History of Los Angeles county, Volume II, Part 67

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

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THOMAS J. WALKER has been one of the foremost in the development of the citrus fruit industry in the San Fernando Valley. He is now specializing in the growing of avocados, in which line he has the largest nursery in the state. He is one of the most progressive citizens of San Fernando, and properly finds recognition in this history of Los Angeles County.

Mr. Walker was born in the staunch old industrial city of Birming- ham, England, and the date of his nativity was April 3, 1868. He is the son of James Walker. He gained his early education in the schools of his native land and came to the United States in 1882, when a youth. He found employment in a planing mill at Newport, Vermont. He took a course in telegraphy at the Janesville School of Telegraphy, Wisconsin, and was the youngest student that ever graduated from that institution. He continued his residence in the East until 1891, when he came to Cali- fornia and became a ticket agent for the Santa Fe Railroad system in Los Angeles. Later he served in a similar capacity at Pasadena and San Bernardino. About the year 1904 he came to San Fernando and organized the San Fernando Valley Bank, from which was eventually developed the First National Bank of San Fernando. He served as cashier of this bank- ing institution until about the year 1912, and was its vice-president until 1919. He then turned his attention almost exclusively to the growing of trees and planting of citrus orchards and avocados. He has planted thousands of acres of citrus fruit, and has to his credit a greater amount of development along this line than any one man thus operating in the San Fernando Valley.

In 1916 Mr. Walker was sent by the United States Government as a member of a committee assigned to investigate agricultural and horticul- tural industry in Cuba, Costa Rica and Guatamala, and in this connection he gave characteristically effective service. Mr. Walker is now confin- ing his industrial activities to the propagation of avocados and, as before stated, he has the largest avocado nursery in the state, with a total of fully 30,000 trees and a well improved tract of land devoted to this enterprise. He is a director of the California Avocado Association. His civic loyalty has found positive and helpful expression in many ways. He organized the Chamber of Commerce at San Fernando, and was instrumental in incorporating the city, in effecting the paving of Maclay Avenue, the first thoroughfare in San Fernando to be thus improved, also in getting and paving the State Highway through San Fernando. He holds mem- bership in the local Chamber of Commerce and also in the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of the Good Roads Committee

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for Los Angeles County and was instrumental in getting the State High- way paved and through the efforts of this committee he was instrumental in getting a bond issue through for $3,500,000 for the purpose of building 360 miles of paved highways in Los Angeles County.

He and his wife gave the first lots to the First Presbyterian Church of San Fernando, of which they are members. In the Masonic fraternity he has received the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite and is affiliated also with the Mystic Shrine.

April 2, 1896, recorded the marriage of Mr. Walker to Miss Josephine Lloyd Maclay, daughter of the late Hon. Charles Maclay, to whom a memoir, with due family record, is dedicated on other pages of this work. Mrs. Walker was born at Santa Clara, California, November 26, 1865, and when but a child moved to Southern California with her parents. She received her early education in the public schools and in 1892 was graduated from the University of Southern California, receiv- ing the degree of Bachelor of Philosophy. In 1896 her Alma Mater bestowed upon her the degree of Master of Arts. She was twice presi- dent of the literary society of the college and president four years of her Greek letter society, Delta Gamma, at the University. She has always been active in church and club work. She organized and was the first president of the Ebell Club of San Fernando, and retained this office for seven years. She is still a member of its Board of Directors, is federa- tion secretary, chairman of the art section, a member of the program committee, the Shakespeare, and history and landmarks departments. It was mainly through her efforts a monument with tablet was erected at Fremont Pass in memory of John C. Fremont. She served on the Los Angeles District Board for four years as chairman of Farm Bureau and Country Life. She is a member of the Los Angeles Ebell Club and of the Alumni Chapter Gamma Upsilon of the Delta Gamma Society. She was an active Red Cross worker during the World war and her club furnished well filled comfort bags for every boy who went from San Fernando. In recognition of her work in raising money for the French and Belgium babies during the war she received the medal of honor from the Duchess of Vendome, sister of King Albert of Belgium. Mrs. Walker is noted for her initiative and executive ability in club work and public affairs, and for her literary productions on the early history of San Fernando and California.

