History of Los Angeles county, Volume II, Part 45

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 840

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Mr. Burnham was born in Windham, Connecticut, January 21, 1851, and was only three months old when his father, William Burnham, died. His mother, Ellen (Bass) Burnham, is living at the age of ninety years, and retains her faculties almost unimpaired. She resides at Andover, Connecticut.

Mr. Burnham was educated in the public and private schools at Wind- ham, Connecticut, and Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and as a young man went to work in a book and stationery house at Norwich, Connecticut. He was employed there seven years and after that was with a dry goods house at Hartford, Connecticut. He first came to the West in 1877, and in 1878 entered the employ of R. G. Dun & Company at Kansas City. He was sent to Denver, Colorado, as manager of the company's agency there in 1880, but resigned in 1884, and for thirty-five years has made his home on the Pacific Coast. For ten years he spent most of his time traveling as a reporter for Dun & Company, and in 1894, took the management of the Los Angeles office.

During his long residence in Los Angeles he has been a valued leader in many movements for the upbuilding and progress of the city and county. He served on the executive committee of the Municipal League since it was organized until 1914, and for several years was first vice president. He was director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce from January, 1912, to January 1916, and has been a member of its more important com- mittees. In 1896 during the first Mckinley campaign, he was one of five members of the executive committee of the Business Men's Sound Money Club. He is a member of the Sixth Agricultural District Association, in charge of the Exposition Park, and served as chairman in 1919. Mr. Burn- ham is also a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in the city, the Sunset Club, which he served as president in 1908. He is a member of the Jonathan Club, City Club, Merchants and Manufacturers Association, and during the war was very active as a leader in both the Red Cross and Liberty Bond campaigns, heading a team in support of both organizations.

Mr. Burnham resides at the Bryson apartments. He married at Oak- land, California, December 30, 1887, Miss Marion Bennison. She died at Los Angeles February 8, 1917. Mr. Burnham has one daughter, Mrs. Richard H. Oakley of Los Angeles, who was born at Oakland, and educated in the Los Angeles High School and is a graduate of Marlboro School for Girls at Los Angeles and of Dana Hall in Wellesley. Mrs. Oakley has two daughters, Barbara and Jean, natives of Los Angeles.

NUMA A. STRAIN. Few remain of the old-time cowboys and frontiers- men of the rapidly passing West of former days, but here and there one is found, and of them all none commands greater respect or confidence than Numa A. Strain of San Gabriel, present county road foreman of Los Angeles County, to whose zealous efforts Southern California owes many miles of excellent hard roads where once were to be found only dim trails. Mr. Strain's life has been a full and exciting one; he and danger have been close companions, but he never flinched because of hazardous undertakings, or shirked a responsibility, and stands today as one of the best types of the old-time Westerner of the highest character.

Numa A. Strain was born in Monroe County, Indiana, February 10. 1856, a son of John and Katherine (Finley) Strain, natives of Tennessee and farming people of Indiana for a number of years. Soon after the birth of Numa A. Strain his parents moved to Mahaska County, Iowa, and there the father died at the age of forty-seven years, leaving an estate of 1,000 acres of grain land. There were seven children in his family, and all of them but Numa A. received collegiate educations.

Even as a boy Numa A. Strain was of a venturesome disposition, and when he was sixteen years old he left home and went to Texas, and from then on he has made his own way in life, with only the advantages of a country-school education. Upon his arrival in Texas he went into the

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cattle business and worked cattle along the trails to market. By the time he was twenty-one he found this life too tame for his temperament, and so went to New Mexico, and for five years was a scout and United States marshal on the Apache Indian reservation. He was a noted shot with pistol and rifle, and at one time was an associate of "Buffalo Bill" Cody, and had the friendship of the most noted Apache chiefs of his day. His duties during this time were important and very hazardous, for both the Indians and whites were liable, at times, to be very treacherous. While in New Mexico he was to a certain extent interested in mining, as were the majority of men of those times and locality.

Los Angeles was attracting people to Southern California, and young Strain, following the lure of the West, came to the city, arriving here June 4, 1882. It was exactly noon of that day when he entered the Queen Restaurant and ate his first meal. Forty years later, June 4, 1922, at exactly noon, he entered the same old Queen Restaurant, still in operation, and once more satisfied his hunger.

