USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume III > Part 44
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E. A. Williams was born in Boone County, Illinois, August 4, 1873, a son of Leslie and Maria Williams, natives of Ohio and Michigan. When he was only nine months old E. A. Williams had the misfortune to lose his mother. He was the youngest of five children, and was taken by his pater- nal grandparents. Following his wife's death Leslie Williams came to California in 1874, and was followed by his parents in 1878, and they set- tled at Alhambra, where E. A. Williams was reared. At the time they settled at Alhambra that flourishing community had but one store, and but a few inhabitants. E. A. Williams completed his educational training in the high school of San Gabriel, from which he was graduated after a two-
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years' course in 1892, and entered the nursery growers' business as an em- ploye of the noted Pollard Brothers, and was sent as head farmer to the Leffingwell ranch of 500 acres east of Whittier, the largest orange grove in Los Angeles County. Here he remained for two years, and then went to Riverside for the Riverside Trust Company, remaining there ten years and had charge of 1,700 acres of citrus fruit. He then engaged with W. L. Stuart, and not only had charge of sixty acres of citrus fruit, but also helped to erect houses for the employes, and set out seventeen acres of lem- ons and thirty-six acres of oranges. In 1914 Mr. Williams returned to Pollard Brothers.
In the meanwhile he had become interested in the Avocado, and in 1919 leased land and entered the Avocado nursery business. He is raising all the varieties recommended by the Avocado Association, which are the Fuerte, Puebla, Sharpless, Spinks and Dickinson, from Mexican seedlings, the strongest root stock known to the industry. His orchards are in fine condition, and are a model for other orchardists, but it has taken hard work to produce such results, and splendid planning.
In 1903 Mr. Williams married Miss Minnie Housinger, a native of Kansas. Having devoted his life to the citrus and Avocado industries, Mr. Williams' knowledge is practical, and he knows his business thoroughly, and is a valuable addition to the ranks of those who are staking everything on raising avocados. While his time and attention have been so absorbed by his work, he has not neglected his duty as a citizen, and is anxious to have his home community and country developed and improved as fast as possible, and willing to forward this good work as far as lies in his power.
Mr. Williams is a member of Montebello Lodge No. 454, A. F. and A. M .; Alhambra Lodge No. 127, Knights of Pythias ; the D. O. K. K. of Los Angeles ; and Genethian Grotto No. 75, also of Los Angeles.
GEORGE H. BAKER is a native son of California, and has had increas- ingly prominent connections with the building material trade in San Fran- cisco and in Los Angeles County for nearly twenty years. Since 1917 he has been in business at Long Beach, and is now president of the Baker- Hickman Company, dealers and manufacturers of sash and doors, mill work and hardwood floors. George Howe Baker was born at Oakland, California, February 27, 1884. He is a son of Alvin and Mary Bridge (Vose) Baker, and on both sides his ancestry runs back into the early period of colonization in New England. The record of the Vose family runs back to the tenth century. It was a Norman-French name De Veaux, and some of them accompanied William the Conqueror to England. Several members of the Baker and Vose families were officers in the Revolutionary war. Mr. Baker of Long Beach has a table, now over a hundred and fifty years old, that belonged to Sir Solomon Vose, and also a snuff box, with the date 1756 inscribed on it, which belonged to Rufus Chandler, one of his direct ancestors on the Vose side. There is also among the family heirlooms a set of china presented to Sir Solomon Vose by General Marquis La Fayette.
Edward Baker, a Puritan, came from England in one of Governor Winthrop's ships and settled at Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1630. In later years some of his descendants, including the great-grandfather of the Long Beach business man, Seth Baker, with wife and several children, moved from Massachusetts to Onondaga County, New York. The Vose ancestry is also of English Cavalier stock and came to America in 1632 and 1634, at first settling at Milton, Massachusetts. The Vose and Bridge lines contain records of many distinguished individuals in English history.
George H. Vose, maternal grandfather of Mr. Baker, graduated from Bowdoin College in Maine in 1851, and soon afterward moved to Cali- fornia, settling at Oakland. He married Katherine La Rose, and her oldest daughter was Mary Bridge Vose, who was born in Oakland in 1858 and now resides with a son in San Luis Obispo, California.
