Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

JOHN G. KUSSENBERGER

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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


 
            The agricultural districts of California have been largely settled 
by men who have come here form the Eastern States and, after many years devoted 
to other business interests, have gone back to the land and have thus become the 
backbone of our State�s progress and prosperity, with a broad outlook supporting 
all measures put forward for its development and advancement.  Among these men 
can rightly be numbered John G. Kussenberger, who was born in St. Louis, Mo., on 
January 7, 1869, a son of Henry and Margaret (Voelpel) Kussenberger, both 
natives of Nassau, Germany.  The father, one of those hardy men who followed 
steamboating on the Mississippi River for years, at a time when that calling was 
full of danger as well as adventure, was a mate on one of the river boats.  He 
lived to be eighty-six years old, and died in St. Louis, where the good mother 
also passed away, aged seventy-four.
            The youngest in a family of nine children born to his parents, John 
G. Kussenberger received his education in the public schools of St. Louis, and 
at the early age of twelve years started out in life for himself, being 
apprenticed to the bookbinder�s trade with Bechtold & Company, with whom he 
continued from 1881 to 1905.  When he resigned, he was in charge of the 
finishing department.  He continued at his trade in St. Louis until 1911, when 
he came to California and followed his trade for a few years at Berkeley and San 
Francisco.  From 1913 to 1919, he worked in the State Printing Office at 
Sacramento, starting under Richardson and finishing under Robert Kelfer.
            In 1912 Mr. Kussenberger purchased sixteen acres of open barley 
field, in the Gledhill Colony of Sutter County.  This tract he developed to 
cling peaches, putting in four-inch pumps, now electrically driven, for 
irrigation, and building his family home on the ranch, which is a credit to the 
community and an advertisement of the fertility of soil found there.  He was one 
of the organizers of the Wilson Center of the Sutter County Farm Bureau, serving 
as director from its inception until 1924.  In 1923 he was elected to and 
assumed the presidency of the Sutter County Farm Bureau, and is now serving his 
second term.  He has frequently attended the State convention of Farm Bureaus, 
where it has been his good fortune to meet the leaders of the movement in the 
State.  He is a charter member of the Sutter County Chamber of Commerce, being a 
member of its board of directors. Fraternally, he holds membership in the Junior 
Order of United American Mechanics.  Politically, he is public-spirited, voting 
for man and issue, regardless of party lines.
            The marriage of Mr. Kussenberger , at St. Louis, on November 27, 
1895, united him with Miss Ottilie Kaltwasser, also born in St. Louis, where her 
father was a prominent druggist; and there she was educated in the grammar and 
high schools.  Mrs. Kussenberger is active in civic and social circles, being a 
member of the Wilson Woman�s Club, and the Bogue Wednesday Club, in each of 
which she is serving as a member of the board of trustees.  Mr. Kussenberger is 
a man of affable and pleasing personality, kind-hearted and generous.  He is 
familiarly called �Uncle Gus� by all who know him; and he and his estimable wife 
are much loved and esteemed by everyone.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p . 979