Bob and Billie Lobdell.....

I found this neat little article in the Monterey County, California website regarding my Great-grandfather, George L. Lobdell, and his family. The picture was not included on the website.

Monterey County: Biographies

REV. GEORGE L. LOBDELL, D. D.

Rev. George L. Lobdell, is pastor of the First Christian church, of Pacific Grove, and his efforts are constituting a valuable asset in the moral progress of the community. A native of New York, he was born at Sanford, Broome county, March 10, 1865, and is of Welsh descent, his parents tracing their family tree back to 1600.

In the beginning he attended the district schools and later became a student in the high school of Afton, New York. Later he took a commercial course at the Binghamton Business College, and became an instructor there. Subsequently he established the Lobdell Business College in Putnam, Connecticut, and on leaving the east went to Indiana, whence he removed to Oregon, where he was graduated from the State University and the Eugene Bible University, winning the degrees of B. D., A. M., and D. D.

His first pastorate was at Junction City, Oregon, his student church, and next he went to Dallas, Oregon. He next accepted a call to Chico, Butte county, California, in 1906, and there did excellent work as the pastor of the Christian church for six years. He was then pastor of the church of the same denomination for three years at Stockton, San Joaquin county, was at Eureka for two years, at Petaluma for five years, and became a resident of Pacific Grove in 1922. While in Chico he built a new house of worship and added four hundred and fifty members to the church in six years. While in Stockton he started the movement for the erection of a new one hundred thousand dollar church. At Eureka he brought three hundred professing Christians into the fold and he had the largest Sunday school of any church in Humboldt county. During the war, he was one of the four-minute men in Petaluma. He is now treasurer of the state missionary board, and has been a member of the board for a number of years. His church in Pacific Grove leads all Christian churches in the state, per capita, in giving to foreign missions, and is strongly organized in all its branches of work.

Dr. Lobdell belongs to the Blue Lodge of Masons at Stockton, and the Scottish Rite bodies of Santa Rosa. He is a member of the Elks lodge of Petaluma and also belongs to the Knights of Pythias.

Dr. Lobdell was married Novebmer 16, 1902 to Miss Eugenie O'Connor, a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music at Boston. She studied under prominent vocal teachers and was a teacher of music in the Mary Nash College of Music at Sherman, Texas. She also taught music at the State Normal School, at Danville, Indiana, and was teacher of music in the Eugene Bible University, at Eugene, Oregon. She is a mezzo soprano of fine quality and power and has a class of pupils in Pacific Grove, in voice culture, all of whom appreciate her guiding powers. She is a soloist in the church and acts as choir leader. Rev. and Mrs. Lobdell have two children: Frances, aged thirteen, born in Chico, and Robert, aged eight, born in Stockton. By a former marriage, Dr. Lobdell has a daughter, Esther, wife of Thomas Gray, of San Francisco. The family of Dr. Lobdell occupies an enviable position in those social circles where intelligence, culture and true worth are accepted as passports. Throughout the years of his connection with the ministry-years spent entirely on the Pacific coast-he has not only labored most earnestly but, also most effectively, in the upbuilding of the Christian church, his influence and labors being far-reaching.

Source: History of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties, California : cradle of California's history and romance : dating from the planting of the cross of Christendom upon the shores of Monterey Bay by Fr. Junipero Serra, and those intrepid adventurers who accompanied him, down to the present day. Chicago: S.J. Clarke Pub. Co., 1925, 890 pgs.