San
Joaquin County
Biographies
RAYMOND L. GERARD
A representative California rancher
and a native son of the state, Raymond L. Gerard resides on his fine farming
estate two miles west of Lodi, San Joaquin County. He is a progressive, enterprising and
thoroughly up-to-date man of affairs, especially in his chosen line of
accomplishment, and for the success he has won through his own hard labor and
conscientious industry he quite deserves the respect and esteem which his
fellow-citizens accord him. He was born
in Stockton on January 26, 1892, a son of James Stevens and Annie C. (Penny)
Gerard, natives of California and Massachusetts, respectively. The Gerard’s are of English descent. Grandfather John H. Gerard located on what is
known as the Gerard acres in 1856, and became an extensive landowner in the Woodbridge
section of San Joaquin County. His only
son, the father of our subject, removed to San Francisco when Raymond L. was a
small child, and most of his active life was spent in the employ of
transportation companies around the Bay.
Raymond L. is next to the youngest of a family of six children. The mother passed away many years ago, and
the father now makes his home with his sons and daughter, who reside on
portions of the old homestead.
Raymond L. Gerard began his
education in the Mission school in San Francisco. When thirteen years of age he began work in
the San Francisco Exchange, at the same time continuing his studies at night
school; thus he finished the grammar grades.
After this he attended the Humboldt evening high school held at Mission
High. After three years in the Stock
Exchange, he quit to enter the San Francisco Business College, where he was
duly graduated. He then entered the Van der Nailen School of Civil
Engineering in Oakland, and still later attended the Polytechnic College of
Engineering at Oakland, and on finishing his course in civil engineering he
engaged in general surveying throughout northern California for the following
three years.
The marriage of Mr. Gerard occurred
at Oakland on April 7, 1914, and united him with Miss Edna L. Basset, a native
of Oakland, California, the daughter of William H. and Nellie Nevada (Midgley) Bassett, the former a native of California and the
latter of Nevada. Her father was a lumberman
in the vicinity of Oakland and San Francisco, but is now engaged in farming
near Raymond, California. Mrs. Gerard is
one of three children: Eleanor; Edna L.,
Mrs. Gerard; and Wallace. Mrs. Gerard
received her education in the Oakland grammar and high schools. After his marriage, Mr. Gerard worked as
bookkeeper and salesman for the A. P. Parker Company, manufacturing agents of
San Francisco, for three years; then, in the winter of 1917, he removed to
Lodi, where his portion of his Grandmother Gerard’s estate was located, being
eighty acres of the old Gerard homestead.
There is an orchard of twenty acres in young cherry trees, and the
balance of sixty acres is in vineyard.
The ranch is irrigated with a five-inch pump driven by a
fifteen-horsepower motor, and Mr. Gerard does his cultivating with a Fordson
and a small Holt tractor. Mr. and Mrs.
Gerard have had two children: a babe
that passed away in infancy, and Phyllis Eleanor, also deceased. In politics both Mr. Gerard and his wife are
Republicans, and both are students of Christian Science. Fraternally Mr. Gerard was made a Mason in
Woodbridge No. 131, F. & A. M., in which he has served as junior deacon. He is also a member of Stockton Chapter No. 28,
R. A. M.; Stockton Council, R. & S. M.; and Stockton Commandery No. 8, K.
T.; and with his wife is a member of the O. E. S. No. 118, Woodbridge. He is also a member of the California Almond
Growers Association.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1096-1099. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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