Sabroe, Carl O.

Carl O. Sabroe, born in Aarhus, Jylland, Denmark, on April 18, 1880, was a successful farmer, horticulturist, and viticulturist who previously had a distinguished career as a navigator. After completing common and high school in Denmark, he went to sea at the age of fourteen and eventually completed two trips around the globe, sailing extensively between South Africa and Australia during the Boer War. He arrived in San Francisco in 1900 to work in the coasting trade and on runs to the Hawaiian Islands, eventually becoming a second mate. In San Francisco, he also taught navigation at Taylors Nautical Academy and passed his master license examinations, though his eyes did not pass the final test.

He resigned from his maritime career in 1906 and relocated to Fresno, where he worked as a clerk for H. Graff and Company and the Kutner Company before pursuing his interest in agriculture. In 1910, he purchased a forty-acre property on Shields and Jameson Avenues where he built a residence, leveled the land, and installed a pumping-plant to grow alfalfa, hay, Thompson seedless grapes, and peaches. Sabroe became a stockholder and correspondent for the California Associated Raisin Company and a member of the California Peach Growers, Inc. He married Christine M. Anderson, a native of Fresno, with whom he had six children named Earl, Alice, Edith, Charles, Robert, and Willard, and the family attended the Danish Lutheran Church.