USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume III > Part 67
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Earle C. Pendroy had a very successful experience as a merchant in Kansas before he came to California and is a young man with a notable rec- ord in commercial lines. He was born at Osage City, Kansas, October 5, 1889, was educated in grammar and high schools and in the Kansas State Normal at Emporia. He received his early training in his uncle's dry goods store at Emporia, and was promoted to assistant manager. He was then transferred to another store at Hutchinson, Kansas, as assistant to the manager, remaining there five years. After that he was in business for himself at Newton, Kansas, for five years and at the same time con- ducted a second store at Peabody. Mr. Pendroy sold out his mercantile interests to his uncle and came to California in 1920. He first located at Hollywood, and about two years later organized and established the Pendroy's General Department Store at Glendale.
Mr. Pendroy is a director in the Golden State Building and Loan Asso- ciation at Glendale, is director of the Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Kiwanis Club, the Flintridge Country Club and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.
December 25, 1919, Mr. Pendroy and Miss Mayme C. McGarry of St. Joseph, Missouri, married, Mrs. Pendroy being born and educated at St. Joseph. She is a thoroughly capable business woman, an expert buyer and has charge of the second floor of the business and is secretary of the company. She does much of the buying of women's goods and furnishings and makes many trips to New York City for that purpose. Mrs. Pendroy is a member of the Glendale Tuesday Afternoon Club, and attends the First Church of Christ, Scientist.
HARRY C. SMITH, M. D. Before coming to California Doctor Smith had a successful experience as a practicing physician and surgeon in Nebraska, and for the past ten years has practiced in Glendale.
Doctor Smith was born at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, December 28, 1875. As a youth he attended public schools in Milo in his native State, and he took his medical work in the Eclectic Medical College of Cincinnati, Ohio, where he was graduated Doctor of Medicine in 1899, and the John A. Creighton Medical College of Omaha, graduating in 1901. Dr. Smith practiced six years in Omaha, Nebraska, and another six years at Ains- worth in that State, and in 1911 came to Los Angeles and engaged in general practice. Since November 1913 he has been located at Glendale. Doctor Smith is a member of the Glendale Physicians Club and is secretary of the California State Eclectic Medical Society and is also a member of the National Eclectic Medical Society. He belongs to the Glendale Chamber of Commerce and is a popular member of the Masonic, Odd Fellows and Elks Fraternities. Doctor Smith married Miss Bertie Wilson of Omaha, on December 1, 1909.
RICHARDSON DOUGLAS WHITE, superintendent of the Glendale City Schools, has devoted the greater part of thirty years to educational work, most of the time as an active instructor. For many years he has been prominent in school circles in Southern California. Mr. White is a lawyer by education and practiced law for a time, abandoning that calling for what is to him the more attractive field of education.
Mr. White was born at St. Louis, Missouri, February 18, 1874. As a youth he attended the grammar and high schools of his native city,
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and he completed his literary education in Hampden-Sidney College at Farmville, Virginia, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the East. He was graduated Bachelor of Arts in the class of 1893. Some years later he pursued his studies in the legal department of Washington Univers- ity at St. Louis, and graduated Bachelor of Laws in 1900. He has done post graduate work in Harvard University, the University of Chicago and University of California at Berkeley.
In 1896 Mr. White became principal of an elementary school in St. Louis, and for eleven years he was instructor of mathematics in the Central High School of that city. In 1907 he resigned his school work to engage in, law practice at St. Louis. After a year he accepted the chair of professor of mathematics in the Missouri Teachers College at Cape Girardeau, where he remained three years.
Mr. White came to Southern California in 1911, and for two years was head of the Mathematics Department in the Glendale Union High School. In 1913 he was elected supervising principal of the Glendale Grammar Schools, a title that has since been changed to superintendent of the City Schools. In no small measure the splendid efficiency of the Glendale Public Schools reflects the energy and ability of Mr. White as their superin- tendent.
