USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume II > Part 47
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SEYMOUR ALF, a pioneer railroad builder in the West, and a man honored alike for his sterling character and worthy achievement, was seventy-one years of age at the time of his death, which occurred at the home of his son-in-law, Dr. R. E. MacFarlane, 5217 South Main Street, Los Angeles.
Mr. Alf was born in Germany and was a child at the time of the family immigration to the United States, his father having become a pioneer and a prosperous farmer in the State of Iowa. Mr. Alf was afforded the advan- tage of the excellent public schools of the Hawkeye State, and he continued his residence in Iowa until he was twenty-seven years of age, when he came to California and in 1881 established a meat market at Daggett, then a small town in the desert country. From this line of enterprise Mr. Alf retired in 1886, and he next turned his attention to overland freighting. It was he who made the title "Twenty Mule Team" as applied to California borax product one of famous order, for he owned two mule teams of twenty mules each and was the first to engage in hauling borax from the mines, twelve miles distant from Daggett, where the product was loaded on trains and shipped to San Francisco. For many years he continued this service in connection with the operations of the Pacific Coast Borax Company, and after the borax mines closed he continued his freighting business on the desert until the time of his death. His son Walter still continues this busi- ness, and keeps in requisition the six big wagons with large water tanks that long ago became a picturesque factor in desert traffic. Mr. Alf pro- . vided for his family an attractive home at Daggett, where he owned also a number of other residence properties, which he rented, besides which he accumulated valuable real estate in Napa County and in the City of Los Angeles. To Mr. Alf was the distinction of building the Salt Lake Railroad from Daggett to the Caves, and he was in a general way known for his progressiveness and public spirit.
In 1877 Mr. Alf married Miss Matilda Bender, of Marshalltown, Iowa, and she survives him. Of this union were born four children: Mrs. Fred- erick Harris, of Los Angeles ; Mrs. William Wheeler, of Napa ; Walter, a resident of Daggett ; and Mrs. R. E. MacFarlane, of Los Angeles, in whose home the widowed mother now resides. The marriage of Miss Rose Alf to Dr. Robert E. MacFarlane was solemnized in 1905, the Doctor being a representative of one of the honored pioneer families of San Bernardino County and being now successfully engaged in the practice of his profession as one of the representative physicians and surgeons in the City of Los Angeles. Dr. and Mrs. MacFarlane have three children : John, Thelma and Eugene.
CLARENCE PARKMAN DAY. Science and art join hands in the develop- ment of the magnificent estates in Southern California, and the results are beautiful beyond description, and rival nature in her loveliest aspects. One of the men of Pasadena who is finding here ample scope and unlimited opportunities for the exercise of his natural talents and carefully acquired skill is Clarence Parkman Day, landscape engineer and contractor, who has been connected with the development and beautification of some of the most noted show places of this region.
Mr. Day was born at Beverly Farms, Massachusetts, October 4, 1885, a son of Isaac Franklin and Ella Frances (Lovering) Day, natives of Manchester and Hamilton, Massachusetts, respectively. Isaac F.
Olavsweet Day
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Day was a wholesale and retail grocer of Beverly for a number of years, but for the past fifteen years has been living in retirement with his wife at their beautiful country place at Hamilton, Massachusetts. Although he is over eighty, Mr. Day is in excellent health. During the war between the North and the South he served in the Eighth Regiment, Second Heavy Artillery, and subsequently served as com- mander of Beverly Post, G. A. R., several times. He and his wife had four sons and two daughters, but Clarence P. Day is the only member of his family in California. Isaac F. Day maintains mem- bership in the Masonic fraternity and with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and has always been a prominent man in every way.
After graduating from the Beverly High School in 1902 Mr. Day took up landscape and civil engineering under special instruction at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Boston, Massachusetts, and was with Edward P. Adams, the associate of Olmsted Brothers, landscape architects, of Boston, Massachusetts ; MeClintock & Wood- fall, sanitary engineers, of Boston; and also served in the city en- gineer's office at Beverly, in this way gaining an experience which was of great practical value. Mr. Day looked after the surveying, engineering and construction of the Asbury Grove Association at Hamilton, Massachusetts, and other work of a private practice.
