San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JOHN J. MOLLOY
A man, whose industry and exemplary
management in his chosen line of work have placed him well to the front as a
leader among the millers of the Pacific Coast, is John J. Molloy, the
superintendent of the Cereal Mill of the Sperry Flour Company at Stockton, who was
born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 7, 1871.
His father, John Molloy, was born in County Mayo, Ireland, where he
learned the miller’s trade and there he married Mary Johnson, also born there. He came to the United States and located at
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, having been employed by George Douglas, of Douglas &
Stewart, to take charge of their mill; this mill was afterwards absorbed by the
American Cereal Company, and later still taken over by the Quaker Oats Company,
and is now the biggest cereal mill in the world. Mr. Molloy, who was a veteran of the Civil
War, was with this company until he was eighty years old and was retired on a
pension. Both parents are now deceased.
They were the parents of two boys and one girl.
Our subject and a sister, Mrs. Elizabeth Shields of Cedar Rapids, are
the only surviving children.
John J. Molloy was the youngest
child and he received his education in the public schools of Cedar Rapids; his
vacations were spent helping in the mill and when thirteen years old he began
to learn the miller’s trade and with it the dressing of stone burrs and in time
became second miller of the Douglas & Stewart Mill under his father. In 1898 he accepted an offer from the Sperry
Flour Company to come to California as superintendent of their San Francisco
mill, continuing there until the big fire of 1906 when the mill was burned
down; he was then transferred to the Stockton mill, where he installed new
machinery, converting the old Sperry Flour Mill into an up-to-date cereal mill,
and on August 7, 1906, he started the first mill, which has since been enlarged
until it is now the largest cereal mill on the Pacific Coast, making the
greatest number of varieties of cereals of any in the world, sixty different
varieties, with a capacity of 2,000 barrels a day. This company ships not only all over the
United States, but to Europe, Central and South America, China, Japan and all
over the Orient. Mechanically inclined,
and of an inventive turn of mind, Mr. Molloy makes his drawings for the devices
and improvements used in the mill. To
better fit himself for his work, he took a course in the International
Correspondence School in mechanical drawing, completing the course by night
study. Mr. Molloy devised the overhead
carrier system, which crosses Weber Avenue and transports grain to the mill and
cereal to the river boats. The demand
for the Sperry products is so great that the mill is never idle, employing
three shifts of workmen of eight hours each; automatic equipment has recently
been installed so that the output will be trebled. One hundred girls are employed in the packing
and labeling department; a large room has been fitted up in the upper story
with a dining room and kitchen in connection, the company furnishing luncheon
for the girls. Mr. Molloy designed and
built a replica of the old pioneer Sperry mill built at Sacramento in the early
‘50s, for the ’49 celebration there in 1922, and it attracted much attention.
Mr. Molloy has an international as
well as a national reputation as a miller; he was one of the organizers of the
Professional Millers’ Association of California and served as its president; he
is now deputy supreme secretary of the California Professional Millers’
Association, a branch of the national order; he is a member of the supreme
council of the above and the only member in California who has a vote in the
supreme council of the nation and votes on every matter of importance that
comes before that body.
Mr. Molloy’s marriage in San
Francisco united him with Miss Ida E. Loichot, a
native of Canton, Ohio, and they are the parents of three daughters: Mrs. Mary Cornwall, residing in Stockton, and
Adelle and Thelma, both attending the Stockton high school. Fraternally he is a Knight of Columbus and a
Modern Woodman. His intelligent
leadership and management have been an influence for progress in city, county
and state.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1435-1436. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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