Mr. White entered the officers training camp in September 1918 at Fort McArthur and was trained with the heavy artillery, but the war closed before he was called to active duty. He is a member of the Glendale City Teachers Club, the California Teachers Association, the State Council of Education, the National Education Association, the School Masters Club of Southern California, the Southern California Superintendents and Sup- ervisors Association, and the Los Angeles County School Business Agents Association.
He is a member of Glendale Post No. 127, American Legion, belongs to the Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Masonic Lodge and is a vestryman of St. Mark's Episcopal Church at Glendale. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Glendale Community Service and is a member of the Sunset Canyon Country Club.
Mr. White and Miss Helen Morse of St. Louis, were married August 15, 1908. They have one child, Helen Morse, Jr. Mrs. White was born near Benedict, Kansas, and was educated in Kansas City, Missouri. She is a member of the Tuesday Afternoon Club and the Woman's Auxiliary to the American Legion.
CHARLES WILLETT CROSSMAN, of Long Beach, has been more or less actively identified with the automobile business since 1902. That was a pioneer year in the manufacture and use of automobiles, and Mr. Crossman has had some practical experience in every phase of development in this vehicle.
Mr. Crossman has had a career of action since early youth. He was born in St. Johns, Michigan, June 25, 1884, son of James Dunn and Emily A. Crossman, his father a native of Canada and his mother of England. Mr. Crossman acquired his early education in public schools, and after coming to California he attended the Throop Polytechnic Insti- tute at Pasadena, graduating in 1905. This school is now the California Institute of Technology.
Before getting permanently established in his present business at Long Beach, Mr. Crossman was a traveler and cosmopolitan. At one time he was third mate on a sea going ship, also toured the world as a motion picture camera man, worked in the mines of Mexico and Colorado, and for several years was in the real estate business in Los Angeles.
In November, 1920, Mr. Crossman purchased the Hudson franchise for Long Beach, and in 1922 moved his agency for the Hudson and Essex cars and his garage and repair shop to 535 Locust Avenue, where he has seventeen thousand square feet of floor space, constituting one of the largest and most complete establishments of the kind in Southern California.
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After getting the Hudson franchise he increased the sales of that car over 100 per cent. In his repair shop all makes of cars are repaired, though the efforts of the business are concentrated on Hudson and Essex sales and service. He was the first dealer to introduce real service of the kind and quality desired by car owners and the facilities accorded by the estab- lishment at 535 Locust Avenue have done much to popularize the Hudson and Essex cars in the keen competition among other makes and types.
Mr. Crossman during the war served as a flying instructor with the Canadian forces and was also test pilot for the Standard Aero Corpora- tion of New York. Besides his Hudson and Essex agency he has oil interests in Long Beach, Santa Fe Springs and in Southern Texas, and is owner of real estate in Los Angeles, Long Beach and South Texas.
D. RIPLEY JACKSON, present postmaster of Glendale, is a business man of unusually varied experience, and spent many years in transporta- tion work. He was in the floral business at Glendale until taking the office of postmaster.
Mr. Jackson was born at West Orange, New Jersey, December 10, 1877. He was educated in the public schools there, in LeMasters Business Insti- tute at Orange, New Jersey, and after completing his education he went with the Central Railway of New Jersey, being promoted to chief clerk of the car department. Following that he was with transportation com- panies in New York, including the Adams Express Company, and for a time was connected with accounting and business system work in New York City. Following that he operated in Wall Street for some years with varying success.
On coming to California in 1917 Mr. Jackson located at Glendale, and successfully conducted a floral establishment for a short time. He was appointed postmaster January 1, 1922. In addition to his public office Mr. Jackson takes an active part in local affairs. He is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, is president of the local Shrine Club, is president of the National Exchange Club, is chairman of the Entertainment Committee of the Chamber of Commerce, is on the council of Boy Scouts, a member of the Community Service Board, and belongs to the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Sunset Canyon Country Club and the Episcopal Church. He is a member of the Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Los Angeles and in the White Shrine of Jerusalem is Watchman of Shepherds.
