San Joaquin County Biographies
Ref: Page 1602
Transcribed by: Linda Diane Jackson 2/17/2010
GROVER C. IREY
For the past seven years Grover C. Irey has been a resident of Lodi and since 1921 has been associated with Lyon & Irey, sporting goods, auto accessories, etc., and brings to the firm a thorough and practical knowledge of the business in every detail. He was born near Versailles, Mo., January 23, 1892, a son of William T. and Almira (Robertson) Irey, natives of Pennsylvania and Missouri, respectively. There were eight children in the family: Alfa, Mrs. E.M. Paxson, resides in Fortuna, Mo.; Frank resides at Lodi; Roy resides at Lodi; Maremma resides in Lodi; Estella, deceased; J. Washington resides at Youngstown, Cal.; Grover C. is the subject of this sketch; and Cynthia. Grover C. received a grammar school education in Akinsville, Mo. When nineteen years old he was earning his own way in the world and first worked at any job he could get to do to earn a livelihood, working through the states of the Middle West, and spent a year and a half at Delhi, La.; he spent one season in the harvest field in Arkansas. He then removed to Texas and worked at harvesting, gradually working his way northward until in the fall he was in North Dakota. Returning home, he took a course in the Kansas City Automobile Machine School. During 1915 he came to California and directly to Lodi, where he worked as driver and mechanic for the City Transfer Company. During the World War he was employed at the Moore-Scott shipyards in Oakland as a driller, where he remained for a year and a half. After the war he returned to Lodi, where he established an agency for Federal trucks, which occupied him for one year. He then turned his attention to viticulture and purchased twenty acres in vineyard, three miles southwest of Lodi, but later sold it.
On September 5, 1917, Mr. Irey was married to Miss Hazel R. Ham, born near Woodbridge, a daughter of W.J. and Anna L. Ham, the former a native of Iowa and the latter of Pennsylvania. Her father, W.J. Ham, who was an attorney in Des Moines, Iowa, first married Miss Ella Ventura, who passed away leaving one child, Mathias Fenton Ham. After Mr. Ham's second marriage the family removed to California, in 1891, and Mr. Ham was one of the instructors in the San Joaquin Valley College at Woodbridge. He passed away at about sixty years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Irey are the parents of three children: William Harold, Charles Grover, and Robert. Mr. Irey purchased the home of Mrs. Ham in Lodi, where the family has since resided. Mr. Irey is a Democrat in politics, and fraternally is a member of the Modern Woodmen, and with his family is a member of the Methodist Church of Lodi.
History of
SAN JOAQUIN 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
HISTORY BY
George H. Tinkham
HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
1923
San Joaquin County Biographies ~ Archive Biography Index ~ Archive Index
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