USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume II > Part 80
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and Riverside, California, during 1885-86. His executive work as a banker began as cashier of the Los Angeles County Bank, with which institution he was identified from 1887 to 1894 and during 1890-94 acted as secretary and manager of the Los Angeles Clearing House and was first secretary of the California Bankers' Association from 1891 to 1893 and chairman of its executive council from 1893-94. He was a member of the firm Stewart and Naftzger, investments, at Los Angeles from 1895-96.
Mr. Stewart was a successful manufacturer, and was also an inventor. He was patentee of can making machinery and processes for soldering by hot air and also devised a compartment can and various sheet metal devices. He acted as secretary and from 1897 until his death was president of the Pacific Creamery Company, manufacturers of the Lily Brand of condensed milk. From 1897 until his death he was president of the Los Angeles Art Leather Company.
Mr. Stewart died while on board the steamship Mongolia at Shanghai, China, January 12, 1913. Besides his leadership as president of the Los Angeles Harbor Commission he served as a member of the City Library Board, was on the city council from 1910 to 1912, was chairman of the Business Men's Sound Money Club in 1896, was a former president of the Sunset Club, a member of the Jonathan Club, was director and president of the Chamber of Commerce from 1898 to 1909, and was a thirty-second (legree Scottish Rite Mason, a Knights Templar, being Eminent Com- mander of Los Angeles Commandery and Shriner. For nine years he was high priest and prophet in Al Malaikah Temple of Los Angeles.
In 1882 Mr. Stewart married Miss Virginia N. Barnes, who was born, in California in 1858. Mrs. Stewart survives her husband. Her two daughters, Helen and Georgina, live with her in Los Angeles. The only son is Alexander Barnes Stewart, whose career follows this.
ALEXANDER BARNES STEWART is president of The Curtis Corporation of Long Beach. Among the many trade names associated with California products, that of Curtis is especially phenomenal for the finest of food delicacies and housewives and connoisseurs all over the country have learned to appreciate both the Curtis brand and quality.
The president of the corporation has been identified with the manu- facture of food products on the Pacific Coast for a number of years, and as a young man learned something of the business under his father, the late George Hadley Stewart, a prominent manufacturer and banker of Los Angeles, whose career is sketched preceding this.
Alexander Barnes Stewart is a native son. He was born in San Fran- cisco, December 2, 1884, only son of George II. and Virginia N. (Barnes) Stewart. He was reared in Los Angeles, where he attended public schools from 1890 to 1900, was a student in the Belmont Military School at Bel- mont, California, until 1903, and from 1903 to 1905 attended Leland Stanford, Jr., University after some experience in the Pacific Creamery Company, manufacturers of the Lily Brand of Milk, of which business his father was president, he became identified with the business of Varney . & Green as their purchasing agent during 1905-7. In 1908-09 he was superintendent of Coos Bay Condensing Company at North Bend, Oregon. Mr. Stewart has been identified with the Curtis Food Packing business since 1909. During the first four years he was secretary and treasurer of the Curtis Olive Company, and since 1913 has been president of The Curtis Corporation and owns the controlling interest in this extensive busi- ness, which includes the extensive packing of ripe olives, olive oil, pimentos, tuna fish, sardines, artichokes and many, trade mark specialties such as Sandwichola, Garnishola, and Curtisola. He is a former president of the Manufacturers Association at Long Beach, is a member of the American Specialty Manufacturers Association, the California Manufacturers Asso- ciation and he organized the Long Beach Harbor Industrial Association.
Mr. Stewart is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and is eligible for membership in the Sons of the American Revolution
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and of the Society of the Cincinnati. His chief hobby since boyhood has been the collection of United States postage stamps, and he is a life member of the American Philatelic Society. He is a republican, is affiliated with Los Angeles Lodge No. 99, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is a member of the Virginia Country Club and the Sunset Canyon Country Club.
April 12, 1906, at Santa Ana, Mr. Stewart married Marguerite Alder, daughter of Samuel Alder of Redlands. Mrs. Stewart graduated Bachelor of Arts from Leland Stanford, Jr., University in 1905. Two children were born to their marriage, the only son being deceased. The daughter, Alexandra Stewart, a native of Los Angeles, is now thirteen years of age.
