USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume III > Part 13
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LAWSON D. HOLLINGSWORTH. Pioneers of Pasadena, settlers in the San Gabriel Valley when the district was a sheep pasture, the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Lawson D. Hollingsworth were closely associated with the prog- ress and development of this community. Moreover, there was a romantic interest due to the singularly close and affectionate relationship that kept their interests in common and running side by side from early childhood until even in death they were separated only for a few hours. Both died on the same day, January 29, 1902.
They had come to Pasadena in February, 1876, and they selected their first home in a region where development had shortly begun and where there were few residents. They bought a fifty-acre tract on East Colorado Street, and they were the first to buy property on the east side of Fair Oaks Avenue. On a portion of this original ten acre tract the Presbyterian Church now stands. Lawson D. Hollingsworth and his son Henry estab- lished the first store and post office, and were thus responsible for practically the first institution to distinguish Pasadena as a center of population and trade. Prior to that time all mail of Pasadena residents went to the Los Angeles Post Office. Henry Hollingsworth served as postmaster and his father as assistant, while William Vore, son-in-law of L. D. Hollingsworth, carried the mail.
L. D. Hollingsworth was born in Warren County, Ohio, June 14, 1823, son of Henry and Ada (Skinner) Hollingsworth. He spent the first nine years of his life on his father's farm in Warren County, and then removed with his parents to the adjoining state of Indiana and located at Richmond, the seat of a populous Quaker community. The Hollingsworths were of Quaker faith. L. D. Hollingsworth finished his public school education at Richmond, and as a young man apprenticed himself to the millwright's trade, and he worked at this occupation until about 1847.
December 19, 1844, he married Lucinda Maudlin. She was born. in Wayne County, Indiana, of which Richmond is the county seat. On December 19, 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth celebrated their fifty- seventh wedding anniversary, and it was just a few weeks later that death took both of them. They were buried with a double funeral, held at the Friends Church, and eleven of their grandsons acted as pall bearers. When they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in Pasadena, relatives came from Iowa to attend the celebration.
In March, 1845, Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth removed to Henderson County, Illinois. His last work as a millwright was the erection of a mill at Oquawka for his uncle. Soon afterward he crossed the Mississippi into Iowa and settled on a farm near Iowa City. He was a pioneer in that state, at first devoted his attention to grain raising, but in the meantime he established a nursery, and this nursery acquired such a reputation that people came from long distances to secure a high grade of fruit stock, and eventually he developed a prosperous business in the propagation of fruit trees. The headquarters of his nursery business were at West Branch, Iowa. When the family came to California in 1876 they traveled almost the entire distance by train, but journeyed on a stage the last hundred and thirty miles to Pasadena. For a number of years Mr. Hollingsworth was a prominent leader in Pasadena affairs, and contributed of his activity and
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his splendid character to the foundation of a beautiful city whose people still continue to reap the benefit due to the sturdy work and influence exercised by such pioneers as the Hollingsworths. Mr. Hollingsworth was a republican, but was interested in politics only for the purpose of pro- moting the public welfare. He cast his first presidential vote for Henry Clay. After coming to Pasadena he served several years as a trustee of the local schools.
Mr. and Mrs. Hollingsworth had six children, and they were also sur- vived by fifteen grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Four of the children are living. Doctor Henry T. Hollingsworth, the first postmaster and merchant of Pasadena, now lives at Los Angeles. The other children are Arthur S., Ellen, wife of William Vore, and Jennie L., wife of Joshua Reed Giddings. Mrs. Giddings has served as president of the Pasadena Historical Society, and annual meetings of the society have been held under the large live oak in the yard of her home at the corner of East Colorado Street and Holleston.
GEORGE DOUGLASS BROWN. From time immemorial man has shown a reverence and respect for the dead, and even among the savage tribes the burial grounds are held sacred and inviolate. It has been only in compara- tively recent years that these last resting-places of our loved ones have been maintained under an intelligent supervision as to drainage, care of the graves and stones and the arrangements of plant and floral decorations that make these sepulchres not only reverent sanctuaries for the dead but spots of beauty for the living. A modern necropolis of California is Mountain View Cemetery at Altadena, which is under the capable superintendency of George Douglass Brown, whose indefatigable and well-directed labors have resulted in this becoming one of the best cared for and most beautiful burial grounds in the state.
