Sutter-Yuba County Biographies

WILLIAM ASBURY STRAUB

Transcribed by: Kathy Sedler

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

A representative man of affairs who has demonstrated that he can do more than 
one thing well is William Asbury Straub, the progressive rancher and popular 
merchant of West Butte.  Mr. Straub hails from Pike County, Mo., where he was 
born on March 8, 1860, a son of George Straub, a native of Bavaria, Germany, and 
one of that contingent who came from the Fatherland to the United States in 
earlier days and did so much to help found and develop our country in almost all 
departments of science and industry.  He was a blacksmith by trade, but later 
went into the general merchandise business at West Butte, at the same time that 
he took up farming.  He had married Miss Martha A. Zumwalt, a popular belle of 
Pike County, Mo., and came with his wife and part of his family to California in 
October, 1881, almost immediately settling in West Butte.
William A. Straub attended the grammar and high schools of Louisiana, Mo., and 
then topped off his elementary and secondary studies with a course at the Parson 
Commercial College, at Louisiana; and on coming to California, he had the 
companionship of a brother, George Straub, at Monterey.  He grew up to engage in 
business with his father, and preceded him to California by a year, arriving 
here in the autumn of 1880.  He had also learned the blacksmith�s trade in 
Missouri, profiting by his father�s instructions.  In 1881 he formed a 
partnership with his father, and since that time he has managed the store.  With 
his father, too, he bought a half-section of land, known thereafter as the 
Straub ranch, at West Butte; and he went into the cattle business to the extent 
of having 100 head, with thirty head of dairy cows, and about 300 head of hogs.  
In politics a Republican, Mr. Straub maintains a broad-minded attitude toward 
political questions, endorsing the best men and the best measures for the 
locality.
Mr. Straub was married at West Butte, on November 5, 1884, to Miss Alice Mary 
Hoke, who was born on the famous old Hoke ranch at West Butte, the daughter of 
Frederick and Mary Louisa (Erke) Hoke, both natives of Prussia, who were married 
at St. Louis.  Frederick Hoke came to California in 1849, and mined for a while 
on the Yuba River.  He tried his luck in partnership with Fred Tarke; and as has 
been narrated in more detail in another review in this work, they later both 
returned to the East, were married there and, traveling westward again together, 
both brought their brides out to California.  Alice Mary Hoke was reared at West 
Butte, and received her share of the Hoke estate.  Mr. and Mrs. Straub built 
their comfortable and attractive home in 1885, and there they  have lived ever 
since.  Mr. Straub bought eighty acres of the Hoke ranch, and also forty acres 
of dairy ranch in District No. 70.  Two children have added to the happiness of 
their family life: Cecil Hoke Straub, a grain broker and farmer of Yuba City; 
and Mrs. Lola L. Ballou, of West Butte.  She married John Kendrick Ballou of 
Sioux City, Iowa, a minister of the Christian Church, now retired and farming on 
the old Straub ranch; and they have one daughter, Joyce L. Ballou.
 
History of Yuba and Sutter Counties, Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, 1924
p 646