Person:Isaac Zent (1)

Isaac Chase Zent

Biography of Isaac Chase Zent

Isaac Chase Zent was born on 25 June 1868 in Dayton, Ohio, the son of Isaac Weaver Zent and Mary Burton Ruland of Ohio. Sometime before 1883, Isaac's family moved to California, where Isaac's mother, Mary (Ruland) Zent died at the young age of 34. Isaac married Jessie Edith Cole, daughter of Byron Clay Cole and Chloe Ann Knox in Ashland, Oregon, on Christmas Day in 1897. Jessie Edith was known as a strikingly attractive woman throughout her lifetime. The Cole family, with Mayflower family roots, had migrated from Dutchess/Putnam County, New York, and operated the "Coleston Mineral Springs", in Coleston, Oregon. Isaac and Jessie Zent must have moved south to Dunsmuir, Siskiyou County, California around the turn of the century, since all three of their children were born there between 1899 and 1902.

Isaac Chase Zent was a train conductor for the Western Pacific Railroad for over 35 years. The 1900 census lists Isaac and Jessie Zent with Child, Grace Z., 1 year old, in Squaw Valley Township, Dunsmuir, Siskiyou County, California. Several years later, they moved to Oroville, California and lived there for many years.

Isaac was an avid hunter, fisherman and rugged outdoorsman throughout most of his life. As one of the perks of being an employee of the railroad, every year around Christime many of the railroad employees would take a train up to the mountains and bring back Christmas trees for their families. Isaac's wife, Jessie Edith died suddenly in February, 1935 in Roseville, Placer County, California, just a few weeks after her 60th birthday. Isaac survived another eight years after his wife, when he passed away on 27 December, 1943 in Reddig, California. Isaac and Jessie Edith Zent are both buried at Oroville Memorial Park, Oroville, California.

Isaac Chase Zent (at left) and unidentified friends at Yosemite National Park