USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume II > Part 70
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89
Mrs. Mathews' maiden name was Tyree Horne. She was born and reared in Missouri, was educated in the Springfield State Normal and the Warrensburg Normal Schools, and taught in Missouri and holds a life state teacher's diploma in the United States. She came to California in 1907, and for nine years was connected with the schools of Ventura.
430
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
From there she came to Los Angeles, where she married Mr. Joseph M. Mathews. Her home is an inspiration. It is built on one of Hollywood's lovely hills, where the road opens a vista of beautiful mountains. Mrs. Mathews has selected the rarest of shrubberies and trees for garden, and here as well as in her social work she has expressed her cultured character and her constructive imagination.
PLAZA COMMUNITY CENTER. One of the outstanding social-service agencies of Southern California, if not the entire Pacific Southwest, is the Plaza Community Center of Los Angeles. which ministers in a four-fold way to thousands of Mexicans and other Spanish-speaking people who pass annually through its doors.
Ever since its organization in 1916, as the outgrowth and development of evangelistic work established in the heart of this western metropolis fully a decade before, this institution has been carrying on a most successful program of constructive Christian Americanization which has made it a contributing factor in the betterment of conditions among these folk from over the border.
A general information bureau has helped in myriad ways to make these people feel at home in a strange land and to introduce them to the highest and best that our country affords all who enter its gates. An employment bureau has proved to be of great benefit and value; for through this one department alone thousands have found congenial employment and thus have been enabled to help themselves without seeking charity.
Scores of sick folk have received treatment in the medical and dental clinics which are conducted daily, excepting Sunday, and classes in sanita- tion and hygiene have aided materially in the prevention of disease, as classes in home-nursing have helped to alleviate pain and physical suffering.
Included among the other activities of this religious, educational and benevolent organization are the following lines of endeavor which touch practically every phase of life from the cradle to the grave: Conducting mothers' classes ; maintaining a kindergarten and day nursery; teaching homemaking, housekeeping, and cooking; conducting classes in child welfare, nursing, and dietetics; visiting in homes, jails and hospitals ; improving housing conditions; feeding the hungry; clothing the naked ; finding homes for orphans and delinquents ; helping to adjust domestic affairs ; reuniting homes; rendering legal aid; opening the door of hope for the ex-prisoner; interpreting the laws of the United States to those who do not understand them; teaching patriotism, English, reading, and writing; encouraging citizenship; affording practical training for college students and others who have gone and will go out to open doors of oppor- tunity, here in the United States and in Latin America.
Regular religious work, including educational and social features, is being carried on as a part of the program, under the leadership of the resi- dent language pastor, who, with the other members of a trained and highly efficient staff, is doing much to promote a better understanding between the races and to strengthen the ties of friendship and international amity now existing between the sister republics.
In order that proper provision may be made for its enlarged program, the greater Plaza Community Center will soon rise on a strategic site front- ing the Los Angeles Plaza, in the heart of the Latin quarter. A beautiful and commanding edifice is now in course of construction, the structure combining two fine architectural features : a four-story welfare and admin- istration unit adjoining an imposing church which will contain seating accommodations for religious services and large social gatherings.
When completed, this magnificent and serviceable plant will stand as a lasting memorial to the men and women whose vision, faith and prayers conceived the institution and helped to bring to pass the building which will house its many activities.
Chief among those who helped to make real that which once was but a dream are the following friends of Pan-America: The Rev. Vernon M.
John Meter
431
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
McCombs, D. D., Superintendent of the Latin American Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Miss Katherine B. Higgins and her mother, who were among the pioneers in this humanitarian enterprise; the Rev. W. T. Gilliland, Superintendent of the Plaza Community Center ; the Rev. E. M. Sein, D.D., pastor of the Los Angeles Plaza Mexican Methodist Epis- copal Church ; Bishop Adna Wright Leonard and Bishop Charles Edward Locke and his faithful wife, who maintained unfailing interest in the project to which they were devoted, and other prominent leaders connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church, each of whom made a contribution that will endure, and the influence of which will bless mankind down the coming years.