Mr. Strain was not a man to wait for opportunities to seek him, he went after them, and scarcely had he arrived at Los Angeles than he had formed a connection with the late De Barth Shorb, one of the noted men of his day, and for seventeen continuous years was superintendent of the Shorb ranch, and had control of the estate, which contained 707 acres in vineyard, orchard and grain lands. At the termination of this long service he resigned.

A strong republican, Mr. Strain has the distinction of having been one of the original three republicans in this district, once a great democratic stronghold. At the time of his resignation from the Shorb estate he was appointed by County Supervisor O. W. Longdon as road foreman, and he has held this position ever since, his long occupancy of it being sufficient proof of his capability and trustworthiness. In all of his experiences he has won and retained the confidence of his associates because of his inherent honesty. In early days it was the custom for employment agencies to send to the ranches Chinese laborers who were paid $1.10 a day, of which the agency retained ten cents for their services. Before Mr. Strain became superintendent of the Shorb ranch it was the custom for the superintendent to retain ten cents of this pay for himself, leaving but ninety cents per day for the Oriental. Mr. Strain changed this. He told his workmen that he intended them to receive the $1.00 to which they were entitled, and then he would expect to receive a full dollar's worth of work, and he received it. and still has the friendship of the Chinese, who look upon him as their friend and protector. In 1902 he purchased his present home, comprising three and one-half acres of valuable holdings, and he has other property. so that when he feels like retiring he can settle on a permanent home at Alhambra.

On Christmas Day, 1892, Mr. Strain married Miss Georgie Chapel, a native of Mississippi, who was brought to California by her parents when she was two months old. Mr. and Mrs. Strain have had four children born to them, namely: Numa A., Junior, who was born in 1896, is a graduate of the Alhambra High School, and during the World war made continual efforts to get into the service, but was refused on account of being much under weight; John Howard, who was born in 1898, is mentioned below ; Katherine, who was born at San Gabriel in 1900, graduated from the Alhambra High School, and is in the Los Angeles Hospital Training School for Nurses, from which she will graduate in May, 1923; and Georgie E., who was born at San Gabriel in 1909, is attending grammar school.

John Howard Strain is one of the noble young men of the country who gave up his life in defense of his country during the World war. He was a graduate of the Alhambra and Pasadena high schools and a very promis- ing young man. When this country entered the World war he was one of the first to enlist, volunteering in the Marines in April, 1917. After a brief training on Mare Island and in Virginia he was sent direct to France, and,

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as he was a noted shot, he was sent directly to the front as a sharpshooter. With others of the Marines he helped to make a glorious history in the never-to-be-forgotten offensive of Chateau Thierry, and was there killed in action June 23, 1918. His young life was lost, but the sacrifice he and others of his comrades made in that memorable stand turned the tide of battle and without doubt saved countless lives, so who can say that their sacrifice was in vain, although bleeding hearts will continue to mourn for them until there is a reunion in another land.

Mr. Strain is an earnest member of the Baptist Church, and is a zealous supporter of the principles of the Knights of Pythias. He and his family stand very high in popular esteem, and all that he possesses has come to him through his own, unaided efforts.

E. D. McSWEENEY came to Southern California more than a quarter of a century ago, and step by step in spite of discouragement his hard work brought him an ample competence and enabled him and Mrs. McSweeney to rear a family of children who are in every sense a credit to their father and mother. Mr. and Mrs. McSweeney were both born in Ireland, and represent some of the finest stock of that nation.

He was born at Killarney, November 13, 1862, youngest of the eight children of Eugene and Nora (Daley) McSweeney. For a time he was employed in the dye house of a large woolen mill, and subsequently removed to New York City. Leaving there, he came to San Francisco in 1888, and for several years conducted a farm and ranch on a rather extensive scale at Livermoore.

In 1890, in St. Patrick's Church of San Francisco, Mr. McSweeney married Miss Teresa Gleason. She was born in Tipperary, Ireland, May 21, 1863, and her people likewise represented an ancestry of many generations, back to the kings of Ireland. She is a lineal descendant of Brian Boru. Both Mr. and Mrs. McSweeney were reared in and have always been faithful members of the Catholic Church. She was one of the five children, three daughters and two sons, of John and Margaret ( Burke) Gleason.

