The following story was told to a newspaper reporter for the Lodi News Sentinel by Bessie Ann
(Carter) Young. The date of publication is unknown but respectfully would have been about
1956. Please remember that not everything mentioned in this story is correct but the majority of it
is true.

                       BEN POPE HOME, BUILT 80 YEARS AGO

The old house of Benjamin Franklin and Rebecca Ann (Eddlemon) Pope, now in its 80th year,
still stands where it was built in 1876 about a half mile south of E. Pine St. extension on Floral
Ave. It was built about 15 years after the Pope's first came to California in 1861, the year before
the big flood in San Joaquin Valley.

They came by the way of the Oregon trail, over the Great Salt Lake desert to Carson City and
Sacramento. Grandmother walked all of the way. She said it was easier to drive the Oxen that
way. There were six Oxen hitched to a covered wagon with a trailer wagon attached. Two cows
were tied on behind the trailer wagon to furnish the milk that was needed on the trip. Grandfather
drove two fillies that were very fractious. They were hitched to a small wagon and then rode all
the way. Grandma was afraid of the young horses, she said it took a man to handle them.
The first place they stopped upon reaching this area was a short distance southeast of what is now
Lodi Lake Park, then known as Smith's Lake. The next year, 1862, year of the flood, they moved
back to level ground over on Cherokee Lane now called 99 Highway. Here was where
Grandfather began to buy land. 

The land he wanted was situated at the southeast corner of the intersection of Lockeford Road
and Cherokee Lane, bounded on the west by the Curry Ranch and on the south by the Curry and
the Kettleman Ranches. At that time this was government property and could be bought for $1.50
an acre. He wanted to buy the whole section but Mr. Curry owned a forty acre piece that he
would not sell. When the railroad was put through to Valley Springs, grandfather gave the right
of way through his property to the Southern Pacific with the understanding he was to be allowed
to ride on the line free. He died before he had the ride.

The Pope home had eight rooms, four bedrooms, two on each side of a long central hall. At the
west end of the hall was a large parlor with a big bay window. At the east end of the hall was the
dinning room where there was a fireplace. It was in the dinning room where the family usually
spent their evenings. Off the dinning room was the kitchen and a large pantry. I remember the
pantry with many pans of milk sitting on the shelves with the cream rising to be skimmed off for
butter making. There was a sauerkraut barrel in one corner, and jars and jars of wild grape, wild
blackberry, and apple jellies on the shelves. There was homemade lard in five gallon cans and
usually a couple of crocks of mincemeat. It was wonderfully good. A cook house was built close
on the south side of the house where the meals for the harvest crews were prepared and served at
a long table with benches on each side. For many years grandmother had a Chinese boy to help
her. 

There is an old oak tree still standing which is one of the many that grew in the barnyard. The
tree first mentioned I planted that acorn when I was 12 years old. My mother died when I was
nine days old and my grandmother raised me. Grandfather died when I was very young, but I can
just remember him. On sundays many relatives and friends would come to visit and Grandfather
would read from the Bible. Grandma always cooked a big dinner; usually four or five chickens
with lots and lots of dumplings, big cobblers or plain vanilla cake baked in large square bread
tins.  Almost always on summer Sundays and holidays ice cream was served, made in a three
gallon freezer turned by hand by the men folk. Everyone seemed to have such good times and all
seemed to love to come. However, as I look back, I don't think my grandmother ever had a day of
rest. After grandfather died, Henry Pope, their third child, took over the ranching for grandma.
He raised grain, watermelons, and sometimes beets. The ground was so fertile and there seemed
to be more rain than now. The grain grew from four to five feet tall; the melons would weigh
from ten to forty pounds, the beets grew amazingly large, all without water except when it rained.
But there must have been much more moisture then because the Spanish moss hung like lace
from the trees and even the fences had some moss on them.

The ranch was divided between the four children. Tom received the southwest sixty acres and he
built a race track for the training of race horses. The center of the track was fenced with a five
foot lath fence and this enclosure also was used for greyhound racing. My sister and I were never
allowed to go near the track buildings alone, but late one rainy afternoon we were returning home
from town with groceries. As we drove near the track the rain began to fall in torrents. As the
wind was blowing so hard our umbrellas was of no use, my sister decided to pull into the open
stall at one end of the track barn for protection. We had no sooner stopped than the door from the
barn was slammed open against the wheel of our wagon. It frightened us, and May, knowing we
were forbidden to be there in the first place, lashed Prince with the whip and we were away like a
flash. The next morning we were told that an old man who was employed around the track as a
roust about was killed in the shed for his small wage which he had received that day.

At harvest time I remember the harvester, the header and the threshing machine that was run by a
steam engine. The wagons were loaded the day before the grain was taken to market so the teamsters
could start at two o'clock in the morning because it was a long haul to the Sperry Mills in
Stockton and they always wanted to get back home before dark the same day. The wagons were e
pulled by four or six horses or mules and driven by a jerk line. The lead mules had bells over
their collars. There are so many things that I remember such as riding all over the ranch on my
small pony, herding cows and the pigs too, sometimes. While doing so I would sew on quilt
blocks to pass the time away. I sat in the shade of an *****berry bush or a tree.

I remember when Coxey's Army came through Lodi about 189?. They asked permission to stay at
the race track for a couple of days. They bought eggs and chickens from grandma, all she could
spare.  It was Tom, the youngest son who planted the twenty acre vineyard. It is still owned by
his children. His only daughter, Mrs. Mable Stack, lives in the house now. This vineyard was
planted in 1899, so is 57 years old now and still considered to be one of the best in San Joaquin
County. I remember asking grandma how Lodi got its name. This is what she told me: At first
people thought about calling the town Mukel*****tion, but when the railroad put a sign at this
stop, it was Lodi. Named that because there was an Italian gardener whose named Lodi who
lived nearby. So the name ****d have been pronounced with a long E so** LODEE, as the
Italian g****.