She was married near Oakland in 1880 to Rev. Alvin Baker. She had
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been a school teacher prior to her marriage. Rev. Alvin Baker was born at LaFayette, New York, in 1829, and was a graduate of Hamilton College and the Union Theological Seminary of his native state. He was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church; and in 1875 moved to California. He died about two months before his son George H. Baker was born.
George H. Baker acquired a grammar and high school education at Pacific Grove, California, and at the age of sixteen began earning his living as an employe in the general offices of the Southern Pacific Railway at San Francisco. He was in the freight and accounting departments there from 1900-1906. After the fire and earthquake in the spring of that year he entered the service of W. P. Fuller and Company at Oakland, and subse- quently was made manager of the sash, door and glass department of this business. Mr. Baker resigned in 1912 to come to Los Angeles, and took the position of assistant to the manager of the largest wholesale sash and door establishment in Southern California. In 1917 he removed to Long Beach and engaged in the brokerage business as a sash and door dealer. Out of that came the Baker-Hickman Company, which was organized November 1, 1921, by Mr. Baker and V. J. Hickman, another sash and. door dealer of Long Beach. The business was incorporated in April, 1923, with Mr. Baker as president and manager.
Mr. Baker served ten years in the Hospital Corps of the California National Guard as secretary to the surgeon-general, with rank of sergeant, first class. He is a republican, a member of the One Hundred Percent Club of Long Beach, the Pacific Coast Club of Long Beach, the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and attends the Christian Science Church:
At San Francisco, September 8, 1902, he married Miss Lillian M. Tietjen, a native of Oakland, where she was reared and educated. Mrs. Baker is a past president of Fremont Parlor, Native Daughters of the Golden West of San Francisco, and is vice president of the Long Beach High School Parents-Teachers Association. They have one daughter, Dorothy L., who graduated from the Long Beach High School with the class of 1923.
HARRY BOYLE, one of the most enterprising of Long Beach's business men, proprietor of Boyle's Transfer, a complete organization to serve every requirement in the moving of goods and commodities of all kinds, is a successful man who has achieved prosperity entirely as a force of character and industry.
Since he was nine years of age he has been doing for himself. He never had any help from his parents and had a very limited education, but experience has proved a wonderful teacher and his phenomenal industry has put him in the ranks of Southern California's thoroughly well qualified business men.
His transfer business at Long Beach was established five years ago, and his personal knowledge of the business has enabled him to build up an organization qualified to handle contracts of any size for the moving of household goods and other materials. He operates a fleet of about thirty trucks of different capacities, and does a great deal of heavy trucking for Long Beach firms and firms in the Signal Hill Oil District. His office is at 1105 American Avenue, and he has a large warehouse at the corner of. Fourteenth and San Francisco streets.
ARTHUR E. STREETER, head of the reliable house of A. E. Streeter & Company of Van Nuys, dealers in hardware, agricultural implements and. similar articles, and vice president of the Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce, is one of the men who during recent years have done much to advance the interests of this flourishing little city of Los Angeles County. During the nearly eight years he has been one of the business men of Van Nuys he has been connected with practically every movement inaugurated for its im- provement and progress, and naturally takes a pride in it and what has been
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accomplished. His own prosperity is but the just reward for his energy, good judgment and hard work.
The birth of Mr. Streeter took place at Saint Johnsburg, Vermont, February 23, 1886, and he is a son of William S. Streeter, a banker of Pas- adena, California, at the time of his death, although he had lived in several of the large cities of the country before locating finally in the Golden State. Arthur E. Streeter attended the public schools of Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois, the Lewis Institute of that city, and the University of Chicago and the Northwestern University of Evanston, Illinois. For the subsequent two years he was connected in a clerical capacity with the First National Bank of Chicago. Going then to New Mexico, he was engaged in merchandising in that state until 1911, when he left it for Colorado, where he spent a year. Going to Pasadena, he was with the Murray Harris Company, now the Robert Norton Organ Company, as superintendent until 1916, when he came to Van Nuys and opened his present business, under his own name, and began handling heavy and light hardware, farm imple- ments, paints, oils and glass. In 1920 the name of A. E. Streeter & Com- pany was adopted, and his store is known as the Winchester Store, and is accorded a strong support by the people of Van Nuys, for Mr. Streeter's policies and service recommend him to their patronage. In addition to this large business Mr. Streeter is owner of the Los Angeles Valley Construc- tion Company and the Trans-Pacific Importing Company. He is a Chapter Mason, and also belongs to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Kiwanis Club and the Hollywood Country Club.