In 1904 Mr. Day came to Pasadena and at once associated himself with Allin Brothers, civil engineers of this city, and had charge of considerable private work for them, including preliminary surveys for the development of Oak Knoll. In 1907 he began a private prac- tice of his own in surveying and engineering, giving special attention to landscape branches. He surveyed the major portion of Oak Knoll, and did practically all of the development work of San Rafael Heights, Country Club Park and other similar enterprises prior to 1912, but in that year, while still maintaining his connections at Pasadena, he went to Santa Barbara, taking entire charge of the re-organization and development of the Ellwood Cooper estate purchased by the late Maj. Charles M. Crichton, and later became interested in the ownership of that property. He developed a rough piece of land near Santa Barbara, comprising 200 acres, for William G. McAdoo that is now known as Las Alturas, a residential park, and the home of Mr. McAdoo. Mr. Day also developed the Douglas Fairbanks estate of twenty acres at Beverly Hills, one of the show places of this region. He is now engaged in developing one of the large projects on the coast known as the Pacific Palisades Association, along the beach above Santa Monica, which is laying out the Pacific Palisades as a private resi- dential park for permanent or seasonal homes and for the benefit of thousands who will gather there for its educational and religious activities, as it is proposed to establish here the International Christian Peace Center of the Pacific area, with educational features which will make possible a popular university eourse. This Mr. Day feels will be the most important of all of his undertakings.
During the World war he endeavored to enter the service, but was rejected on account of being over weight, and not in the necessary physical condition. However, he was very energetic in all of the Liberty Loan drives and Red Cross work. He is a republican, and was chairman of the road commission in Santa Barbara, and was a director of the Santa Barbara Chamber of Commerce while in that city. At one time he was a director of the old Board of Trade of Pasa- dena, which is now known as the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce. He belongs to the Pasadena, Los Angeles and Santa Barbara Cham- bers of Commerce at the present time; also to the Pasadena Mer- chants Association; is a life member of Pasadena Lodge Number 672, B. P. O. E. He is a Mason, and belongs to Pasadena Lodge Number 272, A. F. and A. M., has been advanced to the thirty-second degree and belongs to Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. Socially he is
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a member of the Old Colony Club, International, the Jonathan Club of Los Angeles, the Annandale Golf Club, and was one of the first to sign up for this club when it was known as the Annandale Country Club. Mr. Day and E. H. Strafford, who was chairman of the greens committee, played the first regular game on the opening day. In con- nection with this club Mr. Day has served as chairman of the grounds committee. He also belongs to the La Cumbre Golf and Country Club of Santa Barbara, the Overland Club of Pasadena, and the Auto- mobile Club of Southern California. In religious faith he is a Pres- byterian.
Some idea of the remarkable growth of Mr. Day's business may be gained from the fact that when he commenced his construction work about four years ago he had twenty on his pay roll, and now has over 150, and at times employs from 250 to 300. After the death of E. J. Baldwin, known as "Lucky," the executor of the estate, H. A. Unruh called in Mr. Day to make a preliminary survey of one of the largest pieces of acreage of one holding belonging to the estate, and this took nearly three years to complete. Mr. Day has been very extensively connected as well in the engineering and landscape development work for many of the prominent men of the country who have come to California, and is recognized as one of the dominant men in his pro- fession in the state, or of the entire Pacific Coast.
MARTIN LIFUR, who is now living virtually retired in his beautiful suburban home on the Batz private road, north of the fine Ocean to Ocean Highway, with Sierra Park as his postoffice address, has been one of the constructive workers in connection with the civic and industrial development of Los Angeles County and is a sterling and honored citizen who is specially entitled to recognition in this volume. He and his wife are representatives of the fine old Basque stock in the Pyrenees Mountain district of Spain, where the original spelling of the Lifur name was Le Fort, the present orthography having been adopted in more recent generations.
