USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume III > Part 53
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William F. Deeble was reared in the coal mining region of Pennsyl- vania, had opportunities to attend school only through the fourth grade, and began work as a door boy in the coal mines of Pennsylvania. Mr. Deeble followed the arduous occupation of coal miner until he was about twenty-three years of age, and part of the time lived in Indiana.
In 1912 he came to Los Angeles, and for a brief period was employed as an oiler by the Llewellyn Iron Works. Following that he was assistant circulation manager of the Los Angeles Morning Tribune, and he went into the real estate business at Los Angeles under his own name with offices in the Homer-Laughlin Building. He was there about one year and in 1913 removed to Long Beach where he joined the firm of Deeble & Chapman. Several years later after the death of his brother, Thomas J. Deeble, senior member of the real estate firm Deeble & Myers, he joined Mr. Myers, thus retaining the old name of the partnership. This firm has done a large business in handling city property at Long Beach, and Mr. Deeble is credited with having affected the most valuable lease ever recorded in the city of Long Beach, involving the Southwest Corner of Broadway and Elm. It was a lease for ninety-nine years at a total valua- tion of $1,500,000. The firm of Deeble & Myers also put on the market the Silverado Tract in Long Beach, 940 lots, all of which was sold out in nineteen weeks. This is the only tract known in California where the investors were able to fill out and realize from 1,000 to 1,500 per cent on their investment.
During the World war Mr. Deeble was a member of the Long Beach Home Guards, but he rendered more important duties as captain of the American Protective League, an organization that effected the capture of some real spies and had seventeen persons interned during the war. Mr. Deeble is affiliated with Long Beach Lodge No. 888, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, of the Long Beach, Los Angeles and National Realty Board and is a republican in politics. Mr. Deeble is a member of the Virginia Country Club of Long Beach and the Southern California Yacht Club at Wilmington.
Mr. Deeble married Miss Grace D. Wilson. They were married March 17, 1908, at Sullivan, Indiana, the home of former Postmaster General Billie Hayes. It was Mr. Hayes, then a well known and popular young attorney of Sullivan, who went out and secured the minister for the mar- riage of Mr. Deeble and Miss Wilson. She was born at a village a little south of Sullivan, Carlisle, Indiana, daughter of Robert and Orletha Wil- son, retired residents there. Mr. and Mrs. Deeble have three children, Viola, Mildred, and Helen, the first two natives of Carlisle, Indiana; and Helen, who was born in Los Angeles.
L. ROY MYERS, of the real estate firm of Deeble & Myers, has been a business man and public spirited citizen of Long Beach for over ten years. His associates know him as a quiet, effective worker, one who goes about performing the service commensurate with his abilities in a manner that gets results, whether in practical business or in some benevolent under- taking.
Melille BRary-
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Mr. Myers was born on a farm in Pawnee County, Kansas, February 14, 1882, and is of old American stock. His people through several gen- erations progressed from Pennsylvania to Ohio, to Indiana, to Kansas and finally Mr. Myers himself reached the Pacific Coast. He is a son of Ira Eugene and Lillian Elflora Myers, and his father is now living at Marian, Kansas. The family were pioneers in Western Kansas, and their home- stead was about fifty miles from Fort Larned and several times they re- sorted to that post in times of Indian raids. Successive crop failures during the early eighties caused the family to leave Pawnee County, and move to McPherson in Marion County, where his father became a worker on a branch of the Santa Fe Railroad. L. Roy Myers was able to attend school only at intervals until he was about eleven years of age. He walked two and one-half miles to the school house or rode a pony. After school he
went to work in a store at Marion, his first employment being in the cellar warehouse making egg cases and keeping the other commodities in order. The firm was W. W. Loveless & Sons, one of the big mercantile establish- ments in that section of Kansas. Mr. Myers was promoted to delivery boy, then became clerk in the grocery department, and was successively clerk, manager, buyer for the clothing, dry goods and shoe department. Mr. Myers spent eighteen years with the Loveless Company and was one of the prosperous young business men of Marion when he left there to come to California.
