Humboldt County Biography
Ferdinand Ambrosini
Together with his brother Victor, Ferdinand Ambrosini has been engaged in dairying most of the time since coming to California, and the firm of F. and V. Ambrosini is well and favorably known among the dairymen of Humboldt county, this state, both men being members of the Ferndale Dairymen's Association and the Ferndale Cow Testing Association.
A native of Lodrino, Canton Ticino, Switzerland, Ferdinand Ambrosini was born in that distant country November 14, 1873, the son of Gervaso, and grandson of Gregori Ambrosini, the latter having been a farmer and land-owner in Switzerland, as well as a member of the town council and the descendant of an old family in that district. Ferdinand Ambrosini's father was also a farmer and dairyman and member of the town council, of which he was for many years president, or mayor, and both himself and his wife, Maria (Sacchi) Ambrosini died in their home canton. They were the .parents of five children, four of whom are living: Ferdinand and -Victor, now in partnership in California; Theodorlinda, now the wife of Cipriano Ambrosini of Glenn county, and Severina, the wife of Sylvio Sacchi of Sonoma county. The sons were reared on the home farm, received their education in the local public schools and learned farming and dairying as they were carried on in that country. On February 3, 1892, attracted by the good reports he had heard of the opportunities for young men in California, the son Ferdinand set out for San Francisco, via New York, arriving in Humboldt County, Cal., on the twenty-fifth of the same month. Here he soon went to work on a dairy ranch of the Russ estate on Bear River Ridge, and in 1900 became foreman of the Woodland Echo ranch. In 1903 he and his brother Victor rented this ranch and also the Mayflower ranch of twenty-six hundred acres, where they engaged independently in dairying, milking one hundred seventy cows. All these years Mr. Ambrosini had been engaged in the making of butter, putting it up in squares, cubes and kegs, shipping it from Ferndale to Eureka and San Francisco at the rate of about three thousand pounds a month, and obtaining as high prices as any of the creameries. In the fall of 1913 he and his brother gave up the two ranches, having in 1910 purchased seventy-two acres of the Greis ranch adjoining Ferndale on the northeast, which they rented for dairy purposes until giving up their other ranches in 1913, at which time they engaged in dairying upon the seventy-two acres, adding thereto rented land of thirty-seven acres, so that at present they operate one hundred ten acres of rich bottom land, raising thereon large crops of hay and green feed for their herd of about seventy-five high grade Jersey and Durham milch cows, one of the latter having made the best record for milk in 1914 of thirty-five hundred cows whose record was kept by the association, having produced fifteen thousand, two hundred thirty-two pounds of milk in nine months. The Ambrosini brothers are also engaged in cattle raising, for which purpose they rent the Guthrie ranch of six hundred six acres, located ten miles below Ferndale, on the coast.
Politically, Mr. Ambrosini is an upholder of Democratic principles, he was a member of the board of trustees of Bunker Hill school district for two terms, and served one year as clerk of the board; and he is at present a stockholder in the Russ-Williams Banking Company. His marriage took place in Ferndale, Mrs. Ambrosini having been formerly Louisa Biasca, of Lodrino, Switzerland, and they are the parents of seven children: Edna, Severina, Louis, Elsie, Wesley, William and Donald, all of whom are at home with their parents.
History of Humboldt County California
History by Leigh H. Irvine: Historic Record Company
Los Angeles, Ca. 1915
Transcribed by: Martha A Crosley Graham
28 April 2006
Pages 1095 - 1144
Humboldt County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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