JOHN METEER, realtor, Long Beach, California, was born at Parsons, Kansas, December 11, 1872, and is a son of Rev. James Harrison Meteer and Alma (Ball) Meteer, the former of whom was born in Kentucky and the latter of whom was born in Ohio, in 1843. James Harrison Meteer was a young man when his conscientious convictions led him to renounce ownership of slaves, the family having held a number of them in connection with the activities of the home plantation in Kentucky. He openly advocated the abolition of slavery in the climacteric period leading up to the Civil war, was working his way through college and was a member of the sophomore class at Wabash College, Crawfordsville, Indiana, at the time when the war between the North and the South was precipitated. He promptly tendered his service in defense of the Union and enlisted as a private in the Seventieth Indiana Volunteer Infantry, in which he was made captain of his company and with which he served most gallantly until the close of the war, this regiment having been that of Gen. Benjamin Harrison, who later became president of the United States. After the war Mr. Meteer continued his studies in Wabash College until his grad- uation, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and later he was graduated in the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was ordained a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, and thereafter he continued his services in the ministry until virtually the close of his long, earnest and useful life, he having died at Long Beach, California, in 1915, at the venerable age of eighty-two years, and his widow being still a resident of this city (1923). Mrs. Meteer, graduate of Oxford College in Ohio, was a successful school teacher in Indiana and was teaching at Crawfords- ville, that state, at the time of her marriage.
The greater part of the preliminary educational discipline of John Meteer was obtained in the public schools at Sullivan, Indiana, and there- after he entered his father's alma mater, Wabash College, in which he was graduated as a member of the class of 1893 and with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Thereafter he was for one year a student in the law department of the University of Michigan, at Ann Arbor. In 1894 Mr. Meteer became owner and editor of a weekly newspaper at Richfield, Utah, and in the following year he was admitted to the Utah bar. He continued the publication of this paper and likewise was engaged in the practice of law until 1898, when he subordinated personal interests to enter service in the Spanish-American war. He was made first sergeant of the First Utah Troop of the United States Cavalry, but his command was not called into active service on the stage of conflict. As a member of the Utah National Guard he served on the military staff of the governor of that state from 1898 to 1904, with the rank of colonel. His patriotism found positive expression also when the nation became involved in the great World war, in connection with which he served overseas as secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association. While he was in service in the Spanish-American war his newspaper plant and law library were destroyed by fire, and when he returned to his home in Utah he became identified with mining enterprises. He has never resumed the practice of law. He was engaged in gold mining in Utah, Alaska and Nevada, and when in the last mentioned state came the collapse of Goldfield, in 1908, he went to the City of Mexico, where he served two years as managing editor of an
Vol. 11-21
432
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
afternoon paper there published in the English language. He was driven out of Mexico by revolutionary troubles, and in December, 1910, he came to California.
From January, 1911, until 1918, when he went overseas in World war service, Mr. Meteer was city editor of the Long Beach Press, and this position was held open for him during the period of his absence, he having resumed the post upon his return, in September, 1919. In March, 1920, he joined Charles H. Windham in promoting the Long Beach Con- solidated Oil Company, of which he is still a director, the secretary and a member of its executive committee. On the 11th of September, 1922, he assumed office as director of the publicity bureau of the Long Beach Cham- ber of Commerce, besides which he has given two years of characteristically effective administration as president of the Long Beach Community Service, and is an executive officer of the Long Beach Realty Board. He was secre- tary of the Long Beach council of defense in 1917, and was a commissioner of the Long Beach municipal harbor from 1919 to 1921. On May 15, 1923, he entered the realty profession, specializing in subdivisions.
Mr. Meteer is a stalwart advocate of the principles of the republican party, and while in Utah he served as its county and district chairman, besides having had the management of the governor's campaign. He is a member of the Long Beach Rotary Club, is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Spanish-American War Veterans and the Sons of Veterans, and he and his wife hold membership in the First Presbyterian Church in their home city.
