Ernest M. GreenJuly 10,
1905 ~ March 21, 2001
At the time of Ernest M. Green’s
birth, July 10, 1905, his family was living in the eastern Sierra-Nevada
gold-mining town of Bodie, California, now a California State Park. His
father was in charge of the cyanide process at the Standard Mill, extracting
the gold from the crushed rock in which the gold was found. Because of the
mill owner’s liking for the Green family, he provided a wagon and team of
horses to transport Ernest’s mother the approximately 90 miles to Bishop for
the birth. Ernest became the third of four boys the couple would have, the
previous two having been born in Virginia City, Nevada. With the mining
dying down in Bodie, the family moved to Bishop where they settled on the
Nine-Mile Ranch.
At a very early age the family’s doctor advised the
Greens that Ernest was a sickly child who would probably not live long.
Though he did not exhibit any particular symptoms, Ernest’s mother decided
to keep him close to home where she could dote on him, hoping to make
whatever time he had as pleasant as possible. After several years with no
hint of health problems his mother turned him over to his brothers to be
introduced to the great outdoors in what was then a lush valley, full of
rivers, plants and animals before the diversion of the area’s water to
southern California.
Ernest graduated from Bishop High School in three
years, following older brother Roswald over the Sierras to Sonora,
California, where Ros was a pharmacist. Ernest, then a teenager, began
working as a delivery boy for Wolfe Drug in Sonora. At the age of 21, Ernest
passed the California State Pharmacy exam.
In the late 1920s he moved down the hill from Sonora to
Merced, taking a job at the Valley Drug Company on Main at “M” Street where
County Bank is now located, eventually becoming a partner in the ownership
of the store and managing it until his retirement in 1970. He married Helen
Virginia Norris in 1936, and in 1939 they bought the house on “O” Street
they would occupy the rest of their lives. They had two children, Carol
Virginia in 1941, and Donald Edwin in 1944.
After retirement, Mr. Green donated his time to the
restoration of the Merced County Court House and served on the County
Planning Commission. He died in 2001 at the age of 94. Not bad for a sickly
child
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