San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CHARLES H. FINK
Interesting as a successful retired
vineyardist, C. H. Fink of 401 West Walnut Street, Lodi, is able to look back
upon an honorable association not only with one of the most important
industries in the Golden State, which he himself did so much to forward, but
with one of the most promising of California towns. He was born in Sheboygan County, Wisconsin,
on July 25, 1859, and on May 28, 1873, he with his parents left for California.
The family located in Stanislaus
County, near Crow’s Landing, and there the father and five sons became large
landowners and also extensive growers of grain, farming together as many as
2,400 acres, and continuing in this partnership for thirty-three years, all of
the sons being still living, and most of them still farming in Stanislaus
County. This land which Mr. Fink farmed
was bought for ten dollars an acre, and it is now worth $300 per acre. In 1888 barley sold for fifty-four cents per
bushel, and wheat at eighty-five cents, and this will afford a clue as to the
farmer’s rewards in some years.
Tired of farming a large ranch,
however, C. H. Fink and his younger brother, in the fall of 1905, came to Lodi
and bought a ranch of fifty-six acres.
They planted thirty acres to Tokays, and later four acres to cherries
and alfalfa. Their first crop was valued
at $1,000, and their ranch cost them $9,000, or about $160 per acre. This they farmed until December 17, 1920,
when they sold it at a handsome profit and retired. They had made their home upon the ranch, and
naturally during their residence they had greatly improved the property, in
part by the introduction of water from the Lodi District Pumping Plant, and
partly by the erection of houses, etc.
Mr. Fink was married at Crow’s Landing to Miss Emma Hirsch, born in
Wisconsin, and she died at Lodi, Mary 13, 1907.
They had three children: Della
and Stella, twin sisters, and Vernon.
His second marriage in Lodi united him with Miss Esther M. Hirsch, a
native of Wisconsin. The family attends
the Seventh Day Adventist Church, of which Mr. Fink has been a member for
thirty-three years, in excellent standing.
Mr. and Mrs. Fink and their family have always enjoyed the esteem of a
wide circle of devoted friends, and the confidence of business and financial
leaders who have been familiar with their dependable methods, and their high
standards of patriotic citizenship.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1573. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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