San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ALTHA C. CUSTER
A prosperous viticulturist of the
San Joaquin Valley, Altha C. Custer is now living
retired from active business care at his comfortable home at 214 West Oak
Street, Lodi. An Ohioan by birth, having
been born in Highland County, March 5, 1852, a son of Samuel and Anna Custer,
both natives of Pennsylvania. There were
four children in the family, our subject being the oldest, and he and a sister
Orpha residing in Oklahoma are the only two living; Melvin and Alvina are deceased.
In 1873 the family removed to Iowa where they spent a couple of years
and in the spring of 1875 moved to Gentry County, Missouri, where the father
purchased a ranch. The mother was only
thirty-two years old when she died, the father surviving her until he was
sixty-five years old.
Altha C.
Custer remained at home with his parents until his marriage on March 24, 1880,
when he was united with Miss Eunice Johns, a native of Madison County, Iowa, a
daughter of A. B. and Ann (Smith) Johns, both parents
natives of Dayton, Ohio. Mrs. Custer is
the fourth in a family of eight children:
Eliza; John, deceased; Nancy, deceased; Eunice, Mrs. Custer; James H.;
Mary Elizabeth; Carl; and Joseph, deceased.
Mrs. Custer was seven years of age when her parents removed to Andrew
County, Missouri, where the father became a well-to-do farmer. After his marriage, Mr. Custer leased 220
acres of land, which he farmed for six years when he removed to Rea, Missouri,
where he became employed with the Great Western Railroad on construction and
maintenance work; this position covering a period of six years. In 1897 the family came to California and
settled at Covina, where he worked at various kinds of employment for seven
years, four years of which was spent in the orange and lemon industry in the
Covina district. In 1904 Mr. Custer
removed to Berkeley, California, and worked at the carpenter’s trade for three
years, then moved to Lodi, where he bought a twenty-acre ranch northwest of
Victor. This ranch was a bearing
vineyard and Mr. Custer improved it with a pumping plant and a good house where
he and his family resided for thirteen years, when he sold his place and
purchased his present comfortable home in Lodi.
To Mr. and Mrs. Custer were born three children: Rolla Johns, the second oldest, has been
efficiently and successfully connected with education work of San Joaquin
County for the past eleven years. Joseph
died in Missouri when two and one-half years old, and Bernice died in Covina,
California, when seven years old. Mr.
Custer is a Democrat in politics, and has the respect and good will of all who
know him.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
685. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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