June 28, 1899, Mr. Jackson married Miss Grace Anne Codington of Orange, New Jersey. She was born there, was educated in public schools, and is an active member of the Eastern Star and White Shrine auxiliaries of masonry and belongs to the Tuesday Afternoon Club of Glendale. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson became the parents of three children: Dwight Minor, deceased ; Kenneth Ripley and Grace Anna, both at Glendale.
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OWEN C. EMERY. Distinguished in the Golden State because of its countless opportunities for individual expansion and comfortable living, Los Angeles County is the home of some of the most able men of the country, and one who is proving his resourceful astuteness and legal capa- bility is Owen C. Emery, now practicing at the bar of Glendale, a man of unblemished reputation and a veteran of the World war.
Owen C. Emery was born at Le Grand, Iowa, November 8, 1892. His early educational training was obtained in the local schools of his native place, and he further pursued his studies at the Glendale, California, High School and the University of Southern California, from which he took his degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1915. He was admitted to the bar in July, 1914, and began the practice of his profession at Los Angeles in partnership with Sol A. Rehart, and this association was maintained until Mr. Emery enlisted, in September, 1917, for service during the World war.
Assigned to the Three Hundred and Sixteenth Ammunition Train, Ninety-first Division, after he had received his necessary training, he was sent to France and served overseas for ten months, and participated in the
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Meuse-Argonne offensive. He was honorably discharged May 13, 1919, as a first sergeant and returned to civil life.
Resuming his practice at Los Angeles, Mr. Emery remained in that city until March, 1920, when he came to Glendale, where he has built up a very desirable practice. Mr. Emery belongs to the Masonic fraternity, the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, is a charter member of the Glendale Rotary Club, president of the Credit Men's Association, is a member of the American Legion, Sigma Tau and Delta Theta Phi. Active in the Chamber of Commerce, he was one of the directors of that body in 1920 and 1921. Reared by deeply religious parents, he early united with the Methodist Episcopal Church, and is zealous in behalf of the church of that denomination at Glendale.
On July 15, 1921, Mr. Emery was married to Miss Annice Virginia Becker of Los Angeles, who was born at Coldwater, Mississippi, but edu- cated in the graded and high schools of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Emery have one son, Jack W. During 1922 Mr. Emery served as justice of the peace for Glendale, but the exacting requirements of his practice neces- sitated his resignation in February, 1923. Aside from that he has not held office, but he has always performed his full duty as a good citizen, and it would be difficult to find anyone more deeply and sincerely inter- ested in the further development of Glendale than he. Mr. Emery is fast taking his, place among the leading lawyers of the county, his masterly handling recently of some particularly difficult cases proving him to be a most capable, skilled and experienced attorney, and one who lives up to the highest ideals of his honored profession.
JULIA ELLEN ROGERS, whose home is at Long Beach, has been for a number of years a distinguished worker in educational and scientific circles. She comes of a family of distinguished people, and has four brothers who are well known in the medical and surgical professions in Southern Cali- fornia. She is of New England ancestry, and her grandfather, Rogers, was an associate of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips in the anti- slavery movement.
Miss Rogers was born in La Salle County, Illinois, January 21, 1866, daughter of Daniel Farrand and Ruth Dodd (Llewellyn) Rogers. She was reared in Iowa, graduated Bachelor of Philosophy from the University of Iowa in 1892, and in 1902 was awarded the degree Master of Science in Agriculture by Cornell University. For twenty years she was a teacher in public schools, academies and high schools, the last ten years of which period she was head of the department of biology in the high schools of Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Since 1903 she has broadened the field of her influence by her work as a lecturer in civic improvements and on nature subjects. From 1908 to 1912 she was director of the Nature Club department in/ the magazine, Country Life in America, published by Doubleday, Page & Company in New York.
Miss .Rogers is a member of the scholarship honorary fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, and the oldest national college social fraternity, Pi Beta Phi. Nature-lovers know her best through her books, the chief of which are as follows: Among Green Trees, 1902; The Tree Book, 1905; The Shell Book, 1907 ; Trees Every Child Should Know, 1909; Earth and Sky, 1910; Wild Animals Every Child Should Know, 1911; The Book of Useful Plants, 1912; The Tree Guide, 1914; and Trees Worth Knowing, 1916.
