San
Joaquin County
Biographies
WALTER W. TURNER
In this age and generation when so
many motorists have lost confidence in garage service, and when this
disappointment leads back in so many cases to experience with shops, the
operators of which are willing to turn out almost any service if only they can
start the traveler off on his journey and get him away from their premises, it
is refreshing to stop at the Turner & Lease Garage at 122 North School
Street, Lodi, whose proprietors, Walter W. Turner and Russell Lease, are known
far and wide as experts of such high standards and conscientiousness that when
they once finish repairs upon an automobile the owner may well believe he has
received dependable work. W. W. Turner
was born on the Turner ranch, near New Hope, now Thornton, in San Joaquin
County, on April 26, 1876, the son of S. Odillon and
Sarah Jane (Tock) Turner, the former a native of Louisiana and the latter of
Maine; and in him, therefore, are blended the best strains of northern and
southern blood. Frank Turner, the
grandfather, brought his family to California by way of Cape Horn, traveling in
a sailing vessel in the late ‘50s and he followed farming near Lodi. Our subject’s father became a large grain
farmer in early days in the Delta district.
The Turner ranch is now the Spenker
ranch. Several children were born to
this worthy couple. Walter W., Jr.,
lives at Lodi; Delbert resides at Lodi; Lola has become Mrs. Schmidt of
Berkeley; and Anna is Mrs. Bechthold of Woodbridge.
Walter attended the district school
at Woodbridge, as well as Woodbridge College, and he learned the trade of
mechanic with R. A. Jackson while using a steam engine and working in the Delta
district reclaiming land. Then he farmed
grain for three years at Staten Island, and for two years he was superintendent
of the B. A. Towne vineyard. For the
past twenty years, however, he has been engaged in the garage business
conducting an automobile repair shop; and having come to enjoy the reputation
of being one of the very best auto repair mechanics in all San Joaquin County;
he has never wanted for patronage, and in fact has been offered work in such
increasing proportion as to make it a problem at times how to handle it and yet
to turn it out in the shape in which it ought always be done. On September 1, 1921, he took over the
Tourist Garage at 122 North School Street, Lodi, an event for the locality,
having as a partner Russell Lease, and they changed the name to Turner &
Lease Garage, and ever since he has tried to outdistance himself and eclipse
his earlier reputation for first-class work.
Mr. Turner was an expert bicycle rider, and took part in the bicycle
relay race from San Francisco to New York inaugurated by the Stearns Bicycle Company
and the Cleveland Company. Mr. Turner
rode for fifteen miles through the Lodi district as the representative of the
Stearns Company, and the race was won by this company.
At Stockton, October 22, 1902, Mr.
Turner was married to Miss Myrtle Bandy, a native of Napa, and they have two
children, twins, Burton B. and Bernice, eighteen years old. He belongs to Lodge No. 218, of the Stockton
Elks, and to Lodge No. 848 of the Lodi Eagles, and Lodi Parlor, N. S. G. W.,
and he enjoys an enviable popularity in their circles.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Page
1488. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2012 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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