A woman of culture and refinement, who has amply demonstrated that she can manage an important California ranch and bring it to a high state of cultivation, is Mrs. Ida E. Aborn, one of the prominent residents of South Sycamore Avenue, Claremont. She is a native of Barrington, R. I., where she was popular as Miss Ida E. Peck, the daughter of Asa Peck, a descendant of an old Colonial family prominently identified with the successful conduct of the Revolutionary War and the securing of our independence from Great Britain. She is a lineal descendant of Joseph Peck, who emigrated from old Hingham, England, to New Hingham, Mass., in 1638. One of his descendants bought land from the Indians, a farm that Mrs. Aborn's father owned and where she was born, and it is still in the possession of the Peck family. After a while, she lived for four years in Montclair, N. J., where her personality won her many friends; then she went to Germany to educate her children in Leipsic, the great musical center and book market of the world, and there for four years enjoyed advantages not then found in the New World, still in its process of formation.
On her return to America, Mrs. Aborn fortunately directed her pathway toward the Pacific, and with her children located at Claremont in the Pomona Valley. In 1908 she bought her present orange ranch of ten acres on South Sycamore Avenue, Claremont—a tract of raw land which she has developed into a fine place. She has erected a handsome, comfortable home and the usual outbuildings, and already has one of the most attractive ranches of its size for miles around.
Not less than seventeen varieties of fruit are on the place, besides her oranges, for she has a good family orchard of apples, peaches, pomelos, figs, almonds, apricots and grapes, all personally supervised by her. This daily supervision of the estate is both a pleasurable duty and an inspiration to her, and in thus directing the ranch affairs, she points the way in a very interesting manner for other women of California to follow.
Two children gave Mrs. Aborn joy and comfort. A daughter, Frances, herself the mother of three children, is the wife of Frank H. MacDougall, a professor in the University of Minnesota; and a son, Barton, who married and became the father of two children, died at the promising age of twenty-four. Mrs. Aborn is an attendant of the Congregational Church of Claremont, and took part in Red Cross and other war work; and she is a member of the Claremont Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, whose research and memorial work recall the days when her pioneer ancestors bought their land from the Indians.
History of Pomona Valley, California, with Biographical Sketches
of The Leading Men and Women of the Valley Who Have Been
Identified With Its Growth and Development from the Early Days
to the Present
Published in Los Angeles, Cal., by the Historic Record Company
1920
Transcribed by Linda Jackson 12/4/08, Pages 720-721
Los Angeles County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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