History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 3

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 844

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HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

Apartments, St. Francis Court, the first bungalow court built in California, and other properties ; and secretary of the Pasadena Realty Board since 1916, having been previously president of that body for one year.

In his political allegiance Mr. Gianetti is a republican, and belongs to the local Republican Club. During the World war he was a member of the Home Guards. He is a past master of Corona Lodge No. 324, F. and A. M., of Pasadena ; a past master of Pasadena Chapter Rose Croix of the Scottish Rite bodies; and active worker in Masonry up to and including the thirty-second Scottish Rite degree, and a Noble of Al Malaikah Shrine. He belongs also to the Overland Club of Pasadena and the Pasadena Golf Club, and is a communicant of St. Mark's Episcopal Church.

On May 16, 1911, Mr. Gianetti married at Pasadena Miss Ethel R. Haines, a daughter of Mrs. B. R. Haines, of Pasadena, whom he met at Brooklyn, New York, where she was educated, although a native of New Jersey. They have one daughter, Mary Alice, born at Pasadena. The pleasant family residence is situated at 629 South Catalina Avenue.

LEE ALLEN PHILLIPS, who became a resident of Los Angeles in 1894, has become known to the public as a very able and successful lawyer, an organizer and executive in a number of reclamation projects, active as a banker and business man, for a number of years as an official of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of California, one of the most progressive insurance companies of America, and with two hundred and fifty million dollars of insurance in force. Early in 1919 Mr. Phillips succeeded the late Gail Borden Johnson in the office of vice president and treasurer.

Mr. Phillips was born at Ashton, Illinois, August 24, 1871, son of Milton Eaves and Magdelina Phillips. His father for many years was a prominent educator and became well known throughout the western central states. After many years of self sacrificing work there he came to Los Angeles and for four years was dean of the University of Southern Cali- fornia, and finally took the pastorate of a Congregational Church at New Haven, Connecticut, where he died in 1909.

Lee Allen Phillips received his higher education in the University of Kansas and in DePauw University at Greencastle, Indiana, where he grad- uated A. B. in 1892, and then taking the law course received in 1894 the LL. B. degree and the A. M. degree. He was therefore a briefless attorney when he arrived in Los Angeles in the late summer of that year. Then and ever since Mr. Phillips has been known among his associates as a man of modest and unpretentious worth, and has won success on the merit of his work and not by any influences outside his own character. In October, 1894, he began the practice of law in the office of Cochran & Williams, the senior member of which firm was George I. Cochran, now president of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of California. The firm became Cochran, Williams & Phillips, and so continued until 1902. In 1907 Mr. Phillips became associate counsel for the Pacific Mutual Life Insur- ance Company; and in 1912 was chosen third vice president in charge of the. investments of the company ... In 1919 he was unanimously promoted to vice president and treasurer and is still in charge of the company's invest- ments, aggregating over forty-five million dollars.

There is usually a fundamental motive and driving force in the careers of men of large affairs. In the case of Mr. Phillips that motive is discerned through his interests in a line of work which has not yet been described. He has served the Pacific Mutual and many other interests as a masterful and skillful financier and has done a great work in safeguarding and pro- moting the security and profit of many properties entrusted to his care. However, he has been more than a "guardian of vested interests" and the phase of his career which furnishes him most intimate satisfaction was his part in the conservative development of his home state, through the reclamation of swamp and overflow lands in the San Joaquin Valley.

From 1902 to 1907, in order to give his personal supervision to these interests, Mr. Phillips made his home at Stockton. Between the years of

Lee G. Philips

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

1902 and 1912 he organized, for the purpose of reclaiming tracts of land in the delta of the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers, the following corporations, each for the purpose of reclaiming a given acreage: Middle River Farming Company, six thousand acres; Middle River Navigation and Canal Company, six thousand acres; Rindge Land and Navigation Company, ten thousand acres; Orwood Land Company, three thousand acres ; Holland Land and Water Company, ten thousand acres; Empire Navigation Company, eight thousand acres; Equitable Investment Com- pany, seven thousand acres; Mandeville Land Company, seven thousand acres ; Island Land Company, three thousand acres ; California Delta Farms, Incorporated, a consolidation of the above companies and reclaiming as additional seven thousand acres; Bouldin Land Company, seven thousand acres ; Holland Land Company, which was a reorganization of the unsuc- cessful Netherlands Farms Company, for the reclamation of twenty-six thousand acres. He also organized the Empire Construction Company, controlling a fleet of dredges used in construction of levees for the purpose of reclamation of various properties.