At Kimberly, Utah, on the 18th of June, 1902, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Meteer to Miss Maude Arley Mount, daughter of Colonel Samuel Fletcher Mount, who went forth from Kentucky as a soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war and who later served as United States mar- shal in Utah, where he did effective work in apprehending polygamists after the passage of the national law forbidding polygamy. He became a pros- perous cattle rancher and mining man in Utah. Mrs. Meteer was reared in Utah, where she attended the public schools of Glenwood and Richfield, besides pursuing a course of advanced study in the Collegiate Institute at Salt Lake City. Mr. and Mrs. Meteer have one daughter, Katherine Jane, who was born September 8, 1904, and who as a member of the class of 1923 graduated from the Polytechnic High School of Long Beach.
JAMES W. NEIGHBOURS. The pioneer days of California have long retreated into the past, but there remain some of the sturdy characters developed by these days of hardship and strenuous action, when only real men survived, the counterfeit going to the wall. Work, hard and unre- mitting, was undertaken as a matter of course; comforts, even necessi- ties, were few, and there were no luxuries. However, in spite of the dangers and privations those early settlers of what is now a modern paradise looking back can see that there then prevailed a kindly spirit of universal helpfulness not always to be found in these highly civilized times. One of these former frontiersmen of the San Fernando Valley is James W. Neighbours, whose finely cultivated ranch lies but north of Talbert's Corners.
James W. Neighbours was born at Lockhart, Texas, January 26, 1853, a son of Burrel and Susan Neighbours, natives of South Carolina and Alabama, respectively. In 1850 they moved to Texas, where the father became a Texas Ranger. It was his intention to go into the cattle rais- ing business, but the Indians were hostile, murdering whole families, that he abandoned those hopes for a time. Subsequently he was able to acquire some stock, but not being satisfied there, in 1868 he started for California, accompanied by his wife and eleven children. He took with him 2,600 head of cattle, thinking it a good investment to take his cattle with him into his new home. Attacked by the Indians he lost 1,800 head of his cattle, but in return managed to kill the Indian chief and two of his braves, and drove 400 head of cattle into Mexico, and sold this
433
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
stock to pay his drivers. The remainder of the journey was accomplished with oxen. In the meanwhile, at Cottonwood, a new disaster fell upon the little party, they were all stricken with the dread scourge of those times, smallpox, and the good father died of it. James W. Neighbours was the'eldest of the surviving five sons and six daughters, with their widowed mother, and, young as he was, had to find some way of supporting them. The father had been a member of the Masonic fraternity, and the hap- less little family found "Good Brothers" indeed among the officers at Fort Yuma, San Diego, whose timely and generous contributions of much- needed good supplies tided them over the crucial period. Finally, on the last day of September, 1869, they arrived at Gallitin, now Downey, practically penniless.
With the energy and thoroughness which has always characterized him, James W. Neighbours secured work, but it was rough and the pay was small, oftentimes as low as $1.25 per day, never more than $1.75, and on this meagre amount the family had to subsist. In 1874, by dint of many sacrifices and rigid economy, he was able to purchase two acres of land, which he deeded to his mother so as to provide her with a home. Later she deeded this property back to him. In 1881 Mr. Neighbours moved to Monterey County, took up 150 acres of land, and began improv- ing it, and here he continued to reside for ten years. Proving up his land, he subsequently sold it and returned to his original purchase at Dow- ney, and continued to tenderly care for his mother as long as she lived. During his youth Mr. Neighbours had considerable experience as a cow- boy, but what he managed to accumulate in the way of stock during the twelve years he worked in this capacity was swept away by the Indi- ans in two hours. He was a noted rider, and not only could stay on any horse foaled, but on almost anything on four legs, including buffaloes, steers and wild horses of the plains. In fact few feats of the present rodeos are new to him. While he enjoys present-day conditions, Mr. Neigh- bours cannot help but regret some of the stirring occurrences of those days when he would cover distances on horseback, unfettered by fences or other confines or regulations.