EDGAR FRANKLIN DAVIS is one of the three principals of the Malcom- Davis Company, real estate, insurance and bonds, which is duly incorpo- rated under the laws of California and which is one of the leading concerns in its line of enterprise at Long Beach, where office headquarters are main- tained in the building at the corner of Broadway and Locust Street. Charles Malcom is president of the company and Mr. Davis is its secretary and treasurer, while the third member of the company is Alfred Williams.

Mr. Davis was born at Griffithville, West Virginia, July 9, 1877, and is a son of Benjamin Franklin and Serrilda ( May) Davis, who came to Long Beach, California, in 1906, the death of the mother having here occurred on the 6th of May of that year and the father being still a resident of this fair California city, where he is living virtually retired. Benjamin F. Davis removed with his family from West Virginia to Nebraska in 1879, and he engaged in stock-raising in that state, with residence at Lex- ington, besides which he continued his contracting operations as a builder of bridges. He continued his residence in Nebraska until his removal to California, as noted above. Of his family of three sons and two daughters all are living except one son. The eldest of the number is Mrs. L. L. Harter, of Washington, D. C., her husband being in the employ of the government, as supervisor of the various experiment stations maintained by the department of agriculture ; William L., the second of the sons, died at the age of seventeen years. Dr. James E. is a dentist by profession and is established in practice in the city of Los Angeles. The younger daugh-

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ter is Mrs. W. M. Sanders, of Long Beach. Edgar F., of this review, was the second in this family of five children, and was a child of two years at the time of the family removal to Lexington, Nebraska. There he con- tinued his studies in the public schools until his graduation in the high school, as a member of the class of 1896, and in 1904 he was graduated in the law department of the University of Nebraska, his reception of the degree of Bachelor of Laws having been virtually concurrent with his admission to the Nebraska bar. He never engaged in the practice of law in that state, however, and it was not yet two years after his graduation in the law school that he accompanied his parents to California. After his gradu- ation in the high school he devoted four years to the teaching of school in the rural districts of his home county in Nebraska. After leaving the law school, in 1904, Mr. Davis was associated with the well known banking and investment concern of George & Company, of Omaha, Nebraska, until 1906, when he came to Long Beach, California. In that year he here organized the investment firm of Davis & Company, a copartnership con- cern, and he successfully continued operations under this title until 1910, when Charles Malcom and the late W. S. Stevens became associated with the business, the firm name having at that time been changed to Malcom, Davis & Stevens. In 1916 the interest of Mr. Stevens was purchased by the other members of the firm and in the same year the business was incor- porated under the present title of the Malcom-Davis Company, Mr. Mal- com being president of the company and Mr. Davis the secretary and treas- urer. This company does a substantial and representative business in the handling of high-grade investment securities, real estate and bonds, besides maintaining a well ordered insurance department. Mr. Davis is also vice president of the Long Beach Title & Abstract Company, and while he was admitted to the California bar in 1910 his practice of law has been only in connection with the affairs of the business in which he is engaged. In the World war period Mr. Davis was a member of the Long Beach Council of Defense, and was influential in advancing the campaigns in the local sale of government war bonds, savings stamps, etc., as well as in the support of Red Cross Work and other patriotic service. He is a member of the demo- cratic county committee of Los Angeles County and also of the state cen- tral committee of his party, preferments that indicate his ability in the maneuvering of political forces and his prominence in the councils of his party. In 1917 he had the distinction of serving as exalted ruler of Long Beach Lodge, No. 888, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he is affiliated also with the local lodge of the Knights of Pythias. Mr. Davis is a member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, and is a loyal sup- porter of its progressive policies along both civic and business lines. He is identified also with the Long Beach Realty Board, and is a member of the Exchange Club and the Virginia Country Club, representative local organ- izations. He is affiliated with the Alpha Theta Chi and the Phi Delta Phi (legal) college fraternities, and he and his wife hold membership in the First Congregational Church at Long Beach.