Mr. Phillips gained his first experience in the development of agricul- tural lands through the organization of the Artesian Water Company and the development of the old Cienega Swamps adjoining the City of Los Angeles and fronting on West Adams Street. Here in the year 1900 he changed this swamp into a wonderfully productive area, which up to date is producing a very large proportion of the fresh vegetables used in Los Angeles. At the same time he developed what is known as the Artesian Water Company, taking the water from artesian wells on these lands and conveying it to the dry lands lying along Washington Street between the towns of Palms and Santa Monica.

The total acreage reclaimed under Mr. Phillips' direct supervision and management, by summing up the above ·figures, seem to be a hundred thousand eight hundred. Some additional facts should be stated to indicate what significance this work has had as a factor of California agricultural production. Until the reclamation work was begun the properties had been only nominally assessed, and produced nothing of value. After reclamation, the average assessment rose to seventy-five dollars an acre, and the value of the land at normal market figures runs from two hundred fifty to three hundred dollars an acre. More important still, the production is the largest per acre of the various crops grown, including potatoes, beans, asparagus, onions, corn, barley and wheat of which there is any record over similarly large areas. Since 1903 two-thirds of all the potatoes grown in the State of California have been raised on these various properties. In truth, in recent years there have been many destructive agencies let loose against civilization and the world's prosperity, and it serves a good purpose to contrast these magnificent constructive enterprises that have been carried out by this Los Angeles lawyer and business man. Mr. Phillips' interest did not end with the completion of the reclamation projects themselves, but has continued through the practical distribution and settlement of the reclaimed land to actual owners and cultivators. He feels that the complete fruition of his hopes and plans will only be realized when this great body of land is not only productive of crops but furnishes homes and happy environ- ment to the numerous families which it can properly support.

Mr. Phillips is president of the California Delta Farms, Incorporated, vice president of the Bouldin Land Company, president of the Beverly Hills Corporation, president of the Pecos Valley Investment Company, president of the Central Business Properties, director of the Los Angeles Trust and Savings Bank, the Security National and Home Savings Bank.

Only recently through the public press it is learned that Mr. Phillips' ideals in regard to the settling of the Delta lands is about to be fully consummated, 27,000 acres of the land having been sold to settlers in the short period of fourteen weeks.

Mr. Phillips has not confined his activities in agricultural development to the State of California, but under the name of the Pecos Valley Invest-

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

ment Company has developed 3,400 acres of land in the Pecos Valley, New Mexico, which land was taken from the desert and by means of wells and pumping plants has been converted into large alfalfa fields and apple orchards, 700 acres of this property being put to the latter use.

Particularly in recent years Mr. Phillips has been active in investments and real estate in Los Angeles, and has done much to aid the development of the newer section of the business district.

He is at present actively engaged in perfecting plans for a new twelve- story office building to be erected by the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company, and also plans for a new fireproof building to be built on the corner of Sixth and Olive streets, this latter business building to be owned by the Central Business Properties, Inc.

He was a member of the Los Angeles Library Board from 1900 to 1902, also of the State Normal School Board from 1900 to 1902. During the war he was chairman of Exemption Board No. 9 for the City of Los Angeles. Mr. Phillips is a republican, a member of the Phi Gamma Delta and Delta Chi fraternities, the California Club, Bohemian Club of San Francisco, Yosemite Club of Stockton, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Midwick Country Club, Brentwood Country Club and Los Angeles Press Club. He is a member of the Congregational Church.

December 19, 1895, at Winfield, Kansas, Mr. Phillips married Catherine Louise Coffin, daughter of Tristram Sanborn and Susan Winkler Coffin. To their marriage were born two daughters: Lucile Gertrude and Katha- rine Louise. Lucile is the wife of Dr. Wayland A. Morrison.