Mr. Brown was born on a farm in Oneida County, New York, Decem- ber 28, 1883, and is a son of Morris William and Emma (Lehr) Brown, now residents of Boonville, New York, where the family is held in the highest regard and esteem. The oldest of three living sons, Mr. Brown attended the public schools of Boonville, following which he secured a cler- ical position in that community, where he remained until after the attain- ment of his majority. In 1904 he decided that better opportunities for advancement awaited him in the West, and accordingly in that year he came to California, where he found employment in an office at Los Angeles. He was employed in that city until 1911, but had moved to Pasadena in 1909, and the latter community has since been his home. In 1911 he was made superintendent of the Mountain View Cemetery and Crematory, owned by the Pasadena Cemetery Association, a position which he has since held. Mr. Brown has discharged the duties of his position in a very commendable manner and has made the most of his opportunities to transform this prop- erty into a tract of beauty, repose and tasteful surroundings. He is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, and a member of Consistory No. 4, and Pasadena Lodge No. 272, F. and A. M. In politics he maintains an independent stand and has never sought political position.
On April 21, 1909, Mr. Brown was united in marriage at Pasadena with Miss Blanche E. Giddings, who was born at Pasadena and educated in the public schools and at Throop Polytechnic High School, from which she was graduated with the class of 1906. They are the parents of three chil- dren : Grace Douglass, Morris Reed and Paul Albert, all born at Pasadena. The pleasant family home is at Altadena, at the entrance of Mountain View Cemetery. Mrs. Brown is a member of a pioneer family of Los Angeles County and a daughter of J. R. Giddings, of Pasadena, who with his father laid out Mountain View Cemetery and who is now president of the Pasa- dena Cemetery Association. A sketch of his career will be found immedi- ately preceding this.
MRS. LULU ELLIOTT ECKELS. It has become ancient history to bring forward for consideration the question of woman's capacity for any
George D. Brown,
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
line of effort in which she chooses to function. There was a time when the field of advertising was deemed almost sacred ground as to sex, but it can no longer be so considered in the face of the tremendous success achieved by Mrs. Lulu Elliott Eckels, of Los Angeles, student, traveler, lecturer, advertising executive for great commercial concerns. Mrs. Eckels is a member of many representative business organizations, and is president of the Woman's Advertising Club of Los Angeles.
Mrs. Eckels was born at Chicago, Illinois, where her father, Chandler L. Elliott, was a manufacturing chemist. He was a native of Indiana, of English and French extraction, while her mother was of Scotch ancestry. Her early environment was such that she had both social and educational advantages, attending school for a time in the City of Philadelphia, later was a student in the University of Pennsylvania and in Cornell College, in the meanwhile paying considerable attention to music, dramatics and art, in fact, studying everything but business. To her subsequent marriage with Dr. Lauren Samuel Eckels, of the Medical Corps of the United States Army, one son was born, Lauren Chandler Eckels, a bright schoolboy of eight years.
After the death of Dr. Eckels, Mrs. Eckels found herself confronted with conditions that led finally to her entering the field of business, although, as intimated, she had had no business training. She possessed, however, a quick mind, thorough development of her intellectual faculties, a pleasing presence and a determination to succeed. Before coming to California she had lived and studied abroad, traveling extensively in Europe, had given many lectures, at times being on the Chautauqua circuit, her public speaking being mainly on some phase of the advertising problem. She first entered this field of effort as manager of the advertising department at John Wanamaker's, Philadelphia, later was connected in the same way with Snellenberg's, and later with the leading business house at Newark, New Jersey.
At the urgent request of D. A. Hamburger, proprietor of one of the largest mercantile establishments at Los Angeles, Mrs. Eckels came to this city, and has continued with this firm as director of advertising. In the recent convention held at San Diego of the Pacific Coast Advertising Clubs' Association Mrs. Eckels held a departmental chairmanship, the first on record in that conservative body, and in the work of the convention still further added to her reputation as the most capable women in her line on the Coast. She is a member of the National Advertising Asso- ciation and a second time president of the Woman's Advertising Club of Los Angeles. She belongs also to the Woman's Athletic Club of Los Angeles.
