A Glimpse of Santa Clara History
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Sources for information included in this brochure include: A Glimpse of Santa Clara A Walk Through the Past by Pat Loomis Adventure Valley: Stories of Santa Clara Valley History Pioneers by Ralph Rambo Clyde Arbuckle’s History of San Jose by Clyde Arbuckle Complete Story of the San Francisco Earthquake by Marshall Everett History of the State of California and Biographical Record of Coast Counties, CA by J.M. Guinn History of the College of the Pacific by Rockwell D. Hunt History of Santa Clara County edited by J.P. Munro-Fraser History of Santa Clara County by Eugene T. Sawyer Mission City Memorial Park records Pen Pictures from the Garden of the World: Santa Clara County, California edited by H.S. Foote Pioneer Blue Book of the Old Santa Clara Valley by Ralph Rambo Progressive Santa Clara Research of Bea Lichtenstein San Jose Herald San Jose Mercury San Jose Mercury News Santa Clara Forecast Santa Clara Library Santa Clara News Santa Clara Sagas by Austen D. Warburton City of Santa Clara The Trailblazer, quarterly bulletin of The California Pioneers The Valley of Santa Clara Mission City by Phyllis Filbert Butler plus scrapbooks, yearbooks and other archival records of the Santa Clara Historic Museum Memorial Park collection published in 2002 in honor of the Mission City Memorial Park Santa Clara Sesquicentennial 420 N. Winchester Blvd. Santa Clara, CA 95050 (408) 984-3090 1 Indoor Mausoleum Welcome to Mission The Indoor Mausoleum was built in City Memorial Park 1938. Note the bronze doors and stained glass reflect architectural styles Mission City Memorial Park is popular at that time. Many prominent one of the oldest cemeteries in Santa Clara residents are at rest here California and one of the few including members of the Wilson family of Wilson’s Jewel Bakery fame. owned and operated by a municipality. Although burials 1A Ora Lee Hirsch Merritt were made on these grounds as 1895-1984 early as the 1850s, the first Ora was one of few women to enlist in the military during World War I and recorded interment was September serve in a capacity other than nursing. 13, 1864. The cemetery contains She was a yeoman with U.S. Naval 1,431 interments made prior to Intelligence in San Francisco, working 1900 and thousands since then. with code, and later became a schoolteacher. She was also active in Ora Lee Hirsch Merritt, the American Legion and served as Other interesting facts: yeoman with U.S. Naval Commander of the all-woman Calara Intelligence D. Noyes Post. Her parents, Emma • The cemetery was also used at and Emil Hirsch, started Santa Clara Undertaking Co. which eventually one time as the animal pound. became Santa Clara Funeral Home. Stray and roaming swine, sheep, goats, cows and horses were 1B Dr. Judson Waldo Paul taken there to be claimed by 1861-1937 Judson was born in Ohio and attended owners or sold at auction. DePaw University in Indiana before • Part of the area of Mission City earning his medical degree from Memorial Park was once a Bellevue Hospital Medical College in quarry and gravel pit, and the New York in 1891. After a few years as a house surgeon and clinical City dump. Gravediggers once physician on the East Coast, Judson unearthed a rusted car. Dr. Judson Waldo Paul came to California in 1894 to establish • Early listed causes of death were his own practice. He became a quite varied and included respected professional and prominent citizen in Santa Clara, known for his teething, softening of the brain, “generous and genial nature.” In about exhaustion from acute 1895, he built a home at 1116 melancholia, pistol ball, too fat, Washington St. that still exists today. and “fell ded on road.” 1C John Widney • It was first known as Santa Clara 1837-1925 Burial Ground, then Santa Clara Born in Ohio, John came to California See walking Protestant Cemetery, then Santa when he was 20 years old and once told tour map of Clara City Cemetery, and, since the Pioneer Society that when he historic arrived the Valley “was just one large 1972, Mission City Memorial Widney Store at Franklin & mustard field as far as you could see.” monuments Park. Main circa 1869 He started and operated several and • Monuments and headstones businesses including a grocery store, a headstones contain inscriptions in Korean, plumbing business and Santa Clara’s first telegraph office, the Postal on center Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Telegraph. He is said to have amassed pages. Greek, Spanish, German, Farsi considerable wealth and land holdings and Vietnamese as well as during his life, but was “always very English, reflecting the charitable to the needy.” He served as a trustee and president of Santa Clara multicultural heritage and Town Board before the City was ethnic diversity of Santa Clara incorporated. 