California Biographies

Transcribed by Peggy Hooper

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

Source:
History of the state of California and biographical record of the San Joaquin 
Valley, California. An historical story of the state's marvelous growth from 
its earliest settlement to the present time.
Prof. James Miller Guinn , A. M.
The Chapman Publishing Co., Chicago 1905
Notes: Missing Page: 865-866,983-984,1175-1176


JOHN STURM, Jr.. who was formerly a member of the firm of Sturm Brothers Company, 
which has recently been dissolved and the land divided among the members, is a son of John 
Sturm, the first of the name to settle in California. Unable to care for the land which he 
purchased the elder man induced his sons to come to California from the state of Illinois, where 
he had located the family upon his emigration from Alsace-Lorraine, his native land. John 
Sturm, Jr., is also a native of that country, where his birth occurred July 29, 1853. Brought to the 
United States in childhood he was reared in Illinois, receiving an education in the common 
schools. In 1873 he secured employment with Libby, McNeil & Libby Packing Company, as 
city salesman, being located in Chicago. After seven years he engaged in business for him- 
self, becoming a retail coal dealer, and later engaged in the teaming business. Following his 
father and brother to California in 1898 he located in Portersville and purchased fifty acres 
which he finished planting to orchard, fourteen acres being in Washington navels and late Yal- 
encias, and also lemons. His property is located four miles east of Portersville, in which 
city he also owns some lots. In the same year in which he took up his work here Mr. Sturm 
returned to Chicago and brought his family to his ranch, where they have since made their 
home. 

In Chicago Mr. Sturm married Ann Loehr, a native of that city, and they are the parents of 
the. following children: Emma Grace, the wife of A. V. Chandler, of Chicago; Anna Mabel, the 
wife of W. R. Hattersley, of Chicago; Edna Minnie ; Ellen Pearl ; John Lester ; Walter Allen ; 
Edith Philippine ; and Genevieve Magdaline. Mr. Sturm is a member of the Evangelical 
Church, of which he is a trustee, and is also superintendent of the Sunday-school. Politically 
he is a stanch Republican. He is a director and president of the Campbell & Moreland Ditch 
Company, director of the Portersville Citrus Association, and director and vice-president of the 
Portersville Rochdale Company.