HENRY CLARENCE ROBERTS had his active career as a business man in the middle west, and on retiring moved to Los Angeles, where he found new interests in the real estate business and where he enjoyed a rapidly growing acquaintance and friendship.
He was born in Henry County, Illinois, June 22, 1857, son of Nathan K. and Margaret Roberts. His father was a Union soldier in the Civil war, and became a large land owner in the rich corn belt of Illinois. Henry C. Roberts was educated in the public schools of New Windsor, Illinois, and as a youth he became an employee of the Avery Manufacturing Company of Peoria, one of the largest concerns in the country manufacturing agri- cultural implements. He was with this company for a period of thirty- six years, and held the position of vice president. From an article published in the History of Peoria County, Illinois, the following extract is well worthy of reproduction : "It is said, however, that the individual may best be judged by the way in which he treats those below him in the social scale. If judgment is passed upon Mr. Roberts in this connection the ver- dict will be one which establishes him in even a higher position in the public regard. It is well known that the Avery Company is not only just but generous in the treatment of its employes which is evidenced by the fact that labor troubles are an unknown thing in their factories. The humblest employe may approach Mr. Rogers with the certainty of securing a courteous hearing and the greater part of his employes he can call by name. He is a man of strong and forceful individuality who has left and is leaving the impress of his personality upon the commercial and industrial development of this city." After retiring from this company he came to California in 1915 and located in Los Angeles. Largely with a view to having something to do he entered the real estate business and was associated with S. M. Cooper. He continued in this line until his last illness, beginning about five weeks before his death which occurred June 22, 1923, and his sixty-sixth birthday. His thirty-first wedding anniversary would have occurred the day after his death.
Mr. Roberts was one of the prominent citizens and business men of Peoria. He was president of the Creve Coeur Club, a business men's or- ganization, and he built up the automobile club activity and became its president. On leaving Peoria he was made an honorary member of this organization. He was a member of the Peoria Country Club, the Illinois Valley Club, the Yacht Club and the Chicago Automobile Club, and was a member of the Masonic order and of the Modern Woodmen of America. He was never in politics, though keenly interested in public affairs. He brought his church letter to Los Angeles and became a member of the First Congregational Church here. He was also a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
On June 23, 1892, Mr. Roberts married at Peoria Miss Ella L. Robin- son, daughter of Mrs. Sarah Jane Robinson. Mr. Roberts is survived by Mrs. Roberts and two children, Helen C. and Judson Edwin Roberts. The daughter was educated in the Girls Collegiate School at Los Angeles, Miss Fuller's school at Ossining on the Hudson, also the Bradley Polytech- nic Institute of Peoria, Illinois, and is a graduate of the Girls University School of Chicago. She is well educated in music and she studied voice
Slim
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with Perry Averill at Carnegie Hall in New York. The son, Judson, is a graduate of the Los Angeles High School and for the past three years has been connected with the Security Trust and Savings Bank of which he is a teller.
JAMES C. REDMAN. The firm Smith and Redman, realtors, was estab- lished at Glendale July 1, 1923, and is a copartnership between G. H. Smith and J. C. Redman. Their offices are at 214 N. Brand Boulevard. They handle a general real estate business, including insurance, loans, rentals and exchanges and specialize in acreage property for subdivision.
James C. Redman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 18, 1885. He was reared and educated there, attended the public schools and as a youth entered the service of one of the iron and steel companies of Pittsburgh. In 1917 he came to California and was located at San Fran- cisco with an iron and steel exporting firm.
Mr. Redman came to Southern California in 1921 and at Hollywood became manager of the real estate office of W. A. Heitman Company, at Eagle Rock. He left there to engage in his present business at Glendale.
Mr. Redman is a York Rite Knight Templar Mason and Shriner. October 3, 1907, he married Miss Anna Belle Graham of Pittsburgh, and they have two children, Dorothy V. and Janet C. Mrs. Redman was born at Pittsburgh and was educated at Blairsville, Pennsylvania, and Wash- ington Seminary of that state. She is a member of the Glendale Tuesday Afternoon Club.
G. HOBART SMITH is a member of the firm Smith and Redman, realtors at 214 N. Brand Boulevard in Glendale.
He was born at Alderson, West Virginia, August 31, 1896, and was reared there, and obtained his education in the public schools. As a young man he learned the profession of cotton grading, and he followed that work in the various cotton markets for five years.
