Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 6 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 12

A close student of daily life, and a man of sound common sense, who after many years of hard work and struggle for existence, believes that the Socialist party offers the only adequate solution for industrialism, is Thomas J. Allen.

Mr. Allen was born in Person County, N. C, on November 2, 1865, and grew up in Person County until the age of eight, when he moved with his parents to Waite and later to Durham County, where his mother died when he was but fourteen. His parents had been poor, and when the mother died, he was without a home, and had to make his living by working out on tobacco and cotton plantations in Durham and Granville Counties, suffering hardships, neglect and abuse until he became large enough to fight for his right to live. He continued to work out on cotton and tobacco plantations in North Carolina until twenty-four and then went to Collin County, Texas, where he continued to raise cotton until 1893.

In that year he came to Hanford, Cal., arriving with hardly enough to pay for his lodging. He lost no time in finding work on ranches, and for four years followed the hard life of a farm hand.

He then came to Fresno County and bought forty acres in the Laguna de Tache Grant, and while "baching," worked hard and improved the land. He still owns this place, together with two others, 120 acres, in all, well-improved and making three very attractive ranches in the Laguna district, and in the month of July, 1919, he added still further to his possessions by the purchase of seventy additional acres, on the Murphy Slough, some three miles north of his home place.

In 1914 he went back to North Carolina, where he was married to Miss Minnie Sanford, a native of North Carolina, and a member of an old family in that state, well identified, as is the Allen family, with American history and the growth and development of the South. She is a daughter of Robert and Sally (Pool) Sanford, and was born and brought up in Granville County.

After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Allen started to farm, working the ranch of Mrs. Sanford, the mother-in-law; but before the summer was half over, he gave his crop to Mrs. Sanford, and on July 20, 1904, he returned with his bride to California and resumed farming operations here. He improved that place, did well, and in 1910 bought the forty acres where he now lives; still later he bought forty acres north of Riverdale. In 1912 he built the house in which they now reside. Mr. and Mrs. Allen have had three children, and two — Walter and Zelma — are still living.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Allen have many friends. Mr. Allen devotes most of his efforts to dairying, and is a stockholder and patron of the Riverdale Cooperative Creamery.