Yolo County
Biographies
HENRY
J. REHM
In America, Henry J. Rehm has found the opportunities
which he sought and through their utilization he has become one of the
prosperous business men of Woodland, where he has long figured prominently in
connection with the baking trade, to which he has devoted the greater part of
his life. A native of Russia, he was
born May 31, 1878, and is a son of Jacob and Barbara (Fohrath) Rehm, who were
also born in that country, but their parents were natives of Germany.
Henry J. Rehm, the second child of the family, attended
the national schools of Russia until he reached the age of fifteen, when he
went to Orenburg, where he served his apprenticeship as a baker, and for a
number of years worked at his trade in Russia and Germany. While in his native land he joined the army
as a member of the First Company, attached to the Fifty-sixth Calvary, and was
made quartermaster sergeant. During the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904 he fought in the battle of Mukden and Leoyan and in the latter engagement was wounded in the
right leg and his horse was shot under him.
In recognition of his gallantry and devotion to duty he was awarded a
medal by the Russian government and was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant. His military service covered four years.
On the expiration of that period he sailed for America,
accompanied by his wife and son, reaching New York and the 3rd of
July, 1905. On the following morning he
was awakened by the sound of cannonading in celebration of Independence Day and
thought that the United States had entered upon another war. On the 5th of July he obtained
work in a Brooklyn (N. Y.) bakery, where he remained until November 19, 1905,
when he started for California, locating in Woodland. He was employed for a time in the Vienna
Bakery of Sacramento, where he later established a business of that character,
and in 1908 opened the Home Bakery in the Native Sons Building at 422 Main
Street, Woodland. For six years he
conducted the business, which he sold in 1914, afterward following his trade in
Sacramento, San Francisco, and San Jose.
Returning to Woodland, for three years his attention was given to
dairying and to the growing of alfalfa.
He then resumed his former occupation, becoming the proprietor of a
bakery in the Burns Hotel, and is now engaged in business at his home place,
213 Elm Street. The excellence of his
products has secured for him a large share of the local patronage in his line and
his enterprise, ability and experience constitute important factors in his
growing success as a baker. He knows
every phase of the trade and carefully plans his work, which is performed with
thoroughness and system.
In Orenburg, Russia, Mr. Rehm was married to Miss
Margareta Brehm and they have become the parents of a
daughter and two sons: Lydia, age
twenty-two years, now the wife of H. Haller; William R., a young man of
nineteen; and Emil, who is thirteen years of age and has membership in the Boy
Scouts of America.
Mr. Rehm has been very active in behalf of the Sons of
Hermann, which he joined in 1908, and has advanced through the chairs in the
local lodge. In 1930 he was chosen first
grand vice president of the Grand Lodge of California and in 1931 became its
president. In this state the
organization has seven thousand, six hundred members, of whom eighty-six are
drawn from Woodland, and there are five honorary members. Evergreen Lodge, the ladies auxiliary, has
forty-eight members and twenty-eight honorary members. The Grand Lodge will meet in Woodland in
1932, owing to the efforts of Mr. Rehm, who has worked tirelessly and
effectively to promote the interests of the order and is regarded as one of its
foremost representatives in the west.
His standards of life are high and the prosperity which he now enjoys is
the legitimate reward of intelligently direct industry, unfaltering purpose and
honest dealing.
Transcribed by
Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Wooldridge, J.W.Major History of Sacramento Valley
California, Vol. 2 Pages 379-380. Pioneer Historical
Publishing Co. Chicago 1931.
© 2010 Gerald Iaquinta.
Golden Nugget Library's Yolo County
Biographies