San
Joaquin County
Biographies
ORA REED
An enterprising and progressive
businessman, Ora Reed conducts a modern blacksmith and machine shop at 112 East
Pine Street, where he is ably and conscientiously serving his patrons. He has been a resident of California since
1892 and of Lodi for the past four years, and he has found this locality not
only an ideal place from the standpoint of climate, but also as offering
excellent business opportunities, and as a recruit from the middle west he has
thoroughly identified himself with the life and activities of this
country. He was born in Cherokee County,
Kansas, March 7, 1884, a son of Thomas Jefferson and Ida Elizabeth (Tackett)
Reed, natives of Joplin, Missouri, and Iowa, respectively. Grandfather Tackett was a corporal during the
Civil War under General Grant in the Army of the Cumberland; he passed away
after the close of the War from pneumonia.
Grandfather Reed also was a veteran of the Civil War and lived to be
sixty years old, passing away in San Jose, California. The father was a lead miner and removed from
Missouri, his native state, to Kansas, where our subject was born. There were seven children in the family: Jessie, Ora, the subject of this sketch;
Ethel, Goldie, Geneva, Ray, and John. In
1892 the family removed to California and settled at Fresno, where the father
engaged in farming.
Ora Reed attended grammar school in
Fresno and at twenty years of age was apprenticed to learn the blacksmith’s
trade, which took him five years; then he worked at his trade in various places
until 1918, when he came to Lodi, where he began to work for Mr. Pimm, and in
1921 purchased the business, which he has since conducted. In 1921 the firm became Reed & Classon. On November
17, 1906, Mr. Reed was married to Miss Lena R. Hedges, born in Lake County,
California, a daughter of C. C. and Nancy Hedges. Her father was a farmer in the Dinuba section
of Tulare County, California. Mr. and
Mrs. Reed have one child, Ern a. Mr. Reed is a
Democrat in politics and fraternally belongs to the Odd Fellows and the Red Men
of Lodi, and is past sachem of the latter order.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George H., History of San
Joaquin County, California , Page
1564. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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