Tulare County Biographies

SEREPTA WALKER

Transcribed by Kathy Sedler

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

 
One of the early settlers of Tulare county who remains to tell of the days of 
the pioneers when there was no Tulare city, when the country was just open 
plains, when stock-raising was the only business, and when the railroad had not 
been thought of, is Mrs. Serepta Walker, who lives two miles northwest of 
Tulare. She was born in Iowa in 1849, a daughter of Adam Pate, and in 1852, when 
she was three years old, was brought by her father across the plains to 
California. For a time after he came he ventured in the mines, but later turned 
to farming north of Stockton and still later moved to a place near that town. 
The daughter came to Tulare county in 1869 and for five years lived near 
Porterville and then pre-empted a homestead on the Tule river near Woodville. 
After he had perfected his title to this property she moved to her present 
location, two miles northwest of Tulare, where she and her husband bought 
thirty-two acres which she owns at this time. She was married in Stockton in 
1867, to John Walker, a native of Illinois, who came to California among the 
pioneers and died in 1888 on the ranch which is now his widow's home. Mrs. 
Walker, who was left with a large family of children, has farmed the homestead 
successfully to the present time. She is now conducting a dairy on a small scale 
and has sixteen acres of alfalfa and ninety colonies of bees.
Of Mrs. Walker's eleven children, nine are living. Clara is the wife of Jesse 
Fugate of Fresno. Loren lives with his mother and works a ranch adjoining hers. 
Edwin is an apiarist near Tulare. John E. is represented by a separate 
biographical sketch in this volume. Frank is a member of his mother's household. 
William lives at Tulare. Lydia married Preston Hodges of Tulare. Lucy lives in 
San Francisco and Edna is still of her mother's home circle.
 
History of Tulare and Kings Counties, California with Biographical Sketches - 
Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company, 1913, pp. 686-687