house and barn and setting the land out to vineyard and orchards. From time to time he sold off portions as he
developed them, until he reduced it to about 116 acres, the finest portion of
the ranch. Of this ranch, forty acres
are in peaches, four in apricots, six in cherries, twelve in prunes, and thirty
in a vineyard, the remainder being in beautiful grounds or vacant land. The property was sold to a syndicate in 1923,
and Mr. McKindley erected a modern home on Cherokee Lane, near the Houston
School in 1922-1923.
In 1915 Guy Adams located on his
father-in-law’s ranch and managed it until it was sold. In 1919 he purchased eighty acres east of
Acampo, and is developing a fine orchard property. Ten acres have been cleared and planted to
cherries; the balance is devoted to alfalfa and to the raising of hogs. This ranch is run my Mr. Adams’ father and
brother. Politically Mr. Adams supports
the candidate best fitted to serve the community, regardless of party
affiliations; fraternally he is a Mason, a member of Woodbridge Lodge, No. 131,
and a past master of the order; and a member and Past Grand of the Jefferson
Lodge of Odd Fellows, at Woodbridge. He
and his wife are members o the Order of the Eastern Star, of which Mrs. Adams
is past worthy matron; and she is also identified with the Rebekah Lodge.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1119-1120. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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