Tulare County Biographies

GIDEON LORENDO

Transcribed by: Craig A Hahn

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

 
     In the province of Quebec, Canada, forty-nine miles west of the city of the 
same name, Gideon Lorendo was born, September 17, 1846, a son of Cyril and 
Locadie (Delcours) Lorendo, natives of Canada. His father, who was a farmer, 
held the office of sheriff more than forty years. When Gideon left his native 
province he went to Lowell, Mass., and found employment in a cotton mill. Later 
he worked in a sawmill, then for five years he traveled throughout New England, 
then went west by way of the Great Lakes and in 1869 stopped at Duluth, Minn. 
There were at that time only five cabins in the place and they were occupied by 
half-breed Indians. He found there employment connected with lumbering, but soon 
went back to the province of Quebec where he married Jane L. Bounty, a native of 
Vermont, who became the mother of his eight children: Minnie, Napoleon, Ellen, 
Philip, Louisa, Alfred, Albert and Josephine. His second marriage was to 
Elizabeth Ruch, a native of Oregon. Their children are named William, Peter and 
Agnes. Agnes is attending school at Orosi. Napoleon married Jessie Woods, and 
resides in Oakland, Cal., and has two children. Ellen married John Fisher, of 
Mariposa county, Cal., and has five daughters. Philip married Lulu Beggs; their 
home is in Mono county and they have two children. Alfred married Ethel Griggs 
and they live at San Francisco. Albert, who is an engineer on the railroad 
belonging to the mill company at Sugarpine, Cal., married Pearl Uslis and they 
have a son and a daughter. Josephine married Ira Thomas; they live at Hanford 
and have two children. Mr. Lorendo has thirteen grandchildren.   
 
     From Windsor, Canada, across the river from Detroit, Mr. Lorendo came to 
California in 1877. In 1881, because the dry season, he sold one hundred and 
sixty acres of land for $500. Soon after, he bought another one hundred and 
sixty acres at Sand Creek Gap for $2.50 an acre and in 1888 sold it for $24 an 
acre and went to Oregon and lived in Josephine county, that state, for six 
years, farming for a time, then mining for gold. As he was spending more money 
than he was getting out of the ground, he disposed of his holdings in Oregon and 
sold a place near Chamberlain, S. Dak., which he had owned for some time, for 
$25, and went to British Columbia and kept a tavern on the Caribou road until he 
had taken in from lodgers enough to give him another start. Then he came back to 
Orosi and sent for his wife. He then had but $2.50 to his name and faced the 
certainty of having to pay out the first $200 that he could earn over and above 
a bare living. But he struggled manfully for a foothold, and in 1901 bought 
twenty acres of land at $25 an acre. This he has improved with a house, a barn 
and other buildings. He has nine and a half acres in Malaga grapes, eight acres 
in peaches and two acres in alfalfa. He has paid for his land and improvements, 
has plenty of stock for home use, and is prospering in the regular California 
way. Politically he is a Socialist and he and the other members of his family 
are members of the Catholic church, in which they were all born and brought up. 
 
     Before settling down in Tulare county Mr. Lorendo travelled through 
twenty-seven states, trying to find the best location possible and is very much 
pleased with California. He was twenty-six miles from their post office at 
Visalia when he first settled here. 
 
SOURCE:  History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical 
Sketches - Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913  Pp 391, 392