San
Joaquin County
Biographies
HUBERT FREDERICK SILK
As the senior member of the firm of
Silk & Wheelock, Hubert Frederick Silk is accounted one of the most
successful business men of Lodi. During
a brief residence in that city he has won splendid prosperity, which is an
indication of superior business capacity and enterprise. His advancement has been gained through a
recognition and improvement of opportunity.
He has ever realized the fact that the present and not the future is the
moment for action, and he has labored consistently and along safe yet
progressive lines until he is numbered among the foremost representatives of
business activity in the thriving city of Lodi.
He was born in London, England, September 6, 1890, a son of Stephen and
Hannah Silk, both natives of England, where Stephen Silk is engaged in the
planing mill business. There are three
children in the family, Hubert Frederick being the eldest. The others are Dorothy, Mrs. Entriknap, and
Cecil Arthur.
Hubert Frederick Silk received a
good education in the schools of the city of London. When a lad he assisted in his father’s
planing mill. In 1903 he came to
Vancouver, British Columbia. He soon
took a trip to Nome, Alaska, where he worked at anything he could find to
do. Returning to Vancouver in 1906, he
began work in the planing mills, which occupied his attention until October,
1914, when he enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and was sent to
Weybridge-Surrey, England. There he
engaged in the manufacture of aeroplane propellers, and was thus engaged for
the duration of the war. He was
discharged at Vancouver in February, 1919, with the rank of sergeant. Soon after being discharged he came to San
Francisco. He traveled in the west and
southwest for about a year, and then located in Stockton in 1920. Soon after, he removed to Lodi, where he
purchased the interest of the senior member of the firm of Gregg & Son, who
ran a planing mill on Cherokee Street, east of the Salem School. Under the efficient management of Mr. Silk,
the business grew to such an extent that the mill was moved to larger quarters
on Sacramento Street, the firm now being known as Enterprise Planing Mill. Here much new machinery has been installed
and the mill is fully equipped to handle any kind of mill or cabinet work
offered, and with the first-class mechanics employed only guaranteed work will
be turned out.
On April 8, 1920, at Modesto,
occurred the marriage of Mr. Silk to Miss Mary Wooldridge, a native of
Lakeport, California, and a daughter of Lemuel and Helen Wooldridge, early
California pioneers who crossed the plains with ox-teams and became ranchers in
the Golden State. Mr. and Mrs. Silk are
the parents of one son, Stephen, and are members of the Episcopal Church of
Lodi. Mr. Silk is one of the popular and
highly esteemed men of his community, and he has done his part as a good
citizen and a useful factor in all public enterprises.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1637-1638. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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