After spending a vacation in Southern California in 1911, Mr. Myers returned and established his permanent home in Long Beach in the Fall of 1912. He was for a time engaged in selling real estate on commission, and then opened offices of his own at 135 West First Street, where he has had his headquarters since 1916. Late in that year he formed a partnership with the late Tom Deeble, and when J. B. Anderson came into the partner- ship, the name was changed to Anderson, Deeble & Myers. They put on the market the Bixby Heights Subdivision, and had just begun the sale of the lots when America entered the World war. Mr. Anderson at once left the company to go into active service, while Mr. Deeble has dedicated his entire time to war campaign work and died a martyr to the service. Mr. Myers handled the business for both himself and partner, and after the death of Mr. Deeble the firm retained the same name, Tom Deeble's place being taken by his brother William F. Deeble.
Mr. Myers has been one of the most popular Rotarians of Long Beach, and was vice-president of the Long Beach Rotary Club in 1922. He is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, a member of the Long Beach Lodge of Elks, a director in the Chamber of Commerce, and for a number of years has been active in the world's largest Bible class, the Taubman class for men, being head of its benevolent section.
August 16, 1906, at Hudson, Kansas, Mr. Myers married Miss Birdie Mae Kline. They have two children, a daughter, Helen, born in 1908, and a son, Max, born in 1911. Mr. Myers' home is at 3920 East Ocear Boulevard.
MELVILLE B. RAPP. The name of Melville B. Rapp is becoming well known to the present generation of residents of Santa Monica, being asso- ciated in the mind of the public with the development of one of the city's finest residential sections, Melville Square. His biography is a record of an achievement accomplished before the architect reached the age when slower minds are beginning to comprehend life's possibilities.
Mr. Rapp was born at New York City, New York, April 17, 1886, a son of Abram and Phyllis (Seldner) Rapp, natives of the same city, the former having been born March 12, 1850. Abram Rapp, a mine operator for many years and a pioneer in Colorado, came to California in 1918, and is now living in retirement at Los Angeles. He is a direct descendent of Count Jean Rapp, the French military officer, who was aide-de-camp to Napoleon, and whose brilliant charge at Austerlitz on the Russian Imperial Guard was rewarded with the grade of general of
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division in 1805. For his services at Lobau he was named a Count of the Empire. He was commander-in-chief of the army of the Rhine and peer of France, submitted to Louis XVIII after Waterloo, and was recreated a peer of France in 1819. He died at Paris in 1821.
Melville B. Rapp received his early education in the public schools of his native metropolis, following which he pursued a course at the College of the City of New York. Mr. Rapp made several fortunes in Cripple Creek, Colorado, his most notable being on the C. K. & N. mine on Beacon Hill; the Dante mine and the Last Dollar gold mine. Shortly be- fore the war terminated he discovered what is probably the largest molyh- denum deposit in America, located near Questa, Taos County, New Mexico. After proving the magnitude of this ore body he organized the Molyb- denum Corporation of America. The company now owns its electric fur- nace plant and today is producing more tungsten and molybdenum than any company in this country. The steel plant of the company is located at Washington, Pennsylvania. In February, 1921, Mr. Rapp resigned as vice president and director of the corporation and moved to California, first locating at Los Angeles, but in May of the same year moved to Santa Monica and purchased the tract of land now known as Melville Square, entering at once upon its development. This property is located on the highest point of the palisades section and consists of fifty-six acres divided into nine square blocks. This forms one of the most exclu- sive residence districts in the City of Santa Monica, and already contains the homes of some of the foremost citizens of the community. Mr. Rapp is a man of progressive nature and modern ideas, energetic and practicable and of broadened judgment. He is a member of the Santa Monica Realty Board, the Greater Santa Monica Club, and of every movement of note in the Bay District. He is still an active member of the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks. He is a member of the Santa Monica Athletic Club; the Brentwood Country Club; the Uplifters and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Mr. Rapp is a dog fancier and has recently established a kennel of highly pedigreed German police dogs known as Doberman- Pincher dogs, all of which he imported from Berlin.
On May 2, 1920, Mr. Rapp married Miss Beulah Tuttle, who was born near Salina, Kansas, and educated at Colorado Springs and Denver, Colorado, a daughter of E. M. and Stella Tuttle of Salina, Kansas.
Mr. Rapp owns a very beautiful home at 518 Georgina Avenue in the Palisades, as well as other valuable property, both business and residential, and is closely identified with many successful enterprises. He has one brother, Sylvester S. Rapp, who was born in Durango, Colorado, October 9, 1889.
