History of Fresno County, Vol. 6. Paul E. Vandor

trade. After coming to the United States, he married, as his second wife. Miss Mary Elizabeth Footherape, also a native of England, who still resides in Selma, enjoying the honors due her as a pioneer. Mr. Stammers passed away in January, 1916, at the age of sixty-nine years.

      Clarence L. was five years old when he came with his parents to Selma, and here he attended the public schools. In these preliminary studies he laid a broad and liberal foundation; and he was fortunate in deciding early to become a medical man. He first studied ophthalmology, and practiced the same, and later he studied medicine and surgery.

      He went to Chicago and entered the Northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology and Otology, and there in 1907 he graduated. Then he took a postgraduate course at the Los Angeles Optical College, from which he graduated in July, 1908. Next he practiced ophthalmology in Selma for about a year. Dr. Stammers then entered the California Eclectic Medical College at Los Angeles where he took the four years' course, graduating in 1914. He had spent three years in the Selma High School and during his college course he returned to Selma and took his senior year, graduating in the class of '13. This union of high school and medical studies, typical of a western American youth, somewhat impaired his health, but he continued for a year to practice ophthalmology at Selma and then he went to San Francisco again to get in close touch with the outer and busier world.

      Settling for a while there, he became an interne in the French hospital, and after twenty-six months, he received, on November 30, 1917, a diploma from that institution. It was while he was thus serving and developing as interne that he met the young lady who later became his wife. She was then a student at the Nurses' Training School of the hospital, and she is now proprietress of the Selma Sanitarium, and is widely recognized as well qualified for that important position. In December, 1917, he went to work as an interne in St. Joseph's hospital in San Francisco, and there worked for eight months. At the conclusion, on August 15, 1918, he was regularly licensed as a practicing physician and surgeon, under the requirements of California laws.

      The same date, Dr. Stammers was enlisted in the United States War Service, and was sent to Angel Island, in San Francisco Bay, and fifteen days later he was ordered to Camp Greenleaf, Fort Oglethorpe, Ga., where he served in the medical department. He took his examination for first lieutenant in the medical service, and passed all his examinations successfully, the papers were forwarded to Washington; but before his commission could be issued, the armistice was signed. He was therefore honorably discharged as a first-class private at Camp Greenleaf, Ga., on December 23, 1918, and on April 1 he opened his present offices at Selma. On May 1, Mrs. Stammers took over the Selma Sanitarium and this much-needed institution is directed in accordance with such modern ethics and on such a broad basis that every other doctor is entitled to take patients there, and is guaranteed the same impartial and excellent treatment. Dr. Stammers is also one of the three resident examining physicians for Selma Camp No. 268, Woodmen of the World. He is besides, court physician to Court Selma, No. 4215, of the Independent Order of Foresters.

      April 24, 1917, Dr. Stammers was married to Miss Juliette Loraine Stegeman of San Francisco, and since then Dr. Stammers and his wife have advanced professionally together.

      JOHN M. SHIPP.

      In the career and accomplishment of John M. Shipp, the well-known rancher, is shown the true spirit of the successful citizen and upbuilder. His father was William Walter Shipp, a native of Holmes County, Miss., who responded to the call for the defense of his hearth and the section which he had come to look upon as his fatherland, entered the Civil War, and served through its sequence of almost unendurable agonies, for four years. For a long time, he had a cotton plantation, and was rated among the successful cotton producers of the South; then he took a fancy to come to California, and that was an end to everything in the past; like everybody else who caught the California fever, he came. John's mother was Mary Strother before her marriage, and she, too, was a native of Holmes County. Mr. and Mrs. Shipp were married in their native State.

      In 1868 Mr. Shipp came to California with his family and located on Big Dry Creek in what was known as the Mississippi district. He took up Government land, and went into the business of sheep raising, buying his stock in Solano County, and driving them into Fresno County. In time, he operated on a large scale, and came to have 2,300 acres on the home place. He also followed grain-farming. In 1887 he sold his ranch, but he continued to have an interest in the sheep business until his death, which occurred in 1890, the same year in which his wife passed away. The father of ten children, he had taken a lively interest in the question of popular education for his district, and built the Mississippi School, with other of his neighbors, which has since then been discontinued.

      The fifth child in the family, John M. was born in Holmes County, Miss., on November 29, 1867, coming with his parents to California in the first year of his existence. Fresno County is the scene of his first recollections. He had the usual grammar school educational advantages, and having decided to continue his studies until he had a collegiate training, he entered the Pacific Methodist College at Santa Rosa and graduated when he was nineteen years of age. He lost no time in getting into business; with his father and his brother George R., and they continued sheep growing on his father's ranch, meeting with good success, so that about four years later the brothers as partners, purchased their father's interest, leased his large ranch and continued the business with mutual satisfaction and profit. They developed the enterprise until they had 7,500 sheep.

      In 1890 John M. Shipp purchased his brother's interest in their stock business and has continued his operations alone, gradually drifting into cattle growing. In 1901 he purchased his present ranch of 3.000 acres, eight and a half miles north of Clovis, which he improved with a comfortable residence and the necessary farm buildings and which is the headquarters for his large stock business. In 1907 he sold the balance of his sheep to devote all of his time and efforts to cattle-raising. Besides his home ranch he also owns a ranch at Blaney Meadows, on the South Fork of the San Joaquin River, in the Sierra Nevadas, and being located in the Government National Forest Reserve makes most excellent range for his cattle during the summers, and enabling him to carry over 500 head of Red Durham cattle. For years he has had thoroughbred animals at the head of his herd and it is the consensus of opinion that there is no finer herd of cattle in Fresno County than that of John M. Shipp's. Intensely interested in having a well-bred herd he always secures the finest of thoroughbred males from the choicest herds of Eastern breeders of Red Durhams. With others he has brought cattle from Mexico by trainload to feed on the ranges of Fresno County. His brand — J. S. with a bar underneath — is well-known and marks most excellent cattle. Mr. Shipp was an original member of the Fresno County Cattle-Raisers Association and also of the California State Cattle Growers Association. Interested in the success of these organizations he attends the meetings of both the County and State conventions. In 1918 he moved his residence to Fresno where he built a beautiful home on Cambridge Avenue, which was planned by Mrs. Shipp, who is a woman of culture and refinement and here he resides with his family.

      At Academy, Cal., on June 28, 1894, Mr. Shipp and Miss Mary Maud Sample were married and began their years of domestic felicity; their union being blessed with two children. Margaret and Sally Keyes. Mrs. Shipp is a native of Fresno County, a daughter of D. C. Sample, a pioneer of the county. She completed her education at Pacific Methodist College in Santa Rosa where she was graduated. Having sought to be a good neighbor as well as a loyal, helpful citizen. Mr. Shipp, with his family, today enjoys the high esteem and hearty good will of his fellow-Californians for miles around.