Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 5 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 33

A public-spirited leader of Kingsburg generous to a fault in all that advances the community, and therefore, extremely popular, and at the same time one of the most successful of business men, is William D. McLeod, proprietor of the Rexall Drug Store, one of the two excellent pharmacies of the town. He came to Kingsburg in 1915 and has succeeded, by rare qualities applied in a commonsense manner, in winning for himself a place among the ablest and most influential.

Mr. McLeod's drug-store is centrally located. He compounds physicians' prescriptions with exacting care, and is well assisted, in waiting on his large and growing list of customers, by two thoroughly trained clerks familiar, like himself, with the oddities and demands of human nature. He has a soda fountain, deals in books, phonographs, toys, sporting goods, papers, magazines, cigars, proprietary medicines, and similar necessities, and is constantly enlarging his trade. His genial personality, coupled with a thorough knowledge of pharmacy, his wide experience in business, his sanitary establishment and large and well selected stock, his courteous attention to the wants of all customers— all these have resulted in his commanding a large share of the patronage of the locality.

Mr. McLeod was born at Ottawa, Canada, and there he grew up, to serve a four years' apprenticeship in a leading pharmacy and to complete the regular pharmaceutical course at the Ontario College of Pharmacy, from which he was graduated in 1898. He is duly licensed in the various States of the Union, as well as in his native Canada. Being thus equipped, he has seen much of the North American continent, an experience of value in his professional work. He has held positions as pharmacist in leading drug-stores in New York City, Toronto, Vancouver, San Francisco, Nome (Alaska), where he was in 1905, Tonopah (Nev.), and Seattle, from which city he came to Kingsburg in 1915. In some of these' places he conducted drug-stores of his own. He was thus pleasantly situated at Tonopah, where he had made heavy investments, when, by reason of the panic of 1907 the boom broke and he suffered severe losses. He has always been able to maintain a good credit, and is enjoying the inevitable reward of playing the game right and keeping wide awake.

At Manhattan, N. Y., in April, 1906, Mr. McLeod was married to Mrs. Anetta Finking, nee Attinger, formerly of San Francisco; and they have one child, Louise, a general favorite. Mrs. McLeod shares the popularity and good-will enjoyed by her husband.

To know Mr. McLeod is to like him. His advent to Kingsburg brought the town a progressive citizen, a good booster, and a man who, with his charming family, adds much to the community's status and social life.