Mr. and Mrs. McSweeney have six children. The oldest, Margaret, born at San Francisco August 14, 1891, graduated from the El Monte High School, from the University of California at Berkeley, and is now a high school teacher. John McSweeney, born in San Francisco January 27, 1893, is a graduate in the civil engineering course from the University of California. The younger children are, Nora, born at San Francisco Sep- tember 9, 1895, a graduate of the University of California and now teaching high school at Monte Bello; Eugene, born in San Francisco, July 10, 1897 ; Theobald, born at the family home in Los Angeles County, Rosemead, June 21, 1901 ; and Francis, born at Rosemead August 6, 1903. The two youngest children were both baptized in the historic San Gabriel Mission. All the children are high school graduates and were given every oppor- tunity for liberal schooling, had the training and influence of a Christian home, and are splendid young Americans.

When E. D. McSweeney came to Southern California in 1896 he rented a portion of the Reed estate and attempted dry farming, but had three successive dry years, when his livestock was without feed. Subsequently he bought seventeen and a half acres at the corner of Rosemead Avenue and M Street, a portion of the original Reed property. On this he built his home. He also bought the Rudell place of eighty acres on Broadway. With this land Mr. McSweeney has made a real success of farming opera- tions, his principal crop having been potatoes. He is fond of horses, and has owned several animals that have made good records on the track, including St. Calatine.

HARRY F. PERRY. The foresight and confidence of Harry F. Perry which led him to vision a smiling and productive country and to place his faith in it when it was but a sage-brush covered sweep of uninviting sandy

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soil, have resulted in making him the owner of one of the most valuable tracts of orange-growing country in California, the fifteen-acre tract lying just to the north of the San Gabriel Country Club grounds. During his early years Mr. Perry knew much of hard labor, which he commenced when only a boy, but he did not allow his uncongenial surroundings to sour his nature or his disappointments to dull the edge of his ambition. His suc- cess is the reward of individual merit.

Mr. Perry was born in Muscatine County, Iowa, June 4, 1872, and is a son of William and Amanda Perry, who, with their family of five children, came to Los Angeles, California, in 1876 and here passed the remainder of their lives. Harry F. Perry attended the public schools of Los Angeles, and at the age of eleven years, before and after school, commenced carrying the Tribune and Evening Telegram on the streets of that city. When his school days were over he served an apprenticeship to the plumbing trade, but this did not prove attractive to him, and he later learned the trade of baker. About the year 1891 Mr. Perry came to Sunny Slope, where he engaged in ranch work of a general sort, being employed by the late Archie Smith, who will be well remembered as a pioneer of this section. He worked long, hard hours for small pay, receiving $1.25 per day, when a day meant all the daylight hours. Later he was employed by Easton & Eldridge as superintendent of their large holdings, from whom he purchased his first land, a tract of five acres. Mr. Perry at this time had little money, but his employers allowed him to make an initial payment of five dollars. although the contract price was $180. Mr. Perry, although ridiculed by some, had supreme faith in Sunny Slope and the San Gabriel country, even at a time when the principal crop was sage brush and the best to be seen was dry barley fields. His five acres were planted to two-year-old orange trees, and this tract he carefully nursed and guarded during the moments he could spare from attending his employers' 600 acres of vine- yard and the large orange orchard. By diligence and great economy he managed to pay for his little property, and gradually, as his assets would permit, improved not only the land and equipment, but erected a modern home and other buildings. He also persuaded his father-in-law to purchase the ten acres adjoining his property, for which the elder man paid $200 per acre, and this same land Mr. Perry bought from his father-in-law five years later for $2,000 an acre. This is Mr. Perry's present fifteen-acre orange grove, lying just north of the San Gabriel Country Club grounds, one of the finest locations in Sunny Slope or in California. It commands a magnificent view of the surrounding mountains and the San Gabriel Valley. During the early years Mr. Perry was active as a contractor, and did much work for other early settlers, leveling the land and planting groves. He has witnessed the change, and played an important part therein, from barren lands to conditions of today, when this country is one of Southern California's places of noted beauty, the desert having been trans- formed to one of the world's most scenic homesites.