During the World war on March 12, 1918, he enlisted for the aviation service and became a first class sergeant in Squadron B. of the Aviation Corps. After the war he continued in the cotton business for a time and on June 15, 1921, located at Glendale. For a time he conducted a cafe, and after selling out sold real estate at Long Beach and in 1923 formed his present co-partnership at Glendale.
Mr. Smith is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and is a member of the American Legion. He married July 19, 1920, Miss Marcil G. Edwards of Denver, Colorado. She was born in Lima, Ohio, but was reared and educated in Denver. Mrs. Smith is a member of the Glendale Tuesday Afternoon Club.
EDMUND BEARDSLEY BLINN. This name belongs permanently in the records of Los Angeles County because of the residence of Mr. Blinn here for nearly twenty years, and the business activities and other interests that proceeded from him.
Mr. Blinn, who died at his home in Pasadena, February 2, 1922, at the age of sixty-one, was a director of the First National Bank of Pasadena, one of the owners of the Central Building, a fine office building located on North Raymond Avenue near East Colorado Street, and was owner of the factory which made the Marbelite cement lamp posts used in Los Angeles.
Mr. Blinn had come to Pasadena nineteen years before his death. Before coming West he was in the lumber business at Chicago. He was born at Keyesville, New York, July 30, 1861, and was educated in the public schools of his native state. At the age of fourteen he went to work in a planing mill, and subsequently moving to Chicago, took up the lumber business as his chief vocation. He was a salesman for the S. P. Baker Company, and on the failure of that concern went into business for himself in Chicago. He maintained interests in the lumber industry up to the time
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of his death. Mr. Blinn was interested in twenty thousand acres of wheat land near Lewistown, Montana, and also owned citrus groves in Riverside.
October 7, 1885, at DeSoto, Iowa, Mr. Blinn married Kate May Hoch. She was born at Winterset, Iowa, and lives at Pasadena. Her father was Isaac Hoch, of DeSoto. Mr. Blinn is survived by two daughters, Mrs. George W. Conn of Pasadena, and Mrs. M. H. Lewis of Los Angeles, also by two sons, Warren E. and Robert Murray Blinn.
ALBERT VACK, D. C. and Ph. C., formerly well known in the hotel business at Los Angeles, but since 1921 has had a large practice as a doctor of Chiropractic at Glendale.
He was born in Germany, June 29, 1880, was well educated, attended a German gymnasium or high school. He learned the profession of chef, and had seen a great deal of the world and had some interesting experi- ences as chef on ocean steamers. For three years he traveled on all seas in the steamship service. For one year he was an assistant in the German Navy Hospital and during 1901-03 was steward on the Imperial Yacht Hohenzollern, owned by the German emperor.
Doctor Vack came to the United States in January, 1904. In New York City he was chef for the Hotel Plaza one year and then again took up his travels until he had covered the greater part of the United States. He finally located at Los Angeles, and was a chef at the Alexandria Hotel until 1915. Resigning he removed to Kansas City, Missouri, and opened one of the prominent hotels of that city, remaining there three years. During the World war period he directed the cafe and the amusement center at Camp Funston, one of the large army camps in Kansas.
On returning to Los Angeles he entered the Eclectic College of Chiro- practic, and in 1920 graduated with the degrees of Doctor of Chiropractic and Christian Psychology. For a time he remained in Los Angeles engaged in practice, but in March, 1921, removed to Glendale, and has his offices at 105 South Maryland at the corner of Broadway.
Doctor Vack is a member of the new school of Christian Psychology. June 5, 1920, he married Miss Margaret Muline of Los Angeles. She was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, was educated there and then came to the United States.
HARLEY G. PRESTON, a Glendale realtor, is a man of versatile abil- ities and experiences. He was formerly a minister of the Methodist Church, holding pastorates in the East and for a time in California. During the World war he went to France with the aviation corps, later was a Y. M. C. A. worker, and soon after coming home located in Los Angeles County.
Mr. Preston was born at Dennison, Iowa, May 24, 1885, son of Elmer E. and Olive May ( McGilvra) Preston. His father was born in Indiana and his mother in Illinois. Mr. Preston's father spent his active life as a minister of the Congregational Church.
