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In
Memory of George Chaffey |
Address Given by Merton E. Hill at the
dedication of the Memorial
Windows of the Congregational Church Etiwanda
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In
Memory of James C. Jones |
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Spoken
at Etiwanda, May 1st, 1955 At the Dedication of the Memorial Windows
of the Congregational Church
Etiwanda Historical
Society
Congregational Church Etiwanda Articles
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| It is a pleasure for me to be here in Etiwanda today,
for I have been interested in the community for many years. Happy memories
return of my frequent visits to the school; and I remember many fine students
who came from Etiwanda to Chaffey during my twenty-one years as its principal; and I am glad to be here today
to participate in the official recognition that is being given to two of my
former friends. |
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Congregational Church Etiwanda 1998
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As I stand before you today I feel wholly unqualified
to do justice to the two men whose memories are being honored and revered
through the media of these two beautiful windows. It is altogether fitting and
proper to honor them by dedicating portions of a church to their memories, for
their greatest contributions to their generation and to those who follow after
them are spiritual. |
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My relations with George Chaffey and with J. C. Jones
constitute for me a very happy memory. My contacts with each man had to do with
the origin and development of the great Chaffey institutions. When I became
principal of Chaffey in 1911 I had had practically no contacts with either Mr.
Chaffey or with Mr. Jones. But from mere names to me they became living
realities. I didn't know until later that George Chaffey gave its name to
Etiwanda when he founded a new colony where he introduced "the first
California irrigation settlement watered by a cement pipe line system;" I
didn't know that George Chaffey, creator of the Holt-Chaffey Mutual Water
Company of Etiwanda, introduced here "a model on which nearly all future
California Irrigation companies were based;" and I learned later that he
was "a pioneer of electricity in Southern California," and, to quote
from his biographer, that "with long-range vision which penetrated into the
future, he foresaw that electric energy would entirely change conditions of
living within a generation….
As a preliminary experiment he installed an electric
light at Etiwanda, which became the first place on the Pacific Slope at which
hydro-electric current was developed."
Mr. Chaffey "wired with his own hands the first
house west of the Rocky Mountains to be lighted with electricity," and that
house was here in Etiwanda. Shortly after this he and his brother established
the great Ontario Colony; it was a dramatic highlight in community development
when George Chaffey stood at the upper part of the great alluvial fan below the
mountains and envisioned the future Ontario Colony with its famed Euclid Avenue,
and soon thereafter made possible with the wise provisions of endowment of the Chaffey Union High School and the Chaffey
College.
I was a young principal of Chaffey in 1911 and very
soon had the wonderful opportunity of coming into personal relations with Mr.
Chaffey and his son Andrew, each of whom I worked with and admired greatly. Mr.
George Chaffey was one of the earliest of the Chaffey football fans. He came out
in his car for every home game, and we always had an honored place for him along
the sidelines, and on the meager bleachers there would be whispered "Mr.
Chaffey has arrived."
And he was always loyal to the team no matter whether
they lost or won. I can remember the Chaffey-Whittier game around 1913, and Mr.
Chaffey was there; after a rather unexpected victory for Chaffey of 30-0, Mr.
Chaffey entertained the team, the Coach, the Board and the Principal at his
home, and he presented every boy with an Orange and Black necktie. We would have
him on the stage at times and thus honored not him, but the Student Body, who
always greeted him with appreciation.
Mr. Chaffey gave names to Etiwanda and to Ontario, and
a great District in turn honored him by taking his name when the old Ontario
Colony of Ontario and Upland agreed to form the Chaffey Union High School
District. I remember vividly when this important event occurred. Ontario and
Upland each had a high school district in May of 1911; but the two Boards agreed
on a great principle: that the two communities had better get together and have
one great institution rather than separately to operate second-rate high
schools.
| The Endowment Fund of the old Chaffey College, retained
through legal action for the use, educationally, of the Ontario Colony, had
grown under the wise management of Andrew Chaffey, but it could not be used,
since the Ontario Colony had divided; "but," said the Superior Court
Judge, "if the union district is formed, the endowment fund of
approximately $80,000 in 1911 will be available for use by the district under
the direction of the Chaffey College Trustees," which then consisted of
Andrew Chaffey, Andrew Rose, and W.W. Smith. |
Chaffey Memorial Library Fireplace
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Chaffey Memorial Library
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Mr. Chaffey was concerned with the early development
of the new Chaffey Buildings, and when the Trustees didn't have the sufficient
funds to finish the interior of the first Chaffey Library, Mr. Chaffey and
his son Andrew, added enough to finish the library reading room in Oak. Mr.
