| [Caption: picture 01: Local residents enjoy conversation and
drinks at the old soda fountain at Mac the Medicine Man, a drugstore that was
located at the northwest corner of Ninth Street and Second Avenue in Upland.]
[Caption: picture 02: Louie Kronemey, far right, Upland Police
Department's first motorcycle officer, investigates a 1914 traffic accident on
Second Avenue near Ninth Street involving a delivery car from Eymann and Goerz
Hardware.]
[Caption: picture 03: A few students prepare to go to class at
Chaffey High School in the late 1880s.]
[Caption: picture 04: A deliveryman takes groceries by burro
to Mr. Baldy families.]
When Harry Ledig's great-grandfather and his seven children settled in Alta
Loma in 1891, there were only a handful of homes and acres of citrus groves.
Citrus was king in the Inland Valley, so the émigrés from Springfield,
Illinois, threw their backs and brains into the agricultural landscape and
purchased 20 acres each on Hellman Avenue.
The Perdew Family, the first residents of Etiwanda, arrived by covered wagon
in 1861. Today, Bob and Joy Perdew are preserving their ancestors' history and
serving on the Roots Reunion committee to help other descendants of early
pioneers relive memorable moments in their own family trees.
Louie Kronemey, Uplands's first motorcycle police officer, loved motorcycles
as a teen-ager at Chaffey High School. He and his trusty motorcycle came to the
aid of motorists in a 1914 traffic collision on Second Avenue near Ninth Street
involving a delivery car from Eymann and Goerz Hardware Co.
These and other stories will be among those shred at the fourth annual Roots
Reunion to be held at 1 p.m. Oct. 25 in the parish hall of St. Peter and St.
Paul Catholic Church in Rancho Cucamonga. Harry and Patricia Ledig co-chair the
reunion of descendants of pioneering families who came to San Bernardino's West
End before 1930.
The reunion is presented by the Historical Preservation Council and sponsored
by the Resource Conservation Center. Besides the Ledigs, who now live in Upland,
the roots committee includes Helen Dyson, Sandra Hart, Suzan Mascaranes, the
Perdews, Bob Pruneri, Bill Ruh, Charlotte Carrari-Severin, Georgia Westphal and
Florence Williams.
Approximately 600 descendants of pioneering families in the old Chaffey Joint
Union High School District -- covering Fontana, Etiwanda, Alta Loma, Cucamonga,
Upland, Ontario, Montclair, Mt Baldy, Guasti, the unincorporated county areas in
the West End and parts of Chino -- are expected to attend. They will
share photos, memorabilia and stories about the families and events that shaped
local history.
"Their families were the ones who built the communities and helped them
grow." Said Patricia Ledig, a California native whose family came to (the
area) from South Dakota in the early 1900s.
She was born in Los Angeles in 1922, and her parents moved to Etiwanda where
her father was a citrus rancher. She and Harry Ledig, who continued his family's
citrus ranch at Hellman and Banyan Street until retiring in 1973, will be
married 50 years in April.
"We're youngsters," Ledig quipped.
The Roots Reunion Committee and the Historical Preservation Council don't
want to restrict their historical explorations to once-a-year affairs. The
council collects old photos, memorabilia and artifacts and videotapes,
interviews with early pioneers and their descendants as part of research efforts
for future generations.
Patricia Ledig admitted there're having a lot of fun finding out interesting
tidbits about the history of the people and the region.
But, by also recording information and interviews on videotape, they hope
others will get an idea of early life in the valley. These tapes, she added,
will be put in libraries and municipal offices as research material for
students, historians and genealogists looking for data on the area.
Descendants of pioneering families wanting additional information my call
(909) 981-0168. |