Harley G. Preston spent most of his early youth in Kansas, where he attended public schools. Subsequently he entered Columbia University of New York City, and paid his expenses through the university by working for the Western Union Telegraph Company. He had learned telegraphy in Kansas. After graduating he entered the Methodist min- istry, and for two years was pastor of a church in Philadelphia and then had a church at Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania.
Early in the war he enlisted and served as a private with the Aerial Squadron No. 676 in Texas. He was promoted to First Class Sergeant and going overseas was with the Aviation Corps nine months. After he was discharged from that service, he became a Y. M. C. A. worker ,and was also regimental secretary of the 54th Infantry regiment in the 6th Division. The colonel of the regiment recommended him to the post of Chaplain.
Mr. Preston in 1919 came to California, and for six months was secre-
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tary of the Y. M. C. A. at San Pedro. He then took the pastorate of a Methodist Church at Moor Park and later at Pacific Avenue Methodist Church, Glendale. He resigned his pastorate to engage in the real estate business with Mr. Finlay as a member of the firm Finlay and Preston at 131 South Brand Boulevard. Mr. Preston is a member of the Real Estate Board, the State and National Realty Association. He is an active worker in the Chamber of Commerce, is Chaplain of the Local Post of the Ameri- can Legion, and a member. of the Knights of Pythias Lodge and the First Methodist Episcopal Church.
January 12, 1916, he married Miss Alma T. Miller of East Orange, New Jersey. They have one daughter, Virginia Ruby. Mrs. Preston was born at Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, was reared and educated there, and is a member of the Woman's Auxilary of the American Legion and the Pythian Sisters.
WILLIAM DELOS STEPHENS, president of the Montebello Planning Commission and a member of the Board of Trustees of the City of Monte- bello, County of Los Angeles, was born December 4, 1862, at Appleton, Outagamie County, Wisconsin.
His father was John Stephens, born in the town of Pompey, Onondaga County, New York State, in November, 1809. His paternal grandfather, also named John Stephens, born in Litchfield County, Connecticut, in the year 1764. Ran away from home in 1778 and enlisted in the New York State Militia in Westchester County, New York State, in the Fourth Regi- ment-Colonel Thaddeus Crane commanding. He served through the bal- ance of the Revolutionary war as a drummer. In later years he attained local note as a musician and singer, composing both music and words of his songs. In 1793 he married Miss Anna Woodworth of Litchfield, Con- necticut. They moved some years later to the town of Pompey, New York State. Here John Stephens, the first, again enlisted in the War of 1812. He never returned nor was ever heard of and was probably among the unidentified dead.
His widow, Anna Woodworth Stephens, was unable to support the children, seven in number, and young John Stephens, in the year 1815, was bound out to Amos Hall, a wealthy but dissipated farmer who, when intoxicated, treated the boy with great brutality. Therefore, at the age of thirteen years being fearful for his life he ran away from his master and escaped through the forests of New York State into another country. He proved so resourceful and self-reliant that he made his own living from that time on. He was very studiously inclined and became a great reader, prosecuting his studies at night by the aid of pine torches at the open fireplace. With only six months attendance at any school, the age of seventeen years found him teaching a district school himself; which occupation he continued for several years. Developing an unusual aptitude for mathematics he took up the study and practice, while teaching school, . of surveying and engineering. In 1846 he was commissioned to take charge of a government party sent to Wisconsin to survey government lands. After nearly two years spent in the Wisconsin forests he settled in Outagamie County on the banks of the Fox River, where the beautiful city of Appleton now stands and where, a few years later, the college known as Lawrence University was established, which rapidly developed into an institution of national repute. At the time he set his stakes in this attractive spot there was only one other white settler with him. Here in 1856 he was united in marriage with Mary Adelia Sill, eighteen years old, then in her senior year in Lawrence University.
Mary Adelia Sill, mother of the subject of this sketch, was born in the town of Burlington, Otsego County, New York, on June 11, 1838, and was a lineal descendant of John Sill who immigrated from England in 1637 settling at Cambridge, Massachusetts. She received her early educa- tion at an academy in Utica, New York, where she continued until her parents migrated to Wisconsin, about 1853, and took up a farm near what
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subsequently became the city of Neenah, four miles south of Appleton. Mary Adelia Sill took high honors in Lawrence University, developing rare literary talent, which would have, without doubt, made her a national celebrity had not a delicate constitution and a predisposition to pulmonary trouble interfered.
