OBITUARIES

James Louis Tattersall, Sr., 68, died July 12 following a short illness.

Mr. Tattersall was the pnesident of Security Paint Manufacturing Company and was a well-known figure in the paint a,nd building materials business in southern California.

He is surwived by his widow, Grace; two daughters, Ja,net L. a,nd Shirley G.; a son, James L. Tatte.nsall, III;,two sisters, Mrs. May Rummell and Mrs. Gladys Ehrman, and three grandchildren.

R. S. "Dick" Becker, 41, sales representative for Mason Supplies, Inc., since 1952, died July 16th, 1963, while on vacation with his family at Carpinteria, California.

Dick was the son of Johnnie Becker of California Materials Co. He is survived by his widow Julia, two teen ag:e daughters, and his mother and father.

Mr. Bert M. Smith, ??, retired lumberman, died May 21st following a heart attack.

A native Californian, Mr. Smith was associated with the Red River Lumber Cornpany for many years as a salesman and as manager of their wholesale office in Los Angeles. In 1946 he established the Power Line Lumber Co. in Sacramento, which he operated until his retirement.

Mr. Smith is surwived by his widow, Mrs. Almina Smith, his daughter Mrs. Barbara Schwab, and three sons, AJbert, Michael and Peter.

Services were held in the Chapel of Piedmont Community Church on June 27, fot James D. Higgins, Jr., president and son of the founder of J. E. Iliggins Lumber Co. in San Francisco. Mr. Higgins died in Oakland on June 24 following a brief period of ill health.

J. E. Higg:ins, Jr., started working in his father's yards in 1912, and became president when Higgins, Sr. retired in 7922. It was Higgins, Jr. who directed the constant expansion of the company which resulted in the moving of the entire operation to its present ten acre site at 99 Bayshore Boulevard in San Francisco. The firm he headed for 41 years was established by his father in 1883, and today claims the largest assortment and inventory of hardwoods west of Chicago.

Mr, Higgins was a past president of the Pacific Coast Wholesale Hardwood Distributors Association, a member of the Bohemian Club and the Claremont Country CIub. He was a member of the Kapa Sigma Fraternity (Stanford) and a contributor to the Columbia Park Boys Club in San Francisco.

Mr. Higgins is survived by his widow, Elsie; four daughters, Mrs. Virginia Hig- gins, Betty Ann Grill, Peggy Moody and Barbara Anthony; and two nephews, Jack and Jim Higgin-s, both active, in the management of the company.

Fred Dean Prescott, 86, a longtime lumberman and civic leader, died June 26, at his home in Fresno, Calif, He had been ill about three months.

Prescot was the president and manager of the Valley Lumber Company at Mono

CATIFORN]A I.UIMBER IIETCHANT

and If Streets in Fresno until it was liquidated in 1955 after 66 years of operation.

Lumber provided by the firm was used for the construction of the Fresno Counff Courthouse after the 1891 fre, for the old Hughes Hotel and for the first units of the old Fresno County General llospital.

Frescott remained active following the liquidation and was the president of the Sequoia Lumber Company in Visalia.

A native of Cherokee, Iowa, he was g years old when his parents moved to Fresno. In 1889, his father, F. K. Preseott, founded the Valley Lumber Company. It then had four employees and stocked 100,000 feet of lumber, compared with nearly 100 employees and 4 million feet of lumber at its peak in 1953.

At various times, the company had lumber interests and yards in Sanger, Selma, Kingsburg, Fowler, Hanford and Oakhurst.

Prescott was still in high school when he went to work with his father.

In 1963, Prescott was presented the tr'resno State College Foundation award. IIe was a director of the Young Men's Christian Association for more than 45 years and was instrumental in establishing the YMCA summer camp at Ifume Lake.

Prescott and his wife, Jessie K., the daughter of the early day T\rlare County cattleman, Robert Kennedy, observed their 64th wedding anniversary in April.

Besides his widow, he is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Marion P. Kimble of Visalia and Mrs. Martha P. Kimble of San Marino, Los Angeles County; a brother, E. M. Prescott of Fresno; four grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.