39. Frederick Oliver³ Popenoe (Willis Parkison², James¹) was born Towanda, McLean Co, IL 1 April 1863. Frederick died 22 September 1934 Altadena, Los Angeles Co, CA, at 71 years of age.

He married Marion Amanda Bowman 14 December 1887 Topeka, Shawnee Co, KS. Marion was born 16 Feb 1862 in Underhill, Chittenden Co, VT. Marion was the daughter of Thomas Elliot Bowman and Mary Emma Burleson. Marion died 15 Mar 1920 Altadena, Los Angeles Co, CA, at 58 years of age. Fred (who later added the name Oliver) moved with his family to Topeka when he was 6. He took up stenography and became a court reporter and later secretary to Governor John P St. John, one of the leading crusaders against alcohol in Kansas. Active in temperance work himself, Fred became secretary of the National Committee of Anti-Saloon Republicans. His wife came from a line of prosperous New England Bowmans who were textile producers and devout Congregationalists. She provided him with a comfortable dowry and he joined her father, T. E. Bowman, as a partner in his real estate investment firm. Later Fred organized the Accounting Trust Company and became owner and publisher of the Topeka Daily Capital. During one week he turned the paper over to a prominent Christian revivalist who edited it as he thought Jesus would, resulting in national attention and a big boost in sales. In 1895 he built one of the finest homes in Topeka.

Between 1896 and 1907 Fred was part owner of the Bella Vista Mine and other gold mines in Costa Rica, and in 1901 he took his family with him to live there for a year. By 1906 the gold mining business in Costa Rica was doing badly; Fred had invested a lot of his own and his wife's money, had talked other Topeka businessmen into investing, and had borrowed $15,000 from Kansas banks to try to keep the mine operating. He failed.

In 1904 he moved his family to California where he became the southwest representative of the Pacific Monthly magazine. In 1907 he moved to Altadena where he started a sub-tropical nursery called the West India Gardens, playing an important role in the introduction of subtropical fruits such as the feijoa to California. His greatest achievement was the introduction of the Fuerte and Puebla avocados from Mexico--two of the most important commercial varieties in the US. He sent two of his sons to North Africa and the Middle East where they shipped back some 16,000 date offshoots, substantially starting the date industry in California.

Frederick Oliver Popenoe and Marion Amanda Bowman had the following children:

+ 87 i. Paul Bowman⁴ Popenoe was born 16 Oct 1888.

+ 88 ii. Frederick Wilson Popenoe was born 9 Mar 1892.

+ 89 iii. Herbert Franklin Popenoe was born 9 Mar 1899.

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