Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 5 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 35

It is refreshing to read the story of Vital Bangs Fincher, or Tallie Fincher, as he is familiarly called in the wide circle of his friends. A wide-awake citizen, inheriting foresight and force, he is making a wonderful success of his enterprise, assisted by his able wife, and that despite certain handicaps such as would discourage and defeat many. He is a native son, having been born near Riverbank, in Stanislaus County, on January 19, 1873. His father, Levi Nelson Fincher, was a sturdy North Carolinian, who, after pioneer experience as a boy in Missouri, crossed the great plains when a young man, in 1850, to search for gold. Two years later he returned East, by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and while again in Missouri was married, that same year, to Miss Paulina Moore, a native of Tennessee, who came to Missouri with her parents. As a pioneer farmer, Levi Fincher moved with his wife to Kansas; and when, in 1862, his health was very poor, he resolved to try the Pacific Coast. It was necessary for him to cross the continent in bed, in a wagon; but the trip helped him, and in time he was able to drive his team of oxen. He arrived in Sacramento, and near there opened a store as a merchant. Afterwards he moved to Stanislaus County, and near Riverbank, at a place then called Burneyville, took up 160 acres and bought 160 more, and was in time very successful at farming. In 1885 he brought his family to Fresno and bought 800 acres nine miles northeast of the town, where he located. At first he engaged in grain-raising, and then he set out sixty acres in vines, but soon pulled out forty acres, because there was no sale for the grape product. Fie raised alfalfa and grain, and after years of toil, retired. He built a home on Calaveras Avenue, Fresno. After a most creditable record for accomplishment, on August 18, 1909, he passed to his eternal reward, dying in the seventy-eighth year of his age. His wife had passed away in November, 1907, five years after they had celebrated their fiftieth anniversary.

Eleven children were born to this worthy couple. The first-born became Mrs. C. P. Evans, of National City, Cal.; the second became Mrs. G. D. Wootten, of Santa Cruz; the third is Robert Fincher of Hanford; the fourth is J. M. Fincher, who resides at Fresno; the fifth is Mrs. J. B. High, of Madera; the sixth is J. P. Fincher, who ranches on a part of the old farm; the seventh is Miss Letitia Fincher, of Fresno; the eighth is Frank W. Fincher, of the same place; the ninth, Miss Elizabeth Fincher, also of Fresno; the tenth is the subject of our sketch; and the eleventh is Miss Matilda Fincher, of Fresno.

Tallie Fincher spent his boyhood, until he was twelve years of age, near old Burneyville, attending the public school and doing a boy's chores about the home, and then he came to the present home farm, continuing his schooling in the Jefferson district. Later he went to the Stockton Business College, and then to the Fresno High School, from which he graduated in 1893, after which he engaged in the teaching of school. He believed in the old maxim that if you would learn a subject yourself you should try to impart it to others. For a term he had charge of a school in Madera County, and then he taught at Davis Creek, in Modoc County, at the same time serving as justice of the peace. When he quit teaching, he took up shorthand under Musselman at the Fresno Business College, and only gave up that line when he felt the call "Back to the land."

For twelve years Mr. Fincher operated the home farm, leasing it, and raised grain and stock. When the 700 acres were subdivided, he came into possession of fifty acres and bought fifty acres adjoining, together with ninety acres toward the east. This last acreage was subdivided and sold at a profit in lots of ten, thirty and forty acres. Now he devotes all his land to the raising of vines and alfalfa, having ninety acres of table and raisin grapes, twenty acres in Malagas, and the balance in muscatels. He has ten acres of alfalfa. Having built a fine residence and spacious barns, he staked out the vineyard and set out the vines, and cared for it until his health broke down and he had to limit his activity to superintending what others did. He is a member of the California Associated Raisin Company and also of the Melvin Grape Growers' Association, through which he handles his Malaga crop.

At Fresno, on March 27, 1895, Mr. Fincher was married to Miss Beulah Morrison, who was born near Cairo, Randolph County, Mo., the daughter of Asa P. Morrison, a native of Tennessee who while in Missouri, was married to Eliza Musick, of that state, a niece of Jesse N. Musick, of Fresno, to which city they came when, in 1889, they moved to California. For a while the father was in the livery business; then he was engaged in farming the Lone Star Ranch, and thereafter was busy with viticulture. He retired, taking up his residence in Fresno, and died here in 1910. Mrs. Morrison still resides in Fresno, the mother of five children, of whom Beulah was the next to the youngest. She was educated in the public grammar and high schools, and became the mother of two children: Ethel, the wife of F. E. Moore, who resides in Richmond, Cal., and has two children, Roy and Floyd; and Herbert B., who is still under the parental roof.