HARRY KELLAR. Closely associated with the delightful mysteries of which he was long past master, Harry Kellar was more than a stage presence, for he possessed those characteristics which bound men to him with the strong ties of personal liking, and he numbered among his intimate friends Theodore Roosevelt, William McKinley and Robert Ingersoll. When he passed out of life March 10, 1922, scarcely a newspaper the world ever failed to comment editorially on the great- ness of the man as a magician. He displayed his wares in practically every civilized country in the world, even in India, the original home of wizardry. It would require an entire volume to tell the full story of Harry Kellar's life and express the sentiments contained in the eulogies paid him by persons of note.

Howard Thurston, his devoted personal friend and associate, said : "Harry Kellar was the greatest magician of all times, and his fame will endure as long as magic enthralls the human mind. He had a loving, kind, forgiving nature, and he had a charming personality. He was one of the most beloved men on the American stage."

While a thorough student of the occult and mysterious, Mr. Kellar was not a spiritualist or a believer in the supernatural, and was much opposed to such cults. A devout man and deeply religious, the work of creating mystifying illusions was a science and an art, in which he was a supreme master.

What Harry Kellar accomplished is all the more surprising when one considers his handicap, for he was held back by an impediment of speech, and his fingers were short and chubby. His education was self-acquired. Hard work figured in his rise, not luck. Even in his retirement Mr. Kellar was active, and at the age of fifty-nine years he began to study the French language, and mastered it.

Harry Kellar married in 1887 Eva Medley at Melbourne, Australia, and his wife passed away a number of years ago. That he was not a father was one of the saddest things in Mr. Kellar's life. He belonged to the Masonic fraternity and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and the Los Angeles Lodge Number 99 of the latter officiated at his funeral, and the services were conducted by the Masons. The pallbearers were divided between members of the two lodges. He

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

also served as honorary president of the Los Angeles Society of Magi- cians. Those of his family left to mourn his loss are his niece, Mrs. M. V. Buck, with whom he made his home, and to whose loving and indefatigable devotion he owed the comfort of his last years both in health and illness; and two nephews, Edward Keller, of Los Angeles, and Frank H. Keller, of Erie, Pennsylvania. Mr. Kellar had the "e" changed to "a" in his name for professional reasons.

Of him A. M. Wilson, editor and publisher of the Sphinx, the official organ of the Society of American Magicians, said :

"Our Dean is gone. Harry Kellar passed from this life March 10. My heart is too full of grief to write. I had known Harry Kellar for more than forty years. He was a man among men, a magician among magicians, in heart he was loveable, in brain he was superman, in magic-none greater ever lived. I cherish his memory, his kindly letters, his pictures, among the most precious of my possessions."

LLOYD W. BROOKE has been associated in the practice of law with F. G. Cruickshank since 1914 at Pasadena, and the alliance found con- crete and effective culmination when, in January, 1921, these two representative members of the Pasadena bar formed a professional partnership, under the firm name of Cruickshank & Brooke, the firm being attorneys for the First Trust & Savings Bank and the Security National Bank of Pasadena.

Mr. Brooke claims the old Hoosier State as the place of his nativity, his birth having occurred at Plymouth, Indiana, September 5, 1886. He is a son of Edward S. and Lillian O. (Outcalt) Brooke, the former of whom likewise was born at Plymouth, and the latter was born at Bourbon, a town about twenty miles distant from Plymouth. Edward S. Brooke was for a long period editor and publisher of the Plymouth Republican, and was influential in political affairs in that section of Indiana as an able and uncompromising advocate of the principles of the republican party. He finally moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is now manager of leading office buildings, his wife having there died on the 20th of September, 1920. Of their three children the eldest was Walter E., who was professor of economics in the Utah State Agricultural College at Logan, where he died as the result of an accident in October, 1918, when but thirty-three years of age. He was a young man of splendid talent and character, and his untimely death brought to a close a most promising career. Lloyd W., of this review, is the younger son. Grace, the only daughter, died at the age of ten years.