Andrew Chaffey, with Mr. Edward C. Harwood and the Principal constituted the
Library Committee of the Board, and this Committee acted for many years in the
building up of the Library to become one of the foremost secondary school
libraries in the country. Many books are in the Chaffey Library today that
Andrew Chaffey personally selected, and as he and Mr. Harwood were scholarly
men, the Chaffey Library, in its earliest beginnings, developed under the most
helpful leadership. |
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And so, perpetuating in great educational institutions a
great name, George Chaffey has been immortalized; and it is extremely fitting
that this Church, placed in the center of the first colonizing effort of George
Chaffey, should call to our memory in this artistic window the life and
accomplishments of the engineer, the man of vision who for many years was a
creator of opportunities, and a designer of community growth for all of this
area.
Another man of vision, a man identified with this
community for nearly sixty years, was Mr. J. C. Jones. I will always remember
one of my first conferences with him. I met him one day in June of 1911 at the
corner of Second Avenue and Tenth Street in Upland, and I asked him about the
possibilities of securing the services of his daughter for a newly created
position as teacher of Spanish in the new Chaffey Union High School. She was
elected by the Board at its next meeting, as I remember, and thereafter I met
Mr. Jones frequently.
I became aware of his community interests, his
outstanding influence for good upon all who knew him, of his wide contacts, of
his efficiency of accomplishment, of his background of experience in
agriculture, in politics, in community leadership and in educational development
and progress.
Mr. Jones moved with his family to Etiwanda in 1894 and
was identified with this community for six decades. He went to the Klondike in
February, 1898, and returned in September, 1899. He kept a diary and there have
been recorded therein many details of great interest. Mr. Jones served as a
member of the Etiwanda School District Board for a number of years during the
first decade of the century; he served out the term of the late Dr. Reid as
Country Supervisor, and made an enviable record in that position; Mr. Jones was
recognized as a leader of wisdom and ability, one who could get things
accomplished.
He became associated with the late A. B. Miller,
founder of Fontana; but it has seemed to me, his greatest service during the
years was educational within the Chaffey Union High School District. He was
active in the enlargement of the District to include not just the two original
Districts of Ontario, but the ten districts comprising the great Chaffey
District of today.
I can remember when the enlargement of the District was
under discussion during the World War I period; Mr. Jones went right to the
heart of the situation and remarked to the citizens of the outlying districts
not included in the small Chaffey District: "If Chaffey is educating our
children we ought to help them by paying our share of the taxes to provide for
the education of our children." After the District was enlarged a new type
of Trustees' Association was formed, The Association of School Trustees of the
Chaffey Union High School District, and Mr. Jones was elected its first
President.
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| A little later Mr. Jones became a member of the
Chaffey Board and served a number of terms as President of the Board. He was
elected without opposition at every election in which he was a candidate. I was
very close to Mr. Jones in these educational relationships and the friendship
and the help he gave me form a heritage of outstanding value. He always showed
sound judgment and exercised wise leadership. |
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Mrs. Hill and I spent many happy hours with Mr. and Mrs.
Jones at their home in Thermal and at their Hotel home in Long Beach. They were
ideal hosts, always interested in individuals and in the various interests of
mutual friends, and in the details incident to daily life. No man ever gave
greater support to the departments of the high school and college than Mr.
Jones. He gave generously to the Chaffey Junior Farm Center and thus encouraged
the boys in their agricultural enterprises; he was vitally interested in both
the academic and the special departments, and expressed his approval of such
good work as appeared in the girls' physical education, in the home economics,
and in other departments.
Mr. Jones was successful in whatever he undertook; in
agriculture, in public service, and in educational direction and leadership. He
was a man of character; never did there occur at any time any unkind act of his
to mar the serenity of any man's life, and never did he utter an unkind word to
cause unhappiness; but against injustice and opposed to wrong he always took a
firm stand in the interests of right and justice.
Community leader, associate in educational work,
friend, I feel grateful for the influence of J. C. Jones upon my life; but I
feel humble in trying to express words of appreciation for him; this beautiful
window expresses in art the gratitude and affection of the men, women and youth
whose lives he has embellished.
And so, today, the memories of two great men are
honored, great in the best usage of the word, and in the words of Edwin Markham: |
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"How shall we honor them, Our Deathless
Dead? With Strew of laurel and the
stately tread? With blaze of banners
brightening overhead? Nay, not alone
these cheaper praises bring! They
will not have this easy honoring.
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How shall we honor them, our Deathless Dead?
How keep their mighty memories alive?
In him who feels their passion, they survive!
Flatter their souls with deed, and all is said!
In the heroic soul their souls create
Is raised remembrance past the reach of fate.
The will to love and dare, And take for God unprofitable risk. These things, these things will utter praise and paean
Louder than lyric thunders Aeschylean;
These things will build our dead unwasting
obelisk." |
| This document was taken from "A History
of Etiwanda" Compiled and Edited by Robert
L. Hickcox, Chairman, Historic Preservation Commission Published by City of Rancho Cucamonga Community Services
Department Second Edition published by
the Etiwanda Historical Society
1995, pages 222-228 |
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