California Biographies Mendocino and Lake Counties, California Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm Source: History of Mendocino and Lake Counties, California With Biographical Sketches History by Aurelius O. Carpenter And Percy H. Millberry Illustrated, Complete In One Volume Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1914 JOSEPH A. BRUNDIGE.� The superintendent of the celebrated Quer- cus ranch in Big valley, near Kelseyville, is a man of executive force, sound judgment and business sagacity, together with a knowledge of engineering and mechanism that enables him to operate steam and electrical machinery with ease, and with an understanding of men that qualifies him for their successful supervision in work with stock or land or fruit. Under his capable oversight, assisted by the artistic ability of his wife, the ranch is being trans- formed into one of the show-places of the county, a terrestrial paradise con- taining almost every fruit grown in the temperate zone, with ornamental and shade trees in graceful profusion, and with all the domestic animals, including poultry in such choice strains as Pekin and Muscovite ducks, Toulouse geese and bronze turkeys. A cordial hospitality is dispensed to all whom the reputation of the place or business affairs bring to the ranch, and visitors depart delighted with their experience at this delightful country estate. Mr. Brundige was born in Allen county, Ind., near Fort Wayne, April 26, 1863, and is a son of the late Robert W. and Elizabeth (Ambler) Brundige, natives respectively of New York state and Indiana, and the latter deceased in 1865. The paternal grandfather was born in England of Scotch lineage, while the maternal grandfather was a native of Scotland and served as a justice of the peace in Allen county, Ind. When three years of age Joseph A. Brundige was taken by his father to Marshall county. Ind., and there he received a public-school education. He was the youngest of four children, the others being as follows : William, now a hotel-keeper at Santa Rosa, Cal. ; Samuel, a carpenter in Los Angeles; and Sarah, who married Wesley Greek, an Indiana farmer, and died at thirty years of age, leaving two chil- dren, Celia and Ray. After the death of his first wife Robert W. Brundige married again, the second union resulting in the birth of four children, namely : Clara, who married John Miller, a dry-goods merchant at Plymouth, Ind.; Edmund, employed in the Studebaker wagon works at South Bend, Ind. ; Homer, a wood-turner living in Indiana ; and Emma, Mrs. Harry Force, also of Indiana. The presence of an aunt, Mrs. Catherine Alter, in Paradise valley. Lake county, brought Mr. Brundige to California in 1887 at the age of twenty- four, and for fourteen years he lived on the Alter farm, taking charge of the crops and stock. For two seasons he ran the City of Lakeport for the Bartlett Springs Company. This ninety-foot steam launch made seventeen miles per hour and was the most speedy, as well as the finest boat on Clear lake. As captain of that launch he proved his skill and efficiency. About 1905 he engaged with Mr. Gopcevic of San Francisco as manager of "Kono Tayee," the summer home of Mr. Gopcevic, on the east side of Clear lake, and as captain of the Whisper, the steam steel yacht, also of the three motorboats kept on the lake for the use of the owner of the property and his guests. After three and one-half years as manager he took a course in mechanical engineering at Heald's Business College at San Francisco, and then engaged in farming for himself in Scott's valley. However, a year later, in 1910, he returned to the employ of Mr. Gopcevic as superintendent of the Quercus ranch, which position he fills with recognized efficiency, taking charge also of "Kono Tayee." Private affairs have engaged his attention to the exclusion of public matters, in which, aside from supporting Republican principles of the progressive type and holding membership with the Masonic blue lodge at Lakeport, he has no connection. During 1903 he married Vinnie Eaton Greenlaw Lanfare, daughter of the late Capt. Robert Lanfare, a native of Connecticut, who for a year was master of vessels on the Atlantic, afterwards sailing from San Francisco on the Pacific until his death in Portland. Later his widow, who bore the maiden name of Laura Alma Ford, became the wife of Frederick Winslow Greenlaw, a shipwright, now deceased. Mrs. Green- law, now fifty-six years of age, is still a resident of San Francisco, which is also the home of her son, Claire Ford Lanfare. Mrs. Brundige was born at Coos Bay, Ore., but lived from three years of age in San Francisco, where she studied vocal music under Professor McKenzie and piano under Professor Robinson. The natural talent which she possesses has been developed by careful training and she is now proficient in the art of music. Under the supervision of Mr. Brundige are five hundred and twenty acres in Big valley, one hundred and sixty acres near Highland Springs, fifty-seven acres two miles west of the large tract and four hundred acres forming the estate of Kono Tayee, the private summer home of Mr. Gopcevic, situated northeast of Clear Lake, in the midst of an environment of mountain and lake that creates an .atmosphere wonderfully picturesque and attractive. Seventy-five acres are under cultivation to wheat and barley. Twenty-five head of cattle and twenty head of horses and colts are now on the farm, beside one hundred head of goats and sheep. On the Quercus ranch the most important asset is the fruit, there being one acre in English walnuts and thirty-nine acres in bearing pears, thirty-five acres of which are in the Bartletts. while there is also a young orchard of fifteen acres in two-year-old Bartletts. During 1913 $5,000 worth of pears were sold from the ranch, and the one hundred acres in French prunes harvested $12,000 worth of that product. In addition to the large returns from fruit about $700 worth of hogs were sold from the same ranch. Even in the dull season seven to twenty men ^re given steady employment, while in the time of fruit ripening almost one hundred pickers are kept at work until the last of the fruit has gone into the hands of the packers. To manage so many workmen is no slight task, and especially so when, as in this instance, they are mostly Indians, but the efficient superintendent with customary tact usually is able to keep all of the men happy and contented in their work.