Allan Spark, Jr.

**Allan Land "Al" Spark, Jr.** was an American farmer and later electrician from the US state of Kansas. Later in life he moved to California where he worked as a self-employed electrician for twenty years before retiring. He raised two children, Anna and William Spark.

## Biography

Allan Land Spark, Jr. was born on January 25, 1888 at his maternal grandparents' house in Independence, Missouri. His father, Allan Sr., was born on a farm in Kansas but was working as a fiddler in a local saloon at the time of Allan Jr.'s birth. His mother was Esther Spark (neé Baker). His parents had met when Allan Sr. had been renting a room out at the Baker residence while working in Independence. His family was for the most part quite poor, but was not extremely destitute. Allan was of English, Scottish, and some French ancestry on his father's side and has of English and German descent on his mother's. He had an older sister named Lillian.

Soon after his birth the family moved to a small farm in southwest Kansas, near the Oklahoma border. Allan attended school relatively frequently up until age sixteen at a schoolhouse near the intersection of two main roads near their farm. He learned to read, write, do basic arithmetic, and the geography of the United States and the world. His schoolhouse allowed him to request books from publishers out east who would send them to the school. Through these books he became a great reader and learned to talk intelligently. His schoolteacher, Mrs. E. Dalton described him as a "bright, driven young boy".

He spent his childhood working the family farm in Kansas along with his sister Lillian, whom he was very close to. Allan was saddened when she was married to a man from New York in 1906 - after which she left the family and went back to New York with her husband, Thomas Gladstone.

He married a woman named Eva May in 1909, with whom they had two children - the first of which being their daughter Anna. The failiure of multiple harvests on his parents' farm kept him from having any other children until 1922 when his son William Spark was born. Later in that decade Allan's mother Esther died of pneumonia.

After the passing of his mother Allan's situation grew even more destitute. The family was running a failing farm in a extremely rural part of Kansas with two children to raise and an ailing father who required expensive medical treatment at a facility located miles away. After the beginning of severe dust storms part of the great dust bowl in the early 1930s, Allan made the decision to move his family west. They traveled on a Ford Model T Allan had "bought" from a man in Wichita in 1934. The family reached the city of Fresno, California in 1936 where they settled down. Allan's father passed away a few months later in 1937.

Allan Jr. had Anna take care of the young William while him and Eva worked long hours as a waitress a menial repairman, respectively. They lived in a cramped apartment on Kern and Van Ness street in central Fresno.

In 1940 he had most of his family stay with a friend of his while he studied to receive a degree in electrical engineering from Fresno Junior College (now Fresno City College). After receiving this degree he would work as a self-employed electrician nearly up until his death. This greater source of income allowed his family to move into a home at 3323 E Mono Ave in Fresno. He would live at this home up until his death in 1967.

Although Allan Jr. spent most of his life with little money, he was able to give his children Anna and William a full high school education and even send his son to college. He retired in 1965 where he lived with his wife Eva up until his death. Eva died a few years later in 1971 at the Mono Avenue house.