Arline SLOSSON

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1900, Living with parents in El Monte, Los Angeles Co., California
• Census: 1920, Living with husband and mother in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California
• Census: 1930, Living with husband and mother in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California

Arline married John Wilmer SNYDER on 20 Nov 1917 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California. John was born about 1896 in Pennsylvania, USA; died on 01 Nov 1939 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Elizabeth Arlene SNYDER was born on 10 Dec 1918 in Los Angeles County, California; died on 14 Oct 2012 in Ukiah, California.
2. Donald LeRoy SNYDER was born on 08 Feb 1924 in Los Angeles County, California; died on 22 Nov 1979 in Mendocina, California.

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1880, living with parents in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1880; Works on the Farm
• Census: 1900, Living in El Monte, Los Angeles Co., California

Notes:

"George Slawson - An American Pioneer": by Harold D. Slosson - Charley, the small-town entrepreneur, went to California during the land boom of the 1880s. There, aided by his wife Anna, he started a number of enterprises.
September 25, 1860 in Northwood, Iowa, Charles Eugene Slosson was born as the first child of John and Roxy Jane Slosson...
Charley, as he was commonly called, commenced live on the Slosson's first, small farm, close in to the small town of Northwood where he started school.....
In 1869, his parents took him as a nine-year-old boy to their new section-size farm southeast of the town....
Sorghum was one of the crops raised on the Slosson farm. It is a tall-growing plant resembling perhaps corn or sugar cane. Further, like sugar cane its stalks are sweet, being chewed on for their pleasant taste. Again, it may be fed to stock or pressed to obtain sorghum syrup, popular on the breakfast table. At that time, men in the field cut the stalks using large knives,probably like a machete.
When cutting the stalks in this way, Charley received a bad gash on his leg. The wound bled profusely, with Mary being greatly alarmed. The father, from a long frontier life, was evidently a good first aider; the flow of blood was staunched, and the cut healed without ill aftereffects. The point of this story (as told by Mary), ws that raming life could be rough, hazardous at times, as well.
Butter, another farm product, was early made by the housewife in a hand-operated churn. John Slosson, the father, saw the advantage of a central milk collecting place, or creamery, as the efficient was to make butter. So with the help of Charley he built the first creamery in Worth County, and one of the first in the state.
The creamery business did all right. Additionally, Charley had abstracted land titles, and had served as deputy county treasurer and auditor. But by the middle 1880s Charley found something else churning in his mind. A great land boom was starting in southern California; he wanted to go there and be a part of it.....
He arrived sometime before December 1887.
Not long after Charley's arrival he was serving as a deputy in the city clerk's office. In 1889 he was appointed city clerk, his promotion - according to Wiley's 'History of Monrovia' - being earned by "faiathful service and attention to business." In this capacity he remained until his resignation in 1897.
....Probably the resignation followed the press of personal business. Soon we fin there is the Slosson Livery Stable.
C.E. SLOSSON, Proprietor
Monrovia Livery, Feed and Sale Stables
Horses and Crriages Bought, Sold and
Exchanged
Open Day and Night
Contractors for Household Moving, All Kinds of Team Work

For a time Charley had a prominent local man by the name of Cornes as his partner.....
Meanwhile, Chrley had become the first notary public in the town, and had gone into the real estate business. His office was on Monrovia's main street, Myrtle Avenue, being on the east side between Olive and Orange. There Charley sold all classes of property, possibly his most import being the subdividing of the sizable Oak Park Tract on the east side of town. Two other subdivisions of Charley's were the Valle Vista and the Orange Avenue tracts......
In Iowa, Charley had helped free the farm wife from the churning detail; now in California he helped release the housewife from washboard drudgery. With others he started the Monrovia Steam Laundry, possibly a successor to Chinese hand laundry, or to another laundry which had been there before. A commercial laundry was then needed, too, since this was before the days of the automatic washer and dryer; nor was there then electric power to run such units...
Somewhat similar to this foregoing enterprise was the San Gabriel River Rock and Gravel Company, which Charley helped organize, serving as its president for some time....
The townsmen organized the "Monrovia Rifles," sometimes called the "Monrovia Guards." Charley is listed as a volunteer on their roster.....
Charley had helped organize Monrovia's first Board of Trade and had served as its secretary. But his greatest public service, perhaps, was in connection with water....
In 1899 a committee of city trustees and prominent men, including Charley Slosson, was formed to study the water problem. Their recommendation for the purchase of Chapman water-bearing land was favorably acted on, with the water line being laid into town along what is now Foodhill Boulevard. This saved the day, with other water sources being located later. In 1903 Charley again served on a later committee which recomended further improvements at the Chapman wells....
On October 2, 1889, Charley married Anna V. McCullough, who had been born July 3, 1860, in Kingston, Pennsylvania. Anna at that time was a popular young school-teacher.
Initially the young couple lived in a frame house on North Encinitas Avenue. Subsequently, for some years this property was in various family hands. At about the turn of the century, Charley and Anna moved to a larger house on East Lime Avenue, just a block from the main street. Many social events were held there, including the entertaining of important dignitaries, such as congressmen. For a time Chrley served as a menber of the Republican Central Committee of Los Angeles County, having been on the executive committee for two years.
Charley and Anna had one child, Arlne, born in Monrovia on Jul 16, 1895....
Anna Slosson was honored as being a charter menber of the First Presbyterian Church, and singing for many years in its choir. She was also a charter member of the Monrovia Women's Club, serving as its secretary. Another cause she aided was the starting of the Monrovia Public Library.
On Janue 12, 1916, Charley passed away in Monrovia, the town he had helped for so many years. There, also, Anne had passed away on November 3, 1937. they are buried in southwest Los Angeles where Anna's folks had a family plot, in an old, but beautiful cemetery called Rosedale.

