History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 85

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

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HAROLD J. BLACKMORE, vice president of the Suburban Realty Company, Incorporated, of Glendale, has been in Southern California for some years and was formerly a successful automobile salesman. The Suburban Realty Company was established in March, 1922, and does a successful sub- division business and also lists several departments, including rentals, general real estate, insurance, architectural.

Mr. Blackmore was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, November 17, 1887. He was educated in the public schools of his native city and as a youth was employed two years by the Joseph Lockland Steel Company. Leaving there, he spent three years in Pueblo, Colorado, in newspaper work, and thence came to San Diego, California, and for eight years was sales manager in that territory for the Overland car. On leaving San Diego he came to Glendale and has since made a very successful record in the real estate business.

Mr. Blackmore is a member of the Realty Board, the State Realty Association, is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a life member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and belongs to the Gamma Eta Kappa college fraternity. He is also a member of the Glendale Chamber of Commerce.

WILLIAM JAMES TOWNER, vice president of the California National Bank of Long Beach, was born in Mitchell County, Iowa, May 7, 1870, and isa son of Carlos Chadwick Towner and Nellie (Hall) Towner, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of the State of New York. The parents became pioneer settlers in Iowa, where they established their resi- dence in the year 1867. Carlos C. Towner reclaimed and developed one of the productive farms of the Hawkeye State, and he and his wife passed the closing years of their lives at Osage, Iowa.

William J: Towner gained his youthful education in the public schools of Osage, Iowa, and at the age of twenty-one years he was found conduct- ing a grocery store in that place. In 1892 he established himself in the farm-implement business at Osage, and in that city he continued his resi- dence until October 1, 1920. He then established his permanent home at Long Beach, California, which place he and his wife had visited about each alternate winter during a preceding period of ten years.

A staunch republican and a citizen of marked public spirit, Mr. Towner was specially influential in community affairs during his career as a busi- ness man of Osage, Iowa. He served not only as a member of the City

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Council but also as mayor in 1918-19, and he was specially active in local patriotic service in that section of Iowa during the period of the nation's participation in the World war. He was a member of the War Board of his county, did effective work in furthering the drives in support of the sale of Government war securities, and was liberal also in the support of Red Cross work. Mr. Towner is a member of the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and holds member- ship in the Virginia Country Club at Long Beach, his wife being a member of the Ebell Club.

At Osage, Iowa, on the 11th of September, 1893, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Towner and Miss Lottie Julia Fonda, daughter of Edmund Stephen Fonda and Loretta (Crego) Fonda, the former of whom was born in Vermont and the latter in Michigan, they having become pioneer settlers in Iowa, where they established their home in 1869. Mr. and Mrs. Towner have two daughters : Helen Kate is the wife of Benjamin A. Chatman, and Julia Fonda is the wife of Mark V. Kuhn.

Carlos C. Towner, father of the subject of this review, was a gallant soldier of the Union in the Civil war, in which he served three years and eight months and in which he held the rank of corporal. He was a resi- dent of Lake County, Illinois, at the inception of the war, and he and two other young men hired a team to transport them to the City of Chicago, where they enlisted, Mr. Towner having taken part in many engagements and having endured the full tension of the great conflict between the states of the North and the South.

ARTHUR L. REED. The fortunes of a number of prominent and high minded men are involved in the history of Whittier from its founding as a Quaker colony in the eighties. In that section of Los Angeles County the members of this colony acquired many thousands of acres, and while perfecting a community instinct with the social and religious ideals of the Friends, they also in common with other similar development projects undertook to utilize the land for fruit growing and agricultural purposes. The primary need was a dependable water supply, and failing this the colony was almost disrupted within a few years after its establishment. After the collapse of the boom a large portion of the land came under the ownership of Simon J. Murphy of Detroit, Michigan, one of the members of the original syndicate that had undertaken to develop the property.

