California Biographies Source: History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present (1919) History By Paul E. Vandor Illustrated, Complete In Two Volumes Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, California, 1919 Notes: Missing+page1185-1186 Transcribed by Peggy Hooper This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm OCTAVE VALERE DARGELES.� A self-made native of France, of exceptional originality and resourcefulness and a good student of human affairs, who has made his living round about Fresno and is a good booster for Central California, is Octave Valere Dargeles, who was born at Montegut- Arros, Department du Gers, in the Province of Gascony, France, on July 24, 1867, the son of Raymond Dargeles, a farmer who put in eleven years in the United States. After living in New Orleans and other districts of Louisiana, he returned to France where, at the age of thirty, he married, in 1861, Francine Dazet with whom he lived in the same place. These parents, who died in France, had four children, the youngest being the subject of our sketch. Helene became the wife of Martial Gauthier, a farmer in Algeria, Africa; Joseph is a farmer in Gascony, France, and is well-to-do; Jean Marie came to California with Octave, and they worked together as partners in the bakery business. Jean married Nancy Bonnabel of Fresno, who was born in France, and he died at San Jose in 1897 leaving a widow and one child, Caesar Raymond, who is now adopted as a member of Octave's family. Octave's mother died when he was seventeen months old. Unhappily, the maternal grandmother, who was a woman of means and education, also died, when he was eleven years of age. When a lad he attended the village schools in the winter until his grandmother's death, and then, still in France, he worked on his father's farm. On December 12, 1885, however, the two brothers, Jean Marie and Octave took passage for New Orleans, landing there on January 6, 1886, during a storm and "cold wave" which covered New Orleans under six inches of ice. They stopped in New Orleans for thirteen months, while they worked at gardening, at twelve dollars a month ; and then, having decided that California offered more than any other state in the Union, they came on to the Pacific Coast. Arriving at San Francisco on January 7, 1887, the brothers worked at various jobs. Octave learned the baker's trade at San Jose and ran a bakery for Espetallier at Bakersfield for sixteen and a half months, after which he went to San Francisco and there lived for three months at Oakland. On November 23, 1890, he came to Fresno and soon after started to build the French Bakery there. Jean Marie came with him and helped form the part- nership of the two brothers which continued until Jean died. Then Octave bought out the latter's interest, and continued the bakery until December 1, 1914. He built his bakery on K Street, near Fresno, and ran the largest baking establishment in that city. Having achieved this success at Fresno, Mr. Dargeles in 1911 came to Caruthers and bought his 480-acre farm, which he has partly improved with a modern dairy barn, silos, corrals, branding chutes and other necessary adjuncts of a first class dairy farm. Mr. Dargeles, for six months out of every year, uses forty-one horsepower of electric power for pumping and other farm work. He also put in six wells and five pumping plants, one of which is run by a twenty horsepower dynamo, capable of irrigating 200 acres and supplied by two deep wells. In studying out the plans for the dairy barn and extensive yards and corrals, Mr. Dargeles was ably assisted by his four boys. The two eldest of these having gone into the army, Mr. Dargeles has rented out 400 acres for a dairy farm, and he expects to build a residence on the eighty acres nearest to Caruthers ; he also intends to set from fifty to sixty-five acres of Thompsons and Malagas. In 1894 Mr. Dargeles was married to Victorine G. Bonnabel, a native of Forest St. Julien, Hautes Alpes, the Province of Dauphine, France, by whom he has had seven children. Ernest O. is at present a mine layer on the Housatonic, operating in the North Sea ; Caesar Raymond, the adopted boy, is an instructor of aeroplane gunners ; Henry Julius and Frank Octave are with their father ; the fifth-born, named Octavia, died when she was eleven months old ; the sixth in the order of birth is now eleven years old ; and there are Francina Mary Gabriel and Raymond. Mr. Dargeles has voted since 1892 when he became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and he has fitted himself for further responsibility in civic affairs by reading extensively, studying philosophy, religion, eco- nomics, industrialism and sociology; he is a Socialist. He helped to organize the Caruthers Cheese Factory, and is ever ready to aid in any movement for the community's advancement.