USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume II > Part 14
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At Saginaw, Michigan, February 17, 1890, Mr. Bacon married Miss Anna Irvine. She was born in Scotland, daughter of John Irvine, and was four years of age when her parents came to this country. Mr. and Mrs. Bacon have two daughters. Ruth Elsie is the wife of Evert M. Reese, a citrus grower at Whittier, and has a son, Robert Bacon Reese. Miss Elizabeth Emmaline Bacon is a graduate of the Whittier High School, preparatory to entering Smith College in Massachusetts.
Mrs. Bacon has found abundant opportunity to exercise her talent and effort in behalf of Whittier's substantial improvement as a community of culture. She was one of the organizers and a charter member and is a director and former president of the East Whittier Woman's Club. She was one of a committee of three who bought the old pumping plant in East Whittier, reconstructing it into a beautiful club house. She was one of the first women to serve as a director on the East Whittier School Board. In 1915, during a general campaign for beautifying public and private grounds. she was chairman of the committee having in charge the landscape improve- ment around the East Whittier School, and these improvements were , awarded one of the prizes offered by the county. Mrs. Bacon is an active member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
WALTER CHAMBERS was born at Scarborough, England, May 18, 1847, and died at Los Angeles, California, June 11, 1922. He completed a course in law, not with any intention of practicing that profession, as his natural leanings were in the direction of a business career, but because he deemed it a wise provision that would be useful in managing his busi-
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ness interests. In 1862, in company with his brother, Mr. Chambers came to the United States, where their parents subsequently joined them. Mr. Chambers engaged first in the mercantile business, later the drug and still later the banking business, and was engaged in the last named in Nebraska for twenty-three years. He came with his family to California, and in 1909, in association with his brothers, established the Chambers Drug Company at Los Angeles, which operated the well known drug stores at Second and Main, Fifth and Main and Seventh and Main streets until 1920, when Mr. Chambers retired from business. During the rest of his life he lived quietly in the beautiful home at 1842 Gar- field Place, Hollywood, surrounded by all the care and attention that his loving family could bestow or to which his friends could contribute in efforts to show their esteem and solicitude. Mr. Chambers married Miss Ella Manchester in 1875, May 18th, at Aurora, Nebraska. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Chambers, a son and a daughter. The former did not survive his sixteenth year. The latter, Mrs. M. W. Fowler, is the wife of one of the leading architectural builders of Los Angeles, whose designs have entered into the construction of some of the most attractive and substantial buildings of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Fowler have two daughters, Ella Constance, attending Mills College, and Mary Muriel, attending school at Marlborough.
MRS. ELLA C. CHAMBERS. Despite the many tragedies on land and sea within the last half century in which Americans have been involved the burning and the loss of the steamer "Golden Gate" off the coast of Mexico in 1862 is not forgotten and active public interest has been recently aroused by the forming of a syndicate at San Francisco for the purpose of locating and salvaging this vessel. This may prove a very profitable undertaking, as the ship was laden with $2,000,000 in gold bul- lion. More directly, however, interest at Los Angeles is centered in the survivors of the passenger list, among whom were eighty children, but only eight of the children were saved, one of these being Mrs. Ella C. Chambers, widow of the late Walter C. Chambers, a well known and highly esteemed resident of this city.
Mrs. Chambers is a true Californian, born in the state and of pioneer ancestry. Her father came to California in 1849, making the long voyage around the Horn. Her mother came from New York in 1852, on the long and dangerous trip across the Isthmus of Panama. She passed away and the children were sent to relatives in the East to be cared for, on the ill-fated "Golden Gate." Of the eight children saved at the time of the disaster three were of this family: Mrs. Chambers, then a child, a brother and a sister, the latter being Mrs. A. A. Cline of Hanford, California.
CHARLES E. COLE. While the history of Whittier as an organized community begins with the arrival of the Friends colony during the decade of the eighties, the region was not altogether unoccupied up to that time. One of the prominent families established there many years before the Friends came out was the Coles, now represented by Charles E. Cole, a prominent walnut and citrus grower, whose home is on the west side of the Santa Fe Road, about a mile south of Whittier Boulevard.