On January 17, 1912, Mr. Streeter married Miss Unia Veeder, of Pas- adena, and they have two daughters, Nancy Elizabeth and Marjorie Jean. Mrs. Streeter was born at Nantucket, Massachusetts, but was educated at Minneapolis, Minnesota. She belongs to the Woman's Club and the Order of the Eastern Star.
MALVERTO GRIJALVA. A spirited and romantic career was that of the vital and popular Spanish gentleman to whom this memoir is dedicated. His noble and generous attributes of character, as combined with his talent and winning personality, gained to him a host of friends, and he was one of the honored pioneer citizens of Covina, Los Angeles County, at the time of his death, in 1916.
Mr. Grijalva was born in Spain, about the year 1838, and was a child when he accompanied his father, Paquinto Grijalva, to Mexico in 1840, the father having become a high official of the government in the City of Mex- ico, and the mother having died at the time of the birth of her second child, which likewise died. Owing to turbulence in Mexican affairs the subject of this memoir as a boy was sent by his father to Santa Fe, New Mexico, where he was taken into the home of a gracious Spanish woman who was an old friend of the family and by whom he was reared to adult age, he hav- ing been but fourteen years old at the time of the death of his father, who had remained in Mexico. He received somewhat limited educational ad- vantages in his youth, but his alert and receptive mind enabled him to over- come this early handicap in a most effectual way. At the age of twenty- one years Mr. Grijalva went to Yuma, Arizona, and from that point he came to San Diego, California, with a train of freighting wagons drawn by mules. Mr. Grijalva had remarkable musical talent, both as a vocalist and as a player on stringed instruments. As a member of a fine quartet he ap- peared in early musical entertainments in all leading places in California. Though he accumulated an appreciable amount of money through this me- dium, he was a true cavalier, loved to entertain his friends and was charac- teristically improvident in a financial way, so that he did not save any of his earnings at this period in his career.
As a young man Mr. Grijalva married Miss Maria Ignacio Carra, whose godfather was Governor Pico. This marriage was the culmination of a veritable romance. Miss Carra heard her future husband sing at a fiesta, formed his acquaintance and their love for each other was immedi-
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ate and insistent. The family of Miss Carra opposed her marriage to the young troubadour, but finally gave their consent, the wedding ceremony having been performed in the historic old Plaza Church in Los Angeles, by Father Peters. Mr. and Mrs. Grijalva established their home at Los An- geles, and later he took part in the gold rush to San Gabriel Canyon, where he was successful in his placer mining. Three years later he engaged in farm enterprise near El Monte. He settled as a squatter on the old Dalton ranch, where he cleared and reclaimed eighty acres of land, his contest for the retention of the property having continued seven years and his title to the same having finally been perfected. The popular and generous lawyer, Mr. Chabot, who had handled the prolonged litigation for Mr. Grijalva, charged the latter only twenty dollars for his seven years of effective pro- fessional service, he having been appreciative of the sterling character of his client and of the latter's earnest struggle to provide a home for his fam- ily. It was in the early '70s that Mr. Grijalva was thus working zealously to improve his land and win stable prosperity. Misfortune came to him when his house and barn, with virtually all their contents, were destroyed by fire, but he persevered in the face of this loss and all other obstacles. On his land Mr. Grijalva planted one of the first orange orchards in the dis- trict, and in the early days he transported water in barrels to preserve his young trees, no definite irrigation system having yet been provided. With the passing years prosperity attended his earnest efforts, and he passed the closing period of his life in peace and comfort at Covina, where, as previ- ously stated, he died in the year 1916. His widow still resides here. Their children were eleven in number-three sons and eight daughters-and the family still retains possession of fifty acres of the old home place. All of the children are gifted musicians. The eldest of the children is Mrs. Susanna McAteer, of Long Beach; Miss Dionisia, a practical nurse by pro- fession, resides at Covina ; Thomas is a resident of Azusa; Conception re- mains at the old home with her widowed mother; Angelina is a business woman of Long Beach; Carmel, who was the wife of Henry Grover Stil- well, is deceased; Mrs. Magdalena McMullen resides at Dinuba, Tulare County ; Natividad and Victoria remain at the family home; Mrs. Isabella Fulton is a resident of Fort Worth, Texas; and Bertolda, who saw active overseas service in the World war, as a member of Company E, Three Hundred and Sixteenth Engineers, Ninety-first Division, American Ex- peditionary Forces, is now associated with the Walnut Growers Association at Puente, and is also an employe of the Los Angeles County Election Board. The data for this merited tribute to her honored father are sup- plied by Miss Natividad Grijalva, who resides at the attractive family home, corner of Citrus and Bonita avenues, Covina.
