Listed in the 1900 Census as "Frederick M.", b. July 1897. Listed in the 1910 Census as "Frederic M." a. 12. Probably named after his father, he went by the name of Milton F.

My grandfather had to get permission to marry my grandmother. From Sonoma County Probate File, Minor: November 27, 1916, Register 12 Page 155 Record 6355:

In the matter of the Estate and Guardianship of Milton Wendt. A Minor. George Cummins [spelled as Cummings on the document] is appointed his guardian. Milton is a minor ...above the age of fourteen years, to wit, of the age of 19 years, and that both his father and mother are dead and that he has no guardian appointed by the law or otherwise... He is a ...minor child of William and Mary Wendt... and ...that said minor resides and has his home with Bruce Fulkerson... That said minor has not estate or property ...that said minor hereby nominates George L. Cummings as his Guardian.

On December 4, 1916 the letters of guardianship were written up. It is also the same day that my grandfather married my grandmother in Santa Rosa.

My grandfather worked at the Ambrosia Creamery in Napa between 1910 to 1942. He did about every job there was including being a manager for awhile. There is a photograph of him driving a team of horses drawing an ice cream cart on a special delivery trip to somewhere in Sonoma County (there is also a photo of my grandmother with the same team -- they had turned the delivery into a day out and a picnic for themselves she told me when I asked her about the photos). There is also the story that he resigned from the creamery in anger because my father, who had just got out of the Army had been hired as a beginning welder at Basalt Rock for $75 more a month than my grandfather was getting after his 32 years of loyal service. My grandfather also went to work for Basalt Rock until Kaiser Steel took it over in 1955. He then worked for Earl Goodwin (another ex-creamery employee) Refrigerator in Napa for two years before taking a job at the Napa State Hospital as a service technician in the kitchen. I remember having to be quiet when I was at my grandparent's house when he would come home for his lunch and take a little nap afterwards before he had to return. He retired from that job in the nineteen sixties.

From The Register, Napa, CA, September 1, 1973:

Looking into Napa's past and present

By Louis Ezettie

The manufacture of ice cream and other dairy products at the old Ambrosia Creamery on Soscol Avenue was interestingly described by Milton Wendt, who was brought here from Oakland in 1910 to take over the butter and ice cream making department. Owner of the plant then was M. Middleton.

The dairy began making cheese products in addition to ice cream and butter. Wendt states "Some California Jack, romano and cottage cheese were made. The butter output increased from about 600 to 800 pounds per day and ice cream output was about 250 gallons a day."

After a few years the business was sold to Frank Ponceitta and Alfred Fillippini, who undertook extensive remodeling of the plant and added new equipment to expand production and to add new products to their output.

With reference to the new equipment, Wendt said "There was installed a new ice cream freezer, homogenizer and pasteurizers and a hardening room was added. Also installed was a large ice tank for making block ice. A couple of trucks were equipped to deliver ice cream to local stores and to customers in St. Helena, Calistoga and Sonoma Valley."

When electric refrigeration became available Ambrosia Creamery replaced the ice-packed storage cabinets at their retail outlets with the modern refrigeration.

One of the important installations made by Ponceitta and Fillippini was a soda fountain set up near the entrance to the plant. Here customers could avail themselves of ice cream in quart, half-gallon or gallon containers. Later other delicacies were included such as popsicles, Eskimo pies, decorated ice cream cakes and ice cream bricks. In 1927 fire did considerable damage to the compression room causing ammonia receiving tanks to blow up, one of the tanks being blown through the fence of the Noyes Lumber Co. next door. Pending repair to the damaged equipment an abandoned creamery in Suisun was used to process milk and cream, while use of cold storage rooms in the Napa plant was maintained.

In the meantime Fillippini sold his half in the business to Cecil (Cap) Gardner. Later Ponceitta sold his interest to his partner, Gardner and opened at a new location on Main Street beneath the opera house.

