San
Joaquin County
Biographies
CARL A. WALTER
Highly esteemed in his lifetime, and
honored above many after his demise, Carl A. Walter, the sturdy, progressive
pioneer, earned for himself an enviable place among those who will always receive
their meed of praise for what a grateful posterity acknowledges they really did
in helping to found the great California commonwealth. His contemporaries, who knew him face to
face, were intimately and accurately acquainted with his ideals, his toil and
his accomplishments, largely as the result of hard, intelligent labor; and now
those who weigh and balance the records of the early, self-sacrificing settlers,
will not fail to accord him all the credit he deserves.
On September 26, 1849, in the year
when so many thousands were rushing as fast as the slow and the inadequate
conveyances of those days could bring them to California, Carl Walters was born
in Holstein, Germany, where he grew to young manhood. In 1873, when he was twenty-four years of age,
he sailed for America, and on May 14, arrived at Banta Station in San Joaquin
County, and almost immediately embarked in extensive agricultural enterprises
on the West Side, with which he was destined to be identified until 1912. On September 10, 1890, at Tracy, he was
married to Miss Melanie E. Gunder, who was born in
Silesia, on February 3, 1868, and had come out to California in 1887, arriving
at Midway, in Alameda County. She joined
the family of Reinhold Haera, who had come to
California in 1866 with her brother, Frank, and had become farmer folks.
In 1890, Mr. and Mrs. Walter took up
farming near the Whitehall estate, in Pescadero
Grant, with which they continued occupied until 1905, and there Mr. Walter
operated extensively on the West Side as a grain farmer, until 1912, when he
sold out and removed to French Camp, where at present his son Carl, who resides
on the home property, is farming. In
December, 1921, he and Mrs. Walter moved to Stockton, and on November 9, 1922,
after months of ill-health and suffering, he passed away, mourned and survived
by his wife and five children, and a host of appreciative, devoted
friends. His residence was at 1422 East
Sonora Street. He always exerted an
enviable influence in civic affairs as a broadminded but staunch
Republican. He had served for ten years
as a trustee in the French Camp School, where he was chairman of the board; and
he was prominent as a member of Sumner Lodge, I. O. O. F. He was past chancellor in the Knights of
Pythias, at Tracy, and his funeral, which was largely attended, was conducted
jointly by these two lodges.
Several children blessed the happy
union of Mr. and Mrs. Walter. Carl
Walter is married, and has a wife and two children, Carl Clifton and Muerl Lois; he is with the Harris Harvester Company at
Stockton, and is a member of the Tracy Parlor, N. S. G. W. Margaret is employed by Levy Bros. Melanie has become the wife of Clifton Kroyer, of the Kroyer Motors Co.,
Inc., of California, and resides at Long Beach.
Freda is a graduate of the Stockton high school, and also of the Western
Normal School, having been a member of the class of 1916. She also graduated from Heald’s Business
College in 1918, and has followed teaching in the public schools of San Joaquin
County for the past six years, enjoying the esteem of her colleagues. She is a member of the N. D. G. W. William graduated from the Stockton high
school, 1917, and is now assistant manager of the W. L. Maxwell Company at
Stockton.
Transcribed by Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
984-987. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 Gerald Iaquinta.
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