ANDREW C. FILLBACH, mortician and funeral director at Burbank, here established himself in business in November, 1919, and on the 15th of January, 1920, he took possession of the modern building which he erected for his business at 160 Los Angeles Street. He has full motor equipment for service, and his building has a chapel of modern appointments, while the display rooms are of the best metropolitan standard. A motor hearse and a sedan ambulance are accessories of this well ordered establishment, and Mrs. Fillbach assists her husband as woman attendant in the headquar- ters, the second floor of the building being occupied by Mr. Fillbach and his family for residential purposes.
Andrew C. Fillbach was born at Cobb, Wisconsin, September 26, 1886, and his early education was received in the schools of that place and in a business college at St. Paul, Minnesota. In 1911 he established his resi- dence in Spokane, Washington, where he did service as a professional em- balmer in a leading undertaking establishment. In 1913 he came to Los Angeles, California, and continued in the same line of occupation until 1917, then establishing himself in business at Blythe, where he remained until he founded his present business at Burbank in 1919. He is a graduate
William Nicolaus
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of the Barnes School of Embalming, Chicago, Illinois, and he is an active member of the Southern California Funeral Directors Association and the California State Funeral Directors Association, as well as the national as- sociation. He is a loyal and valued member of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce and the local Rotary Club, is affiliated with the Masonic frater- nity, in connection with which he is patron of the local chapter of the Order of the Eastern Star, and he holds membership also in the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Knights of Pythias, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Sunset Canyon Country Club.
August 31, 1913, recorded the marriage of Mr. Fillbach and Miss Hat- tie M. Carpenter, who was born in the State of Washington, where she at- tended school in Spokane, her education having later been advanced by her attending school in Los Angeles, California, where her marriage was sol- emnized. She is a member of the Woman's Club of Burbank and of the local chapter of the Eastern Star. Mr. and Mrs. Fillbach have one daugh- ter, Betty Lou.
WILLIAM NICOLAUS is the owner of the Nicolaus Fancy Bakery and in his operation of the same has been specially successful, a statement that implies that his establishment has given the best of service to its representa- tive and appreciative patrons. He has won place as one of the substantial and popular business men of the City of Long Beach, and the spring of 1923 records his removal of his business to the new and modern bakery and salesrooms which he has equipped for the purpose, he being the owner of this property, at 327 American Avenue.
Mr. Nicolaus was born in the province of Hessen, Germany, at a point not far distant from the historic city of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and the date of his birth was June 14, 1873. He is a son of John and Augusta (Maer) Nicolaus, who passed the closing years of their lives in Germany, the father having been a baker by trade and vocation. John Nicolaus came originally to the United States and established his residence in California in the early '70s, he having followed his trade in both San Francisco and Los Angeles. He was for some time operator of a bakery in San Fran- cisco, and later was similarly engaged at Santa Rosa, this state, and Reno, Nevada. He finally returned to his native land, where his family had remained, and in 1886 he came again to California, his wife having in the meanwhile died in her native land. On the second journey to California he was accompanied by his son William, of this sketch, and his daughter Dena, the latter being the elder of the two and being now married and a resident of Long Beach, the name of her husband being Beck. The father remained .in California about three years and then returned to Germany, where he passed the remainder of his life, the son and daughter having remained in Boston and the son having been attending school in Boston, Massachusetts, at the time when the father returned to his native land.