Mr. Cole has spent practically all his life in California. He came here when he was two years of age. He was born in Texas, November 30, 1862. His parents were George W. and Olive Margaret (Chilson) Cole, both natives of Illinois and of English ancestry. George W. Cole had previously come to California as a gold seeker. He came on this quest from Texas in' 1851, and had a successful experience mining on the Tule River and around Chico and in Butte County. He then returned to Texas, and resumed the cattle business there. During the Civil war he served as a soldier in the Confederate forces, and had also been an enlisted soldier in the Mexican war.
In 1864 George W. Cole brought his wife and family to California, a
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journey of nine months, accomplished with wagon and ox team. They first stopped at San Bernardino, but in 1865 he bought land near Downey, and was one of the earliest Americans in that region. He operated his ranch near Downey for ten years, but in 1875 sold his property, consisting of about two hundred acres. He then purchased land on Kings Lane, and that was his home the rest of his life. In his new locality he took an active part in the progress and development of the Whittier District. His children besides Charles E. Cole were: George W., Jr., a retired rancher at East Whittier; Joseph A., a rancher on Kings Lane; Byron S., a rancher at Palo Verde; Aurelia, of Huntington Park, widow of John Tweedy ; Callie M., wife of A. H. Cheney, of Los Angeles ; Dora C., wife of J. B. Ginther, of Los Angeles ; and Mrs. Mary A. Keller, deceased.
Charles E. Cole finished his education in the Methodist College near Downey. His energies found outlet in work on his father's ranch until his marriage. He then moved to Arizona and took up a homestead in the neighborhood of Williams, and was a cattle raiser there two years. Selling out, he returned to Whittier, and soon afterward took up the Walnut growing industry. Mr. Cole has since become one of the largest individual producers of walnuts and citrus fruit. He now owns a sixty acre grove, known as his home place, on the Santa Fe Springs road. He has three other tracts, twenty-one and a half acres, eight and one half acres and eleven acres, the last being in oranges and located on Citrus Grove Heights. 'The eleven acre tract is pronounced by experts to be within the oil district. There is a producing well on the adjoining property, within three hundred feet of Mr. Cole's line.
Mr. Cole has not only prospered in material affairs, but has lent a willing hand and his influence to the civic and social affairs of his neighbor- hood. He is a member of the Whittier Walnut Association and the Whittier Orange and Lemon Association, and was formerly a member of the Chamber of Commerce. He is a past grand and for twenty-two years has served as treasurer of Whittier Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, is a past chief Patriarch of the Encampment and a past district deputy, while Mrs. Cole is a past noble grand and past district deputy of the Rebekah Lodge. He is also affiliated with Whittier Lodge', Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
October 23, 1884, at Los Angeles, Mr. Cole married Miss Mollie Pit- man. She was born in Fresno County, California, and is of French-English ancestry, though the Pitmans have been in America since Colonial times. Her father, Elias W. Pitman, was born in Texas, was a pioneer cattle man of Fresno County and in Arizona, and was prominent both in California and Arizona. For several years he conducted a ranch at Los Nietos, but removed to Arizona to give his personal attention to his extensive land holdings there, where he remained about two years, and then returned and purchased property near Los Nietos, where he remained until his death. Mrs. Cole has one living brother, Albert S. Pitman, a rancher in the Whit- tier District. Three children comprise the family of Mr. and Mrs. Cole. Walter R., assisting in the management of the home farm, married Lulu Neidermiller, of Whittier, and their three children are Robert, Virginia and Donald. Pearl M. is the widow of Leland Hull, who was a rancher near Stockton. Leota J. is the wife of Casper L. Estep, an employe of the Los Angeles Electric Light and Gas Corporation. Mr. and Mrs. Estep have a son, Gail Estep.
FRANK MCGEE. No state has contributed so many substantial citizens to Southern California as the great corn belt state of Iowa. From Iowa came Frank McGee to California, primarily on a pleasure trip and to test the truth of many paeans of praise he had heard of this portion of the globe, with its golden climate and golden resources of every kind. He was convinced by all he saw, and for many years has been identified with the Whittier District, a prosperous citrus
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grower, a live and enterprising citizen and one of the happiest and most contented of men.
