San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ROBERT LEVI GRAHAM
Prominently identified with the development
and progress of modern California the late Robert L. Graham was one of the most
prominent and representative citizens of the Lodi section of San Joaquin
County, where his life was so ordered as to gain and retain the confidence and
esteem of his fellowmen. He was born
December 16, 1855, on the old Graham homestead southeast of Lodi, where the A.
E. Angier home now stands, and was a son of Robert L. Graham and his wife,
Caroline Roe (Stokes) Graham, both natives of Kentucky. The father was born December 27, 1826, his
parents being Levy and Mary (Tatum) Graham, natives of North Carolina. The maternal great-grandfather of our
subject, Thomas Tatum, was a teamster in the Revolutionary War. Grandfather Graham was a farmer by occupation
and emigrated from North Carolina to Kentucky with his father, when a small
boy, remaining there owning land until about 1860, when his wife died and he
sold out and went to Missouri; there he remained but a short time, when he went
to Arkansas, where he died in 1881 at the age of eighty-six years. The father remained at home with his parents
until twenty-four years of age, then, February 22, 1852, he left for Missouri,
where he remained for one year, when he crossed the plains to California
arriving in San Joaquin Valley September 2, 1853. In 1847 he was married to Miss Caroline Roe
Stokes, whose grandfather was a fifer in the Revolutionary War. Arriving in San Joaquin County he purchased a
claim of a man named Adams, situated nine and a half miles from Stockton and
five miles from what is now Lodi. He
sold the place in 1857 and went down to the Lower Sacramento Road, where he
purchased 200 acres where he had stock.
He remained there until the fall of 1862, when on account of flood he
came back and purchased again near the old place. Not long afterwards, however, he traded that
for 300 acres, ten miles from Stockton and five miles from Lodi, on the
Cherokee Lane Road. He was a pioneer in
agriculture, there being only three farms under plow before he settled here. Four children were born to this worthy
pioneer couple: Robert L., our subject; Surelda, Mrs. A. M. Hale of Amador County; Della, Mrs. C.
Hull; Eugene D., the county clerk of San Joaquin County.
The first twenty-five years of
Robert L. Graham’s life was spent on his father’s farm. When he was twenty-six years old he came to
Lodi and started to work in a drug store owned by Byron Beckwith. He received his grammar school education at
the little red schoolhouse at Live Oak and was graduated from a college at
Stockton, then passed the state board examination and became a licensed
pharmacist. At this time there were only
three business houses and a few dwellings in Lodi and much of the site of the
present city was covered with brush and scrub oaks. The first drugstore Mr. Graham owned was on
Elm Street on the corner of Sacramento and at this located he served as
postmaster and postal telegraph and telephone operator; later he moved his old
store and built a brick structure.
Sacramento Street was at that time nothing more than a road through the
tangle of brush. Little business was
done in those days, and Mr. Graham often said that if he had five or six
customers a day he thought he was doing well.
He was in business for forty-one years and was located on the corner of
Elm and Sacramento streets all of that period.
The first long distance telephone and the first telephone exchange in
the town were placed in his store and he also had the first postal telegraph
office, and after learning the code, he sent, received and delivered all
messages in Lodi for a long time.
On June 22, 1886, occurred the
marriage of Mr. Graham and Miss Sarah J. Schu, a native of Missouri, and a
daughter of John Adam and Frances J. (Martin) Schu. Her father was a native of Alsace-Lorraine,
who came to the United States when a young man, first settling in New York,
later going to Illinois and still later to Missouri. When Mrs. Graham was three years old her
parents came to California settling at Woodbridge where they remained for three
years; from there the family removed to Galt, where they lived for a short
time; then removed to Biggs where the father followed his trade of shoemaker;
then he followed his trade in Oroville for a short time, then moved his family
back to San Joaquin County where he passed away at the age of sixty-three; the
mother still living in Sacramento at the age of eighty. There were seven children in the family: Josephine, John and Aggie are all deceased;
Sarah J., Mrs. Graham; Charles and Robert reside in Sacramento and Etta is
deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Graham were the
parents of two daughters, LaRelda Roe, Mrs. R. L.
Patton, of Lodi, and Gladys Frances, Mrs. Oscar H. Wood, of Lodi, has one
daughter, Janis Maurine. Mr. Graham was
the owner of an eighty-five acre ranch in the Elliott district of north San
Joaquin County. For the past thirteen
years, a niece, Miss Marion Schu, the daughter of Charles Schu, has made her
home with Mr. and Mrs. Graham. She
attended the Lodi high school and is now employed by the First National Bank of
Lodi. Mrs. Graham is a past grand of the
Pythian Sisters lodge of Lodi and is a member of the
Eastern Star and the Rebekahs and of the Lodi Woman’s Club. Mr. Graham was enjoying his first vacation in
thirty-five years, in the Yosemite Valley where he was stricken and passed away
on June 20, 1922, before any assistance could be rendered him. He was a charter member and past chancellor
commander of the Lodi Knights of Pythias; the Foresters of America, and was
also a member of Lodi Parlor No. 18, N. S. G. W. He was widely known and esteemed and had many
excellent traits of character which endeared him to a large circle of friends,
and in his death the community deplored the loss of an enterprising businessman
and honored citizen who for many years had witnessed the county’s growth and
had contributed in no small way to its development and substantial upbuilding.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
520. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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