At Clinton, Iowa, on the 11th of October, 1905, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Davis to Miss Sevilla R. Passmore, who was born at Prophetstown, Illinois, a daughter of Charles and Mary (Richmond) Passmore, who still reside at that place, where the father is living retired from active business. Mr. and Mrs. Davis have four children, all of whom were born at Long Beach, namely: Donald P., Robert R., Edgar Franklin, Jr., and Sevilla. The family home is at 3537 Pacific Avenue in the Los Cerritos district of Long Beach.

CHARLES O. MALONE, one of the successful and popular representa- tives of ranch enterprise in the Burbank District of Los Angeles County, was born at Shelbyville, judicial center of Shelby County, Illinois, on the 28th of May, 1867, and is a son of Benjamin and Elizabeth (Laws) Malone, the former of whom was born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the latter at Dayton, Ohio. Benjamin Malone was educated in the public

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schools of Illinois, there followed the carpenter's trade for a number of years and then engaged in farm enterprise, in which he there continued until 1899. He then came to California and located at Burbank, where he lived retired until his death, in 1907, his wife having here passed away in 1905 and both having been earnest members of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church, the while he was known as a life long supporter of the cause of the republican party.

To the public schools of Illinois Charles O. Malone is indebted for his early education, and there also he gained early experience in farm indus- try. In 1901 he came to Burbank, California, where he has since been actively and successfully identified with the growing of peaches and citrus fruits, his well improved fruit ranch of ten acres being situated on North Tujunga Street. In politics Mr. Malone has figured as a staunch supporter of the cause of the prohibition party, and he and his wife manifest their religious faith by their active membership in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

On the 13th of March, 1889, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Malone and Miss Cora M. Grisso, daughter of George W. and Kate M. (Mellinger) Grisso, of Shelby County, Illinois. Mr. Grisso and his wife were born and reared near Dayton, Ohio, and he became a prosperous farmer in Shelby County, Illinois. He is now living retired in the home of Mr. and Mrs. Malone, of this review, and is eighty-four years of age at the time of this writing, in the spring of 1923, his wife having passed to eternal rest in 1921, at the age of eighty years. Mr. and Mrs. Malone have six children: Juanita, Rupert, Blanche, Earl, Ruby and Florence. Juanita is. the wife of Russell Hermantz, of Burbank. Rupert resides at Burbank. Blanche is the wife of Paul Hawkins, of Los Angeles, and they have one son, Richard. Earl is serving in the United States Navy, and the two younger children remain at the parental home.

FRANK D. BISHOP, M. D., physician and surgeon in Long Beach since 1900, is a well known specialist in chronic diseases, and his work has attracted favorable recognition all over this section of Southern California.

Doctor Bishop was born at Charlestown, Portage County, Ohio, Jan- uary 22, 1856, son of Otis D. and Mary Ann (Drown) Bishop. His father spent his active life as a farmer in Ohio, lived to be about seventy years of age, and during the Civil war had volunteered with several others from his locality and a short time before joining his company was accidentally injured while cutting wood and disabled for active duty. The mother of Doctor Bishop died in Long Beach, California, only a few days short of her ninetieth birthday. In the family were four daughters and two sons, one son dying in infancy. Three daughters are still living, and three of the family are residents of Long Beach.

Doctor Bishop was educated in the public schools of Portage County, Ohio, lived on a farm during his early years, and procured his medical education in the Cleveland University of Medicine and Surgery, a branch of the State University of Ohio. He received his M. D. degree in 1894. For several years he practiced at Windon, Ohio, and in other localities, and in 1900 came to Long Beach. From a general practice his time and abilities have been more and more taken up with the treat- ment of chronic diseases, including diseases of the chest, skin diseases, cancer, rectal and prostatic diseases. He has been a member of the staff of the Seaside Hospital at Long Beach since that institution was opened.

Doctor Bishop represents the Homeopathic school of medicine and is a member of all the societies of that school. He married Miss Marion Spaulding, a native of New York, but reared and educated at Cleveland. Mrs. Bishop graduated M. D. from the Cleveland University of Medicine and Surgery, and for several years she and Doctor Bishop were associated in practice in Ohio. On account of ill health she has not practiced in the West. She is also a member of the Homeopathic Societies.

