San
Joaquin County
Biographies
EMIL FIMBEL
Among the thriving industries of San
Joaquin County is the Pickle Manufacturing Company, of which Emil Fimbel is the
senior partner, not only the pioneer establishment in this line, but the only
one of its kind in the county. Possessed
of sturdy ability and enterprise, his success has been steadily increased as a
result of each year’s operations. He was
born in Alsace-Lorraine, February 10, 1854, in the town of Mulhausen, where his
father, Jacob Fimbel, owned and operated a bakery.
Emil Fimbel received a good
education in the excellent schools of his native town, and while young learned
the trade of iron turner in a machine shop where he was employed until 1873,
when he went to Paris. The following
year, 1874, he came to the United States locating at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
and there followed his trade for two years.
He then removed to Canton, Ohio, where he worked for two years for the Leibord & Teitsold Safe
Manufacturing Company; then he went to Philadelphia, where he worked in the
shipyards at Chester, Pennsylvania, and while there worked on three ships as
follows: the Center, the City of New
York and the City of San Francisco. He
then went to Dubuque, Iowa, and later to Kansas, where he intended to take a
homestead but was not pleased with the conditions in western Kansas. He then went on to Buena Vista, Colorado,
prospecting, working in the mines and sharpening tools for the miners. In 1888 he located in Bakersfield,
California, and two years later he came to Stockton, where he found employment
with the Shippee Harvester Company, the Stockton Iron Works and the State
Hospital. Then he started his own
business on Bridge Street, buying and selling vegetables. Some ten years ago he started to make pickles
in a small shop on East Channel Street and this business has steadily
increased.
The marriage of Mr. Fimbel in
Stockton in 1897 united him with Mrs. Mary Merz, a native of Bavaria, Germany,
who came to California in 1885. She has
two sons by her former marriage: Hans G.
served in the United States army overseas and now is a farmer on Linden Road,
San Joaquin County; William F. Merz is a partner in the firm of Fimbel &
Merz. Mr. and Mrs. Fimbel are the
parents of one son, Emil Fimbel, Jr., also a partner in the business.
The firm of Fimbel & Merz
contract with the farmers to buy their cucumbers and manufacture them into
dill, sweet, sour, mustard and mixed pickles; they also manufacture
sauerkraut. They conduct a large
wholesale business, as it is the only industry of its kind in the county and
they enjoy a steadily increasing patronage.
Mr. Fimbel is the owner of an eighty-acre ranch in Calaveras County, a
portion of which is devoted to vineyard and farming land and on which is also a
limestone quarry; the rock makes a perfectly white lime of excellent
quality. Mr. Fimbel formerly belonged to
the Odd Fellows Lodge and Encampment, and is now identified with the Foresters
of America, Sons of Herman, of which he is a past president, and the I. D. E.
S. Mrs. Fimbel is a member of the
Druids.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1284. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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