Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 5 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 44

A practical viticulturist, who has an unusually fine place and one she may regard with peculiar pride since it is largely the result of her own personal labor in irrigating and cultivating, is Mrs. Sadie Elizabeth Soper, who came to California in the middle nineties. She was born at Mt. Pleasant, Utah, the daughter of Benjamin Keller, a native of Iowa who crossed the plains to Utah and then married Miss Jane Oldham, a native of England, who 'came out to America and the Mormon country with her parents when she was two years old. Mr. Keller owned a farm in Mt. Pleasant, and in 1883 he moved his family to Kearney, Nebr., where he farmed for four years. Then he went to Lexington. Dawson County, homesteaded and improved 160 acres and, selling out in 1894, came to California. Later he went east to Nebraska and then for five years he was in Oklahoma. After that he settled at Clovis, bought land and improved it, and there his wife died. In time, he married again, and now he resides at Jacksonville, Fla. Thirteen children were born of this marriage, and four girls and two boys are still living.

The subject of our sketch was the second oldest of these, and being reared in Nebraska, she attended the public schools there. In that state also, she was married to J. C. Soper, a native of Des Moines. They owned 160 acres, fourteen miles from Lexington, which they farmed, and having sold this property in 1894, they located in Fresno County. Mr. Soper was in the employ of the Flume Company, grading lumber, and at Clovis, they bought a lot and erected a house. In the meantime, the far-seeing couple bought the ten acres one and a half miles east of Clovis, which they improved with a vineyard. Mr. Soper continued with the Flume Company and his wife did much of the ranch work herself. In time, she had one of the finest muscat vineyards to reward her toil. It is a fine place, and bears the name of Ellendale Vineyard; and her ownership adds interest to her membership in the California Associated Raisin Company.

Mrs. Soper has four children: Frederick Charles, who is in the United States Marines; Luella is Mrs. Barcus, of Barstow: Jane Elizabeth is Mrs. Johnson in Fresno; and her sister, Hazel Marie, who lives near her in the same city, is Mrs. Cummins. The family attends the Baptist Church of Clovis, and Mrs. Soper is a member of the Woman's Aid Society of that congregation. In national politics she is a Democrat, but is non-partisan in local issues.