William Nicolaus attended school in his native province and was a lad of twelve years when he accompanied his father to the United States, as noted above. He attended the Tyler Street Public School in the City of Boston, and in that city he gained his initial experience in the bakery busi- ness, he having been employed about four years in the bakery and confec- tionery establishment of Frederick Webber, at 25-27 Temple Place, Boston. He then, in 1891, came to San Francisco, and after working at his trade there for a period of eight months he made his way to Los Angeles, where he arrived in March, 1892, and where he was employed at his trade until 1895. He then engaged independently in the bakery business, as a member of the firm of Mailling and Nicolaus, at 125-27 West First Street, Los Angeles. This partnership alliance continued about fourteen years, and Mr. Nicolaus then sold his interest in the business and removed, in 1910, to Long Beach. Here he purchased the modest fancy bakery conducted by Mrs. Farrar at 241 Pine Avenue. He greatly improved and increased the facilities of the establishment and continued the enterprise at the original quarters until March, 1923, when, upon the expiration of his lease, he estab-
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lished himself in his own new and splendidly equipped bakery, at 327 American Avenue, where he will have the best of facilities for meeting the requirements of his large contingent of former patrons and also for those of a greatly extended trade. Mr. Nicolaus is one of the honorable, indus- trious and progressive business men of Long Beach, is a stockholder in local banking institutions and other corporations, and commands unqualified popular esteem in his home city. He is a loyal supporter of the cause of the republican party, and under the administration of Governor Gillett he was tendered, but declined, the position of state inspector of bake shops.
In the Masonic fraternity the basic affiliation of Mr. Nicolaus is with Palo Verde Lodge, No. 389, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and he is a member also of the chapter, No. 84, Royal Arch Masons, and Long Beach Commandery, No. 40, Knights Templar. He is a life member of Long Beach Lodge, No. 888, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is identified actively with the local Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club. In the spring and summer of 1922 Mr. Nicolaus made a four months' European tour, in which he visited the place of his birth and also Belgium and Switzerland. He and his wife are zealous communicants of Trinity Lutheran Church at Long Beach.
At Los Angeles, on the 10th of June, 1908, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Nicolaus to Miss Mary Wyler, daughter of Jacob Wyler, who has charge of the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad at San Bernardino. Mrs. Nicolaus was born at Plattsmouth, Nebraska, and received the greater part of her early education in Kansas City, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Nico- laus have five children: William Edward, Nelda Arline, Elverda Ardell, Anita Loretta, and Lorain. All of the children were born at Long Beach with the exception of the eldest, William E., who was born at Los Angeles.
HAROLD MERRIELL, whose death occurred July 5, 1922, was a pioneer orange-grower in Los Angeles County, progressive as a business man and loyal and public-spirited as a citizen, so that in his death the county and state lost one who had proved his value in constructive enterprise and in worthiness of life.
A scion of an old and honored English family, Harold Merriell was born in the City of Chicago, Illinois, in 1858, his father having been a pioneer settler in what is now the great metropolis at the foot of Lake Michigan. A number of years ago photographs and other portraits of prominent men who figured in the early development of Chicago were assembled and locked in the city vaults, to remain 100 years, and among such pictures was one of the father of the subject of this memoir.
Harold Merriell acquired his youthful education in his native city, and as a lad he learned the art of telegraphy and was employed by the Western Union Telegraph Company in taking stock quotations at the Chicago Board of Trade. With the passing years he became prominently identified with business affairs in Chicago, and his first visit to California was made in company with his father, with, whom he became associated in the purchase of an orange ranch at Duarte, twenty miles distant from Los Angeles, this property, now one of the finest orange ranches of Los Angeles County, being still in the possession of the widow of Harold Merriell. It was in the year 1886 that Mr. Merriell established his home on the orange ranch at Duarte and gained prestige as a pioneer in the citrus-fruit industry in Los Angeles County. This ranch was a part of the old Graves estate, Mr. Graves having been one of the first settlers in the Duarte District. Mr. Merriell took great pride and satisfaction in the developing and improving of this now valuable property, and with his family continued to reside at Duarte until January, 1903, when the family removed to Los Angeles, in order to afford the children advanced educa- tional advantages. The beautiful home which Mr. Merriell purchased, at 618 Westlake Avenue, is still retained and occupied by his widow. In addition to his real-estate and business interests in California Mr. Merriell was the owner of valuable realty in his native city, Chicago, at the time of
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