In 1890 Mr. Murphy called to his assistance the expert engineering abilities of Arthur L. Reed, who came to California in that year, located at East Whittier, and became the first general manager of the East Whittier Land and Water Company. In the face of much scepticism, and also con- siderable opposition of another kind, he designed and carried out an unpre- cedented engineering project for bringing water a distance of ten miles from El Monte to the thousand acres owned by Mr. Murphy at East Whit- tier. Under his direction the first concrete conduit for water in the state was built, and by July, 1891, water was being delivered through the con- duit. The success of this novel engineering plan immediately stopped further exodus from the colony, and probably more than any other single enterprise had to do with the permanent good fortune and upbuilding of the Whittier community. With a dependable water supply a new impetus was given to citrus fruit growing, and the thousand acre tract became immensely valuable. Another adjoining tract of hill land owned by Mr. Murphy was subsequently developed for oil, known as the Murphy oil field, and was sold a few years ago to the Standard Oil Company for nearly five million dollars.

When Arthur L. Reed died at Whittier, January 27, 1913, the Los Angeles Times appropriately called his "life a drama of progress." He was born at Olivet, Michigan, February 3, 1851. His grandfather was one of the founders of Olivet College. Arthur L. Reed graduated from that institution in 1872, and for nearly twenty years was a civil engineer in the

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East. For a large part of this time he was chief engineer for the Port Huron and Northwestern Railway, and was assistant chief engineer of the Pere Marquette System until he resigned and came to Whittier in February, 1890, to take up his work with the East Whittier Land & Water Company. He continued to serve this corporation faithfully for nine years. Fol- lowing that he engaged in railroad construction and irrigation engineering, and in 1905 became manager of the Huntington Beach Company, holding that office until he retired in 1912. As resident manager of the Hunting- ton Beach Company he had charge of all the vast interests of that company, including the public utilities of the community and the operation of a large area of farming land. Mr. Reed served as president of the Huntington Beach Bank.

His business and financial judgment was esteemed a court of last resort by his associates in the Whittier National Bank and the Home Savings Bank of Whittier, in both of which he was a director until his death and among the original incorporators. He also served as a director of the Great Republic Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles.

The late Mr. Reed was the first president of the Whittier Board of Trade, and remained a director until he retired on account of physical dis- ability. He was a member of the Masonic Lodge of Whittier. Aside from the valuable constructive work he did as an engineer and business manager he was almost equally intense in matters effecting the civic, educational and religious welfare of his community. He was one of the first advocates and for many years a worker in behalf of the Citrus Association. The Union High School of Whittier is regarded as a monument to his interest in education. His strongest tie outside of home was the church. He was a charter member of the Plymouth Congregational Church of Whittier, and through his membership and in his private life he exemplified the highest type of Christian manhood.

August 23, 1877, he married in Michigan. At his death he was sur- vived by his widow, Mrs. Anna Reed. There are three children: Ralph J., Lucile and Cass Arthur. Cass Arthur is Dean of the International College at Smyrna, Turkey.

S. S. BERAN, now of Glendale, has spent many years in the West as an architect and designer, and has had a most unusual experience in his pro- fession. He is now engaged in private practice, and has done much notable work in Los Angeles County.

Mr. Beran was born in New York City, October 9, 1887, was educated in public schools and served an apprenticeship in architecture at Passaic, New Jersey, where he remained seven years. In 1906 he came West and was with the Thompson-Starrett Construction Company at San Francisco for several years. In 1909 he became an employe of the State Architect's Department at Sacramento, and in 1910 he became a civil service employe in the quartermaster's department of the army on duty at Honolulu. He supervised the placing of some of the guns in the fortifications and also superintended the construction of the Invisible Passage Way from Fort Diamond Head to' Fort McKinley. On his return to the United States he was located for a time at Salt Lake City as superintendent for the Trent Engineering Company, then went to Portland and superintended some building work for the Thompson-Starrett Company and then the James Stewart Construction Company, again was with the Thompson-Starrett on work at Seattle, and returning to California was with the Leonard Con- struction Company at Fresno during the building of the Griffith-Mckenzie Building. For a year or so he was associated with another Fresno archi- tect in general practice. In 1915 Mr. Beran came to Los Angeles County and built the warehouse for the Merchants Realty Company at Los Angeles Harbor. He was then in practice for himself at Los Angeles until 1917, "and during the period of the war was general inspector for all cantonment camps in California under the quartermaster's department. After the close

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of the war in 1919 he engaged in practice at Long Beach, and in 1921 estab- lished his offices at 305 South Brand Boulevard in Glendale.