MISS JUNE MATHIS is one of the talented, successful and popular scenario writers of the famed film colony of Los Angeles County, and is specially entitled to representation in this history of the county.
Miss Mathis was born at Leadville, Colorado, and is a daughter of Dr. W. D. and Virginia R. Mathis, who established their residence at Leadville in 1881, Dr. Mathis having become one of the leading physicians and surgeons of that city, where also he conducted a drug store. Later he was for a number of years engaged in the practice of his profession at Salt Lake City. Mrs. Virginia R. Mathis died in New York, September 7,1922
While still a mere girl Miss June Mathis came to California, primarily for the benefit of her health, and in the City of San Francisco she made her initial appearance on the stage, in the Fisher vaudeville house, where she took child parts, gave character imitations and also made favorable impressions as a dancer. Miss Mathis continued her successful stage work ten years, and then she became a pioneer in connection with moving picture productive work in the East, where her first scenario writing was done for the Metro studio. Miss Mathis came to the West to prepare the scenario of the "Red Lantern" for Nazimova, and among others of
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her celebrated film productions may be noted scenario work on "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," "The Conquering Power," "The Right of: Way," "Out of the Fog," "To Hell with the Kaiser" (one of the big World war propaganda pictures), "Camille," "Lombardi Limited," "Fair and Warmer," "A Trip to Paradise," "The Hole in the Wall," and many others that have represented the highest standard and gained most unequivocal success on the stage of the silent drama, including one of her last produc- tions, "Blood and Sand."
Miss Mathis is an enthusiast in her chosen profession, is an authority on technique and invariably remains to supervise or offer suggestions in connection with the cutting and title-making of all of her films. She served as head of the scenario department of Metro when Maxwell Karger had charge of production and there is no phase of the picture business with which she is not familiar. Miss Mathis is a popular member of the Scenario Writers Guild and also of the Authors League of America. In January, 1922, she assumed a position with the Lasky studio, and in this connection she continued her splendid executive and productive work. Miss Mathis resigned from the Lasky (Famous Players Lasky) Company. She is now in New York writing the scenario for "Ben Hur" for the Goldwyn Company. She will also collaborate with the director, edit and title it. It will be made here and abroad. She will shortly return to Hollywood. Miss Mathis is the owner of her attractive home at 1500 Laurel Avenue, Los Angeles. It was largely through the influence and artistic judgment of Miss Mathis that Rodolph Valentino was retained for the role of "Julio" in the "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse," in which production he immediately came to prominence. Miss Mathis not only selected Valentino for this role, but it was also through her influence that Mr. Ingram was enlisted as director of this great production.
MRS. HARRY K. SCOTT is a talented and popular representative of the fine coterie of literary women in the City of Los Angeles, and has achieved special success as a writer of short stories and other works of fiction, as well as a contributor to the newspaper press. Her pleasant home in the fair metropolis of Southern California is at 232 South Mariposa Street. Mrs. Scott is an active member of the League of American Pen Women and of the Woman's Press Club of Southern California.
Mrs. Scott was born in Indiana, and is one of many representatives of the Hoosier State who have won precedence in the field of literary production. Her father was born in New Hampshire, a scion of Colonial New England stock, and was a youth when he went to Indiana, where for many years he was engaged in the hardware business. He was specially active and successful in the installing of heating plants, and in this field of enterprise his operations extended into nearly all of the states of the Middle West. He is eighty-three years of age at the time of this writing, in 1922.
Mrs. Scott, whose maiden name was Lillian Ash, was reared in Indiana and received in her youth the best of educational advantages. In 1905 was solemnized the marriage of Miss Lillian Ash to Harry K. Scott, who was born in the City of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Scott have one daughter, Mary Adeline, who celebrated in 1922 the fourteenth anniversary of her birth.
Prior to her marriage Mrs. Scott had made an excellent record in connection with newspaper and other literary work, she having had produc- tive supervisions of the department of drama, society and music for a leading paper at Fort Wayne, Indiana. For the past four years she has been writing a column for an Indiana paper, and many of her published short stories also have gained most favorable popular reception. Mr. Scott is actively affiliated with the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and has the distinction of being a direct descendant of Sir Francis Drake.