In September, 1897, Mr. Perry was united in marriage with Miss Nellie C. Raftery, a native of Illinois, and a daughter of Thomas and Sarah Raftery. Mrs. Perry, one in a family of seven children, one of whom died in infancy, came to California with her parents in 1879, at the age of thirteen years. She and Mr. Perry have two children: Clara, born on Sunny Slope, San Gabriel, the last day of November, 1898, was educated at the Alhambra High School and Los Angeles Business College, and married in May, 1921, Frank Wolcott, of San Gabriel; and Mabel Eleanor, born at Lamanda Park, California, September 22, 1900, a graduate of Alhambra High School and the University of Southern California, and now engaged in research psychology work at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California. Miss Perry is a young lady of remarkable intellect and unusual talents, and is making rapid strides in her special field of in- vestigation.

Mr. Perry has been a life long republican, but has not sought public

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office, taking only a good citizen's interest in public affairs. He enjoys the companionship of friends and has several social connections.

MRS. KATE M. MYERS. That supreme gift of being able to translate an idea into concrete form enabled Mrs. Kate M. Myers to establish and develop an industry at Los Angeles that is in many ways unique, filling a special field and a special need and has made her one of California's most successful business women,

Mrs. Myers was born in Canada, of English and Irish parentage, and came to Los Angeles a number of years ago. At that time a nephew was in the Good Samaritan Hospital, and she frequently visited him there. During her visits her attention was attracted to complaints made by the nurses of the difficulty in getting their correct uniforms, and her natural qualifications as a designer of clothing enabled her to originate in her mind the business of supplying the uniforms for nurses. She was then a woman of means, and there was no impelling need to go into business. However, after satisfying herself and the nurses of the soundness of her design she decided to outfit nurses, and that was the beginning of a business that has since been developed to include the manufacture of nurses and maids uni- forms, doctors uniforms, school apparel, ecclesiastic robes, cap and gown fittings for all academic and university institutions and gymnasium apparel.

For fourteen years Mrs. Myers had her business at 618 West Pico, and she still retains that location as a stock room. In September, 1922, she moved into a new building at 1031 West Seventh Street, in the heart of the business district, and occupies the entire west portion of the building. In its present form it represents her original ideas and her energy, and even in New York there is no outfitting shop so complete in its special lines as this. All garments sold by her are manufactured in her shop. The new building is a handsome example of a place of business designed, furnished and decorated in utmost good taste and affording an appropriate environment for the workers and customers as well. Each of the depart- ments of manufacture is furnished in a distinctive style, and one of the features, where guests and customers are entertained, is a tea garden where tea is served at the regular English tea hour. There are five traveling sales- men on her staff, and she issues five catalogues each year.

ALFRED CONINGSBY JACKSON, D. D. S., is engaged in the successful practice of his profession in the City of Pasadena, where his office, at 701 Central Building, shows in its appointments the most modern dental equip- ment in both operative and laboratory departments. Dr. Jackson, a native of London, England, where he was born November 13, 1886, signified his loyalty alike to his native land and to that of his adoption by entering · service in connection with the great World war, he having closed his office at Pasadena and promptly enlisted in the United States Army when the nation became involved in the war. In the early summer of 1917 he en- listed and was assigned to the Fourth United States Cavalry, with which command he was stationed at Scofield Barracks, Hawaiian Islands, until the signing of the armistice brought the war to a close. He rose from the rank of private to that of captain, which latter office he was given in the Reserve Corps of the United States Army. His continued interest in his old comrades in arms is shown by his affiliation with the American Legion.

Dr. Jackson is a son of Alfred John and Matilda L. (Carney) Jackson, the father having passed his entire life in England, where his death occurred in the City of London in the year 1890, he having been an underwriter in the London Stock Exchange. The mother of Dr. Jackson came to the United States in 1910, and is now living in the City of San Francisco. Of her three children the only daughter, Frances A., died in England when seventeen years of age ; Dr. Alfred C., of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; and Rev. John Charles Jackson is rector of the Protestant Epis- copal Church at Santa Clara, this state. All of the children were reared in the faith of the Church of England, the American body of the same

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faith, the Protestant Episcopal Church, now claiming the mother and both sons as zealous communicants.