Mr. McGee was born in Fayette County, Iowa, April 12, 1859. His father, Joseph McGee, who was born in Williamsburg, Long Island, New York, December 25, 1823, completed a record of seven years in the regular United States Army. For four years of that time he was stationed in and around Plattsburg, New York. For three years he was an artilleryman and in service in the Mexican war under both General Taylor and General Scott. During the battle of Cheru- busco on the way to Mexico City he was sergeant of a gun crew, all of whom had been killed, and he was firing the gun single handed. As he leaned over to get ammunition from the caisson, a minie ball struck him in the heel, ranging up his leg. This ball remained in his body until his death, sixty-four years later, in 1912. After leaving the army Joseph McGee became a farmer in Iowa. He was of Scotch ancestry. He married Elizabeth Wier, who was born near Belfast, County Derry, Ireland, and she died in December, 1882.
Frank McGee acquired a public school education in Iowa. At the age of twenty-six he went on a farm of his own near Maynard, Har- lem Township, Fayette County, and continued to be actively identi- fied with farming interests in that locality until he was forty-seven years of age. However, for five years he rented his farm and had charge of a mail route.
It was in 1907 when Mr. McGee came to California. Overcome by the beauty and wonderful possibilities of the region, he sent for his wife and family, and the next year he went back and disposed of all his lowa interests. He first purchased a five acre grove on Short and South Greenleaf, and then five acres lying between Whittier and Pierce avenues and Philadelphia and Bailey streets. This property he sold to the Bailey Street School, and it has since been added to the high school property. Still later he bought ten acres at 615 Magnolia Avenue. This has been his home place since 1911, and the other tracts acquired by purchase have been sold. In his beautiful and attractive home site he has five acres in lemons and five acres in oranges, and is one of the contributors to the wealth of this region. For a number of years he was a member of the Whittier Citrus Asso- ciation, but transferred his allegiance to the Select Groves Citrus Association when it was organized, becoming a charter member. Mr. McGee is a republican, and is a past grand of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and a past chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias. He was a member of these two orders for twenty-five years.
February 4, 1886, he married Miss Emily Hunter. She was also born in Iowa. During the period of the American Revolution her great-grandfather was brought to America in irons by the English because he refused to fight the Colonists. Later he succeeded in escaping and joining the Colonists. He came from a very rich family in England, and the Crown confiscated all the family property and none of it was ever recovered by them. Mr. McGee lost his wife by death in 1920. She was the mother of two children. The son Ray- mond Leslie McGee, was in the electrical business at Los Angeles : and is now sales agent for the Kling Manufacturing Company of Los Angeles. He married Gladys McDowell, of Whittier, and has a son, Wallace, now nine years of age and attending school in Los Angeles. The second son, Lyle Edward McGee, owner of a ranch near Leffing- well, and a worker in the Santa Fe Springs Oil District, enlisted in the aviation service during the war, and for six months was in the Market Drayton School. He was in France until after the armistice was signed, and returned to this country with his company. Lyle McGee married Lucy Ritz of Iowa. They have one daughter, Emma Jane, born April 27, 1922.
On January 19, 1922, Mr. McGee married Mrs. Lola McDowell.
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She was born in Rochester, Minnesota, and by her first marriage she is the mother of Mrs. Raymond McGee.
HENRY J. SILER. For the high plane on which the public amusement facilities of Whittier are conducted that community is largely indebted to Henry J. Siler and J. H. Gwin, who have been associated in the theatrical business for a number of years and are proprietors of the beautiful Scenic Theatre.
Henry J. Siler had his round of experience on the stage until he left the profession to take up electrical engineering. He eventually returned to the business as a theatrical owner and promoter. Mr. Siler was born near Cherryville Montgomery County, Kansas, Novem- ber 23, 1881. His father, Alexander Siler, was born in Germany, came to this country when a small boy, was reared in Ohio and served with an Ohio Regiment in the Civil war. About 1876 he moved to Kansas, and was successfully identified with farming and stock raising in that state for many years. He became the owner of four hundred and twenty acres of land. He died in Webb City, Missouri, in 1893. Alexander Siler married Mary Strausel, a native of Alsace-Lorraine. She died in 1895.