Mr. Beran is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Metho- dist Episcopal Church. He married Miss Evelyn Harris, of Fresno, November 18, 1914. She was born at Des Moines, Iowa, was educated there and is a member of the Glendale Woman's Club and is courtesy chair- man of the Broadway School. They have two sons, Sidney John and Douglas Adelbert.

WILLIS MERTON SLOSSON, who came to California twenty-five years ago, and until his retirement was supervisor of the Santa Barbara National Forest, under the United States Forest Bureau, achieved prominence in two states, Michigan and California.

He was born in Newark Valley, New York, May 25, 1848, son of Oziah and Ann (Fisher) Slosson, both of old American families and of Revolu- tionary stock. His father located land in Michigan in 1854. Willis M. Slosson finished his education in a private seminary at Wyoming, Penn- sylvania. His early interests were in Michigan, and in 1874 he tried pioneering in the State of Kansas. The visitation of grasshoppers destroyed his crops and he soon returned East. Mr. Slosson was a member of the original J. Reed Company which founded and laid out the town of Reed City in Osceola County, Michigan, some miles north of Grand Rapids. For many years his energies went into the constructive upbuilding of Reed City. He built what is now the Reed City Hospital, the Atherton Block and other structures, and he also became prominent in politics, being elected a member of the Michigan Legislature and at one time was a candi- date for Congress. He served for a number of years as chairman of the Republican County Convention, was president of the Reed City Chamber of Commerce and by virtue of that office was a member of the Board of Supervisors.

Mr. Slosson left Reed City in 1898 to come to California. One of his personal friends was Gifford Pinchot, a pioneer in the forestry conserva- tion movement in the United States, and head of the forestry bureau under President Roosevelt and now governor of the State of Pennsylvania. Through the influence of Mr. Pinchot Mr. Slosson received his first appoint- ment in the Forestry Bureau. On coming to California he was first assigned to duty at Ojai, and finally the two divisions of Ojai and Santa Barbara were united and he was given his choice as to location, choosing Santa Barbara. He continued the forestry work until about eight years before his death. He was mayor of Santa Barbara in 1915-16, being the last mayor of that city. Since then Santa Barbara has been under a business manager plan of government. Mr. Slosson was a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and a life member of the Santa Barbara Lodge of Elks. He was a whole hearted republican and took an active part in the party in California as well as in Michigan. After retiring from business Mr. Slosson removed to Los Angeles, and he died at the Clara Barton Hospital in that city May 21, 1923, at the age of seventy-four.

In Newark Valley, New York, May 20, 1874, just forty-nine years before his death, he married Miss M. Ella Butler, daughter of John and Jane Butler. Mrs. Slosson, whose home is at 99 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, is the mother of four children: Leonard B., a Los Angeles attorney with offices in the Consolidated Realty Building ; Lawrence, who is in the lumber business in Pittsburgh; Mrs. Edna Pirie, whose home is at Clements, California; and Stewart Slosson, an express messenger living in San Francisco.

FRED BURR LEWIS, whose home is at 327 South Seville Avenue in Hunt- ington Park, has been identified with the business and civic life of the Long Beach section fifteen years. He founded and built up a well known jewelry establishment in Long Beach, and since retiring has given his time to various business and other interests.

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Mr. Lewis was born in Trumbull County, Ohio, son of Abraham and Lucy (Vaughn) Lewis. His parents were also born and spent all their lives in Trumbull County, where his father was a prosperous farmer. In the 'family were eight sons and one daughter, and four sons are now living. Three of them are in Ohio, while Fred Burr is the only California repre- sentative of the family.

Mr. Lewis grew up on the old farm in Trumbull County, attended the public schools and at the age of sixteen left home and went to Cleveland. While there he attended the Spencerian Business College, and he served his apprenticeship at the jewelers trade with Sigler Brothers for a year and a half and completed it with J. M. Chandler and Company. At the age of nineteen he was sent on the road as a traveling representative of the Chandler, firm, and served that well known jewelry house for twelve years. After resigning from the Chandler firm he spent a year traveling out of New York, and then returned to Cleveland and opened a retail jewelry store of his own. At first he was on Superior Street and then in the Colonial Arcade. His business continued to grow and prosper and became one of the best patronized establishments of the kind in Cleveland. After twelve years as a retail jeweler Mr. Lewis sold out his business to his nephew, C. C. Lewis.

