Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 4 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 11

A California woman who has won for herself an enviable name as a successful viticulturist, and who has a host of friends among those who admire her qualities as a cultured, refined and sympathetic fellow-citizen, is Mrs. Eva H. Rawson, a native of Woonsocket. R. I., the daughter of Captain William E. Hubbard, who was born near Franklin, Mass. Grandfather Elisha Hubbard died in Massachusetts, and the father, who was an architect and builder, settled at Woonsocket, where he became a contractor. He was one of the prominent builders of Woonsocket and among its most leading citizens; and ten years before his death he was able to retire. William E. Hubbard served in the Civil War as captain of Company F of the Twelfth Rhode Island Regiment, and saw plenty of hard campaigning. Later he was a prominent Mason. He had married Ruth Scott, of Scott Hill, Mass., and she was able to trace her family back to the Mayflower and then back to Europe. The mother died in Rhode Island.

Four of the five children are still living, and Mrs. Rawson is the third in order of birth. She is also the only one of the children living in California. Her full name was Eva Hortense Hubbard; she was reared in Woonsocket, and was graduated from the Woonsocket High School in 1884 and is a member of its Alumni Society. On August 22, 1888, she was married to Malcolm Augustus Rawson, who was born in Uxbridge, Mass., the son of James A. Rawson, who married Louisa Scott, of Massachusetts. The father was a stonemason and contractor, and both he and his wife died in Massachusetts.

Mr. Rawson was educated at the common and high schools, and Worcester Academy, and he became a pharmacist and followed the drug business for over forty years. He spent six years learning the business and as an employee of the Fenner Drug Company in Providence, and then for seventeen years was with the James McCord wholesale drug house of La Crosse, Wis.-, during which time he bought a drug store at Viroqua, Vernon County, the same state. He continued there until he went with Noyes Bros! & Cutler of St. Paul and also Meyers Bros, in St. Louis; and then, from the time of its organization, he became interested in the Iowa Drug Company of Des Moines, acting as vice-president of the concern. When he sold out, he located in Portland, Ore., and for twelve years, or until his death, he was traveling salesman of the Blumauer-Frank Drug Company. He died suddenly in Portland, on September 16, 1917, in his sixty-second year.

Meanwhile, as early as 1912, the Rawsons became interested in California by the purchase of twenty-one acres in the Vinland Colony, and in 1913 Mrs. Rawson began the improving of the property by erecting the usual buildings. In 1914 she set out a vineyard, sunk wells and installed a pumping-plant for irrigation, in connection with which she put in a cement pipe-line; and since that year have been planted all the Thompson seedless vines that make the tract such a good commercial ranch. It is conveniently located at the corner of Woodburn and Thompson Avenues, and the north line is on the San Joaquin River. The soil, therefore, is heavy rich bottom-land of white ash deposit, pronounced by experts the very best of all soil for Thompson seedless grapes. During the latter part of March, 1919, Mrs. Rawson added eighteen acres to her holdings, six acres being full bearing Thompson's and the balance she and her son have set to Thompson's.

Amid this superior vineyard Mrs. Rawson built her residence; and there, with the aid of her son, Malcolm Hubbard Rawson (born May 4, 1890, at La Crosse, Wis.), she personally superintends the farm-work. This one child was educated at the public schools, taking also the high school course, and also attending the Business College at Portland; he enlisted for service during the World War as a private and became Sergeant; was stationed at Camp Lewis, Wash., until discharged. Mrs. Rawson has adopted a child, Donald Dudley Rawson.

Mr. Rawson was a Mason, a Knight Templar and a Shriner, and belonged to the Episcopal Church. Mrs. Rawson and her son also belong to this same communion and continue their residence on White Crest Ranch (appropriately named by her husband) although she still owns valuable property in Portland. In national politics she is a loyal Republican, and she actively supports the California Associated Raisin Company.