It was always an adventure to travel over the hill from the San Jose area to grandma’s house in Manteca in the early days of the 20th century for Audrey Overshiner Humburg.

Humburg, who is a month shy of 99, is the granddaughter of the pioneer J.J. Overshiner family.

The Overshiners had built a majestic home on Yosemite Avenue in 1914. It still stands today across from the Manteca Museum.  They arrived in Manteca in 1883 when they built their first Manteca home that was the third to be built in the community.

 Jessie J. Overshiner owned the property all the way down to Walnut Avenue, west and north of the tracks, which he later subdivided into lots and sold off to newcomers.   Much of the land was originally owned by the Sperry Brothers. 

Audrey said they would travel beyond the hills in her parents’ open touring car and would use bricks to keep warm. The heated bricks were placed on the floorboard where passengers would warm their stocking feet – helping to keep their entire bodies more comfortable.

“We visited back and forth in those early days.  J.J. Overshiner raised mostly grain,” she recalled.

Her family would visit on the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas as well as during the summer vacation months where she would spend days at a time.

Overshiner was an early Manteca mayor and served from 1930 until 1936.

He and his wife Vina had migrated from Kansas to California with his first paid job coming from Joshua Cowell – the Father of Manteca – working for him for 16 years while working independently as a grain farmer.  Cowell was the first mayor of Manteca.  Overshiner built the first store in Manteca in 1901 near the railroad crossing. He was instrumental in the building of a train station near that location, replacing a box car station. 

It was there that a mix-up in the printing of passenger tickets from Monteca to Manteca changed the name of the young town.  In Spanish Monteca translates as butter – fitting for the exports at the station – and Manteca means lard. One letter made all the difference.

Overshiner was quoted as having said he could remember when Yosemite Avenue had a wide ditch running west of the tracks and out beyond the Sperry home.  The purpose of the ditch was to keep the cattle from the Trahern Ranch from wandering too far from home. 

Rosella Sylvina Huston Overshiner – better known as Vina – served as president of the Lathrop Women’s Christian Temperance Union at the time of Prohibition and was an active participant in the fight against alcohol consumption.  

One Thanksgiving – as per the family memories passed down over the years – their son Edgar spiked the turkey stuffing with alcohol and Vina became more than irritated when she realized what had happened.  As the story goes she dug a hole in the back yard and buried the stuffing – refusing to even feed it to the chickens.

The Overshiners had two children, Edgar and Jessie. Edgar's son Gordon had joined the Navy in his late teens and was aboard a destroyer that was sailing toward the Santa Barbara Channel when it and six other ships got off course and crashed into the rocks.  He was one of 23 sailors killed in the tragedy.  Jessie Avenue near downtown Manteca was named after their daughter Jessie.

Audrey had two brothers and two sister and she is the last of the family, noting there were quite a few Humburgs in the San Jose area years ago.  She added that with her many visits to the Manteca home she has visions of all the rooms in the house, one by one in her head.

She is in close contact with her daughter Debra Ullmann and granddaughter Katy who is a second grade teacher, and grandson Greg, who works with developmentally delayed adults.  Ullmann is the family historian who has done extensive research for her family members.

Audrey worked as a secretary after attending Heald’s Business College becoming proficient at typing and shorthand – refusing to get checked out on computers when that day confronted her.  She served the San Jose Junior College in the ‘30s and then got into Civil Service in Sacramento before the war and enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

At the time she was featured in the San Jose Mercury Herald with a story and pictures on her acceptance into the Marine Corps.  

In the service for two years, she worked her way up to become a staff sergeant at recruiting stations throughout the southern and eastern states from 1941 until late 1943 traveling from New York to Mississippi, Texas, Virginia, Dallas, Alabama and Missouri.

She said her assignment was just getting women interested in joining the Marines when there was quite a drive to attract the gals into uniform.  At her retirement complex an 8X10 of Sgt. Audrey Overshiner can be seen on the hallway wall just to the right of the front door.  

“When the war broke out you wanted to be doing something to help,” she said.  “After I retired from office work I joined a ladies golf club and I enjoyed playing on short courses until I stepped into a gopher hole on the first hole and broke my ankle.  That was the end of my golfing.”

While she lives in a Morgan Hill retirement community today, she has held onto her home but has allowed a grandson to live there and drive her car that she prides as part of her recent past.  She said she gave up driving for fear of possibly hitting a child.

Now there is a family get-together planned for Nov. 20 which is actually her 99th birthday.  Audrey remarked that she hopes her Manteca nephew Ron Howe and his wife Nancy will be able to make the trip over the hill to be with them. Howe, coincidentally has been an active part of the Manteca museum from where he kept on eye on the family home.

“He was always such a nice boy,” she chuckled.

To contact Glenn Kahl email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.