In 1908 he arrived at Long Beach, having established his home on the Pacific Coast to benefit his wife's health. In 1917 Mr. Lewis engaged in business as a jeweler at 120-122 Pine Avenue, under the name of the Lewis Jewelry Company. This was the same title his business had had in Cleve- land. He gave his personal management to this store until 1921, when he sold out, again to his nephew, C. C. Lewis, who continues the Lewis Jewelry Company.

Since leaving business Mr. Lewis has looked after his real estate invest- ments in Long Beach and at Huntington Park. He owns valuable busi- ness property in the downtown districts of both towns, and is also interested in the Signal Hill oil field in Long Beach.

Mr. Lewis is president of the California College of Commerce at Long Beach, a notable educational institution. During the World war he was a director of the Chamber of Commerce, and practically neglected his busi- ness to conform to every possible service of a patriotic nature at this time. He was a committee worker in every drive at Long Beach. Mr. Lewis is a member of the Virginia Country Club of Long Beach, and while in busi- ness represented the jewelry line as a member of the Long Beach Rotary Club.

At Cleveland Mr. Lewis married Miss Anna W. Randall, who was 1 born and educated in that city, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Henry W. Ran- dall. They were an old time English family of Cleveland, and her parents are now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have one daughter, Juanita Willet, wife of .Carl L. Jacobson, of Huntington Park. Mr. Jacobson is in the hardware and building supply business. Mrs. Jacobson was born in Cleve- land, was educated there and finished in the Tucker School of Expression in Cleveland.

MRS. J. J. CARTER. It was under the personal leadership, inspiration and management of Mrs. J. J. Carter that the great community chorus of Hollywood has been developed to such successful proportions.

Mrs. Carter was born in Missouri, and graduated from Christian Col- lege at Columbia, Missouri. Since childhood she has been educated in music, and has accepted every opportunity for study under the great masters at home and abroad. For several years she taught music, and she learned the art of teaching children from Jessie Gaynor, the famous composer of children's songs. She was associated with Mrs. Gaynor in her work for seven years.

In 1902 she became the wife of Doctor Joseph J. Carter. When some years later her husband went abroad for post-graduate work in medicine in Europe she accompanied him, and for three years was a student of

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music in Vienna under Leschetizky. They remained in Europe until the outbreak of the World war and then they returned to America and in 1915 established their home in Los Angeles. Mrs. Carter for a time had her studio at the Hollywood Woman's Club, and some of her first work was musically illustrating the symphony concert programs.

When the community chorus was started it comprised only the nucleus of a real chorus. From these unpretentious beginnings has been developed a chorus containing now over a thousand voices. The Hollywood Bowl is an institution that has developed along with the community chorus. The Bowl is a natural amphitheatre in the Hollywood Hills, and seats and stage have been arranged to make the amphitheatre available as an out-of- door theatre. It is in the Bowl that the community chorus concerts are held, and many other great programmes have been given there. . The chorus is, in fact, a great civic organization. Mrs. Carter has been presi- dent of the chorus for the past three years, and prior to that for two years was its chairman of music. During the last season the great Alfred Hertz directed his symphony orchestra of eighty-five members at the Bowl, and some of the most noteworthy grand opera stars appeared there in concerts.

W. A. Clark, Jr., offered to give a third of $100,000 for the proper development of the Bowl, providing the community at large would subscribe the other two-thirds. Of the thousands who gather in that beautiful amphitheatre to look in or join in the singing perhaps the most noteworthy even through the year is the Easter service at sunrise, attended by people from all over this section of California. Those who appreciate the concerts and the value of such an institution as the Bowl and the community chorus pay the highest tribute to Mrs. Carter for the effective way in which she has handled and directed the enterprise. Mrs. Carter is a member of the Ebell Club, the Hollywood Woman's Club, and is on the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Commerce.

MADAME ISABELLA CURL PIANA, whose husband is Italian consul in Los Angeles, grew up in Southern California and achieved her reputation in concert and opera in Europe, and has continued singing and teaching since her return to California.

She was born at Oswego, Kansas, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Curl. Her mother came of a family of teachers and lawyers. Her father was very musical, possessing a wonderful tenor voice, and his youngest sister was a professional singer. S. A. Curl brought his family to California in 1888, and Madame Piana attended school in Riverside, where her father bought an orange ranch. Her mother wrote for several papers under the name "A Woman." Madame Piana was the first in the family to sing opera, and her going into that field was for a time a considerable shock to her family. Her first musical studies were carried on under Professor Fred Bacon in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California. She is a graduate of the Music Department of the University.