On Máy 4, 1881, Mr. Neighbours married Miss Fannie Hutchinson, born at San Saba, Texas, May 7, 1861, a daughter of William P. and Almyra (Hudson) Hutchinson, native of Tennessee and Kentucky, respectively, who had nine children. In 1866 the Hutchinsons crossed the plains with ox teams by way of the southern route, and landed in San Bernardino a year later. In 1868 they moved to Gallitin, and bought forty-three acres of land for ten dollars per acre, on which Mr. Hutchin- son later died, but his wife passed away in Glendale.
Mr. and Mrs. Neighbours became the parents of the following children : Marion, who was born June 13, 1882; Alfred T., who was born Decem- ber 12, 1883, is married and has a son and daughter; Sammy, who was born August 13, 1885, resides at Eagle Rock, where he is engaged in the practice of architecture, married Vera McKee; Jesse, J., who was born October 28, 1887, is a driller for the Standard Oil Company at Whittier, married Miss Anita Nelson; Oliver, who was born January 20, 1890, is a hardware salesman, married Esther Luthke, and they have one son . and three daughters; and one who died in infancy.
The days of the open range are gone. No more does the cowboy ride the range, displaying his magnificent horsemanship, and herding the great masses of cattle. The automobile has superseded the horse; the tractor is doing in one day what took many workers several days to perform; the Indian is on his reservation, made rich by recent discov- eries of valuable oil. The supremacy of the air is challenged by airmen, where once birds soared unmolested. The working man has today luxu- ries only possessed by the most wealthy in days gone by, and yet, as above indicated, it is possible that something is lacking in these days of rush and worry. No one today has time for those interchanges of kindly services of which Mr. Neighbours in early life saw so much, both as donor
434
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
and recipient. Mr. Neighbours oftentimes returns in fancy to the open range, where on his swift-moving horse he saw the great stretches of unfenced land spread out before him, and felt the wind blow over him undefiled by industrial smoke or railroad cinders. Even the Indian in all of his savagry seems, in retrospect, a more dignified object than he is today. Still no one is readier than Mr. Neighbours to recognize the value of progress and the advantages of modern conveniences, but he does some- times wish it were possible to have both the past pleasures with the pres- ent comforts, without the disadvantages of either period.
OLIVER S. PEACOCK is one of the leading representatives of the Real Estate Insurance and Loan business in the vital district of East Long Beach, where he has his offices in a building at the corner of Anaheim and Obispo streets. He is a young realtor of marked energy, discernment and progressiveness and is a valued member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and the Long Beach Board of Realtors.
Mr. Peacock was born at Sedgwick, Kansas, on the 16th of September, 1890, and is a son of William R. and Lida D. (Smith) Peacock, the former a native of Richmond, Indiana, and the latter of Selma, Ohio, both having been birthright members of the Society of Friends and having ever been zealous in the work of this noble religious organization. William R. Peacock was a successful school teacher in earlier years and became a prosperous farmer in Kansas, in which state both he and his wife con- tinued to reside until their death. Miss R. Esther Smith, a sister of Mrs. Peacock, is well known and greatly loved in Long Beach, California, where she formerly was pastor of a church here maintained by the Society of Friends. She recently visited Long Beach, but for the past sixteen years has been in service as missionary of the Society of Friends in Gautamala, Central America.
It is interesting to record that the surname of the family of which the subject of this review is a representative is derived from an ancestor who had served as a member of what was known as the Peacock Regiment, a command that gave gallant service in one of the early English wars. Three members of this regiment, of no kinship, came to America in the colonial period, and each here assumed the surname of Peacock, in honor of his regiment. Two of the number settled in the South, each becoming the father of twelve children, and the one who settled in the North was the father of eleven children, he having been the direct ancestor of him whose name initiates this sketch.
