Joseph Sharmer II

Joseph Sharmer II · 1897–1954 · the letter-writer

At a glance

Born: 10 November 1897, Sidney, Nebraska
Died: 26 February 1954, Santa Cruz, California
Buried: Woodlawn Cemetery, Colma, California
Parents: Joseph Sharmer I and Katie O’Connor
Married: Ruby E. Wilson, 5 July 1938, Kingman, Arizona
Children: a daughter (stillborn 1939), Joseph III, Jay and Laurel
Known for: the letters to Ruby; Merced County Supervisor, 1949–1952

Life story

Joseph II: like his father before him and the Josephs after him, he had no middle name. He was born in Sidney, Nebraska, thirteen years to the day after his parents’ wedding, the only son after three sisters, Laura, Kathryn and Dodie. His father died when he was a baby and his mother when he was nine. In 1910, at twelve, he was living in Denver with his eldest sister Laura and her husband, Myron Sager, and he grew up in Reedley, California, where, by his own telling, he and some schoolmates once took down the high school’s portrait of the Kaiser (The Kaiser Comes Down).

Growing up in Reedley

The town’s weekly paper, the Reedley Exponent, follows him through those years. Laura and Myron Sager were living in Reedley by October 1911, and in November 1913 a crowd of young friends gathered at the Sager home to help Joseph celebrate his sixteenth birthday. At Reedley High School he played football, was “josh editor” (the humor editor) of the school paper in 1914, and graduated in 1917, two months after the United States entered the war. His sister Kathryn was the town librarian from October 1913 until she resigned in November 1917, when Laura took over the library.

When he registered for the draft on 12 September 1918 he wrote his name as “Joseph None Sharmer,” the card’s own word for his middle name. He was a clerk for the California Associated Raisin Company in Reedley, of medium height and build, with blue eyes and brown hair, and gave “Mrs. M. O. Sager,” his sister Laura, wife of Myron O. Sager, as his nearest relative. In October 1919, after a spell as bookkeeper and weigher at the California Packers’ Association office in Reedley, he was promoted to the association’s main office in Fresno.

By 1921 he was back in Reedley. That January he and Alfred Gillingham opened a real-estate and insurance firm, and that summer he ran the concession at Reedley Beach, the town’s swimming place on the river. He was a drummer, and by 1923 he led Sharmer’s Orchestra, which played when the Reedley Lions Club received its charter. In February 1924 he was promoted to a job with the Union Oil Company, and that August he spent two weeks in Sidney with Kathryn, by then Mrs. Kratz: her marriage license to Earl R. Kratz of Sidney had been issued in San Francisco in July 1918.

Sources: Reedley Exponent, 1911–1924, and San Francisco Call, 12 July 1918, via the California Digital Newspaper Collection (UC Riverside); World War I draft registration card, via FamilySearch.

He was a canned-fruit man. He worked for National Cash Register in San Francisco for ten years, then sold California canned fruit to food brokers in the East. On one of those trips, in the winter of 1937–38, he wrote to Ruby Wilson, the Planada postmaster, from almost every stop: the letters at the heart of this site. They married in July 1938 and made their home in Planada.

After his sales trips east proved a success he became General Manager of the Planada Dehydrater Co.; he also managed a cannery in Le Grand and grew figs. During the war he chaired the Planada War Finance Committee and received a Treasury citation for it in 1945.

He was the 26th president of the Merced Rotary Club (1947–48), which remembered his blue striped bib overalls, his good stories and his gift as a mimic. Elected Merced County Supervisor for District No. 2 in 1948, he served 1949–1952; as chairman of the hospital committee he secured the funding for the new county hospital in Merced, where his name is on the plaque. He was a 32nd-degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Shriner, and chaired the Merced-Mariposa Shrine Club’s circus committee.

He lost his bid for re-election in 1952. That year Ruby took the children and Monty the Airedale to Santa Cruz while Joe stayed on in Planada, and the Planada house was later put up for sale. He died in Santa Cruz in February 1954; the Merced County court adjourned in his memory and the California Assembly passed House Resolution No. 22.

Timeline

1897, November 10. Born in Sidney, Nebraska.
1898, June 14. His father, Joseph Sharmer I, dies.
1907, April 11. His mother, Katie, dies.
1910. Living in Denver with his sister Laura and Myron Sager.
1911, October. In Reedley, California, with Laura and Myron Sager.
1913, November. Friends celebrate his sixteenth birthday at the Sager home in Reedley.
1917. Graduates from Reedley High School.
1918, September 12. Registers for the draft in Reedley: a clerk for the California Associated Raisin Co.
1919, October. Promoted from the California Packers’ Association office in Reedley to its main office in Fresno.
1921. Opens a real-estate and insurance firm with Alfred Gillingham; runs the Reedley Beach concession.
1923. Leads Sharmer’s Orchestra in Reedley.
1924, February. Promoted to a job with the Union Oil Company.
1937–38. The eastern sales trip and the letters to Ruby.
1938, July 5. Marries Ruby E. Wilson in Kingman, Arizona.
1939, September. Their first child, a daughter, is stillborn; she is buried in Babyland at Merced Cemetery (Masonic section, Lot 9, plot #146) under a small heart-shaped headstone (The Little Granddaughter).
1940, July 19. Joe and Ruby borrow $1,500 from First National Bank in Merced (the note).
1941, April 30. Son Joseph III born in Fresno.
1942, February 14. Registers for the wartime draft in Planada: 5 ft 10 in, 165 lb, blue eyes, brown hair.
1943, July 7. Son Jay born in Fresno.
1943, August 6. Appointed Chairman of the Planada War Finance Committee.
1945, December 31. Treasury citation for war finance service.
1947–48. President of the Merced Rotary Club.
1948. Elected Merced County Supervisor, District No. 2; serves 1949–1952.
1949, March 25. As hospital committee chairman, writes to the architect about a new county hospital.
1951, May 29. Helps dedicate the new Merced County Courts Building.
1952. Loses re-election; Ruby and the children move to Santa Cruz.
1954, February 26. Dies in Santa Cruz.