Lloyd W. Brooke gained his earlier education in the public schools of Plymouth, Indiana, and Salt Lake City, Utah, in which latter place he graduated from the high school as a member of the class of 1905. In 1909 he received from historic old Harvard University the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and from the law school of that institution he received in 1913 the degree of Bachelor of Laws. In 1914 he was admitted to the California bar and began the practice of his pro- fession at Pasadena, in which city he established his residence in the autumn of the preceding year. His practice has been largely in the field of corporation and probate law, and the firm of which he is a member controls a large and prosperous law practice. He has been treasurer of the Pasadena Bar Association since 1919, and is a mem- ber also of the Los Angeles County Bar Association. He has served for the past four years as secretary of the Annandale Golf Club, is a member also of the Cauldron Club, and is affiliated with the Phi Beta Kappa and the Delta Upsilon college fraternities. He and his wife are Presbyterians in religious faith.

At Orange, New Jersey, on the 10th of September, 1915, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Brooke and Miss Annie Costekyan, who was born at East Orange, that state, and of the two children of

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

this union the younger, Mary Ellen, survives, she having been born June 5, 1919. The elder child, Lloyd W., Jr., was born November 30, 1916, and died on the 30th of June of the following year.

ISAIAH JOHN WATERMAN, M. D. In medical circles of Los Angeles County the name of Dr. Isaiah John Waterman is recognized as one belonging to a skilled, learned and thoroughly experienced member of his profession and a physician and surgeon who maintains a high standard of ethics. He was born at Buda, Bureau County, Illinois, February 21, 1885, and is a son of Isaiah John and Aura (Brainard) Waterman. During the active years of his life the father of Doctor Waterman was a hotel proprietor, and was fairly successful in his operations, being the proprietor of a well-patronized house in Iowa. When he was thirty-five years of age, February 8, 1885, he met his death in a railroad accident in Iowa, following which his widow went to Buda, Illinois, where her son Isaiah John was born thirteen days following. The shock of her husband's death, followed so soon by the birth of her son, caused the mother's death when the infant was only two weeks old, and he was reared in the home of his grandparents. He received his early education in the public schools of Creston, Iowa, where he graduated from the Creston High School as a member of the graduating class of 1902.

At that time, to further prepare himself, Doctor Waterman pur- sued a course at the Metropolitan Business College, Chicago, and with this training was able to secure a position as a court reporter in the Eighth Congressional District of Southern Iowa for about eighteen months. Entering then the State University of Iowa, he took the six-year combined course, and was graduated with the degrees of Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine. During the years 1909 and 1910 Doctor Waterman was resident physician for the State Uni- versity Hospital at Iowa City, and in 1911 and 1912 was assistant surgeon for the Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad. He then entered practice at Renwick, Iowa, where he remained from 1912 to 1916, in the latter year selling his practice and resuming his studies. During the next year and one-half he applied himself to furthering his education by taking post-graduate courses at Harvard and the New York Poly- clinic, New York City, and in 1918 came to California, becoming assistant to Dr. C. P. Thomas, of Los Angeles. In 1919 he came to Pasadena, where he has since been engaged in the independent prac- tice of his profession, his office being located at 298 Dodworth Build- ing. He has a large and representative practice, and has gained the full confidence of his patients and his professional brethren, by whom he is held in high esteem.

Doctor Waterman's practice was interrupted by the World war, when for nine months he was a lieutenant in the Sixteenth Sanitary Train, stationed at Camp Kearney. Politically he is a republican, and fraternally he is affiliated with Corona Lodge No. 324, F. and A. M., of Pasadena, and the Royal Arch Masons, as well as with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Phi Rho Sigma and Sigma Epsilon fraternities. He likewise holds membership in the Pasadena Chamber of Commerce, the American Medical Association, the California State Medical Society, the Los Angeles County Medical Society and the Pasadena Branch of the Los Angeles County Medical Society. He is an Episcopalian in religion, but was baptized at the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.

On February 23, 1911, Doctor Waterman was united in marriage with Miss Rachael M. Kegley, of Des Moines, Iowa, who was born at Colfax, Iowa, and educated there and at the University of Illinois. She is a woman of numerous accomplishments and intellectual attain- ments, belongs to the Chi Omega fraternity, and is a P. E. O. The

J.H. Merriam

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

pleasant residence of Doctor and Mrs. Waterman is located at 634 634 South Lake Avenue.

JOHN HOWARD MERRIAM, the senior member of the representative law firm of Merriam, Rinehart & Merriam, with offices in the Central Building in the City of Pasadena, has been for more than thirty years an honored member of the California bar, and by reason of his service as justice of the peace of Pasadena Township, 1892-1902, he is familiarly known as Judge Merriam.