Going abroad, she studied at Milan, Italy, under Sebastian Breda, and sang there in Opera. Later she went to England and sang opera and did concert work in that country. Meanwhile she married Enrico Piana, at that time a commander in the Royal Italian Navy. After the World war Commander Piana asked to be out in the reserves and was appointed consul to Los Angeles.

Madame Piana lived in Italy about fifteen years. She came to Los Angeles two years ago, and has since done concert and oratorial work and private teaching. Her voice is a high lyric coloratura soprano. She is a charter member of the Dominant Club, a member of the old Treble Cleff, the Pioneer Musicians and the Los Angeles Music Teachers Association.

ODA FAULCONER, attorney and counselor-at-law, with offices at Loew's State Building, is now handling an extensive general practice in all the State, Federal and United States Supreme courts. Her exceptional gifts as a business woman and a thorough knowledge of the law have brought her

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an exceptionally high place among the business women of Southern California.

She was born in Springfield, Illinois, daughter of August and Mary E. Hunt. When she was a child her parents moved to Oregon, and she was educated in the high school at Portland and from that city came to Los Angeles in 1902. For nineteen years she was connected with the Title Guarantee & Trust Company, one of the largest title and trust companies on the Pacific Coast, during ten years of which time she was practicing law for the company. She is a graduate of the law school of the University of Southern California, and was admitted to the Los Angeles bar in 1913 and has since been admitted to practice in all the State and Federal Courts of California and the Supreme Court of the United States. Mrs. Faulconer owns and maintains her home on a thirty-five acre citrus ranch in the San Fernando Valley, on Mission Road, just below the old San Fernando Mission.

She is a member of the Friday Morning Club, the Professional Woman's Club, is president of the Soroptomist Club, a member of the Woman's Law- yers Club and the Los Angeles Federation of Business and Professional Clubs, and is a member of the County, State and American Bar Associations.

MISS FRIEDA PEYCKE, nationally known as a pianist, recitalist and composer, has been a member of the Los Angeles artistic circles for a number of years, and maintains a studio in Kramer's Studio Building at 1500 South Figueroa Street.

She was born at Omaha, Nebraska, was educated at Knoxville, Illinois, and in the Chicago Conservatory of Music, where she taught for four years in that conservatory. She studied piano with Walton Perkins, harmony and composition with Adolph Weidig, dramatic reading with Gertrude Grosscup Perkins, Bertha Kunz Baker, and later with David Bispham. Subsequent study was carried on under Nelson Illingworth, and for several years she studied modern harmony with Frederick Stevenson.

Miss Peycke has specialized as a recitalist in her own compositions, and has made many tours in the East over New York, Pennsylvania, Illi- nois, Iowa and other states. She is a member of the Matinee Musical Club of Philadelphia, the American League of Pen Women of Washington, D. C., Southern California Woman's Press Club, the Lyric and Dominant Clubs of Los Angeles.

Starting out as concert pianist, she developed a talent for writing, and her achievements have been most noted in the composition of Musically Illustrated Readings. She has published a number of songs and choruses, piano teaching pieces for children. Clayton F. Summy Company of Chicago brought out fifteen of her Musical Readings, Harold Flanner of New York brought out eight, several are also published by Theo. Presser & Company of Philadelphia, and by Hinds, Hayden Eldredge, Inc., of New York. The Brunswick Record Company requested her to make four records, entitled "The Annual Protest," "Chums," "Us Twins," "Woes of a Boy." She was the eighth Western artist to make a Brunswick record. The works she chooses to adorn her musical settings with are those of American authors, including Elizabeth Gordon, James Foley, Inez Townsend Tribit, Carl Bronson, Mrs. Walter E. Mitchell, Lannie Haynes Martin, and also occasionally from the works of Mrs. John T. Van Sant Jenevee Waller, Arthur Guiterman, Henry Van Dyke and Charles H. Towne. Her programs are under the following headings: Chorus of Nature and its Lessons ; Humor and Philosophy; The Whimsies of Boys and Girls.

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History of Los Angeles county, Volume III, Part 85

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