WILLIAM P. COFFMAN assumed the office of postmaster at Burbank on the 1st of February, 1922, and is giving a most effective administration. He has been a resident of California since 1905, and prior to assuming his present official position he had been actively identified with newspaper enterprises.
Mr. Coffman claims the historic Old Dominion as the place of his nativity. He was born on a farm near Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia, January 13, 1871, and is a son of Rev. John S. and Elizabeth (Heatwole) Coffman, both now deceased. Rev. John S. Coffman
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was a prominent clergyman of the Mennonite Church, and held various pas- toral charges of important order, besides having been an associate editor of the official paper of his church, the Herald of Truth.
The present postmaster of Burbank was a lad of eight years at the time when the family home was established in the City of Elkhart, Indiana, where he was reared to adult age and received the advantages of the public schools, including the high school. There he served an apprenticeship to the printer's trade in the office of the Herald of Truth, and he eventually was made office foreman, a position which he retained until 1899, when he became associated with the South Bend Times, at South Bend, Indiana. There he remained until 1905, when he came to California and assumed the position of foreman in the office of the Long Beach Press. Later he held for four years the position of foreman in a job printing establishment in Los Angeles, the next five years having found him the incumbent of a similar position in the office of the Santa Ana Blade. Thereafter he was for a time engaged in ranch enterprise in San Fernando Valley, and on the 1st of May, 1919, he purchased the plant and business of the Burbank Review, of which weekly paper he continued the editor and publisher eight- een months, at the expiration of which he sold the property. As previously stated, he has been postmaster at Burbank since February 1, 1922. He is a progressive member of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Kiwanis Club, holds membership in the Good Fellows Club and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and he and his wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
January 9, 1895, recorded the marriage of Mr. Coffman and Miss Lydia Hugg, of Elkhart, Indiana, and her death occurred February 14, 1904. The three children of this union are Esther and Ethel (twins) and Mary. Mrs. Coffman was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but was reared and educated at Elkhart, Indiana. On the 13th of November, 1915, in the City of Riverside, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Coffman and Mrs. Alice McCarty, who was born and reared at LaPorte, Indiana. No children have been born to the second marriage.
ADAM CLARK VROMAN. The character and the achievement of the late Adam C. Vroman were the positive expression of a strong, noble and loyal nature, and long shall his name and memory be honored in the City of Pasadena and the County of Los Angeles, where he lived and wrought to goodly ends and left worthy impress upon the civic and business life of the community. He was the founder of one of the large and important mercantile enterprises of Pasadena, and the same is still conducted under his name by a corporation formed for the purpose. In his death, July 24, 1916, Pasadena lost one of its ablest business men and most revered citizens.
Mr. Vroman was born at La Salle, Illinois, on the 15th of April, 1856, and he became a man of exceptional intellectual attainments and fine ideals. At the time of his death he was survived by his venerable mother, Mrs. Susan C. Conlee, of Los Angeles, and by two sisters, Mrs. Anna Smith, of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Clara Crawford, of Shore Island, Washington, as well as by half-sisters resulting from his mother's second marriage. In 1892 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Vroman and Miss Esther H. Greist, and they established their home at Rockford, Illinois, where he was in charge of the ticket office of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, with which he had been long connected. It soon became evident that Mrs. Vroman, a victim to tuberculosis, made no improvement under climatic conditions at Rockford, and in 1894, in the hope of benefit to her health, removal was made to Pasadena, California, Mr. Vroman having resigned his position at Rockford. The change did not enable Mrs. Vroman to recuperate, and it became evident that her life could not long continue. Under these conditions she was removed to her old home at Flora Dale, Pennsylvania, where she died in September, 1894, this gracious woman having been a birthright member of the Hicksite branch of the Society of Friends and having expressed her faith in her gentle and lovable personal- ity, which endeared her to all who came within the sphere of her influence.
