San Mateo County Pioneers
by Laurie Coulter
My grandparents, Fritz and Louisa Meyer were part of the early growth and development of San Mateo County, in California. They were not part of the wealthy
Floods, Menzes, Crockers or Stanfords, but they did play a part in the economic and social growth of the county south of the big City of San Francisico.
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| Annie, Carl and Freida Meyer and Arthur Wolfe |
In the late 1880's San Mateo County
was starting to find its own identity other than a country
home for the wealthy. Towns which had grown up around
stagecoach stops began to flourish.
Redwood City less than 30 miles south of San Francisco, had a port. The port on the San Francisco
Bay gave access for the redwood cut in the coastal hills to be milled and shipped north to San Francisco
and east to the delta and the gold country.
Most roads were dirt and horse and wagon were the main source of local transportation.
Fritz and Louise settled
in a village called
Woodside nestled
beneath the coastal
hills, about two miles west of Redwood City. They had both
traveled a long way to get there. Their families were part of the wave of German
immigrants who came to the USA in the mid to late 1800's. They came
with their families
and extended families
many of whom settled in German
communities in the midwest. Fritz was born in 1850 and named Fredrick in the farming town of Oiste, Germany, about 70 miles northwest of Hanover.
At the age of eighteen
he had been in the United States at least five years, because he applied for American
citizenship in Mason County Indiana
in the year of 1868.
Two years later he is living with relatives in Alameda County,
California working
as
a farm worker. Seven years later he marries Louisa Bolte, born in 1854 also in Oiste, Germany on August 24,1877. Three years after that they have settled in Woodside
on the western side of the San Francisco Bay, with two children,
Margaret age two years and
Henry, age six months.
The Meyers managed to buy a bit of
land and build a house. They raised
vegetables and chickens. Fritz was hired
to work
for the county watering
the dirt roads, particularly the logging
road that carried
the lumber to the port of
Redwood City. That
road, Woodside Road is
a major arterial
road to the present day. Louisa was busy raising their family. They had nine children,
seven of whom lived to adulthood. They were
in addition to Margaret and Henry: Louise,
b 1881; Augusta, b1883; Freida, b
1885; Anna, b 1887;
Matilda, b 1889;
Carl, b 1891; and Hazel b 1895.
Both Augusta and Matilda
died a month after birth.
 |
Farmhouse and Barn with Freida and her future husband Arthur,
Hazel, Carl & Henry (hat). |
Henry never married,
and was a gardener
at the developing Leland
Stanford Jr. University, Lou and Margaret
worked as housekeepers for the affluent in San Francisco
until the 1906 earthquake, when they were brought home, never to work outside
the home again. Margaret , Annie and Frieda married and raised their famlies in the area. Carl, my dad, grew up and left home to live in the industrial city of South San Francisco. He worked in the booming meat industry, in the stockyards, slaughterhouses and eventually as a plant
manager. Lou and Hazel never married. They lived
in the family farmhouse
until 1957 when it was sold to support
them.
 |
| Meyer Gravesite, Union Cemetery, RWC aft. 1903 |
Fritz
died in 1900 as a result of an
accident. He was watering
the
county road and got kicked in the head by his horse.
He was only 50 years old. There
is
an obituary and a small newspaper article about the accident in the
local paper. Louisa died in 1903
of
influx of the bowels after a brief illness.
Both are buried in
the historic Union Cemetery on Woodside Road in Redwood City, CA. along
with three of their children,
the babies, Augusta and Matilda and son Henry. The
rest
of the family
for the most part, is buried in Colma,
CA at Cypress Lawn Cemetery.
Fritz
and Louisa were pioneers. They were
ordinary people who contributed to the growth and viability
of San Mateo County. They will not be found
in the history
books but they had to be tenacious and kind to have raised a wonderful
family. I am
still in touch with several cousins because of the value that our parents
taught us about the importance of families
sticking together.
There
is
a small obituary
for my grandmother Louisa that
states that she was a "devoted mother, a true Christian woman
and good neighbor and admired
for her many
womanly virtues." It also states that she was "well known and liked by all." She died at age 48
years leaving five adult
children and two young ones,
my dad Carl and his sister
Hazel. They were raised by their older siblings and it
seems Louisa's values of hard work and kindness were
passed on to them.
Values I got from
my dad were about
the importance of family, hospitality, never turning
anyone away who needs
help and doing acts of kindness
without any notice to oneself. 4 Jun 2015
 |
Searsville Lake - when it opened for water and Recreation abt. 1893
Annie, Louisa holding Carl, Freida, Fritz, Margaret, Lou, & Henry Meyer
(Hazel wasn't born yet) |
______
Laurie Coulter has been a member of SMCGS for 8 years. She was born in San Francisco but raised in San Mateo and has lived on the peninsula ever since. Her Dad was born in Woodside in the 1890s where the family had a farmhouse until the 1950s. She is actively working on her First Families Application. Laurie started taking classes from Gayle Simon and says "My classes led me to writing stories about my family as a way of sharing the family history which is so much more than a pedigree chart. Since I had no elders to ask, I decided that my own memories and those of my sister and cousins will have to do. I use research for gaps, but I inherited a lot of documents and photos which gain meaning and context in the stories. For now my focus remains on what we know collaboratively and what I can verify."
© 2017 Laurie Coulter - Please contact SMCGS for permissions.
