San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JACOB G. HANDEL
Although a native of Russia, where
he was born January 20, 1872, Jacob G. Handel has been a resident of the United
States since his second year, having come to this country with his parents in 1874. They were pioneers in Hutchinson County,
South Dakota, helping settle the country there, and Jacob was reared on those
bare prairies, thirty miles from Yankton, where human habitations were few and
far between. As a boy he helped his
father on the home farm, starting when very young to work in the harvest
fields, and later he engaged in farming on his own account on 160 acres near
Menno, South Dakota.
In 1899 Mr. Handel came to
California and located at Lodi. He had
saved some of his earnings and seeing the possibilities of the business future
of this city he bought eleven acres in the north end of town on Sacramento
Street, west of the railroad, this tract then being in alfalfa and orchard. This district has now become quite an
industrial center and Mr. Handel has sold lots to the Superior Manufacturing
Company, the Producers Fruit Company and the California Almond Growers
Association, and they have erected their warehouses and manufacturing plants on
the property. A number of residences
have also been built there, including the fine new home of Mr. Handel, and he
still has twenty-one acres left that are steadily increasing in value.
An active factor in the upbuilding
and real estate development of Lodi, Mr. Handel is the owner of the modern two-story
business block occupied by the Lodi Hardware Company, which he built in
partnership with J. G. Hieb, and in company with J. G. and John W. Hieb, he
built and owns the White Front Store building, a modern, two-story brick block
on Elm Avenue, which has since been sold.
He is also the owner of a ten-acre vineyard in full bearing, five miles
southeast of Lodi, from which he received $3,300 in 1920, and has a
fourteen-acre alfalfa ranch two and a half miles east of Lodi, a valuable
property. For eight years Mr. Handel
conducted a hardware business in Lodi, but he disposed of it some time ago and
now his time is fully occupied in looking after his varied interests in town
and country. In 1923 he bought 100 acres
near Livingston, Merced County, which he is improving.
Mr. Handel’s marriage united him
with Miss Magdalina Hieb, a native of South Dakota, and they are the parents of
seven children: Lea is Mrs. Walter
Thompson and the mother of two children; Leonhart,
Wilhelmina, Mrs. Bolding, Theodore, Reinholdt, Lillie
and Benjamin. A successful self-made man, Mr. Handel ranks high among the
upbuilders of Lodi, where for more than twenty years he has been identified
with the community. He is a stockholder
in the Superior Manufacturing Company, and active in the Salem Reformed Church,
where he was superintendent of the Sunday school and a former member of the
church choir.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1260. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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