Frederick Schmidt, Citrus Grower, Dies
Austrian-born Frederick William Schmidt, a piano tuner who came West in 1914 and became an Orange County citrus rancher, has died in Santa Ana at the age of 96.
Schmidt, who came to the United States at age 10, moved to California in 1914 to establish the Schmidt Music Co., but he soon turned to raising oranges, and by the early 1980s, when he sold all his agricultural lands, Schmidt had ranched in Anaheim, Orange and Irvine, according to one of his daughters, Elinor Schmidt. At one time he served as president of the West Orange County Farm Bureau, she said.
Schmidt spent his later years first on Balboa Island, then in Corona del Mar and died April 30 in a convalescent hospital in Santa Ana.
Elinor Schmidt said no memorial services were conducted for her 96-year-old father. “All his contemporaries are gone,” she said.
He is survived by another daughter, Marjorie Phillips of Tustin, and a son, George Schmidt of Corona del Mar, and by two grandchildren.
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