Mr. Lifur was born in the village of Cilveti, province of Navarre, Spain, on the 11th of November, 1856, and is the eldest of the nine children born to Juan and Margarita (Huarte) Lifur, who were Basque peasants of noble character but of modest financial resources. The Lifur lineage, how- ever, traces back to the early Basque nobility. Mr. Lifur has been largely educated in the stern school of experience, his early scholastic advantages having been very limited. Between the ages of seven and nine years he attended school in his native province, and he earned his board and clothing by working at such employment as was available. From his boyhood he has depended entirely upon his own resources, and his advancement has been excellent along mental as well as material lines. He continued his residence in his native land until he was seventeen years of age, when he came to the United States, the voyage across the Atlantic having been made on a slow- going freight vessel. From New York City he came by railroad to San Francisco, thence proceeded by boat to Wilmington, and on the 3d of June. 1874, he arrived in Los Angeles, which was then a city of no metropolitan pretentions. For eight years he was employed in herding sheep on the ranch of Juan Ordoquin, and he then purchased a half interest in the herd, which he ranged in the vicinity of Wilmington. He later purchased his partner's interest, and he had made a success of the sheep enterprise when he sold his stock and business and entered the employ of Larronde, a prominent sheep man whose name later became one of no minor note in Los Angeles. Later Mr. Lifur formed a partnership with Augustin Echeverria, whose sister he later married, and they ran their sheep in the region about New- port and Balboa. Mr. Lifur continued operations on leased land until 1894, when he removed to a tract which he had previously purchased-313 acres of the historic old Batz rancho, a portion of which now constitutes the beau- tiful Sierra Park. In 1906 Mr. Lifur sold one-half of this tract for sub- division purposes, and the remainder he still retains in his possession-a
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property that has become one of high value. On the part which he retains he erected his present commodious and beautiful residence. The old adobe house which he had previously occupied was demolished when subdividers platted the tract on which it was situated. Mr. Lifur continued his active association with the sheep industry until about 1888, and upon selling the half-portion of his fine ranch estate he retired from active business, with a substantial competency which affords to him and his devoted wife peace and comfort now that the shadows of their lives begin to lengthen from the golden west. All of the land which was formerly the stage of the farm and sheep operations of Mr. Lifur is now within the City of Los Angeles.
Mr. Lifur shows in his loyalty and fine public spirit his full apprecia- tion of the advantages and attractions of the state of his adoption, and here he and his wife find the number of their friends to be limited only by that of their acquaintances. They have lived and wrought worthily and have abiding love for the state in which it has been possible for them to win success and stable prosperity. They are earnest communicants of the Catholic Church, which represents the family faith for generations past, and in politics Mr. Lifur gives his allegiance to the republican party.
In the old Plaza Mission Church at Los Angeles, on the 11th of October, 1886, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Lifur and Miss Babila Eschever- ria, who was born in Esparza, province of Navarre, Spain, January 24, 1864, and who joined her brother Augustin in California on the 27th of Novem- ber, 1883. Mrs. Lifur had worked in the fields in her native land and came to America for the purpose of taking advantage of the better opportunities here afforded. She was employed in the home of Juan Salavari after coming to California, and thus continued until her marriage. Mr. and Mrs. Lifur have three children, concerning whom brief record is given in the concluding paragraph of this review :
John, eldest of the children, was born at Los Angeles, January 14, 1888, and after attending the grammar school of Ramona Convent he completed a course in the Los Angeles Business College. Thereafter he was an inter- ested principal in the Franco-American Baking Company, Los Angeles, until he sold his interest in the business and became one of the organizers of the California French Baking Company of Los Angeles, with which he is still associated. He married Miss Jeanne Clavere in 1912, the mother of the bride having been a member of a prominent Basque family in France, and the one child of this union is Madaleine, born January 21, 1916. Frances, the second of the children, was born on the old Newport ranch, February 4, 1890, and she was given the advantages of Ramona Convent and Throop College. In St. Mary's Church, Los Angeles, in 1913, she was united in marriage to Bernard J. Olhasso, who was born at San Diego, this state, his parents having been born in the Basque region of France. Mr. and Mrs. Olhasso have two children: John Bernard, born September 7. 1915 ; and Marie Babila, born September 6, 1921. Mr. Olhasso is superin- tendent of the Domingo Bastanchury ranch at Whittier, this being the largest citrus-fruit ranch in the United States. Gregory H., youngest of the children of the honored subject of this review, was born in the old adobe ranch house previously mentioned in this article, and the date of his nativity was December 9, 1897. He graduated from the Alhambra High School, and thereafter was for two years a student in Leland Stanford University. He is now a salesman of electrical supplies with a leading house in Los Angeles. On the 18th of November, 1918, was solemnized his marriage to Miss Nellita Schloote, of Los Angeles. They are the parents of one child, Nellita Carson Lifur, born July 6, 1922.
