Yolo County
Biographies
RALPH HENRY PYLMAN
The record of the Pylman family in California
is a record of persevering industry and untiring energy. Father and sons unitedly have labored to promote their mutual welfare and
have counted no labor too difficult when by its successful accomplishment the
general prosperity might be promoted. Ralph Henry Pylman,
the head of the family, is a Hollander by birth and parentage, and grew to
manhood in his native land, where he married and engaged in farming until more
than forty years of age. As his children began to grow up around him and the
necessary expenses of the family increased, he began to realize that in Holland
little expectation could be maintained of getting ahead in the world. The
utmost frugality scarcely sufficed to provide the family with a scanty
livelihood and nothing could be saved for future needs. For this reason he was
led to seek a home in America, crossing the ocean in 1881 with his family and
proceeding directly to San Francisco, from there coming to Merritt Island to
Yolo county, where he has since made his home.
For three years the Pylman family rented the
old Smith ranch of one hundred and eighteen acres. By working out by the day
for others the father secured sufficient money to enable him to buy horses and he then began to cultivate the land. Unfortunately, the
overflowing of the land caused the loss of all the crops, and again he was
forced to work out by the day and month. As soon as his sons were old enough
they began to work out also, bringing their earnings home to assist in
supporting their mother and sisters. In 1897 the father and sons bought one
hundred and thirty acres known as the Charles Nelson ranch, on which they paid
$2,000 and assumed an indebtedness of $4,000. Such was the energy and success
with which they worked that the debt was entirely paid the first year. The
following year they purchased two hundred and forty acres from the Green
brothers, which place they had rented the preceding season. For this they paid
$9,000 in cash and gave their notes for the balance of $10,000. At the
expiration of two and one-half years the entire indebtedness had been paid.
Since then they have purchased one hundred and sixty-three acres, for which
they paid $10,000 in cash, and $10,000 in notes. The father, who is now
sixty-five, is practically retired, and in his declining years enjoys the
comforts secured through previous efforts. The kindness of his sons, Henry
Lester, Amos and Garrett M., who are partners, has relieved him of all manual labor.
In the family, besides the father and
the three sons named, are the mother, Alberta, who is now (1905) sixty-seven
years of age, and four daughters, namely: Lida, wife
of W. H. Atkins, a rancher of this district; Charlotte, who married J. W.
Heringer and lives near the Pylman farm; Ida, Mrs. A.
Creason, a resident of Kingsburg, Fresno county,
Cal.; and Jennie, wife of Edward E. Bunnell, a
rancher near the Pylman homestead. The eldest son,
Henry Lester, married Miss Nettie Smith, who was born on Merritt Island, her
father, John C. Smith, being a well-known resident of the locality. One son,
Albert Lester, blesses their union.
Politically the father and sons
affiliate with the Republican party. Thoroughly loyal
to the land of their adoption, they yet retain a deep affection for their
native land across the seas. In the sons this affection is one of sentiment
rather than knowledge, for they were small when the family left Holland. Having
lived practically all of their lives in the new world they have become American
in enterprise, thought and ambitions. To the parents, however, who spent many
years in the Netherlands, the recollection of the mother country is very vivid.
Often, as they converse with each other and with their children, they use by
preference the old Dutch language to which their lips
became accustomed in their childhood years. With all their love for the old
home land, yet as they look out upon their broad acres, with two hundred acres
in beans, and large tracts in hay and barley, and as they look upon their
seventy heard of fine dairy cows, they can have no reason to regret having cast
in their fortunes with the new west.
Transcribed By: Cecelia M. Setty.
Source: "History of the State of
California and Biographical Record of the Sacramento
Valley, Cal.," J. M. Guinn, Pages
378-381.
The Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 1906.
© 2017 Cecelia M. Setty.
Golden Nugget Library's Yolo
County Biographies