Henry J. Siler was twelve years of age when his father died and he finished his public school education in the Webb City High School. Being greatly attracted to the stage from early youth, he took up the dramatic art as his profession soon after leaving high school. For thirteen years he played character parts, and was a well known and popular figure in theatrical circles in all parts of the United States and Canada. He was one of the cast in Fred Raymond's "Missouri Girl," taking the part of "Zeck." For two years he was with Hal Reed in "Roanok" and "Human Hearts," and took the character of "Hi Holler" in William A. Brady's "Way Down East." He played "Davie" the crippled bootblack in "Anita the Singing Girl," that being his last appearance. He signed for character parts in Morosco's stock company, but his own marriage interfered with this contract. As he expresses it, he signed up permanently with Mrs. Siler as the "Live Wire" in the great domestic drama "Hustle Hubby," and has been playing that part with a great deal of loving care and fidelity for the past fifteen years.
On leaving the stage he engaged with the Corona Gas & Electric Company, and was with them two and one-half years. The last eighteen months he was foreman of the plant producing electric light and power, gas and ice. In 1909 he joined the Westinghouse Com- pany of Los Angeles, and had charge of the first electric motor suc- cessfully installed in the oil fields. He came to Whittier in charge of this district for the Southern California Edison Company as install- ing engineer. He installed the first ornamental electric lights for the City of Whittier. Mr. Siler was responsible for the post in the center of the street at the intersection of Philadelphia and Greenleaf streets.
As a member of the Whittier community he was much interested in a general discussion of the advisability of voting the picture busi- ness out of the town. Mr. Siler then thought he saw an opportunity of proving to the people that all objectionable features could be elim- inated and that motion picture entertainment could be made instruc- tive and wholesome. Renting the Jacobs store building on South Greenleaf where the bicycle store now is, he put in two hundred seats and had a profitable patronage from the start. After that he induced Mr. Gales to build the Gales Theatre and lease it to a stock company, of which Mr. Siler became president and general manager, the others being J. H. Gwin, S. W. Barton, J. V. H. Feenstra, Robert Blair, Ernest Hill, C. L. Davis, Charles Nichols and Jack Shaffer. This was known as the Gales Theatre Company. After two years Mr.
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Truman Berry, Mr. Gwin and Mr. Siler bought up the stock, and as soon as the building restrictions of the war were lifted they erected the present handsome and modern Scenic theatre on East Philadelphia Street. In the final reorganization Mr. Berry became owner of the building, while Mr. Gwin and Mr. Siler took over the theatre and equipment, the latter representing an investment of $75,000. They have a ten year lease on the theatre, and it has become a popular place of amusement, and in the character of its bill it is one of the finest moving picture houses in the state.
Mr. Siler for two years was president of the Theatre Owners Association in Southern California. He is second vice president of the Federal Photo Plays which makes all the eminent authors' films. Mr. Siler is affiliated with Whittier Lodge No. 1258, Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, is a republican in politics, and he and Mrs. Siler are members of St. Mathias Episcopal Church.
September 24, 1907, Mr. Siler married Miss Arta Coffelt. She was born in Pittsburg, Kansas, and her father, Benjamin Coffelt, sub- sequently moved to Corona, California, when Mrs. Siler was a young girl. They have one son, Mason Earl Siler, born in 1910, and now attending the Whittier schools.
MRS. CLARENCE VAN GRAHAM, who has been a resident of Los Angeles County since 1905 and who resided at 1200 East Main Street, Alhambra. until March, 1922, when she removed to her present attractive home at 1003 North Normandie Avenue, Hollywood, has here, as elsewhere, left the impress of a gentlewoman of culture and talent, and in the field of literary production she long ago gained more than local reputation. Mrs. Graham is specially active in club and civic affairs, in which she has been prominent and influential within the period of her residence in California.
Mrs. Graham, whose maiden name was Nellie D. Smucker, was born at Newark, Ohio, and is a daughter of the late Andrew and Gertrude M. (Dean) Smucker. It may be considered that on the paternal side she has a natural heritage of literary talent, her great-uncle, Isaac Smucker, having gained fame as a writer, and Rev. Samuel Smucker, a great-great-uncle, having been a distinguished clergyman and writer in Berlin, Germany. Andrew J. Dean, maternal grandfather of Mrs. Graham, was, in the maternal line, a representative of the Meeker family, in which his great- great-grandfather and eight brothers of the latter were patriot soldiers of the Continental line in the War of the Revolution.
