San Joaquin County Biographies


This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm



ANDREW G. ERICKSON
 
        Among the attractive and enterprising business firms of Stockton is the 
Gold Medal Creamery located at 31 South California Street, owned and operated by 
Andrew G. Erickson. He was born on a farm in McPherson County, Kan., on February 
20, 1890, was taken by his parents to Victoria, Texas, where the father, also 
named Andrew Erickson, passed away. The family remained there until our subject 
was eleven years of age, then the mother and nine children came to California in 
1901, settling in Stockton.
        The education of Andrew G. Erickson was obtained in the public schools 
of Stockton, his business training starting when he was employed by the San 
Joaquin Creamery and the Stockton Creamery, where he learned butter making; he 
then took a course along the same line of work at the University of California 
farm at Davis, Cal.; then for five years he was in charge of butter-making for 
the Oakdale Creamery in Oakdale, Stanislaus County. In 1918, in company with his 
brother, Arthur L., the Gold Medal Creamery was purchased, which was at that 
time a very small business, 200 pounds of butter was made daily in the window of 
the factory, now 1,500 pounds. is the daily output of this factory, a remarkable 
growth in four years. In May, 1921, Mr. Erickson purchased the interest of his 
brother, who is now the proprietor of the Paramount Creamery at Turlock, Cal. 
Mr. Erickson's store space has been doubled and modern machinery installed. His 
Gold Medal brand of butter has become very popular, three-fourths of the leading 
hotels and restaurants in the city using it. He buys cream from the leading 
dairies in the county, and it is pasteurized, made into butter, and sold 
throughout the city. Mr. Erickson has made a scientific study along the line of 
butter-making and other milk products and is considered one of the best informed 
men in the county on the subject, and is at the present time one of the largest 
butter makers in the city.
        The marriage of Mr. Erickson united him with Miss Bessie Lenfesty, a 
native of Calaveras County, Cal., and they are the parents of three daughters, 
Ernestine, Phyllis and Charlotte. Fraternally he is a member of Truth Lodge of 
Odd Fellows.
 
History of San Joaquin County, California � Los Angeles, Historic Record Co., 
1923
p     1280     
Transcribed by Kathy Sedler.