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Doctor Bishop is a republican, has been a member of the Chamber of Commerce at Long Beach since its organization, and for over twenty- two years a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church.

The home of Doctor and Mrs. Bishop is at 1021 Magnolia Avenue. Three daughters were born to their marriage. The only one now living is Miss Ruth, who was born at Canyon City, Colorado, was educated in Long Beach, being a graduate of high school and of Pomona College, and is now a teacher in the public schools at Claremont. One daughter, Freida, died in Long Beach, at the age of ten. Francine, a graduate of the Long Beach High School and of Pomona College, served as a mission- ary in India for three years, and was married to Rev. O. D. Wood, of Lucknow, India. Rev. O. D. Wood is now a resident of Alhambra, Cali- fornia. They had a daughter, Barbara Jean.

RUPERT EUGENE SWEET. The name of the late Rupert Eugene Sweet is connected with the men's furnishing business of Van Nuys, where the establishment he founded is still carried on by his only son, but he is remembered for many other things as well, as his was a character which inspired respect and won warm friendships that lasted until terminated by death. His citizenship was of a high order and he worked faithfully and well to promote the interests of his home community. Such men leave behind them a lasting influence which is a stimulus to others toward the same wholehearted endeavor to make their lives be of service to humanity.

Rupert Eugene Sweet was born at Harborville, Nova Scotia, in 1862, and he was educated in its public schools. There he had his first mercan- tile experience, but, deciding that there were not enough opportunities offered to the ambitious young man in the little Canadian village, he left it for the United States and until 1900 continued his mercantile operations at Denver, Colorado. Insurance then attracted him, and for the subsequent fifteen years he found in that field congenial work, and he oper- ated during that period in the City of Los Angeles. Once more he was attracted by the possibilities of merchandising, and coming to Van Nuys in 1915 he established Sweet's Men's Furnishings at 305 Sher- man Way. His long and varied experience in handling merchandise, as well as his knowledge of men and their needs, enabled him to build up a very large patronage from careful dressers, and this establishment is recog- nized as one in which the latest and finest of men's furnishings can be had. In the midst of a useful career Mr. Sweet was taken away by death, February 5, 1921, but his efficient son has been able to carry on the store and maintain the same high standard, so that he retains the original customers, as well as adding others. Mr. Sweet belonged to the Knights of Pythias, but aside from that did not have any other fraternal ties. Through his membership with the Chamber of Commerce and the Merchants and Manufacturers Association he worked for the civic betterment of Van Nuys.

Mr. Sweet married Miss Clara B. Bellefontaine, of Cape Breton, Can- ada. They had four children, three daughters, Viola, Alice and Marie, and one son, Thomas H., who is mentioned below.

Thomas H. Sweet was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, January 3, 1887, but was only a child when he was brought to the United States, and he was educated in the public schools of Denver, Colorado. He was engaged in ranching in the San Fernando Valley when this country entered the World war, and he enlisted, December 10, 1917, in Company C, Twenty-seventh Infantry, as a private. He was in the foreign service for twenty-two months, and was honorably discharged November 6, 1920. Returning to Van Nuys, he went into a general trucking business, con- tinuing in it until his father's death, when he took charge of the store for his mother and is still its manager. He belongs to the Knights of Pythias, the Kiwanis Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Merchants and Manufacturers Association, and to Van Nuys Post Number 793, American Legion.

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GEORGE LESLIE HOODENPYL, city attorney of Long Beach, began the practice of law in his native state of Tennessee in 1897, and since 1908 has looked after a large general practice and has been interested in business in Southern California.

