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Clarence Jackson: The festival is his legacy

Editor’s note: This article was originally published in the Lodi News-Sentinel in September 2002 as part of its twice monthly Vintage Lodi column co-authored by Ralph Lea and Christi Kennedy.

By Ralph Lea and Christi Kennedy
Special to the News-Sentinel

Clarence Stonewall Jackson was a born promoter.

He lived in Lodi for close to 60 years and left his mark. Every September Lodians celebrate the harvest at the annual Lodi Grape Festival and Harvest Fair, the event he was instrumental in creating in 1934.

He promoted Lodi like no other person ever has.

A former accountant, Lodi police officer and chief of police, the affable, enthusiastic Jackson was always behind the festival and was its secretary-manager for 24 years. Known as “Mr. Festival,” he worked for decades to spread the fame of Lodi’s grapes and wines through the festival.

“A community seldom is blessed with a person who loves his home town and who works tirelessly toward its betterment as Jackson did,” the Lodi News-Sentinel stated in an editorial written following his death on Sept. 16, 1980 — just tow days before the Lodi Grape Festival opened that year.

As festival organizers prepared for the annual event in September 2002, Jackson’s only surviving child, Ynez Capbell Lawson, sat in her west Lodi home and recalled her father’s life.

Jackson was born in June 1896 in Chattanooga, Tenn. He was the youngest of six children. When Jackson was two years old, his family moved west to San Francisco where easterners were still lured with the glowing “Gold Rush” era promise of fortunes to be made.

Jackson was nearly 10 years old when the great San Francisco Earthquake rolled through the region shortly after 5 a.m. on April 18, 1906. From his home on Octavia Street, the young boy could see the commotion in the city’s core.

“With all the excitement, he took off downtown to see what was going on,” Lawson said. He was gone all day, and his family was frantic with worry about him.

“When he came back, of course, everyone was gone looking for him,” she said.

Jackson’s father worked for Standard Oil Company and was gone from home for long periods of time. Sometimes during the long absences money would get scarce for the family. So at the age of 12, Clarence, keenly aware of the importance of a dependable income, got a job stocking grocery store shelves.

After high school, Jackson enrolled at Heald’s Business College in San Francisco. Recognizing his knack for organization and handling finances, Jackson studied accounting. After his graduation, Jackson worked as an accountant for California Redwood Burl Company in San Francisco. On Feb. 22, 1919, Jackson married Arvilla Bringham and the two were nearly inseparable for the rest of their lives. Just over a year later, on March 1, 1920, the Jackson’s first child, Ynez, was born.

In the fall of 1920, the Jacksons left the big city and ventured to the small Central Valley farm town called Lodi.

Jackson came for what he thought would be a temporary stay to install an accounting system for the San Joaquin Valley Packing Company. But the couple loved Lodi, the people and the drier warmer climate that suited Jackson’s continual ear problems.

So the young couple settled in a home on Cherokee Lane. That was out in the country then, the Jackson’s then 82-year-old daughter Lawson laughed during the 2002 interview.

In the 1929, the Stock Market crashed and the entire nation was swept into the devastating Great Depression. Times were tough in Lodi and all over the nation. People lost their businesses, their jobs, and despair caused some to commit suicide. The Great Depression led Clarence Jackson to a major turn in his life.

“He didn’t expect to be a police officer. The thing was, it was the Depression and everything collapsed, Lawson said.

Jackson thought he would be secure working with his brother who owned a gas station, cafe and soda fountain in Woodside in the Bay Area. He moved his family to Woodside, but Jackson, a very likable man, was missed in Lodi.

Soon Henry Ellis, a prominent community member who was “an honorary uncle” to the Jackson family, called and urged Jackson to come back to Lodi. Ellis said Lodi needed help in the police department because Chief Fernand Christensen was in poor health. Ellis told Jackson that he was the type of man Lodi would need someday as chief of police.

“Lodi didn’t need someone to keep the peace. It needed an organizer,” Lawson said in 2002.

Although not a man interested much in guns, Jackson must have liked the suggestion and wanted to return to Lodi. In 1930, Jackson at the age of 34 accepted a job as a police officer on the six-man force, and he and Arvilla moved back to stay.

Three years later, Lodi did need someone to keep the peace — and Jackson stepped forward.

In late September 1933, out-of-town union activists urged vineyard workers to strike. Up to 2,000 people met at night in Hale Park to listen to the activists. During the days, the activists intimidated grape pickers who continued to work. Growers carried guns into the vineyards.

One night’s mass meeting was broken up when firefighters turned fire hoses onto the men. The whole town was frightened.

“Nothing like that had ever happened in this down before,” Lawson said during her 2002 interview. During this time, Lawson said, her father received threats and feared for his family’s safety. Jackson moved his wife and two daughters to a friend’s house on Chestnut Street.

Jackson, who was acting police chief due to Christensen’s ill health, deputized 63 Lodi men and worked with the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department, California Highway Patrol and firefighters to control the situation. One vineyard foreman was shot and killed while attempting an arrest. After this incident, the malcontents were herded together and run out of town, Lawson said.

Grateful that the two-week ordeal was over, Jackson decided to cook an enchilada dinner for his officers and volunteers. Now, there’s a legendary story that Jackson told the men to grow mustaches before the party so everyone could tell the lawful men from the troublemakers, but that’s just a story, Lawson said.

“It was just a lark really,” Lawson said. “He told my mother that he thought he’d look good with a mustache, and she said, ‘Oh no you wouldn’t.’ He just wanted to show my mother that everybody wanted a mustache.”

So during that fall of 1933 Jackson and the other men grew mustaches. More than 100 men came to eat the enchiladas that Clarence and Arvilla Jackson made. They called themselves the Mustachio Club, and they became Lodi’s own “booster organization.”

In April 1934, Jackson and the Mustachio Club held another banquet attended by more than 400. These community-minded men came up with the idea to have a harvest festival in September to promote the region’s grapes. Under the leadership of Jackson and the Mustachio Club, the first festival was held five months later.

Jackson, who was officially named Lodi chief of police on Nov. 1, 1934 led the volunteer efforts and staged the annual festivals until 1938. He turned the reins over to someone else and continued to help in supporting roles.

In December 1946, the 50-year-old Jackson resigned as chief of police and concentrated on his real estate and farm holdings.

Jackson continued to support the festival, but he grew restless in a supporting role. In 1951, Jackson became the festival’s secretary-manager. At the age of 79, Jackson retired from the festival in June 1975. Although retired, he remained involved in the festival until his death.

On Sept. 16, 1980, Clarence and Arvilla Jackson died within one hour of each other in their West Elm Street home. Arvilla, 83, died first of a heart seizure, and Clarence, 84, died moments after he called the funeral home for his wife.

Vintage Lodi is a local history column that appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel on the first and third Saturday of each month.