After having profited by the advantages of the public schools of Sedg- wick, Kansas, Oliver S. Peacock became a student in Fairmount College, that state, where he made a good scholastic record and where also he did effective service as left halfback on the college football team in the season of 1911. In 1913 he married, and thereafter he and his wife traveled about and had visited thirteen different states of the Union prior to establishing their home in California, his versatility having been such that he found no special difficulty in obtaining profitable occupation wherever he chanced to locate. In November, 1918, on the day before Thanksgiving, Mr. and Mrs. Peacock arrived at Long Beach, and in this city of Los Angeles County they have since maintained their residence. He was the second real-estate man to engage in business with local office at East Long Beach, and has the distinction of being now the pioneer realtor in this progressive and rapidly growing community, to the advancement of which he has contributed in large measure. He is president of the East Long Beach Industrial and Improvement Association, his second term in this office expiring in June, 1923. He controls a large and prosperous business in the handling of city realty, and has in connection with his office a well ordered insurance and loan department. When he settled at East Long Beach a fifty-foot lot on East Anaheim Street could be purchased for fifty dollars a front foot, and in the closing period of 1922 property on this street was sold at the rate of $294 a front foot. Mr. Peacock is a life member of the Long Beach Lodge, No. 888, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and with Long Beach
HartBook Photo
Chain S. Peacock
435
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
Lodge, No. 327, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. Though he is a birthright member of the Society of Friends, both he and his wife now hold membership in the First Methodist Episcopal Church at Long Beach, their attractive home being at 1701 Obispo Avenue, East Long Beach.
At Trinidad, Colorado, on June 7, 1913, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Peacock to Miss Marjorie Cline, who was born in Nebraska, at Hast- ings, and who was a child at the time of the family removal to Denver, Colorado, where her parents passed the remainder of their lives, her father, William M. Cline, having been the first superintendent at North Denver Post Office and having been superintendent of mail delivery at the Denver postoffice at the time of his death. Mrs. Peacock is a graduate of the University of Denver, from which she received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and she is a sister of Professor Edward C. Cline, who is at the head of the department of mathematics in the high school at San Bernardino, California. Margaret, the only child of Mr. and Mrs. Peacock, was born at Newton, Kansas, remains at the parental home and is popular in the social circles of the community.
COL. WALTER J. HORNE, whose death occurred on the morning of April 5, 1923, at his home in Long Beach, was a California pioneer who had intrinsic power for large and worthy achievement and who used this power wisely and well. A man of thought and action, he did much for the advancing of the material progress of Long Beach, a man of most generous impulses and a fine sense of personal stewardship, he was instant and liberal in wise philanthropies and benevolences that marked him as a man of abiding human sympathy and tolerance. "He possessed keen mentality, intellectual appreciation and delightful courtesy. He belonged to the fast vanishing school of Knighthood and his passing is a substantial loss to Long Beach." This telegram from an editor of a nationally known newspaper expresses the esteem in which Colonel Horne was held in the community. He was one of the first settlers at Long Beach and made large contributions toward the development and upbuilding of this beauti- ful city, the site of which he first visited more than a half a century ago.
Colonel Horne was born near Buffalo, New York, on August 30, 1845; the son of James Horne and Elizabeth Horne. His father came to Cali- fornia during the famous gold rush of 1849 and later returned to New York for his family. Colonel Horne was only a lad of seventeen when he first landed in San Francisco in 1862 after an interesting trip by boat to the Isthmus of Panama, across which the family had to walk to embark for San Francisco. As a young man he became successfully identified with a pioneer newspaper enterprise, his ability enabling him to command a high salary. He later became advertising manager of the San Francisco Call. Like most other pioneers in those days, he made and lost a fortune in connection with gold mining. He became a resourceful figure in an early manufacturing and mercantile enterprise, and established stores in San Francisco, Sacramento, San Jose and other places in the northern part of the state. He was a good advertiser, owing largely to his newspaper experience, and he made his business enterprises signally prosperous. He operated a stage line over a course of 100 miles, across the Sierra Nevada Mountains and into Nevada. His parents were residents of California at the time of their death and their remains were laid to rest in the cemetery at San Francisco.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.