An Early Gilroy Dentist
Just a half-block from Monterey Street the elegant Queen Anne
style
Victorian at 60 Fifth Street, today a business office, was once
the proud home of Dr. Clarence Weaver, an early arrival in Gilroy’s
medical community. The home-office combination, which still strikes
the eye for its elegant exterior woodworking and impressive corner
turret, was completed at the then-sizable sum of $2,355. The
Weavers chose noted architect William Weeks to design the house.
Weeks designed many of the Carnegie library buildings in
California, as well as high schools, homes and hospitals. In Gilroy
other notable Weeks structures include the present museum, (former
Carnegie Library) the old Wheeler Hospital, Habing’s Funeral Home,
the Dick Bruhn building, the Milias Apartments and a number of
other elegant homes like the Weaver’s, located in Gilroy’s historic
district.
An Early Gilroy Dentist
Just a half-block from Monterey Street the elegant Queen Anne style
Victorian at 60 Fifth Street, today a business office, was once the proud home of Dr. Clarence Weaver, an early arrival in Gilroy’s medical community. The home-office combination, which still strikes the eye for its elegant exterior woodworking and impressive corner turret, was completed at the then-sizable sum of $2,355. The Weavers chose noted architect William Weeks to design the house. Weeks designed many of the Carnegie library buildings in California, as well as high schools, homes and hospitals. In Gilroy other notable Weeks structures include the present museum, (former Carnegie Library) the old Wheeler Hospital, Habing’s Funeral Home, the Dick Bruhn building, the Milias Apartments and a number of other elegant homes like the Weaver’s, located in Gilroy’s historic district.
Dr. Clarence Weaver was a native Californian, born Nov. 15, 1862 in Colusa. The only child of A.R. Weaver and Eliza Tibbetts, he grew up in his hometown, then went on to study both medicine and dentistry. In 1885, at 23, he arrived in Gilroy to work with Dr. Harvey Morey, a local physician who also owned a pharmacy. Dr. Weaver purchased the drugstore, which he operated for the next four years in conjunction with his dental practice.
Dr. Weaver and Goldie Ricker, whom he met in Gilroy, were married on
Sept. 9, 1886 in San Francisco. Goldie was born in Canaan, Maine on March 13, 1869. Her mother, Flora, was the second wife of longtime Gilroyan Jacob Reither, a native of Bavaria who came to the United States in 1846 and to Gilroy in late 1853. He was a local farmer until 1867, when he opened a store in town. He served on the City Council from the time Gilroy was incorporated in 1870. When he married Flora Ricker, he became stepfather to her daughters, Gertrude and Goldie.
Clarence and Goldie Weaver had one son, Clarence Leon, born in Gilroy on Aug. 9, 1888. The following year Dr. Weaver’s brother-in-law, George Wentz, joined him as a partner in the pharmacy business. The association lasted for a decade until the drugstore side of the operation occupied too much of Dr. Weaver’s time and took him away from his dental practice. He sold the pharmacy to Wentz in 1899 and from that time on practiced only dental work.
Over the years Dr. Weaver’s dental offices were located in various downtown locations, at first in the back of the Wentz Pharmacy. He later practiced from an office in the Masonic Building, where the empty lot stands today at Monterey and Lewis Streets. In his far later years he worked from the Wentz home on Eigleberry Street. During the time he owned the Weeks-designed home on Fifth Street, completed between 1899-1900, he both lived and operated his dental practice from that address.
Dr. Weaver, a much-liked and respected Gilroy citizen, was socially active. He was a past master of Gilroy’s Keith Lodge and was an especially enthusiastic member of the Gilroy Elks Lodge. In 1912 he applied for the patent to an electrical memorial clock for use in the ritualistic work of the B.P.O.E. The local paper described its operation, “Each lamp, from 1 to 11, is lit simultaneously with the stroke of the gong, all the lamps remaining lit after the eleventh stroke. The center of the dial is lit, showing the stars and stripes in their respective colors. When the lights in the clock are turned out, it automatically sets itself for the next operation.” Dr. Weaver was invited to demonstrate the clock at local lodges and at a statewide Elks reunion, with a number of lodges putting in orders for one of the interesting timepieces.
Apart from four years spent in Alameda and another four years in
Hollister, Dr. Weaver spent most of his life in Gilroy. He died in Modesto, where he was living in retirement with his sister.
The Weavers’ son, Leon, followed in his father’s footsteps, graduating from the University of California, Berkeley in 1912. He married Hazel Copp and the couple lived at first in San Luis Obispo. In the mid-1920s they returned to Hollister, where they built a home on West Street. Until his retirement, Leon owned and operated the Weaver Drug Store in downtown Hollister.