2 Charles Thompson 6 John Bollinger 1880-1971 1829-1913 Charles was a proud native of Santa He first came West to mine, but John Clara who graduated from Santa Clara soon returned to Missouri and brought College and was an active member of his wife and children to Santa Clara by the Native Sons of the Golden West. covered wagon in 1866. His 80-acre In 1927, as statewide president of that ranch near the border of Campbell and group, he laid the cornerstone of Los San Jose was the family homestead for Angeles City Hall. He was elected many years. Bollinger Road is named John Bollinger Charles Thompson treasurer of Santa Clara for a two-year after the family. term and served as a Santa Clara Justice and Judge for a total of 47 years while also maintaining a private law practice. He was an accomplished orator and was president of at least a dozen organizations during his lifetime. His father, Isaac Thompson, was one of Santa Clara’s most prominent early settlers who crossed the plains from Ohio to California by 7 Mabel Maude Applegarth oxcart in 1849. 1873-1915 Maude Frances Applegarth 3 Veterans Section 1867-1944 The Veterans Section of Memorial Park Mabel Maude and Maude Frances share is dedicated to the memory of the brave the same last name and resting place, men and women who served in the but they were sisters-in-law, not sisters. Civil War, Spanish-American War, Maude Frances was married to Edward World War I, World War II, the Korean M. Applegarth, the brother of Mabel Conflict, and the Vietnam War. Maude. An immigrant from England, Mabel Maude was a close friend of 4 Charles McIntire author Jack London and is reputed to 1847-1936 be the inspiration for the character Stephen Egan Ruth Morse in London’s novel Martin 1834-1920 Eden. She never married and worked Both Charles and Stephen were as a cashier at the Women’s Exchange Confederate soldiers in the Civil War. and as a “Private Secretary to a Lady,” (Egan’s grave is unmarked.) according to the 1910 U.S. census. The two women are buried in the 5 1906 Earthquake Applegarth family plot. The only two wooden headstones still in existence in Mission City Memorial 8 Dr. Antrim Edgar Osborne Park date back to the 1906 earthquake. 1856-1935 The most severe earthquake damage Antrim was born in Pennsylvania and in the Valley was experienced at the achieved many educational degrees Agnews Asylum for the Insane in Santa including an M.D. and Ph.D. from the Clara where it was reported 253 University of Pennsylvania. He came Wooden grave marker patients and staff were killed when to Santa Clara to serve as Super- several buildings collapsed. The scene intendent of the California Home for was described as “chaotic” and the Care and Training of Feeble-Minded. “bedlam” as terrified and injured In 1900 he opened Osborne Hall on the patients shrieked for help. More than Dr. Antrim Edgar Osborne corner of Jefferson and Liberty streets, 100 surviving patients were tied to a private sanitarium for the care and trees to restrain them because there training of children suffering from was no safe building nearby where epilepsy and developmental disabilities. they could be confined. Not far away, He and his wife, Margaret (Paxton), little damage was done to Santa Clara were very active in civic affairs. He College and no one was injured. served two terms on the Santa Clara Board of Trustees and was elected to the State Senate in 1920. Mrs. Osborne was a charter member and first president of the Santa Clara Woman’s Club. 10 Frank Jenkins 1873-1961 Mala Etta Jenkins 1878-1963 Frank was born on the site of what is now Moffett Field. He was a fruit rancher on land where Pruneridge Avenue, between Saratoga and Winchester, is today. He and his wife, Franklin and Mala Mala Etta (Helm), had two daughters, Jenkins Sarah and Margaret. While Frank ran a grocery store on Franklin Street, Mrs. Jenkins kept busy as an avid bicyclist who would even ride as far as San Francisco to shop. Their daughter, Margaret, followed in her mother’s athletic footsteps and became the first woman from Santa Clara County to participate in track and field in the Olympian Margaret Olympics in 1928. She also participated Jenkins in the 1932 Olympics and held the women’s U.S. record for the javelin throw until it was broken by Babe Didrikson Zaharias in 1932. 11 Capt. Richard K. Ham 1821-1887 Born in New Hampshire, Richard got Political cartoon featuring a taste for the open sea at an early age. investigative journalist 9 Franklin Hichborn When he was just 19 he sailed on a Franklin Hichborn 1868-1963 whaling voyage to the South Pacific A native Californian born in Eureka, and then worked in the Atlantic coast Franklin gained a national reputation trade until 1848.