I can only locate two mentions of the Almquists in 1911. In January, the Riverside Daily Press mentions Gus Almquist building a cement block garage for S.V. Gates. S.V. Gates was a trustee who helped with the incorporation of Perris into a city in 1911. There is no mention of Gus’s partner from earlier years, L.O. Whitlock, perhaps they parted ways in 1910?
In the Perris city directorys in 1911-1915 G. Almquist is listed as a miller. There is also a carpenter by the name of A. Almquist. I wonder who the A. Almquist was, they aren’t a near relative of Gus, could it be Gus himself if using his full name Agustav to get two listings in the directory?
After 1911 we don’t see the Almquists in the papers again until 1916. I am tentatively chalking this up to poor OCR (optical character reader) performance and perhaps poorly scanned newspapers and assume after some improvements we’ll see something pop up from this period some day. During this time Daniel Almquist was born, July 7, 1913, but I scanned through the birth announcements in the papers at this time and didn’t see his name.
I’ve included the picture above of the fireplace as I haven’t been able to find any clues to where it might have been taken. I am guessing it is the Perris home, does anyone see anything on the mantelpiece that looks familiar?
What a great fireplace! It looks like those 2 dark circles above the door would be vents for a cookstove (?) to be placed on the hearth or sort of inside those heavy doors? It looks maybe about 6′ tall mantel to floor (looking at the fireplace tools to the side), maybe the fireplace goes thru the back to a kitchen? Kind of looks like something maybe in the Rock House on the hill above Perris, or maybe in a resort building in Elsinore? Hope someone does know about this. But the rocks look like maybe samples from the desert and not from the granite around town or the granite stone quarry hill off 3rd and A Sts. Cathy Beatty.
Thanks Cathy (and thinks for the comments on the previous posts!)
I wish the picture was clear enough to read the little box near the stuffed pony on the mantel, at least then I could rule out Sweden, as this was found in a pile of photos that were of Perris as well as copies of older photos of Sweden. You’re right about the stone, the white surround I think is quartz cobbles but the larger, mostly undressed, stones don’t look like stone local to Perris/Riverside. I have a piece of petrified wood that Gus collected on a trip to Arizona, perhaps he gathered these stones somewhere else too. His granddaughter (my mother) is certainly a rockhound!