John and Mary Sill Stephens resided in Outagamie County, Wisconsin, until 1875, and there were born to them three children-John Henry, William Delos and Otto Tank Stephens.
John Stephens served the people of Outagamie County in several capacities. He was County Surveyor for more than twenty years, Superin- tendent of Schools several years and City Engineer of Appleton from 1872 to 1875. He was the first President of the Outagamie County Pioneer Society and the only one until 1875, when he moved out of the State.
The health of Mrs. Stephens became so precarious that in 1874 Mr. Stephens sent her out to Southern California to see what the climate would do for her. Within a year the improvement in her health became so pro- nounced that he sold all his Wisconsin interests at a great sacrifice and with the children joined Mrs. Stephens in the town of San Bernardino in December, 1875.
Mr. and Mrs. Stephens both entered the educational field soon after establishing their home at San Bernardino, and both taught in the schools of Southern California for about fourteen years. John Stephens died at San Bernardino June 2, 1890, in his eighty-first year, holding at this time first grade life diplomas to teach in New York, Wisconsin and California. Mrs. Stephens died at Los Angeles in July, 1915, aged seventy-seven years.
William Delos Stephens in 1878, after completing the common school course, took up the study of law with the firm of Rolf, Curtis & Brown of San Bernardino. Stringent financial conditions rendered it impossible for him to continue his studies for more than a few months, and in February, 1879, at the age of sixteen years, he left home and went into the silver mines in the northeastern part of San Bernardino County "in the desert" where he obtained employment, first as a roustabout, and later being advanced as regular miner, and an amalgamater in the ore reduction plants. The lure of this life with its freedom from the conventions and restrictions of towns and cities and its speculative possibilities made a peculiarly strong appeal to the young man's nature with the result that he resolved to follow the mining life until he either made a fortune or something else offered him a more promising future. After the usual trials, hardships and vicissitudes that accompany such a career, which lasted over a period of sixteen years, Mr. Stephens, in February, 1896, discovered and located the Iron Chief gold mine situated in the Eagle Mountain range in River- side County, California, about fifty miles north of Salton Sea, at that time a dry, barren desert sink exploited only for its great deposits of salt.
The Iron Chief Mine for a few years was locally famous as a paying gold mine and from which, up to 1900, Mr. Stephens and his associates took approximately $500,000. Mr. Stephens also discovered in the same mountain range an enormous belt of high-grade hematite iron ore with a visible exposure of more than 100,000,000 tons. This great property Mr. Stephens with his brother, Otto T., John E. McGregor, now a wealthy resident of Riverside, and T. J. Dofflemyer of Los Angeles, located in 1899, to the extent of some six miles along the course of the lode. They per- formed the patent work on this property, sustained two or three expensive lawsuits, involving more than five years' time, and finally obtained govern- ment patents to the same in 1905. In July, 1909, they effected a sale of the entire property to E. H. Harriman, president of the Southern Pacific Railroad System. The total consideration paid by Mr. Harriman for all the interests concerned was in excess of $1,500,000. William Delos Stephens moved to Los Angeles in December, 1899-it being more suitable headquarters for the mining profession.
His mining and prospecting experiences, covering a period of more than thirty years, took him pretty well over the western part of the con-
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tinent and to the southern part of Mexico where, with his family, he spent about four years engaged in mining and land promotion, returning to Los Angeles in 1905.
Coincident with the sale of the iron mines he determined it was the part of wisdom to abandon the hazardous game of mining for the safer and surer one of developing agricultural lands. In 1910 Mr. Stephens, in conjunction with Edwin G. Hart, promoted and organized the Pan American Hardware Company, an organization composed of some of the foremost citizens of Los Angeles and Pasadena who purchased about 40,000 acres of hardwood timberland, mostly mahogany, with wonderful agricultural possibilities and well situated in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, on the line of the Pan American Railroad. He was elected president of this company and served for several years. The beginning of the great Madero revolution in October, 1910, rendered it impossible to carry out projected developments. The company is still awaiting a more stable condition of the government there before resuming operations.
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