Stanislaus
County
Biographies
HERMAN CHRIST
Modesto, Stanislaus County,
California, has several old businessmen who have been identified with its
leading interests in nearly all periods of its progressive history, and there
is not one of them who is held in higher esteem than Herman Christ, who
established the Modesto Bakery in 1873 and has managed it continuously and
successfully ever since.
Herman Christ was born in Frankenhausen am Kypfhauser in
Germany, September 20, 1844, a son of Albinus and Amelia Christ, natives of the
“fatherland.” Albinus Christ was a
forwarding agent, a member of the Lutheran Church and a man of high character,
who lived to be seventy years old. His
good wife, also a Lutheran, died in her thirty-sixth year. Herman Christ was educated in Germany and
came to the United States in 1864 and located in Philadelphia, where he was
employed as a baker for two years. In
1866 he came to California, by way of the Isthmus. He worked at his trade at Stockton and San
Francisco until 1873, when he came to Modesto and purchased the lot on which
his fine business block now stands. He
opened his bakery in February of the year mentioned in a small building which
stood on the lot and which was later destroyed by fire. He purchased an adjoining lot, thus acquiring
a frontage of fifty feet, and in 1891 built upon the property a good brick
structure, one-half of the ground floor of which is occupied by his bakery, the
other half by a grocery, and the upper stories being fitted up for use as a
lodging house. Mr. Christ owns another
good business building in the town, that in which the hall of the Druids is
located, and has eight acres adjoining the town line on which he grows oranges
and grapes. He is a man of much public
spirit and is active and influential in local politics as a Democrat and has
served the city as trustee for five years.
He is an Odd Fellow, a Druid and a Knight of Pythias, and has been the
treasurer of his lodge of Odd Fellows and prominent in his encampment, and has
been the treasurer also of the Druidical body with which he is identified, and
is respected not only in fraternal circles but in social and business circles
as well. He has advanced to his present
good station in life by honesty, industry and perseverance and richly deserves
the success he has achieved.
In 1873 Mr. Christ married Miss Amalia Simon, who was born in Niederalben,
Rheinpreuhsen, Germany, who bore him seven children,
two of whom are living, viz.: Annie and
Bertha. Their mother died in 1886. The following year Mr. Christ married Mrs.
Charlotte Muller, a sister of his first wife, who has a son by the name of
Philip Muller. By her union with Mr.
Christ she has one son, named Ernest.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
“A Volume of Memoirs and Genealogy of Representative Citizens of Northern
California”, Pages 583-584. Chicago Standard Genealogical Publishing Co. 1901.
© 2010
Gerald Iaquinta.