FRANCIS HARDEN STANTON was a pioneer in Colorado and laid the basis of his fortune there, but a number of years ago came to Southern California, and with his sons instituted and carried out an extensive pro- . gram of land development. The Stanton family has been one of the most prominent and is still prominently identified with that section of Los Angeles County near Puente. Mrs. Alice Stanton, widow of the late Fran- cis Harden Stanton, now lives three miles west of Puente and half a mile north of the San Bernardino road.
The late Mr. Stanton was born at Grantville, twenty-four miles west of Cumberland, Maryland, August 5, 1855. His father, William Stanton, and his grandfather, George Stanton, were also born in Maryland. His great- grandfather came from England, settled in Maryland and became a soldier in the war for independence. William Stanton married Mary Ann Ridgley, a daughter of Eli Ridgley, a Maryland farmer.
Francis Harden Stanton was next to the youngest in a family of ten children. He grew up on a farm in Maryland, attended public schools there, and at the age of twenty he and his brother Uriah formed a partner- ship to operate the old homestead. In the Spring of 1880 he gave up this work and started for the West. His journeys took him eventually to Ouray,
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C.M. Dobyns
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Colorado, where he began mining, and from this work acquired some means with which he bought land on the Uncompahgre River. He took an active part in building a ditch and canal as part of the general irriga- tion system including his own land. He developed a very valuable property, having two hundred acres in alfalfa and also did sheep raising and general farming.
Mr. Stanton came to Los Angeles in 1899; for one year he conducted a retail mercantile establishment, but sold this in 1900, and in 1902 bought forty acres at Bassett. He set out twenty acres of this to soft shell wal- nuts, built homes, barns and other buildings, and two years later he finished planting his land to walnuts. In 1907 he acquired other land, which he also developed and was busily engaged in the various enterprises when he died July 27, 1919. He was made a Mason in Lodge No. 37, at Ouray, Colo- rado, and later was a member of Lexington Lodge, No. 104, Free and Accepted Masons, at El Monte, California.
Mr. and Mrs. Stanton were the parents of a large family of children. Mary, a native of California, is the wife of E. V. Ellis, a rancher, and has one child, Belvin. Harry, and Alva, also born in Colorado, have improved an extensive tract of land in California, owning eighty acres each. Harry is married and is a member of the Baptist Church. Alva is married and has a child, Marian, and is a member of the same church.
The next of the family Ridgley, was born in Colorado, and has twenty acres at Bassett. He is married and has four children, Elvyn, Kenneth, Dorothy Alice and Doris Jane, the latter two, twins. The next child, Elvira, is unmarried and at home. Francis lives at Puente, is married and has ten acres in walnuts at Bassett. Robert, born in California, lives at the home place, is married and has a son, Robert E. Eugene, born in Cali- fornia, is attending high school. The four older sons are all Masons.
In 1909 Francis H. Stanton with William Malcolm bought a hundred eighty-five acres northeast of Puente, and set eighty-five acres of this to Eucalyptus. In 1918, Alva Stanton bought the Malcolm interest and he and his mother now own that property, part of it being devoted to grain and pasture. This land is now leased to the Mascot Oil Company, which is conducting drilling operations.
At Ouray, Colorado, February 12, 1884, Francis H. Stanton married Miss Alice Killen, who was born in Missouri, daughter of Henry and Mar- garet (Miller) Killen; her father a native of Kentucky and her mother of Missouri. Her parents were married in the latter state, and subsequently moved to Colorado, where her father was engaged in mining until his death. Mrs. Stanton was the sixth in a family of nine children. She was a girl when her parents moved to Colorado in 1872. They accompanied a large train of settlers, and some of them stood guard every night against the Indians. They first settled on the plains about twenty miles from Pueblo, and later moved to the frontier town of Saguache. Mrs. Stanton has many vivid memories of the dangers and hardships of early life in Colorado, when there was constant danger from Indians, and when a long trip had to be made to the nearest supply point for provisions. Her father hired a teacher and she and her sister walked through snow and severe cold three miles to school, which was held in a log building with planks as seats and without desks. The teacher was a missionary, and on Sundays he did duty as a preacher, in the absence of any other formal religious leaders in the com- munity.