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In accordance with instructions in the will of Mr. Vroman his body was cremated and the ashes strewn over the grave of his beloved wife in the Friends Cemetery near Flora Dale, Pennsylvania.
It was in the year 1894 that Mr. Vroman established his book and stationery business in Pasadena, and the modern store, which is still con- ducted under the name of A. C. Vroman, is recognized as one of the finest in the United States, with many unique features. Of the establishment more detailed mention is made following, in the personal sketch of Allan D. Sheldon, president of the company. Mr. Vroman left an estate of an approximate value of $100,000, and he not only made bequests to relatives and valued friends, but gave opportunity for former employes to acquire interest in the substantial business which they had assisted in building up.
It is gratifying to preserve in this connection certain appreciative estimates of the character and work of Mr. Vroman. The following state- ments are specially significant :
"He possessed a true democracy of spirit and won the love and admira- tion of persons of high and low degree. His friendly smile and ready sympathy were for the little six-year-old tot coming to buy a five-cent school tablet as well as for the man who rode up to the store in a limousine and or- dered a set of books costing, perhaps, several hundred dollars. It was his habit, both in his place of business and elsewhere, to treat the unknown laboring man with the same fine courtesy and consideration which he accorded to his associates among the intellectuals: Mr. Vroman had a love for all humanity, and it was returned to him in generous measure. Quiet and unassuming, he was a keen student of life, human nature and books. He not only sold books, but also read them, besides doing considerable writing on his own account. He won fame not long before his death by his inter- esting and delightful introduction to a late edition of 'Ramona,' in which he told of his personal observations at the scenes where the story is laid, and threw entertaining sidelights on the author and her different characters. He was a member of the Twilight Club, and so pleasant did he find the associations there that he never missed a meeting unless absolutely impos- sible for him to attend. He was an art collector. He made a deep study of the American Indian, especially those of Arizona and New Mexico. Many of his most valuable art treasures were found among the Indians of this part of the country. He was also a great collector of Japanese carvings in ivory and wood-his ivories especially being considered among the best obtainable. This collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum in New York City and is known as the Vroman collection and is considered the finest in the country. He was fond of books and reading, and his alert mind enabled him greatly to broaden and mature his intellectual ken."
From another source are drawn the following appreciative statements :
"Mr. Vroman was a keen and successful business man, but his love of the beautiful in nature and art shone through his manifold business duties and lifted them, as it were, above the ordinary level. He had a far-reaching admiration for that which is kindly and lovable and simple and ingenuous and sincere, as revealed in books or works of art or human beings-espe- cially in young people and children. His zest for surroundings that struck a note of soundness and sincerity in workmanship as well as of beauty was manifest not only in the kind of books and pictures he loved, but in the style of the very cases and shelves in his store. He wanted nothing that smacked of the meretricious, but everything that was honestly substantial. So, too, as to his interest in the missions of California and in all that pertains to the romantic period of the state's history. He was exhaustively versed in the lore of this period. By artistic photography, by printed words and by lectures and conversation he did a vast deal toward illuminating the annals of past times in the California he loved so heartily-with colors true to life.
"But piercing through Mr. Vroman's characteristics and tendencies and achievements, there shines out with steady brightness qualities that most endeared him to those who knew him well-his sense of justice, his solici-
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tous consideration for the rights of others, his sympathetic affection for friends and associates, his helpful interest in those whom help might bene- fit. *
* * Such a life as that of A. C. Vroman, now untimely trans- formed into another phase of existence, cannot but be of great value to those who had his friendship here. If we miss him, we cannot miss the influence of his character and of his acts. He exemplified the conviction that life is worth living."
ALLAN DAVID SHELDON. One of the important and splendidly ordered business enterprises in the City of Pasadena is that conducted under the corporate title of A. C. Vroman, and the enterprise is of broad scope, in the handling of books, stationery, filing devices, photographic instruments and supplies, engraving, office supplies, etc. The handsomely appointed and thoroughly metropolitan establisment is situated at 329 East Colorado Street, and the president of the concern is the progressive business man whose name initiates this paragraph.
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