Mr. Andersen is an active member of the Danish Brotherhood and a trustee of the Danish Lutheran Church three miles west of Parlier. He is justly popular and highly esteemed in the community.
RAYMOND D. ROBINSON.
With over thirty years' experience in the fruit-packing industry, Raymond D. Robinson is considered an authority on the various methods used in preparing fruit for the markets of the world.
He is an able manager of those who come under his direction as workers in the business and commands the respect of all with whom he comes in contact. He was born in Chenango County. N. Y., May 6, 1869. His education was received in the public schools and in the college at Marionville, Mo., to which state he was taken by his parents when he was a lad of ten years.
At the age of eighteen, on September 30, 1887, young Mr. Robinson arrived at Riverside, Cal., and the following week he secured employment in the packing house of the Griffin-Skelly Company. Since that date he has been in the employ of this company and its subsidiary, the California Packing Corporation. A service of more than thirty years with one company is something that reflects great credit on the ability of Mr. Robinson and of which he is justly proud. In appreciation of the faithful discharge of the duties of his position and the results obtained by him, the company presented him with an elegant gold watch, properly engraved, when he had completed his thirty years with them. This token of esteem is one of the most highly prized of his possessions.
The first two summers — 1887-1888 — Mr. Robinson was sent to Fresno during the packing season. He proved an apt pupil and soon mastered the details of the business, even going beyond and inaugurating new methods that soon attracted the attention of his superiors and earned him promotion. In 1889 he took up his residence in Fresno and for fourteen years he was superintendent of the packing house of Griffin-Skelly Company, then becoming plant manager. In 1917 the concern was merged with the California Packing Corporation and Mr. Robinson was retained in his old position. He has grown up in the packing industry, in which he is one of the pioneers in the packing and shipping of fruits. No man stands higher in the estimation of the growers and distributors, or commands the respect of those under his direction, than does Raymond U. Robinson. He is well and favorably known all over the fruit districts of the state.
The marriage of Mr. Robinson and Jennie M. Bevefiel, a native of Indiana, was celebrated in Fresno. They have four children: Fay, the wife of Herold Emmick and the mother of a daughter; Marjorie, Mrs. Jerome Crawford; Halbert, in the employ of the Santa Fe Railroad; and Doris, at home. Mr. Robinson has won a high place in the business circles of Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley and is a liberal contributor towards all projects that have for their object the upbuilding of the best interests of the county and state. He is a self-made man in the truest sense of the term, for he began at the bottom and by persistency of purpose he has gradually won a name and place for himself in one of the greatest lines of business in the state.
GEORGE H. SNYDER.
The oil industry has contributed, in a greater degree, to the wealth of California, during the past two decades than any other business enterprise in the state, and in the Coalinga oilfield section of Fresno County it has given a wonderful impetus to the development of all lines of business endeavor. Perhaps no corporation has been more intimately associated with the advancement of the oil industry, in the Coalinga field, than the Associated Pipe Line.
The efficient superintendent of the Maricopa division of the Associated Pipe Line, George H. Snyder, is a native of Flemington, N. J., where he was born November 16, 1864, a son of Henry and Mary (Riley) Snyder, natives of Germany and Ireland, respectively. Henry Snyder was a carpenter by trade and emigrated to the United States when a boy of seventeen. He engaged in the building business in New York, afterwards becoming a farmer in New Jersey, near Flemington. Mr. and Mrs. Henry Snyder were the parents of six children, four boys and two girls, George H. being the oldest child, and the only one living in the Golden State. When he was fourteen years old, George H. Snyder was apprenticed as a machinist in the Long Island Railway Shops, at Long Island City, where he remained three years, when he accepted a position with the Lehigh Valley Railway Shops at Perth Amboy, N. J. Mr. Snyder was next employed by the New jersey Central Railway at Elizabethport, N. J., where he was foreman of the erecting department. After the memorable blizzard of the winter 1888, George H. Snyder, took a trip to Mexico, where he accepted a position with the International Railway Company as master mechanic, remaining with the company four years, after which he was for ten years the master mechanic of the Coahuila and Alamo Coal Company. Later on he was associated with the Sabinas Limited for two years as superintendent of their irrigation plant on the company's large farms. In 1904, George H. Snyder came to Los Angeles, Cal., where he accepted a position with the Interurban and Pacific Electric Railway, having charge of their power plants. His next position .was as master mechanic for the firm of J. G. White & Co., in charge of their construction work, for the Government, on the Colorado River above Yuma. In February, 1905, he returned to Los Angeles, where he assumed full charge of power plants of the Los Angeles Interurban and Pacific Electric Railway, and became the master mechanic of their shops. Mr. Snyder remained in the employ of the railway company until 1907, when he resigned to accept a position with the Tracy Engineering Company, of San Francisco, his duty being to install boilers for the company along the line of the Associated Pipe Line, between Bakersfield and Port Costa. About one year afterwards he became the inspector for the Associated Pipe Line between Bakersfield and Port Costa with his headquarters at Fresno. So satisfactory was his service to the company that in 1911 he was appointed superintendent of the Maricopa division which includes the business of the company between Maricopa and Mendota, a distance of 150 miles, his headquarters being located at Coalinga. So loyally and efficiently has Mr. Snyder discharged his duties to the company, that he still retains the position.
Fraternally, Mr. Snyder is a member of the Odd Fellows, of the Knights of Pythias, and is an ex-director and member of the Coalinga Growlers Club. He is greatly interested in every worthy movement that has as its aim the forwarding of the best interests of Coalinga and Fresno County and has been very active in all the war movements.
JACOB ROSENTHAL.
A splendid example of the self-made man of Fresno County, and one who, starting without means, except those provided by Nature, succeeded at last, through a willing disposition and an unfaltering courage, in climbing steadily to success, is that of Jacob Rosenthal, who has not ceased to climb, for he believes that there is always room at the top. Coming from a distant shore and of a different civilization, he nevertheless brought with him qualities needed for success in the new world, and has both received from and given to the society that he found in the making, and of which he has become an honorable part.
Born in Russia, on August 27, 1870, Mr. Rosenthal is the son of Andrew and Barbara Rosenthal, both of whom were also natives of the land of the Czar. He was reared and educated in the country of his birth, and shared the home with seven other children of his parents, four of whom had the hardihood to come also to America. These were, besides the subject of this review, Philip, Henry and Kate. Philip still makes his home in Colorado, while the others reside in Fresno County.
The new century was just dawning when Jacob emigrated to the United States in 1900, and in 1901, suiting his action to the spirit of the age, he came to Fresno County. He located at Sanger and soon found employment with the Sanger Lumber Company, in whose service he remained for seven years. During this strenuous time he managed to save about $2,000.
In 1908, he rented a ranch in Kutner Colony for one year, then in 1909 he bought twenty acres in Del Rev, in its virgin state, but he leveled the ground, got it in good condition, and planted it to vines and peaches. Upon it, also, he erected a fine dwelling, with modern conveniences. In 1915, he also bought twenty-seven acres of vineyard near Reedley and operated both until the fall of 1918, when he sold out and purchased eighty acres in Barstow Colony, where