San
Joaquin County
Biographies
AUGUST FRED DEGENER
A practical farmer of the Lafayette
Hall district of San Joaquin County is August Fred
Degener who is the owner of a fine twenty-five acre ranch five miles west of
Lodi. He was born in Bremen, Germany,
December 21, 1880, a son of Fredrick and Caroline Degener, both born and reared
in Germany. When our subject was a year
old his parents came to America and settled at Baltimore Maryland, where the
father plied his trade of shoemaker and ran a store. He passed away when August was six years old;
then the mother moved to San Francisco, where she made her home and worked
until she married John C. Blohm, and they moved to
Stockton in 1892.
August Fred Degener received his
education in the grammar schools of San Francisco, Redwood City and Stockton,
and resided with his mother until he was fourteen years old when he concluded
to quit school and go to work for himself. For five years he worked for wages on the
ranches in the vicinity of Stockton.
With his earnings he then bought fifteen acres on the Lower Sacramento
Road which he developed, setting ten acres to vines, and he still owns that
property; in 1905 he purchased twenty-five acres of stubble land one-half mile
north of Lafayette Hall and immediately set about to improve it. Ten acres is set to vineyard, one acre to
orchard, and the balance is grain land; it is further
improved with a good set of buildings.
On one of his places he has a four-inch pump and a seven-and-a-half
horsepower motor for irrigation and the other place is under the Woodbridge-Mokelumne irrigation ditch.
On May 20, 1915, at Lodi, Mr.
Degener was married to Miss Getha Mae Fowler, a
daughter of Charles and Catherine Fowler; the father is a prominent magistrate
of Kingman, Kansas, and is serving as city commissioner of that city; he also
conducts a poultry farm in that locality.
Mr. and Mrs. Degener are the parents of one daughter, Caroline
Catherine. In politics Mr. Degener is a
Republican and fraternally is a charter member of Hermann Sons of Lodi. During his long residence in San Joaquin
County he has acquired a wide circle of acquaintances and by perseverance and
determination has gained a place among the substantial agriculturists of his
community.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1532-1533. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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