- An Original Building of the Irvine Ranch -
There were a few people who owned and/or operated businesses in town. Most lasted only a few years. Here are the stories of a few of those hardly souls.
Elsewhere the start of the Irvine Store is presented. But the story of the store is much the story of the Munger family. William Dix Munger and his wife Catherine were both born in New York. They married in 1851 when he was 19 and she was 21. They traveled across the country via ox drawn wagon, settling briefly in Ohio, Iowa, and Minnesota before arriving in Oregon in 1868. Some of the children that traveled with the from New York passed away on the trip and others were born. Munger worked as a blacksmith in Cottonwood, Yolo County, California after moving south from Oregon. The Mungers moved to Napa for a few years before arriving in Orange County about 1900. When William Dix Munger passed away at age 72 in El Toro, their two surviving sons were also living in town. Samuel William Munger was born in Iowa in 1856 during the long trek from New York. Samuel and his wife Nellie Munger welcomed ten children into the world. For five years, Samuel was the manager of the Newmark warehouse in Irvine. He then moved to be the manager of the north end of the O'Neill ranch, an area that comprises what is now Mission Viejo south to the northern edge of Camp Pendleton. In 1910, he retired from that position due to failing health. Feeling better, he returned to the O'Neill Ranch in late June of 1911. Sadly on the evening of June 30, Samuel passed away from a stroke. He was 54 years old and all ten of his children _Catherine, Clara, Ruth, Horace, Edith, Esther, Cynthia, Nellie, Samuel Boyd and Maria were still living at home. Only Catherine, Clara, and Ruth were 18 or older.
There is a popular story that Catherine, who went by Kate, had aggressively pursued opening a general store near the Irvine Station with James Irvine. It seems plausible given the facts that Irvine was sympathetic to the family of his former manager and agreed to the opening of the store as the approval was given to Samuel's eldest child within months of Samuel Munger's passing. Kate was an assertive owner who looked after not only her store but the surrounding community. She was frequently confronted shoplifters and held them for the sheriff. She kept a sharp out and reported suspicious activity that resulted in bicycle, motorcycle and car thieves being apprehended as well as couple of check forgers. Always looking to expand her business, she sold hay that was stored in an abandoned warehouse by the railroad tracks. She lost her entire $1000 hay inventory in a fire ignited by sparks from a passing Santa Fe locomotive in 1913. The heat from the fire was enough to break some of the store windows and blister and peel the paint on the side of the building facing the burning warehouse. The store was saved through the efforts of a bucket brigade.
When the state highway which passed by the store was paved, Kate decided to expand her business. She made an agreement with James Irvine to operate a combination barbershop and poolroom that served sandwiches which the Irvine Company built close to her store. This new venture opened in 1916. Kate hired a professional barber as manager but soon noticed that food ingredients were missing and sued the manager for larceny. Always the sharp gas station selling Red Crown gasoline was added just behind the store (see photo). Kate also sold Fire and Compensation insurance about this time. She also had a commercial apricot orchard in El Toro and leased some acreage on the Irvine Ranch where she raised grain
Born in June of 1888, Kate was just 23 when she began her tenure at the Irvine Store. By the time 1918 arrived, Kate was approaching 30 and the Spanish Flu was running rampant. In March of 1919, Kate married a man with similar business ambition. Walter Cornelius was an IRS tax collector and owner and publisher of the Newport News newspaper. He was also an excellent shot and frequent winner of the shooting contests that were popular at the time. The marriage was held in San Francisco and Kate returned to her the store with a new husband and a step-daughter. Kate never gave birth to a child herself. Walter and Kate decided to sell the store and did so at the end of 1920. They sold the entire business which had grown to be the store, the gas station, and a garage. The sale also included all the store inventory and a Ford automobile. Kate kept her insurance business.
The Newells of Santa Ana were the purchases and some or all of the purchase price was paid with the Newell home in Santa Ana which the Walter and Kate moved into in January of 1921. Abe Johnston Jr joined in July of 1921 to replace the ailing Mrs. Mildred Wilkinson, daughter of the Newells. Mrs. Wilkinson may have been ailing as a consequence of the divorce she had filed at this time against her husband. She claimed he abandoned her in May of that year. Her husband was a sailor and preferred the sea to her, she claimed in her divorce petition. She did return to the store though and after her marriage to Ira Akin, a barber, she became post master by 1925. The Newells kept the store for a few years and then sold it to Horace Munger, one of Kate's younger brothers on May 1, 1927.
Horace broiught his wife Alice and his son Horace to the apartment above the store. Horace Munger maybe best remembered for his confrontation with the school children walking down Central Avenue. As mentioned before, the store has what was called an apartment above the first floor sales area. This second floor had a door to the roof and the end of the roof had and has a short railing around a portion of the second floor in a "widow's walk" style. Horace was known to dispose of the post-sellable produce from the store by throwing it at the pedestrian children. Multiple epithets are also said to have been hurled by both parties. Horace may not have gotten along well with the neighborhood children but he managed to keep Stanlry Newton, a clerk who began under the Newell proprietorship, happy enough to continue as the Assistant Postmaster, Horace lasted until the middle of August, 1935.