JOSEPH HEINISCH. Intimately identified with the upbuilding of indus- tries in Los Angeles County, and particularly at Alhambra and San Gabriel, is Joseph Heinisch, a resident of Alhambra for more than eighteen years, who came to this community when it was a town of only about 700 inhabitants. He was born in Neustadt, Upper Silesia, one of the richest provinces of Germany, December 19, 1858.
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After receiving a good practical educational training Mr. Heinisch entered the small felt mill owned and operated by his father, and learned the manufacture of felt from the ground up. As the machin- ery for this industry was just being developed he even learned felt- making by hand, a trying task, but one which, with his other training, laid the foundation for his subsequent career. Mr. Heinisch has been in the felt business exclusively since 1872, and in his long career has founded and developed under his management some of the largest felt factories in either this country or Europe. In 1887 he married Miss Helen Niemczik, who was of Polish ancestry, at Leipzig, Ger- many. It was also at Leipzig that he became acquainted with rela- tives of Alfred Dolge, and through them and personal correspondence later on with Mr. Dolge himself, Mr. Heinisch arrived in this country in 1890 and immediately became connected with Mr. Dolge at the latter's large plant at Dolgeville, Herkimer County, New York, where he remained for six years. There in 1895 his son, Richard, was born. One year later Mr. Heinisch received a very attractive offer from a continental firm to establish and manage their new plant, and Sep- tember 4, 1896, he left for Europe, where, in November, 1899, his daughter, Helen, was born. After a great success in Europe, where he also took out some patents, he returned to the United States, and in 1903 became connected with a large firm in the East, where he manufactured his patents for one year. At this time Henry Hunting- ton, who owned most of the land in the vicinity of Shorb, which was all planted to grapes, and who also owned the big San Gabriel winery. became acquainted with Mr. Dolge and the latter induced him to start a felt mill, using for this purpose the buildings and tanks of the San Gabriel winery. Mr. Huntington consented because at the time there was no felt mill west of Chicago, and even to this day there is only one felt mill on the entire Pacific Coast. So then came into being the Alfred Dolge Manufacturing Company and the town of Dolgeville, named after Mr. Dolge. When he went to the East to buy machin- ery for the plant Mr. Dolge also sought a man who knew the felt business from A to Z, and who would be able to superintend and manage such an enterprise from the beginning. He called on Mr. Heinisch, and after many conferences, correspondence and promises induced him to agree to come to California and take charge of the new plant. Mr. Heinisch arrived in California in March, 1904, and found that, although Mr. Dolge had brought with him from the East several mechanics and some former employes, with the exception of some employes of the shoe factory there really was no help for him in the felt mill and he had a difficult time in teaching and training the unskilled labor in this new enterprise. It was only through unceas- ing effort and hard work that he was successful in building up the business from its small beginning to the present big concern of today. In 1910 the company changed its name to the Standard Felt Company, of West Alhambra, as several years previously the town of Alhambra had annexed Dolgeville. Mr. Dolge resigned as president of the com- pany, but Mr. Heinisch remained.