In the public schools of her native city Mrs. Graham acquired her early education, and on her graduation in the Newark High School she wrote the class song and the class poem that contributed much to the inter- est of the commencement exercises. Even before this she had written excellent productions, mainly in the form of verse. On the 8th of Novem- ber, 1888, when eighteen years of age, she was united in marriage to Clarence Van Graham, the recorded ancestry of the Graham family mark- ing it as one of the oldest in the world's historic annals, and the ancient spelling of the name in Scotland having been Graeme. Clarence Van Graham passed the closing years of his life in California, where his death occurred October 23, 1920. The one child of Mr. and Mrs. Graham is William A., who is engaged in business in Los Angeles and Hollywood and the maiden name of whose wife was Cleva Dunn.
After her marriage Mrs. Graham began to give her literary work more serious consideration, and she wrote many short stories that were pub- lished in magazines and newspapers, besides which she contributed to the columns of the Ohio State Journal (published in the City of Columbus) and the Boston Globe. Under the pen name of Vosey she conducted about two years a column in the Newark Advocate, published in her native city. At the time that Jennie June Crowley was editor of Godey's Lady's Book in the year 1891 and 1892 Mrs. Graham was a regular contributor.
Also Clarence Van Graham
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Her impaired health led Mrs. Graham to come to California, and here she has been a specially active, popular and influential factor in civic and club circles. She has served as president of the Woman's City Club of Los Angeles and the Wednesday Afternoon Club of Alhambra, besides which she did most effective work as first vice president of the Philan- thropy and Civics Club of Los Angeles. She is a member of the Southern California Woman's Press Club and the Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles. She served as press chairman of the Los Angeles District of the California Federation of Woman's Clubs, and has been press chairman of different clubs with which she is affiliated. Mrs. Graham has not been a mere passive figure in her club associations, but has been a leader in con- structive service. She holds membership in the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, is a charter member of the Woman's Athletic Club of Los Angeles, holds membership in the Sunset Canyon Country Club and is past associate grand matron of the California Grand Chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star. She is a member of The Big Sisters' League and a past officer, is active in politics, was a member of the State Central Committee (republican) in 1920, a member of the Woman's Republican Club, of Los Angeles, and during the World War was appointed by Governor Stevens to serve on War Donations Board. She was active in all war activities. She continues her active interest in civic and club affairs and contributes occasionally to the newspaper press. She is held in affectionate regard by all who have come within the compass of her gracious influence, and in California her circle of friends is coincident with that of her acquaintances.
DANIEL W. STANDLEE. Among the early settlers whose labors and persistent efforts laid the foundation for much of Los Angeles County's modern prosperity, one is Daniel W. Standlee, who has been a resi- dent of the Rivera District for more than half a century. His home is on the Telegraph Road at the junction of Downey Road. Mr. Standlee during the half century he has spent here has endured many vicissitudes. He worked hard on his farm, and frequently his entire crop of corn would not pay his grocery bill. Apparently his times of hardship are a thing of the past. In addition to the home and homestead, with its walnut groves, his property lies in the path of promising oil development. A few years ago Mrs. Standlee pur- chased five acres on the Santa Fe Springs tract. She told the man offering it for sale that he had better hold on to it as it might yield oil, but that advice did not dissuade him from the sale. Since then Mrs. Standlee leased this five acres to the Midway Petroleum Com- pany. It is situated in a field of remarkable production. Her lease carries the unusual provision of one-sixth of the production and the continued sinking of wells as long as oil is found in paying quan- tities. The first well came in August 11, 1922, and has settled down to a 1,000 barrel production.
Mr. and Mrs. Standlee have shared together the burdens and pleasures of life in this section for over half a century, and they came together in the same wagon train over the plains from the East. Daniel W. Standlee was born in Arkansas August 10, 1849, son of James and Sarah (Briscoe) Standlee, both natives of Alabama and of old American families of English descent. James Standlee during the Civil war was detailed by the Confederate government to work at home at his trade as blacksmith. In 1869 he brought his family to California with prairie schooner and ox team. He bought and farmed forty acres in the Rivera District until his death in 1900. He survived his wife six years.
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