The next lease owner was yet another Munger, another one of Kate's younger brothers, Boyd and his wife Lillian. In keeping with the family tradition, Boyd brought young children to the upstairs apartment as well. Marcia was just three years old and Geraldine was 14 months when the family moved in. An interesting side note is that Marcia grew up to marry a man who became the lead buyer for the Alpha Beta grocery store chain, which also began in Orange County. About this time, the store joined the Red and White chain and would keep this affiliation until World War II. (Red and White absorbed the Blue and White chain in 1932, just during brother Horace's association but did not convert all the members to Red and White immediately). Another store clerk, George Prather left after 20 years to become an Adohr dairy deliveryman. He had been working at the Irvine Store since almost the beginning.
Boyd, who had been a farmer prior to running the store, held the lease until 1946. He was the last of the Munger family's involvement with the Irvine Store. From December 1911 to the middle of 1946, 28 of those 35 years had a Munger behind the counter. And other Mungers worked at the store as well. In January, 1916, during Kate's tenure. one of Kate's sisters and two of her brothers (one of whom was Horace) were living in the apartment above the store. Just after Kate's marriage, her sister Cynthia left her job in the store due to her own wedding to a local man. Her last day was April 1, 1919. The Mungers never considered their involvement with the store anything of note. When Boyd passed away in 1968, his obituary only claimed him to be a farmer.
Nora C Graham was born April 12, 1880 in Nilwood, Illinois, On June 03, 1891, she married Dempsey W Spradlin, a man ten years her senior. Mr. Spradlin was a store clerk. Just after the turn of the century, the Spradlins moved to Carpenteria and then Santa Barbara before settling in Bolsa, California where they bought bought 6 contiguous lots. On the property was a building that was both a general store and a residence for the Spradlins. In May, 1918, Dempsey passed away suddenly from an undiagnosed heart ailment. Dempsey's will left half his estate to Nora and half to his father who had travelled west to Orange County about the same time as Dempsey and Nora. Nora filed a widow's homestead on the property, His father filed a suit to block the action but was unsuccessful. Nora ran the business for a while before selling it in September of 1918. 1918 didn't end well for Nora either. Her car was stolen from near her house that December but the thieves abandoned it in Anaheim after damaging the engine. In 1919. she sold some property in Crestline and then she used the proceeds from the two sales to buy a new home in Santa Ana in 1920. She didn't live there long and had many home addresses in Santa Ana over the next few years. She'd moved to the Bungalow Apartments when she returned to the work force with as a waitress for the White Cross Lunch counter in 1923. She took a two week vacation in March but then injured her ankle getting off the streetcar in June. Late 1926 found Nora living in Irvine and working at the Good Will lunch counter in town. She continued to live and work there through much of 1927. Her brother and sister had also moved to Orange County from Illinois and she socialized with them often. Nora was active in the Rebekahs, a club associated with the International Order of the Odd Fellows. She moved around the county frequently , living in Garden Grove, Santa Ana, and Anaheim. She passed away in Santa Ana on November 17, 1934 at the age of 54 from complications of pneumonia.
Dietrich- to be added
Angle-to be added
Charles Schoonover, his wife Betty and their 3 children moved in to the apartment above the store as Betty assumed the lease in 1966. Charlie was a delivery driver for Barbara Ann bread and tragically died in December of 1972 when his delivery van hit a Santa Fe locomotive as he crossed the Santa Fe tracks on Jeffrey Road.
After the tragic passing of Charles Schoonover, Betty lost interest in the store and the daily operation fell on the shoulders of her daughter. Denise was a country girl at heart but never really lived in the country. The apartment above the store became to home to several farm animals which had the run of the place. Denise loved history and saving the memories of the past. She wanted to preserve and share the history of the store. When the train station was torn down, she went over and saved one of the benches by dragging over to the store and putting in on the front porch where it sat until the store closed in 1986. She took a trip through Northern California and Oregon, hauling a trailer, to collect antiques to decorate the store. People who remember visiting the store in the late 70s to the mid 80s tell of the spinning wheel, cigar store Indian and similar items. People assumed that these were remnants of old store stock, but these were Denise's contribution to the store experience. After the store closed for the creation of Old Town Irvine in 1986, Denise, who was only 33 spent some time figuring out what she wanted to do next. She eventually moved to the desert, the closest thing to a country experience available to southern Californians, and purchased a piece of land with a house and a second building where she hoped to re-create the Irvine store concept. She got as far as filing a Fictitious Business Statement for the new place in 1998 but could never get all the resources to get the venture off the ground. Denise Schoonover passed in 2022 and the world will miss her cheerful spirit.