Amongst the German-Swiss families arriving in Lindsay, California in 1885 the Wiederkehr from Aargau Canton were particularly valued in having a number of medical doctors in particular Koloman Wiederkehr who’d attended the University of Göttingen with Heinrich Hermann Robert Koch & later together as students of Rudolf Ludwig Carl Virchow in the emerging field of microbiology. Returning to Aargau in 1867 he’d practiced general medicine there till emigrating with the “Lenzburg Wiederkehr” emigrating to Tulare County in 1885, choosing not to set up an independent medical practice he'd served at the first Tulare County Hospital as its infectious diseases specialist placing him in extremely high demand amongst county residents. A bachelor whilst living in Europe in 1890 at the age of 47 Koloman married his two-decades younger fellow Swiss immigrant Laetitia Stuessie she bearing five children the youngest Carl born in 1904 three months after he’d died from brain cancer. Perplexingly choosing not to go into medicine like his siblings Carl wanted to be an automotive mechanic, good at the trade he’d worked at a number of roadside auto service garages & dealerships down the southern San Joaquin Valley taking up a job as a mechanic at the Grapevine Auto Garage as seen above in 1930.
Normally working daytime weekdays on Wednesday, April 8, 1931 Carl was asked by the garage owner to fill in for the overnight mechanic who’d gone ill, more than willing to work the night shift at overtime pay midnight April 9th he’d relieved the “swing shift” mechanic. Grapevine Auto Garage business even during the Great Depression was good their always being vehicles coming off the Ridge Route in dire need of mechanical repairs, the only overnight vehicle repair garage between Bakersfield & Castaic Junction, California there was trade near every night of the year, April 9th included. Soon after completing an auto tire repair on a 1923 Ford Model T at 1:30 a.m. Carl went back into the garage business office to fill out work order paperwork when he suddenly disappeared into thin air. Arriving at 8:00 a.m. his boss Joseph Egan Jr. saw the garage was empty & building night lights still on, looking for Carl in the business office on the table was the incompletely written-up work order paperwork & pencil laid over it on the wood floor next to the table two chard spots where Carl had stood. Perplexed Joseph didn’t know what to do other than contact the Kern County Sheriff’s Office & report him missing, officially declared such after a week of area searching he’d left behind a wife & three kids living in Bakersfield.
Also amongst the 1885 “Lindsay Swiss” immigrants was the financially well-off Pfyffer clan of Basel-Landschaft Canton merchandisers its patriarch Bavarian-born Johannes Detlef Pfyffer, marrying the then very young Maria Nestlé in Switzerland she distantly related to Heinrich Nestle who’d founded what today is Nestlé S.A. together they'd established a chain of general merchandise stores in Visalia, Exeter, Lindsay, Strathmore, Porterville & Tulare, California under the “Swissman’s” brand name. Highly regarded for their honest trading policies & stores management Johannes & Maria were amongst the very few late 19th Century California merchandisers offering unsecured store credit purchases making them very popular with area farmers having cash flow difficulties particularly new farming startups. Deeply loved by their seven children the youngest Richard Leonhard Pfyffer born in 1900 alone would continue on the centuries-old Pfyffer family tradition of merchandising in 1948 becoming an executive of The May Department Stores Company Of Los Angeles well as close friends of the David May family. Marrying his Tulare Union High School sweetheart Norma Rothert in 1919 they had three children who’d all become successful merchandisers, intending to retire in 1962 three years earlier on Thursday, May 5, 1959 he, Norma well as their all-white 1958 Lincoln Continental Mark III mysteriously disappeared at the Grapevine Ridge Service Station & Restaurant next to the Union 76 pylon sign photographically depicted earlier whilst stopping for gas on way to their hillside home in Encino, California.
Not Swiss or even European Japanese-born Hirano Ryoji who always went by his proper surname first for legal identification purposes also went by Louie Hirano amongst friends & business associates. Born in Iwate Prefecture two years after the 1896 Sanriku earthquake his entire family clan emigrated to San Francisco, California in 1902, establishing a number of successful fine porcelain wares imports business in South Of Market Japantown all were destroyed by the 1906 earthquake, relocating in Oakland, California the clan soon moved to Little Tokyo east of Downtown Los Angeles reestablishing their imports business as Hirano Asian Imports in 1910. Extremely popular with the Hollywood illuminati et.al. California rich & famous the business thrived till the Great Depression, switching to selling household porcelain wares the clan continued to live well till forced to close their business & give away inventory as result of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066 interning all Japanese regardless of citizenship status on February 19, 1942.
Raised successively in San Francisco, Oakland, Little Tokyo & San Pedro, California Louie Hirano was bright & industrious, well-educated thanks to his parents financing his way through private grade & high schools at age 20 he was drafted by the US Army months before being accepted for admission into the newly formed University Of California Los Angeles (UCLA). Seeing combat action during the September 26 - November 11, 1918 Meuse–Argonne Offensive without being wounded in 1920 he’d entered UCLA to earn teaching credentials for instructing newly arriving Japanese immigrants, gaining them in 1923 he’d taught new arrivals living in San Francisco’s Western Addition Japantown, following passage of the 1924 Johnson–Reed Immigration Act well as similar anti-Asian immigration laws passed in California ending his teaching practice in 1926 he’d returned to San Pedro for teaching general education subjects at a number of Los Angeles South Basin school districts.
Speaking a peculiar variant of Mission Brogue San Francisco English along with his native North Tōhoku Japanese Louie could mimic any California English variant this proving useful whilst driving though the southern San Joaquin Valley occasionally encountering bigoted “rednecks”, Saturday, August 8, 1931 driving alone through the San Joaquin Valley on US Route 99 in a dark green 1928 Ford Model A Phaeton after attending a California Teachers Association convention in Sacramento on way back to San Pedro he’d stopped in Bakersfield for food & gas, driving on south towards the Grapevine at 10:15 p.m. he & the Ford mysteriously disappeared south of the present day three-way junction of Grapevine Roads East & West & Grapevine Road (i.e. old US Route 99) midway between it and a dry creek bed. Overdo arriving in San Pedro his eldest sister Mioko Hasagawa contacted the Kern County Sheriff’s Department where she believed he’d be in Kern County evening of the 8th, unable to find him after a two-day area search he was declared missing leaving behind a Japanese-born immigrant wife & four grown children.
Now obvious that Hirano Ryoji’s, Richard & Norma Pfyffer’s, Carl Wiederker's mysterious disappearances at specific locations within Pedro Fages’ Cañada de los Uvas at specific points in time during the 20th Century had been orchestrated the commonality was all had occurred between the present day Interstate 5 Freeway and all within eyesight of each other. Another commonality was all the locations had been identified by Colonel Lothar Aelbehrt Knochenmus’ half-sister Lulu via International Morse from the sub-atomic realm in the Meeson’s February 8, 2023 2-2-2T locomotive video recordings details of which described below, unless these people reappeared together or singularly either at the same locations where they'd disappeared or elsewhere in time why they had couldn’t be answered. They’d not be the only paranormal reappearances, more about them later!
...To Be Continued...