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EDGAR J. BOYES has been a resident of the rural district of Los Angeles County nearly forty years. He came to Southern California not as a retired business man or farmer, but for the purpose of making a modest fortune and achieving a home in the ideal surroundings of this locality. The success that has attended his efforts is one of the most encouraging examples as to what may be done by a man of determined energy and purpose. Mr. Boyes was born in Cedar County, Missouri, August 11, 1868. His paternal ancestry has been in America since Colonial times and was originally French, the name at one time being spelled Du Boyes. 'His father, James Allen Boyes, also a native of Missouri and now deceased, served as a Confederate soldier, at first in General Stonewall Jackson's command, was in many important battles and was twice wounded, and was in service four years, four months and four days. After the war he followed farming, and was an active member of his community, serving as school trustee and as a deacon in the Missionary Baptist Church. He married Mary Ann Barker, also a native of Missouri, and of English descent and Revolutionary stock. She is still living in Missouri.
Edgar J. Boyes attended public school in his native state, and as a youth worked on the farm. He continued farming there until 1888, when he came to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles County Mr. Boyes bought ten acres on the Cate road at Salt Lake railroad crossing. He has developed this tract as a splendid walnut grove, and his success has made him an authority on successful walnut culture in this vicinity. He is owner of other acreage in the neighborhood of Los Angeles and near Whittier. Besides walnuts he grows all kinds of fruits, berries and flowers, and his home is one of the most attractive along the Cate road. He built a handsome California bungalow, and has his private electric pumping plant. In developing this place Mr. Boyes had the ambition to develop a real home, and he has surrounded himself with every comfort and convenience. There is not a day in the year when he cannot go into his orchard and pick fruit.
To this worthy work he has devoted his years and energies. He has served as school trustee of the Ranchito district, but in politics has taken only the part of a republican voter. He and Mrs. Boyes are members of the First Christian Church.
On February 4, 1892, in California, he married Miss Lois C. Neff, a native of Illinois. Her father, C. C. Neff, by a noteworthy coincidence, recalling the record of Mr. Boyes' father, served also four years, four months and four days during the Civil war, but on the Northern side, with the 21st Infantry, most of the time under the command of General Grant. Mr. Neff was a Universalist minister. The two children of Mr. and Mrs. Boyes are Mrs. Pansy Ann Standish, of Huntington Beach, and Elry Allen Boyes, who married Miss Ollie Clark and is an employe of the Standard Oil Company at Huntington Beach.
MRS. MATTIE WALLACE KENNEDY is a native daughter of California. Her father was the late James C. Wallace, of Alhambra, one of the leading fruit growers of Los Angeles County.
Mrs. Kennedy was born at Alhambra. Her home at 1225 North Granada Avenue is on ground that was part of her father's original ranch. She rode to and from school on horse back, the schoolhouse standing at the corner of Garfield Avenue and Alhambra Road. Her teacher was a sister of the late Governor Stoneman. From that school she continued her studies in a private school and in Hannah College of Los Angeles.
Mrs. Kennedy is a type of the many charms that California bestows upon her favored daughters. From childhood she has gloried in the beauties and privileges of her native state, and she grew up in the outdoors. No horse has been too wild for her to break, no trail too rough for her to climb, and her youthful experiences in home, social relations and outdoor activities have given her the fine poise of a gentlewoman who
HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY
knows and places true values. She presides over one of the many beautiful and hospitable homes in Los Angeles County.
On October 1, 1902, she became the bride of Samuel Macaw Kennedy. Mr. Kennedy was born at Toronto, Canada, June 20, 1863, son of Warring and J. (Macaw) Kennedy. His father, a native of Ireland, was for many years a dry goods importer at Toronto, and was twice mayor of that city. Samuel M. Kennedy after leaving college became associated with his father's business, and for ten years was its European buyer, and in that capacity he crossed the Atlantic ocean more than forty times between the ages of eighteen and twenty-eight. Impaired health finally led him to seek recuperation in Virginia, and in 1896 he came to California. For many years he has been associated with the electrical industry, and is now vice-president of the Southern California Edison Company. He is a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the American Electrical-Chemical Society, but his most important service has been as a publicity man, educating the people to an appreciation of great possibilities opened by modern electrical devices and an intelligent use of this, the greatest of nature's services.