Judge Merriam was born at Tremont, Tazewell County, Illinois, on the 19th of August, 1861, and is a son of Rev. Jonathan Merriam and Anna Sewell (True) Merriam, whose marriage was solemnized in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, in 1851, both having been representatives of fam- ilies founded in New England in the Colonial days. Rev. Jonathan Mer- riam gave many years of able and earnest service as a clergyman of the Baptist Church, his father likewise having been a minister of this church. For several years both Jonathan Merriam and his wife were teachers in a college at Brownsville, Tennessee, and thereafter he held various pastoral charges in the State of Illinois, the closing years of his career having been devoted to field work for the American Bible Union. The ancestral line of the family traces back to a Merriam who came from Kentshire, England, and settled near Boston, Massachusetts, in 1638. The family gave patriot soldiers to the Continental Line in the War of the Revolution. Rev. Jonathan Merriam was a Union soldier in the Civil war. His death occurred at Lanark, Illinois, in 1872, and his widow was a resident of Pasadena, California, at the time of her death in 1903. Of their family of three sons and two daughters all are living except one son.

In 1884 Judge John H. Merriam graduated from Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, Illinois, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and in 1888 he received from Columbia University (now George Washington Uni- versity) in the City of Washington, D. C., the degree of Bachelor of Laws, the same year having marked his admission to the bar in the national capital. After his graduation from Shurtleff College Judge Merriam taught school one year, and thereafter, while attending law school in the City of Washington, he held for three years a clerical position in the classified service of the war department offices. He continued his resi- dence in the national capital until 1890, when by reason of impaired health he came to Pasadena, California. He was admitted to the California bar in 1891, and in the following year was elected justice of the peace, which office he retained about ten years, the while he practiced law in the higher courts. Of the formation and high prestige of the law firm of Merriam, Kinehart & Merriam, of which he is the head, adequate information is given on other pages, in the personal sketches of his professional confreres, his son, Ralph T., and Jay D. Rinehart.

The principles of the republican party have the loyal support of Judge Merriam, and he and his wife are members of the Baptist Church, of which he has been an earnest and active member since his boyhood. He was presi- dent from 1921 to 1922 of the Associated Baptist Brotherhood of the Los Angeles Baptist Association, which includes all of the Baptist churches in Los Angeles County. He is a trustee of the University of Redlands ; is affiliated with Corona Lodge No. 324, A. F. and A. M., at Pasadena ; holds membership in the New Century Club and the Dickens Fellowship, and he maintains active membership in the Los Angeles County Bar Asso- ciation and the Pasadena Bar Association.

At Washington, D. C., on the 12th of November, 1888, Judge Merriam wedded Miss Lora B. Morgan, daughter of A. W. Morgan, her death having occurred in 1896, and the one surviving child being Ralph T., who is a member of his father's law firm, as already noted. On the 30th of October, 1901, was solemnized the marriage of Judge Merriam and Mrs. Alice Coolidge, a daughter of Rev. J. N. Williams. She died October 25, 1922.

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY

RALPH T. MERRIAM has priority as a member of one of the leading law firms of his native City of Pasadena, that of Merriam, Rinehart & Merriam, the senior member of which is his father, Judge John H. Mer- riam, of whom individual mention is made on other pages of this work, so that further review of the family history is not here demanded.

Ralph Truman Merriam was born at Pasadena on the 31st of October, 1891, and was but four years old at the time of the death of his mother, whose maiden name was Lora B. Morgan. In the public schools of Pasa- d'ena he continued his studies until his graduation from the high school in 1911, two years of his high-school work having been done in the Throop Polytechnic Institute, Pasadena. Thereafter he was for two years a student in the University of Redlands, and after attending the University of California two years he received therefrom, in 1915, the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He thereafter completed the curriculum of the law department of this institution, from which he received the degree of Juris Doctor in 1917. In May of the same year he initiated the practice of his profession at Pasadena, and he confines his attention largely to civil and probate work.

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History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 3

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944 Publication date: 1923 Publisher: Number of Pages: 844

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-1944
Publication date: 1923
Publisher:
Number of Pages: 844