San
Joaquin County
Biographies
J. OLIVER COOPER
A representative of the best
interests of his community from the standpoint of public-spirited citizenship
and useful activity in industrial affairs is found in J. Oliver Cooper, the
efficient towerman for the Western Pacific Railroad at Lathrop,
California. He was born at Columbus,
Ohio, April 18, 1872, a son of Henry H. and Mary (Whitbeck)
Cooper, both natives of New York. J.
Oliver Cooper is the eldest of three children and the only one residing in
California. The parents are now residing
in Greene County, New York.
J. Oliver Cooper was educated in the
grammar and high schools of Greene County until he was fifteen years of age,
then went to work in a store at Leeds, New York, where he remained for three
years; later he worked in a large creamery at Schoharie, New York, for three
years, and became thoroughly conversant with the creamery business. Later when he went to Galilee, Pennsylvania,
he became superintendent of a cooperative creamery and was occupied
successfully for three years. In 1902 he
resigned his position and came to California, locating first at San Diego and
then he went into the Imperial Valley and opened up a creamery business where he
remained for three years. Mr. Cooper was
active for fifteen years as an expert creamery man, but since 1909, when he
came to San Joaquin County, he has been in the employ of the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company at Turlock. Due to ill
health he was forced to seek outside work, so disposed of his creamery
interests and took up railroad work as a member of the section gang. He soon became a foreman and moved to Lathrop
where he had charge of eight miles of track on the Fresno division and remained
in that capacity for three years when he became identified with the Southern
Pacific Railroad Company as towerman at Lathrop, his service extending over a
period of nine years.
The marriage of Mr. Cooper occurred
at Stamford, New York, and united him with Miss Ella Sarah Hartwell, a daughter
of a New York pioneer, and they are the parents of two daughters: Marjorie, Mrs. W. E. Graham, who has a son
and resides at Modesto; and Mildred.
Politically Mr. Cooper is a Republican, fraternally he is a Mason. The family resides in a comfortable residence
at Lathrop.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1459. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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