Merced County Biographies
Ref: Pages 848-849
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 8/8/2009
DON P. CROOKHAM
A business which was established at Atwater in 1918 and keeps up with the steady growth of the town, in fact keeps ahead of it by anticipating the wants of the people, is the Atwater Plumbing and Sheet Metal Works owned by Don P. Crookham. He employs two men in the conduct of his business and has unbounded faith in the future of the town as a good place for his business.
The eldest of four sons, Don P. was born in Phillipsburg, Kans., on April 28, 1884. The other boys are, Earl; Warren, who has been with our subject since he started his business; and Roe. Earl and Roe are also residents of California. The father, Perry J. Crookham, in his younger days was a school teacher, but for over forty years he has been a successful contractor and builder in Kansas and Missouri. During the World War he was engaged in building dry docks on the Atlantic Coast for the United States government. His wife was Olive King, born in Iowa; she died in April, 1904. Don P. was educated in the public schools and grew up to learn the trade of carpenter with his father. At the age of eighteen he had charge of a crew of twenty men and was engaged in railroad work for six years. In 1908 he came West to Los Angeles and spent four years in the traffic department of the Los Angeles Electric railroad; then he was foreman for the Richard-Neustadt Construction Company, and was also employed by the Selig Polyscope Company, spending two years altogether with these concerns. In 1915 he was interested in a twenty-acre ranch at Winton and came north at that time. He was employed by the California State Highway Commission in the bridge building department in Mariposa County, only to leave them to engage in business for himself at Atwater.
Mr. Crookham was married in 1905 in Norton, Kans., too Miss Margaret Rodell, the eldest of three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Rodell, now of British Colony, Merced County. She was reared in Kansas and was a school teacher in that State. They have seven children: Russell, in the Merced High School, class of 1925; Paul, in the class of 1926; Doris and Mildred, grammar school pupils; and Helen, Wayne and Norma Lee. Mr. Crookham is a charter member of the Atwater Camp, Woodmen of the World; also of the Atwater Pentacost Club Association, and of the Atwater Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Atwater volunteer fire department and is a supporter of all public movements to keep Atwater on the map.
History of
MERCED COUNTY
CALIFORNIA
With A
Biographical Review
of
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been
Identified with Its Growth and Development
from the Early Days to the Present
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1925
Merced County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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