Charles married Anna V. MCCULLOCH on 02 Oct 1889 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California. Anna was born on 03 Jul 1860 in Kingston, Pennsylvania; died on 03 Nov 1937 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1900, Living with husband in El Monte, Los Angeles Co, California
• Census: 1920, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California
• Fact: 1920, Lists as being a widow
• Census: 1930, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California

Notes:

1920 Census for Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California lists the following living with Anna:

Reed, Margaret, Aunt 61, widow
Reed, Helen, neice, 21

1930 Census for Monrovia Los Angeles Co., California lists the following living with Anna:

Jean T. Dunwell, sister, age 74 (born in Pennsylvania) and a widow

Other Events and Attributes:

• Census: 1850, Living with parents in Maine, Broome Co., New York
• Census: 1880, living in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Occupation: 1880; Farmer

Notes:

"George Slawson: An American Pioneer", by Harold D Slosson: John was the New York school teacher who in 1859 took his bride Roxy Jane, across the country - partway in a covered wagon - to Northwood, Iowa. There, while raising their family, the Slossons struggled to subdue a large farm on the prairie....
At this particular time, 1856, there was offered by the United States government to its citizens an opportunity to preempt land in southeas Minnesota. Preemption was a federal enactment (1841) to encourage development, whereby after a time settlers onpublic lands might purchase that porperty at a reasonable price.
It was just the opportunity that John, now age twenty-one and a citizen, had been waiting for. "He got the western fever,: explained one of his sons many years later. So, after making arrangements with the school and getting things in order, he started out on his great adventure - a trip to the west.
A prerequisite for traveling at that time was a stout purse well-filled with cash. Travel cards, credit cards, and branch banks were unheard of; nor could the traveler telegraph home for more funds. At each transfer point, John would have to put cash on the counter to get his ticket for the next leg of the journey.
Additionaly, John had to have physical strength to hold his own against bandits and gunmen in the frontier towns. Strength of character was likewise needed to avoid losing money to a trickster, bunko artist, or even some woman at that time preying on green lads from the country.
Also, when John reached his destination, he would need money to live on and to develop the new land for which, finally, he had to pay the government. Emergency funds were advisable, too. All of which made a western migration a major project for a young man like John, who had just reached his majority.
Once at Spring Valley, Minnesota, John worked on his new land. Details of his efforts have been los, but it is recorded that after completing his preemption requirements, John sold out to someone else - not an unusual circumstance at that time.
Meanwhile, John had heard of rich farmland to be had at a nominal price pleasantly located in north-central Iowa. It was in Worth County, where susequently the small town of Northwood was started. This was an opportunity that appealed to John, who had money in his pocket from the sale of the Spring Valley land.....
John Slosson arrived in Northwood in 1857, the year the town was plotted. Recognized as one of the first permanent settlers in Worth County, he purchased his farmland in section twenty-nine, now inside the present town of Northwood....
Meanwhile, John was carrying on with his farming. He was handicapped at times for supplies, since in all Worth county there was only one store. Started late in 1857, this store was operated by B.H. Beckett in a small fame building - the first business structure in that section. Supplies had to be hauled in by ox teams some 130 miles from McGregor on the Mississippi River....By the same token, farm products had to be shipped out by this same route at an understandably high charge, thus reducing the farmer's net income. Nevertheless, John seemed to have managed well, and to have a promising future. In 1859, therefore, when he was twenty-four years old, he made another important decision. it was to return to his home state of New York and there in De Ruyter to marry his sweetheart of schoolteaching days, Roxy Jane Finch....
When John reached De ruyter, he was greeted by the Finches, who were a large and important family in that new York area. So we can be certain that John and Roxy jane said their vows in a pleasant, old-fashioned church wedding...
...John Slosson had first lived on a small farm in section twenty-nine - John's early purchase - in what is now a part of the town of Northwood. This farm was subscquently sold, and in the spring of 1869 John acquired another farm three and a half miles southward from Northwood. It is in section sixteen, Kensett Township; but Northwood, which is in Worth County, still remained the center of the family's interests.