It was in the fall of 1911 that Mr. Heinisch met with a very serious and most unfortunate accident in the mill. An employe handling a bucket containing sulphuric acid swung it carelessly and in such a manner that Mr. Heinisch received several drops in his right eye, the use of which he lost subsequently, in spite of the treatment of the best specialists. This in turn affected his right ear, of which he has also lost the use. This misfortune proved a severe handicap, as in addi- tion to operating the plant, it had been his custom to go out and buy the wool, in most cases direct from the wool-grower, as well as the other raw materials needed. At that time he took his son, Richard, who had been educated at Alhambra, into the mill and put him through all the departments, he thus gaining a thorough knowledge of the
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business. The year 1914 was a trying one for Mr. Heinisch. He had a substantial financial interest in an established business in Germany, and, as he could not get away himself, sent Mrs. Heinisch and their daughter there to look after his interests. The second day after their arrival at Berlin the World war broke out and his daughter, Helen, was taken ill and had to undergo an operation for appendicitis. As the German Government was taking over all of the hospitals for war purposes Mrs. Heinisch was forced to move her sick daughter on the second day after the operation from the hospital' to an apartment under the carc of a nurse. During all this trouble and confusion she was unable to communicate with her husband here or with her other relatives in Europe, and for many weeks was unable to leave Berlin. Becoming alarmed, Mr. Heinisch endeavored to get in touch with her through the United States Government, but before they had located her he received two letters which allayed his fears. Mrs. Heinisch, consequently, remained in Germany until November, 1915, Miss Helen, in the meantime, attending finishing school. They had an opportunity to leave for home by way of Holland, but on arriving in that country were advised that the steamer Rotterdam, on which they had booked passage, had struck a mine in the Channel and was badly damaged. They then had to wait for weeks for another steamer, the New Amsterdam, on which they finally returned to the United States.
In 1916 Mr. Heinisch sent his son to the Philadelphia Textile School at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to 'complete his textile cduca- tion. He was well along in the course when the United States entered the World war, and as the Government needed trained help very badly he offered his services and was at once assigned as inspector of textiles for the War Department at different mills in the South as well as in the New England states. He served in this capacity for fifteen months and then resigned to go into the army. After eight months' service he was given his honorable discharge and after a short visit at home returned to Philadelphia to complete his education. He is now engaged in carrying on the business with the greatest of ability. In 1922 he was united in marriage with Miss Jeanette Virginia Green, the daughter of William Green, one of the leading members of the Philadelphia bar, who also has large business and financial interests in that city. In 1918 Miss Helen Heinisch was united in marriage with Harold Wills, of Alhambra, who saw active service of twenty-two months' duration in France.
For Joseph Heinisch the war period was indeed a trying one. When the Government took over the felt mill it had to be operated day and night, with whatever help was available, and through it all there was little time for rest. In 1921 Mr. Heinisch sustained another serious accident at the mill. A steam-heated plate in a big hydraulic press exploded without warning and the escaping steam cnveloped him. This seriously affected his left eye, the only one of use, and for a time matters appeared very gravc. This accident, combined with a long period of overwork, caused a general breakdown which forces Mr. Heinisch, after eighteen years of trying endeavors, to retire from active work and remain only in an advisory capacity. However, he has since recovered in health, his eyesight has greatly improved, and he looks far younger than his sixty-four years. His career has been a useful, successful and honorable one, in which at all times he has maintained high ideals of personal conduct, whether as to business affairs or citizenship, or in the more intimate relations of social and family life.
THOMAS A. MAYES, M. D. Years before even wagon roads were built the pioneer physician of the El Monte District, Dr. Thomas A. Mayes, trav- eled on horseback over desert trails, ministering, very often without any remuneration, to all who were in need of his services, and his name is held
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in affectionate remembrance by his former patients and their children after them. No night was too stormy or too hard to travel for this good physician. When the call came he set forth, and not only gave of his knowledge and skill, but provided the medicines as well, for there were no drug stores in those days, and at times also purchased and paid for the food which was as much needed as medicaments. The lives of these pioneer doctors were a series of self-sacrifices almost unbelievable to those of the present day, and they bore a very constructive part in the development of the frontiers.
Doctor Mayes was born in Union County, South Carolina, August 25, 1825, and he died at El Monte, California, in 1874. After studying under private tutors, physicians themselves, he took a course at Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was graduated therefrom with the degree of Doctor of Medicine before he was twenty-one years old. For some time thereafter he traveled about, and while in Texas, in 1850, became attached to the regular United States Army as surgeon, and served as such for about two years. He then joined a party traveling to California, and came to the state over the Old Santa Fe route.
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