Tulare County Biographies

FRANK E. JOHNS

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
        Since 1918 Frank E. Johns has been numbered among the scientific and 
successful plumbers of Visalia, California. He was born in Tulare, Tulare 
county, November 22, 1893, a son of Zachary D. and Ida Jane (Corkery) Johns. His 
father came to California in the late '70s from Ontario, Canada, where he was 
born, grew to manhood and learned the plumber's trade. He located in Tulare 
county and followed the same occupation in Hanford, Tulare and Visalia, being 
one of the first plumbers in the county. He also conducted a chain of hardware 
stores in several towns of the San Joaquin valley. Mr. Johns was one of the 
organizers of Kings county. His death occurred in 1918.
        On the maternal side, Mr. John's grandfather, Thomas Corkery, came from 
Ireland in his youth and was one of the early settlers of California. He was a 
butcher by trade, following that occupation first in San Francisco and after 
1871 in the San Joaquin valley. He had butcher shops in Mineral King and 
Hanford, and was also an extensive cattle raiser. He died in 1923, aged 
ninety-seven years. Of the children born to Zachary D. and Ida Jane Johns three 
are still living: Melville, a resident of Hanford; Frank E., the subject of this 
sketch ; and a daughter named Vera.
        Frank E. Johns received a good practical education in the schools of 
Hanford and San Francisco and followed various occupations before taking up the 
plumbing trade, though he had worked at that as a boy with his father. Upon 
leaving school he was employed for sometime in a logging camp ; then he worked 
with a railroad surveying crew, and was next a clerk in the Lindsay National 
Bank. In 1918 he established his present business in Visalia. Among the 
buildings in which he has installed the plumbing may be mentioned the Delano 
grammar school, the Woodlake grammar school, the Orosi high school, the new 
building of the Visalia Abstract Company and the Home Bank building, of 
Porterville.  He also did all the sheet metal work on the new business block 
recently erected in Visalia by the S. Sweet Company.
        As is usual with plumbers he is frequently called on to make repairs, or 
to add new fixtures to old plumbing systems. In many of his repair jobs he has 
taken out old pipes put in by his father twenty-five or thirty years ago. He has 
worked all over Tulare county and has the satisfaction of seeing his business 
constantly growing�a verification of the saying: "There is no advertisement like 
a satisfied customer."
        A few years ago W. A. Simms, Jr., of Farmersville, California, invented 
a tree protector�a galvanized contrivance intended to support the limbs of fruit 
trees when heavily laden with fruit. A small number of the protectors were 
introduced among the fruit-growers for trial. They proved to do all that was 
claimed for them, which resulted in an increased demand. Mr. Sims then formed a 
partnership with Mr. Johns and the appliances are made in the latter's shop in 
Visalia. This is sort of a "side�line" to his plumbing business, but is growing 
as the advantages of the protector becomes better known.
        Mr. Johns was united in marriage to Miss Sylvia Klepinger, who was born 
in Toronto, Kansas, and they have one son : Frank E., Jr. Mr. Johns is a member 
of the Visalia Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Commercial Club, the 
Visalia Lodge of Elks, and the Visalia Camp of the Woodmen of the World.
 
Source:  History of Tulare County and Kings County, California � Kathleen 
Edwards Small & J. Larry Smith, Vol. II, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke Publishing 
Company, 1926., p. 153