This new farm was nearly a section of land, or one square mile in size. More precisely, it was a little less than 600 acres. Flowing through th property, adding to its scenic attractiveness, was the Shell Rock River, which passes along the south side of the town of Northwood. The family home - anangular, Eastern-type, two-story frame building - was located on a knoll on the river bank, just out of reach of the seasonal floods...
John Slosson, Senior, was thirty-four years old when the family moved to the large farm. He is understood to have been reasonably tall and rather spare....He took an active interest in commnitym county, and state affairs. A summary of the father's life as written by his son, Frank.
Mr. Slosson (John arean, Sr.) helped to organize Kensett township and was chairman of the first board of trustees. He took an active interest in the organization of the same county. He, together with his eldest son, Charles E., established the first creamery in Worth County, it being one of the first in the state. In 1887 he was elected by a large majority to represent Worth County in the State Legislature, but owing to failing health he was not a candidate for reelection.
He was a successful farmer, taking a special interest in stock raising and horticultural matters. His death occured on March 29, 1900, one day previous to his 65th birthday.
The foregoing account is in accord with an obituary writted in the local newspaper at that time. Under the heading of "Hon. J.M. Slosson Dead," there is mentioned the community's high esteem "...for one of Worth County's earliest citizens as well as one of its best." It further states that "....with all of his old ambitions and his honors, he was a modet unobtrusive man...of spotless integrity, one who dealt justly with every one and wisted all men well." Continuing on, "he was a public spirited citizen who won the full confidence and liking of all who really knew him."
....It was provided in his will that his widow, Roxy Jane, should have a life lease on the property. But subject to this lease, about half of the land - some 300 acres, which included the farmhouse and barns - was willed to his then youngest son, John, Jr., who was at that time helping his father on the farm. Thus he might be expected to remain there. The other half of the property was willed in euql shares to the remaining children - Charles, Mary, and Frank.
Relieved of the farm's management, as would have been her task had the farm come to her outright shortly after the turn of the century, John's widow, Roxy Jane, moved to Monrovia, California. This was with her daughter Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. John did keep his half of the farm throughout his life. The land portions willed to Charles, Mary, and Frank were sold for their respective accounts.
Roxy Jane Slosson was living in retirement in Monrovia, California. there she had a small home - a California bungalow, which was occupied jointly with her daughter, Mary, and granddaughter, Jean. Roxy Jane kept busy with fruit trees around the place, as well as being active in local church work.
Grandmother Roxy Jane (Finch) Slosson in her youth was undoubtedly a good-looking woman of the fair type. Even in later years, her eyes were bright her features regular, and her skin perfectly clear and white. This smooth, clear skin seemed to be a Fionch family characteristic, evidenced in her sisters Hattie and Julia.
She was an early-day conservationist. Each sack or piece of paper that came into the house was saved on the shelf for future use. Pieces of string, no matter how small, were tied to the end of the string ball, which ever increased in size. Furthermore, grass clippings were placed under the home fruit trees where chickens grazed and lived on table scraps. Thus, the soil was enriched so that more fruit was produced, with the excess being canned in Mason jars to be used as the wintertime dessert.....
Of rather slight build, Roxy Jane Slosson nevertheless kept alert and active until her passing at the age of seventy-nine. Her buial place is in the Live Oak Cemetery at Monrovia. She can be remembered as a devout, faithful, hard-working pioneer woman, who raised her family under the rugged conditions existent on the early American plains.....

John married Jennie Roxy FINCH. Jennie was born on 19 May 1840 in Broome Co., New York; died in 1919 in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, California; was buried in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Name: Roxy Jane Finch
• Census: 1880, living with husband in Kensett Twp., Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1900, Living with son John H. in Kensett, Worth Co., Iowa
• Census: 1910, Living in Monrovia, Los Angeles Co., California