C. MERWIN DOBYNS, one of the distinctly representative business men of the younger generation in Los Angeles County, has superabundant vitality, enterprise and progressiveness, and has not been content to follow a single line of constructive business but has broadened the scope of his activities in such a way as to mark him as one of the influential figures in commercial and industrial circles in Southern California. He is secretary, treasurer and manager of Dobyns Footwear, Incorporated, which conducts a wholesale and retail shoe business, with well equipped establishment at
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8 and 10 Pine Avenue, and another at 109 East Ocean Boulevard in the City of Long Beach, his wife being vice president and his father the presi- dent of this corporation. He was associated with J. O. Armstrong in the organization of the Progressive and the Harmony Oil Syndicates, they are the managing directors of The Harmony Syndicate. They are successfully engaged in development work, including drilling operations, with large and valuable interests, in the Signal Hill field of Los Angeles County. He is vice president of Bodum & Dobyns, Incorporated, engaged in the auto- mobile business at Long Beach, and he is an interested principal in the Paper Box & Carton Company. He is a trustee and managing director of the Harmony Oil Syndicates, five in number, at Signal Hill, and in all of these connections his energies and progressive policies are making for the highest maximum attainable.
Carroll Merwin Dobyns was born in the City of Columbus, Ohio, Sep- tember 9, 1898, and is a son of Harvey B. and Florence M. (Daymude) Dobyns, who now maintain their home at Long Beach. Harvey B. Dobyns was born and reared in Ohio and is a son of the late Rev. Alexander Dobyns, who was a distinguished clergyman of the Christian Church and who also attained high reputation as an author, he having lived in Columbus and also at Delaware, Ohio. The lineage of the Dobyns family traces back to fine French-Huguenot origin, and in France the spelling of the patronymic was Daughbyne. Representatives of the name were numbered among the Huguenots who came in an early day to America and settled in Florida. John Daymude, maternal grandfather of the subject of this review, was a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, was a resident of Ohio's capital city at the time of his death, and there his widow still maintains her home.
Harvey B. Dobyns conducted a department store near Columbus, Ohio, and since establishing his residence in California he has acquired large oil interests in the Signal Hill district, is president of the corporation known as Dobyns Footwear, as previously noted, and is a director of the Paper Box & Carton Company, both he and his wife being zealous and influential members of the First Christian Church of Long Beach. Of the five children C. Merwin, of this sketch, is the eldest; Geraldine is the wife of Harold E. Waite, of Long Beach; and Grace M. the wife of Edwin Merrill of Long Beach. Chester H. and J. Alden remain at the parental home, the two younger sons being students in the Long Beach High School at the time of this writing, in the winter of 1922.
C. Merwin Dobyns profited by the advantages of the public schools at Oberlin, Ohio, including the high school, and there attended also the Oberlin Academy. After coming to the West he passed about one year at Mount Pleasant, Utah, where he attended Wasatch Academy, and after the family home was established at Long Beach, California, he here con- tinued his studies in the high school, besides which he was for one year a student in the law department of the University of Southern California, at Los Angeles. Mr. Dobyns has been a resident of Long Beach since 1916, and here he initiated his career as a shoe merchant in the year 1919. Of his interests and activities in the intervening years adequate outline has been given in an earlier paragraph of this review. In the World war period Mr. Dobyns was in the officers' training school of the United States Navy Reserves, and he received his honorable discharge from this organization in 1920. He is a loyal and valued member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, and holds membership in the Progressive Club, the National Exchange Club and the Virginia Country Club, both he and his wife being members of the First Christian Church in their home city.
At Long Beach, on the 20th of April, 1920, was solemnized the mar- riage of Mr. Dobyns to Miss Glyde V. Tennant, who was born at Hartley, Iowa, and who was about four years old when the family home was estab- lished at Long Beach, California, she being a graduate of the Polytechnic High School of this city. She is a daughter of Frank E. and Alice (Drake) Tennant, the latter of whom is deceased, while Mr. Tennant is now a resi-
H.A. Blanchard
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dent of Sierra Madre County, this state. Mrs. Dobyns is a member of the Long Beach Music Study Club, the Delphine Club, and the aid and mission- aries societies of the First Christian Church. Mr. and Mrs. Dobyns are. popular figures in the representative social activities of the community, and here their circle of friends is coincident with that of their acquaintances.