The early education of Dr. Jackson was obtained in the schools of Watford, Hertfordshire, England, in which he continued his studies until his graduation in what is equivalent of the high school of the United States. After coming to the United States, and in consonance with his ambition, he finally entered the Schools of Dentistry of the University of Southern California, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1911 and with the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. In the same year he opened an office at Pasadena, and here he had built up a substantial and representative practice prior to the time when he subordinated all personal interests to enter the nation's service in connection with the World war, as noted in the initial paragraph of this review. After receiving his dis- charge from the army Dr. Jackson returned to Pasadena and in March, 1919, reopened an office here. He has gained the appreciative supporting patronage of his former clients, and his professional ability and effective service give a constantly cumulative tendency to his practice. In politics the Doctor may be termed a conservative republican, he and his wife are communicants of the Protestant Episcopal Church in their home city, he is an active member of the Pasadena, the Los Angeles County, the Cali- fornia State and the National Dental societies, as well as the Psi Omega dental fraternity, and he is affiliated with Corona Lodge No. 324, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons.

On Thanksgiving Day of the year 1914 was solemnized the marriage of Dr. Jackson and Miss Irene Severy, who was born in the State of Oklahoma and who was two years old at the time of the family removal to Pasadena, California, where she was reared and educated and where her parents, Charles L. and Nellie (Wood) Severy, still reside. Her paternal grand- father, the late Charles L. Severy, Sr., was in charge of the first railroad train to enter California, and the locomotive or train was named in his honor. Dr. and Mrs. Jackson have two children: Alfred Coningsby, Jr., and Barbara. The family home is in the beautiful suburb of Altadena.

FRANK HENRY OHRMUND, one of the young, wide-awake and hustling business men of Pasadena, a splendid salesman, is a member of Ohr- mund Brothers, proprietors of the Pasadena Gas Appliance Company, a company handling not only a complete line of gas heating apparatus, but the thorough service to give the highest efficiency to such a business.

Mr. Ohrmund was born at Ottawa, Wisconsin, June 2, 1890, son of Otto F. and Mary (Stier) Ohrmund. His parents were natives of Germany, but early in life came to America and lived in Wisconsin until they came to California. His father, now actively associated with the Pasadena Gas Appliance Company, was a steam engineer at Waukesha, Wisconsin. He has been a republican voter all his life.

Frank Henry Ohrmund was educated in the public schools of Waukesha, Wisconsin, and also took a mechanical engineering course with the International Correspondence School. While at Hartford, Wisconsin, he was employed by the Kissel Motor Car Company. In November, 1911, a young man of twenty-one, he started a tour across the country, reaching Los Angeles in December of the same year. After six months he went back East, and about the close of 1912 returned to California, and has since been a resident of Pasadena.

Mr. Ohrmund was for four years secretary of the Potters-Trutz Radiator Corporation in Los Angeles. He resigned from that busi- ness to join the colors when America declared war against the Central Powers. For one year he was in the air service with the 311th Aero Squadron, stationed at March Field, California.

The patriotic record of the Ohrmund family is deserving of spe- cial attention. Mr. Ohrmund was the oldest son, and both his brothers were also in the war. His active business associate in Ohrmund

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Brothers is Arthur P. Ohrmund, who was overseas for eighteen months, an ammunition truck driver with the Thirty-second Division. After the armistice he spent six months with the Army of Occupation in Germany. The other brother, Ben Walter Ohrmund, while in the service was stationed at Cincinnati. Ben Walter is now manager for the Wells Fargo & Company Express at Hartford, Wisconsin. Alto- gether there are seven children, three sons and four daughters, and all live at Pasadena except Ben Walter. The daughters are: Mrs. Samuel Toles, Miss Marie, Mrs. Ferdinand Thomas and Miss Frances.

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History of Los Angeles county, Volume II, Part 45

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944 Publication date: 1923 Publisher: Number of Pages: 840

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 840