JACOB RUDEL. One of the handsomest and most valuable ranch and horticultural properties in the San Gabriel Valley is that owned by Jacob Rudel, and represents in its development the courage, perseverance and steady work carried on through many years, since Jacob Rudel came into this vicinity and started to make a home from a portion of the wilderness.
Mr. Rudel was born in 1853, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, son of Henry and Mary (Hartman) Rudel, who spent all their lives in that locality. They were farming people. His father died in 1899, at the age of eighty-nine, and his mother, at the age of seventy-six. Jacob Rudel attended the common schools, lived with his parents on the farm until he was fourteen, and then went into the city and served an apprentice- ship at the trade of coppersmith. At the age of nineteen he came to the United States, and followed his trade for several years in New York City. He has been a Californian since 1875, and for two years lived at Sacramento and continued to work at his trade. Coming south to Los Angeles, he was a brazier two seasons, and then with the modest savings he had been able to accumulate he moved into the San Gabriel Valley and started the task of clearing and improving a tract of land covered with cactus and sage. During the succeeding years he spared neither his own labor nor any expense in putting his land into condition for profitable production. He subsequently doubled his holdings, and his ranch now comprises eighty acres, situated on Live Oak Street. He developed a fine vineyard, and for a number of years manufactured a wine of such high quality as to command a ready market in the East and elsewhere.
In 1885 Jacob Rudel married Miss Eliza Vogel. She was born in Switzerland in 1863, and was nineteen years of age when she accompanied her parents to the United States. Subsequently she came to the Pacific Coast, and here met and married Mr. Rudel. Four children were born to their marriage, Millie, Edward, Walter and Anna Marie, but only one survived. Edward died at the age of thirty, Walter, at fourteen, and Anna Marie, at seven years.
Mr. Jacob Rudel has always endeavored to do his part as an American citizen, has voted and interested himself in civic and local affairs, but never desired public office.
Millie Rudel, the only surviving child, was born on the Savannah Ranch and was given a superior education in the San Gabriel schools and Ramona Convent, and finished in the Throop College at Pasadena. She is the wife of William Rudolph, and they have one son, William Rudolph, Jr.
Mr. Rudolph sold a valuable ranch in June, 1921, and subsequently returned to Germany for an extended visit in the scenes of his boyhood. He is a man who came to America without knowledge of American
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language or ways, and by accepting opportunities that were open to many others of a most industrious disposition he has achieved a prosperity that many might envy and a degree of honor that is paid only those who have earned the highest rank in citizenship.
STEPHEN MALLORY WHITE. While his death occurred more than twenty years ago, there will always be abundant substantial reasons to recall and serve as a memory in the service of the late Stephen Mallory White, one of California's foremost lawyers and statesmen.
He was born in San Francisco, January 19, 1853, son of William F. and Fannie J. (Russell) White. His parents were born in Ireland. His mother was reared from early childhood by her cousin, Stephen R. Mal- lory, in Florida, which state he represented in the United States Senate and also in the Confederate cabinet. William F. White was reared in New York State, at one time published a newspaper in the city of New York and was an employe of the United States Custom House there. In 1849 he came to San Francisco, accompanied by his seventeen year old bride. For a number of years he was in business at San Francisco as a member of the general mercantile firm of Oliver, White and McGlynn.
Stephen Mallory White attended school in San Francisco, graduated in 1871 from the Jesuit College at Santa Clara, and studied law in law offices at Watsonville and Santa Cruz. Mr. White was admitted to the bar before the Supreme Court in April, 1873, and at once came to Los Angeles and opened his office. In the strict line of his profession he handled many cases of public interest. He was one of the three attorneys selected by the Legislature of California to maintain the Scott Exclusion Act before the Supreme Court of the United States. He was also prominently identi- fied with the legal and other work involved in the Los Angeles Harbor.
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