San
Joaquin County
Biographies
JULIUS WOOCK
A representative vineyardist
residing on a fine estate near Lodi, San Joaquin County is Julius Woock, who
has shown great ability in the management of his affairs, and in the
cultivation and development of his ranch, until it is now among the finest in
the Lodi vicinity. A native of Germany,
he was born at Marienthal, near Bonn, on September 7,
1860. His father, also named Julius
Woock, was a farmer in his native land and he died in 1862, leaving his widow
with three children: Matilda, now
deceased, Amanda and Julius. His mother
married again, being united with Gottlieb Riemer, and
of that union one daughter is living, Amelia.
Our subject received a good grammar
school education and spent three years at the gymnasium, but he has profited by
actual experience with conditions wherever he has lived and this he considers
the most valuable of educations. When he
left home he went to work on one of the big estates in Germany and soon became
overseer and while he was there he learned the distilling business, making
liquor from potatoes, grain, etc., spending two years in this work. In 1886 he made up his mind that the United
States held out more opportunities and he crossed the Atlantic and soon
afterwards he located in Kansas, where he worked at the trade of carpenter for
a time, then at farming. The following
year, 1887, he settled in southern California and was one of the first settlers
at Acton Station in the hills north of Saugus.
Here he homesteaded a quarter-section of land, proved up on it and lived
there for fourteen years, and raised bees, having 300 stands. He then moved to Elizabeth Lake, where he
again followed the work of his choice, farming, and remained there until 1904,
when he located in San Joaquin County.
At that time he purchased the property on which he now resides, forty
acres, about one and one-half miles southeast of Lodi on Kettleman Lane. When Mr. Woock purchased this place it was a
stubble field and by his intensive cultivation and development he now has
thirty acres in Tokay grapes and six acres in Zinfandels, all full bearing and
yielding a handsome income each season, and about four acres in garden,
buildings, and alfalfa. The following
year, 1905, Mr. Woock built a house on the place and in 1919 replaced it with a
fine two-story residence; he has also put in a five-inch pump with a fifteen-horsepower
motor for irrigation, by which he irrigates every part of his ranch.
The marriage of Mr. Woock occurred
on December 25, 1889 at Acton, California, and united him with Miss Elise
Nickel, born at Frankfort-on-Oder, Germany.
Her father was Rudolph Nickel, a lithographer, who used the old stone
lithograph presses; her mother was in maidenhood Augusta Biega,
and after the death of her husband, she carried on his business with the aid of
a foreman for about ten years, then she came to California to join other
members of her family who had come to this state some years before. She died at Acton, California, at the age of
seventy-one years. She and her husband
had seven children: Hedwig, Richard,
Elise and Eugene, the last two of Lodi.
Olga died at Leavenworth, Kansas; Bruno, at Acton, and the eldest,
Marie, died in Europe when a small child.
Mr. and Mrs. Julius Woock are the proud parents of four children: Hattie, Walter, married Lydia Bittner and
they have one child, Walter Julius Woock; Herbert J., and Eric M. In politics Mr. Woock is a Republican and is
a respected member of the Lutheran Church of Lodi. He has ever been interested in the cause of
education and while residing in Los Angeles County was a trustee of the school
district at both Acton and Elizabeth Lake.
Transcribed by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Tinkham, George
H., History of San Joaquin County, California , Pages
1380-1383. Los Angeles, Calif.: Historic
Record Co., 1923.
© 2011 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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