When death in 1944 claimed Ponceitta, his widow, Virginia, assumed operation of the firm with the assistance of her office manager, Maurice O'Hagen. Seeing the need for expansion, Mrs. Ponceitta arranged for a lease of larger quarters in a wing of the Migliavacca building on Brown Street between Fifth and Division streets. Death claimed O'Hagen in 1947 and Mrs. Ponceitta then sold to Owen Seavey, who was a distributor for an oil company here and who once served as Napa's mayor.

Meanwhile Gardner sold the Ambrosia creamery to Edy's Ice Cream Co. of Oakland and installed Glen Rock as manager. Later when Rock left, Milton Wendt, a long-time employe of the firm, was named to succeed Rock. Wendt eventually resigned to take employment with Basalt Rock Co. where he worked until his retirement <sic -- worked at the Napa State Hospital until retirement>.

About two years after they had purchased the business, the Edy company sold to Wood and Cecil Grinsell, brothers, who with their father, William, had been operating the Modern Diary, originally established by John Carter on the west side of Main Street, a few doors below Pearl Street. Upon the death of his brother, Cecil, Wood sold the Ambrosia business to a food concern.

A list of some of the employes who worked at Ambrosia follows: Wilbur Bray, Andy Otterson, Les Wilkins, Jack Wilkins, Pat Mulhern, Joe Regnasco, Al Lecair, Maurice O'Hagen, Anderlini, Bud Fitzgerald, Clarence Lommel, Otto Lommel, Amedio Mencrini, Earl Goodwin, Earl Goodwin, Jr., John Miller, Lou Rathke, Cecil Gardner, Milton Wendt, Mrs. Fred Raina, Virginia Ponceitta, Paul Hartman, Wesley Gardner and Bud Gardner.

(I wish to express my thanks to Mr. Milton Wendt for supplying the information contained in the above article.)

I never remember my grandfather talking about his parents or even very much about growing up in Santa Rosa. He was 13 when his mother died, and it appears that he was raised after that time by other family members in Santa Rosa, rather than his father who passed away about 4 years after his mother died. He lived with his Grandma Fulkerson, Uncle Bruce Fulkerson, Uncle George Cummins, and probably others at various times. He would often go with Grandma Fulkerson, to collect the rents on her Chinatown property. As a young boy, this was a "fun activity" because the Chinese renters would give him candy and plums. However, Grandma Fulkerson liked her peach brandy a little too much, and became more and more difficult as she got older. My grandfather would often have to look out for her and take care of her for the rest of the family. When my grandfather went to her to secure her permission for his marriage since he was under age, she told him in no uncertain terms, "I'd rather go to your funeral instead!" He had to get an uncle, to act as his legal guardian and fill out the proper papers. Indeed, my Grandfather had a rough time of it and had not talked much about his early life to even his wife. Most of the history of that side of the family, my grandmother had gathered together herself by collecting newspaper clippings and talking to his cousins when she had to opportunity.

All that I can remember knowing about my grandfather's family before I started this study was that they were of German ancestry. I remember going to clean the gravesite of his parents on Memorial Day in what we called the Santa Rosa Cemetery then and did not differentiate the old section from the newer cemetery. I never knew that his Fulkerson relatives were buried all around his parent's site or that his Wendt grandparents were also buried in the cemetery some distance away. The Fulkerson name was never mentioned either in the regards to the cemetery's name nor that his great grandparents were laying there in the only crypt in that old section. Even after studying the family history for a few years, it was some time before I found out that my grandfather's great-grandmother Wendt was also buried in that rural section of the cemetery. Any stories about the early Wendts, Fulkerson, and Cockrills had become extinct in my family.

It was only after extensive talks with my grandmother beginning in about 1990 that I started learn the story of my grandfather's family. I had probably heard the Fulkerson name only a half a dozen times when I was growing up though I had forgotten it (my father had come to believe that the name was actually Fergeson). The Cockrill name had been completely forgotten by all of us. When I asked my grandmother about it, she only vaguely recognized it, hardly knew where Bloomfield was, and said that they were not related. The story of my grandfather's family had become totally lost to all of us with only the faintest murmur that they had ever existed.