JIM WILSON is president of the Bank of Lankershim, and has been a prominent factor in the affairs of that little city of Los Angeles County for a number of years.
The bank was organized July 6, 1921, and started business on the 19th of November of the same year. Mr. Wilson has been president from the beginning, the vice president is B. C. Lembke, and the cashier and vice presi- dent is J. A. Huizenga. Other directors are J. H. Fritz, Ray Engleson and John F. Kegley. The bank has a capital of $25,000, surplus of $5,000, and deposits of about $175,000, the depositors being 700 in number. The bank occupies a thoroughly modern building with all facilities for conducting a banking business.
Mr. Jim Wilson was born at Butler, Ohio, October 21, 1872, and was educated in the public schools. He came to California in 1905, and for a number of years was in the mercantile business, until he took up banking. He has been the leader in the Chamber of Commerce of Lankershim, and is also a popular Mason, a member of the lodge and various bodies of the York Rite and the Shrine.
JOHN A. HUIZENGA is cashier of the Bank of Lankershim. Mr. Hui- zenga came to California about two years ago, after a long and successful experience in banking in the Middle West.
He was born at Holland, Nebraska, November 15, 1880. He was educated in the public schools at Rock Valley, Iowa, attended Hope College at Holland, Michigan, and began his banking career as an employe of the First National Bank of Rock Valley. Later he was with the State Bank of Rock Valley. Mr. Huizenga came to Lankershim, California, in Novem- ber, 1921, and has been vice president and cashier since the opening of the First National Bank.
He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner and a leading member of the Chamber of Commerce and Kiwanis Club. In 1910 he married Miss Wini- fred Irene Reaney, of Iowa.
WILLARD A. BLANCHARD. In a locality like Los Angeles County, where the expansion is constant and rapid, there is naturally a very large demand for lumber and other building materials, and the handling of these com- modities has come to be a very important factor in the business life of the different communities in the county. One of the concerns connected with this line that is doing a large and constantly increasing business is the Blanchard Lumber Company of Burbank, with a branch yard at Lanker- shim. This company was organized December 1, 1911, by Willard A. Blanchard, who bought property of the Suburban Lumber Company and took R. W. Blanchard into partnership. The latter is manager of the yard at Lankershim. This company handles all kinds of lumber, cement, lime and everything required by the building trade with the exception of hardware. Employment is given to nine persons, and a stock aggregating 500,000 square feet of lumber is carried at all times.
Willard A. Blanchard was born at Morenci, Michigan, December 2, 1865, and he was educated in his native city, where he remained until 1889. In that year he went to Broken Bow, Nebraska, and spent two years in that vicinity, during that time being engaged in farming. He then went to Nampa, Idaho, and there, too, he was occupied with agricultural activi- ties. About 1893 he entered the lumber trade in connection with the Badger Lumber Company of Kansas City, Missouri, in Oklahoma Terri- tory, leaving there for Kansas, and then finally, in 1911, he located per- manently at Burbank and organized his present company. During the more
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than a dozen years he has lived here he has not only built up a large and growing concern, but has aided very materially in the development of this community. For eight years he rendered an effective service as a member of the City Board. In 1913, at the solicitation of many of the leading citi- zens, he consented to accept a position on the Town Board, with the under- standing that he would only remain there one year. However, his record was such and his work so valuable that pressure was brought to bear on him to the end that he remained as president of the board for eight years. 'i hrough his membership with the Presbyterian Church he supports religious work, and helps to raise high standards of living, and he is one of the active members of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce. The Masonic fraternity has in him a zealous member.
In 1898 Mr. Blanchard married Maude Stevens, of Wilmington, Kan- sas, and they have one son, Judson. Mrs. Blanchard was born in Iowa, and was educated in the public schools of her native state.
JAMES F. McBRYDE. If it be true, as it should be, that the most fitting memorial that can be written of a lawyer is a simple and truthful record of a career of useful hard work, that has brought with it honor in an honored profession, then, indeed, it is an easy task to present such a memorial to James F. McBryde, a practicing attorney at the bar of Glendale, and the pioneer of his profession in this community.
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