In 1922, Frank Lester Burrell, along with his wife, Anne, proposed to subdivide their orchard property at the intersection of Park Avenue and Hedding Court. The property included the west side of Hedding Street between Dana and Park, the north side of Park Ave between Hedding and McKendrie St, the east side of McKendrie St between Park Ave and Dana and both sides of Burrell Ct.
In 1924, the plan was amended to add more lots and was approved. There was an existing house built in 1922 at the corner of Dana Ave and the new street – Burrell Ct. The lots were sold and the first homes were built in 1924.
Frank Lester Burrell was born on September 1, 1873. His father, James Birney Burrell, travelled to California to work for his father, Lyman Burrell, who had a farmstead in the hills above Los Gatos.
Birney farmed and managed close to 400 acres in the Santa Cruz Mountains, above Los Gatos. His first vineyard was planted in 1856 in the Los Gatos Mountains.
Lyman Burrell founded the Burrell School Vineyards & Winery in 1854, which remains in operation to this day.
Birney kept a journal which covered his life from the time he arrived in California as a teen and helped his uncle establish their homestead in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The journal is located at the University of the Pacific.
Frank was Birney’s oldest child. He had a brother, William Arthur, and a sister, Clarissa (named after her paternal aunt). Frank worked in the Santa Cruz Mountains, until Lyman Burrell’s death. When Lyman Burrell died in 1884, Lyman’s daughters and husbands took over the property. Birney, Frank, and the rest of the family moved down to San Jose.
Frank registered for the WWI draft in 1918. At the time, he was living with his parents at 41 N 10th St in San Jose. He was 45 years old. Too old to be inducted as a soldier, he worked as the general manager at Anderson Barngrover Mfg. The following year, he married Anne Dempsey, who was 25 years his junior.
Anderson Barngrover Mfg merged with the John Bean Spray Pump Company in 1929 and was renamed the Food Machinery Corporation. The company was publicly traded on the San Francisco Stock Exchange.
By 1930, Frank and Anne had two children – a daughter named Mary Jane (born in 1923) and a son, Frank Lester Jr. (born in 1928).
To accommodate the growing family, they moved from the N 10th address to 1895 Park Avenue. (This address no longer exists) Mary Jane Burrell studied medicine at Stanford University. She graduated with a doctorate in psychotherapy.
Frank L Burrell Jr went on to become the owner of a small advertising firm in downtown San Jose. He later was vice president at Crocker National Bank and Bank of America before starting his own investment banking firm, Burrell Co in San Francisco. He died in 2012.
Mary Jane married a dentist, Benjamin Curry Ledyard, in 1943. She went on to establish a private practice in psychotherapy as well as teaching as faculty in Charlottesville, VA. She died in 2014.
Frank Jr’s children are Frank Burrell of Monte Sereno, Peter Burrell of Santa Rosa and Katherine Burrell of Los Gatos. We are inviting them to our event and we hope to see them as we honor Burrell Park’s Centennial and their legacy.
Frank and Anne decided in 1920 to use part of their orchard property that was located at the outskirts of the developing San Jose for affordable housing for employees, local workers, and relatives. The Burrell Park Neighborhood is the result of their vision – it continues to be a diverse and affordable neighborhood for San Jose Residents.