He was born December 25, 1872, at McMinnville, Tennessee, son of George W. and Elizabeth (Hopkins) Hoodenpyl. He was reared in his native city, graduating from high school there in 1891, and finished his literary education in the University of Tennessee, graduating with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1895. In 1896 he received his law degree from Washington and Lee University in Virginia, and was admitted to the Tennessee bar the same year. For a time he taught mathematics in the McMinnville High School, and from 1897 to 1904 was a member of the law firm Lind & Hoodenpyl at McMinnville. This firm did a general practice and handled many legal matters for the City of McMinn- ville. Mr. Hoodenpyl was admitted to the bar of Indian Territory in 1906, and for a time was superintendent of schools at Boswell, Indian Territory. He was also city attorney there in 1906. He was admitted to the bar of the new State of Oklahoma in 1907, and the following year came to Long Beach and was admitted to the California bar. He has also been admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and all other Federal courts. From 1908 to 1912 Mr. Hoodenpyl was a member of the law firm of Long, Hight & Hoodenpyl, of Long Beach, and from 1912 to 1914 was in the firm Long & Hoodenpyl. His law offices are in the Marine Bank Building. He was assistant city attor- ney of Long Beach during 1912 and 1913 and since July, 1915, has been city attorney. He was president of the Long Beach Bar Association during the year 1922. During his administration the bar association was influential in procuring the first appointment of a member of the bar of Long Beach to the position of Superior Court judge of the County of Los Angeles, and in having introduced in the Legislature a bill providing for the holding of one or more sessions of the Superior Court in the City of Long Beach, which bill was afterwards unanimously passed by the Senate and Assembly and signed by the governor.

Mr. Hoodenpyl assisted in the organization and has since been a director of the Marine Commercial & Savings Bank at Long Beach, now the Marine Trust & Savings Bank, and is also a director and vice presi- dent of the Home Ice & Cold Store Company.

Mr. Hoodenpyl is a bachelor and is very popular in fraternal circles, being past chancellor commander of the Knights of Pythias of McMinn- ville, Tennessee, royal patron of the Court of Amaranth of Long Beach, a member of the Masons and Eastern Star, Elks, and Modern Brother- hood of America. He is independent in politics and is a member and trustee of the First Christian Church of Long Beach.

Mr. Hoodenpyl has been intensely interested in the development of the lower Colorado River. As a representative of the City of Long Beach he appeared before the Colorado River Compact Commission at its meetings in Phoenix, Arizona, Los Angeles, California and Santa Fe, New Mexico. At the Phoenix hearing he was requested by the Hon. FHerbert Hoover, secretary of the department of commerce of United States and chairman of the Colorado River Compact Commission, to present a form of compact to the commission. He did this at its meet- ing in Santa Fe. He also appeared before the Hon. A. B. Fall, secretary of the Department of the Interior at the hearing held by him in San Diego upon matters touching the development of the lower Colorado River.

During the summer of 1922 he went to Washington, D. C., with representatives of various municipalities, farm bureaus and irrigation districts in Southern California and joined in the presentation to the arid lands committee of Congress the necessity for and the general ben- efits which would result from the construction by the Federal Govern- ment of a large impounding dam in Boulder Canyon of the Colorado

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River for the protection of Imperial Valley and Southwestern Arizona from the flood menaces of this river, and for irrigation and for the devel- opment of hydro-electric power.

On the 10th of May, 1923, he was a delegate at a meeting of represen- tatives of municipalities, counties, farm bureaus and irrigation districts of Arizona, California and Nevada held in Fullerton, California, and which resulted in the formation of the Boulder Dam Association. This association was organized for the purpose of promoting in every legiti- mate way the construction of the Boulder Canyon Dam, the all American canal to serve Imperial Valley without running the water through the Republic of Mexico and other lower Colorado basin improvements recom- mended by the director of reclamation service of the United States and the secretary of the Department of the Interior. Mr. Hoodenpyl was elected vice-president and appointed a member of the executive committee of this association.

JOHN HAROLD MELDRIM. That spirit of individual enterprise that overcomes obstacles and through persistent, courageous personal effort brings honorable success as its reward, is so truly and bravely American, that it commands respect and arouses interest whenever it is brought to public attention in the United States. It was this spirit that led John Harold Meldrim, step by step, through industrious boyhood and practically unassisted manhood to his present prominent place in the business world and honorable position among the representative men of Long Beach. Mr. Meldrim is numbered with the capitalists of Los Angeles County and is president of the City Transfer and Storage Company of Long Beach, and officially and otherwise, is connected with many other large corporations.

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History of Los Angeles county, Volume II, Part 67

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