USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > Los Angeles from the mountains to the sea : with selected biography of actors and witnesses to the period of growth and achievement, Volume II > Part 24
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fornia. William Valentine was in in the mines of California, later located in Mendocino County, and was connected with a lumber com- pany. He was a civil and mechanical engineer and practiced his pro- fession for many years. In 1881 he moved to San Francisco, and lived there until his death in 1890.
William L. Valentine, the only child of his parents, graduated from the Lincoln Grammar School at San Francisco in 1885. He spent an- other year in the Commercial High School of that city and found his first employment at the age of fifteen with a lumber and box business. After a year he became office boy for Easton, Eldridge & Company, one of the largest real estate firms of San Francisco. He made rapid progress in the confidence of that firm, and in 1893 was sent to Los Angeles as manager of the Los Angeles office.
Mr. Valentine found his great opportunity in business when, in 1900, having resigned from Easton, Eldridge & Company, he organized the Fullerton Oil Company. From the first he has been its largest stock- holder. The company began with fifty acres of proven oil land, and only one assessment upon the capital stock was required to develop the hold- ings. Out of the profits additional acreage was bought, and during the first ten years the company paid out in dividends more than three times its original authorized capital of six hundred thousand dollars. Mr. Valentine was secretary and general manager of the company until 1918, when he was elected president. .
He is also identified with other financial organizations, being a director of the Merchants National Bank, Security Trust and Savings Bank and the Globe Grain and Milling Company. He is a Knight Tem- plar Mason, affiliated with Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, and is a Shriner. He is a member of the California Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Midwick Country Club, San Gabriel Valley Country Club. Los Angeles Athletic Club, Bolsa Chica Gun Club, San Isidro G1111 Club, Tuna Club, and is vice president and director of the Automobile Club of Southern California. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce, a republican, and is affiliated with the Episcopal Church. He is also a junior member of the Society of California Pioneers.
May 26, 1895, at Los Angeles, he married Louie Chandler Robinson, daughter of the late J. W. Robinson, one of the early merchants of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Valentine have five children: Julia S., a senior in the University of California; Susan, a student in Ramona Convent at Alhambra; William W., born in 1907, and Edward R., born in 1908, both pupils in the public schools, while the youngest is Henry. W., born in 1914.
REV. ANDREW RESA, C. M. F., pastor of the Old Plaza Church of Los Angeles, is a native of old Spain, where he was liberally educated and trained for the priesthood, and is of old Castilian stock. He was born at Calahona February 2, 1872, son of Peter and Felicia Solano.
To the age of thirteen he attended parochial schools, then spent two years in the Seminary at Aragon, Spain, two years in the Barbastro Sem- inary in the Province of Aragon, was a student of philosophy two years in the University of Cervera at Cataluna, and finished his theological course in the Santo Domingo de la Calzada at Old Castilia. He was ordained a deacon in January, 1895, and in November of the same year received his ordination as a priest at the University of Cervera.
His work as a priest and missionary covers over twenty years and has been done altogether in the Spanish-speaking population of Old
REV. ANDREW RESA, C. M. F.
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Mexico and the adjoining states of Texas, New Mexico and California. He was first sent to Toluca, Mexico, where he taught in the college there for two years. At Mexico City he spent four years doing missionary work, and was engaged in similar employment at Guanajuato, Mexico, four years. His next location was at San Antonio, Texas, as assistant pastor of the Cathedral and surrounding missions for two years. He then became pastor of a parish at San Marcus, Texas, where he built several small churches. Two years later he was appointed pastor of the San Gabriel Mission, and a year and a half later came to the Old Plaza Church, in Los Angeles, as its pastor. His first connection with that church continued a year and a half, and during that time he made some important changes in the church building and construction. He was again transferred back to San Antonio, Texas, where for six years Father Resa had charge of the San Fernando Cathedral. Since that service he has been the beloved pastor of Old Plaza Church. Father Resa is a member of the Knights of Columbus and of the Order of Immaculate Heart Fathers.
OLD PLAZA CHURCHI, of Los Angeles, of which Rev. Andrew Resa is pastor, is as old as Los Angeles itself, since the first settlers here were of the community whose worship was later centralized in the church of this name.
Until the formal establishment of the church on the Plaza the set- tlers worshipped at San Gabriel, or priests came from that church to hold worship in private houses at Los Angeles. The founding of the Pueblo of Los Angeles, under the solemn auspices of the church occurred in 1781, and the original chapel on the Plaza was begun at the end of 1784 and finished about five years later. Its dimensions were twenty-five by thirty varas. It was made of adobe and somewhat resembled the Chapel of the hospital of the Old Mission at San Gabriel, which was built in 1814. The plan of the present church of Our Lady, Queen of Angels, were drawn about 1811, and at the same time orders came from the Governor granting permission for the proposed enterprise. and urg- ing the Poblanos to build the church. The ceremony was performed with permission of President Jose Senan, by Padre Luis Gil y Taboada, then rector of the old San Gabriel Mission. For various reasons the work was carried on very slowly and with long intervals of almost com- plete abandonment. Old Plaza Church was finished and dedicated De- cember 8, 1822. As the complement of the old church and second to it in historical importance comes the Old Plaza Church Rectory. This and the church were finished about the same time. The rectory was built exactly on the same style as the Mission. Like the church it had a tile roof and the walls were made of adobe, the doors and windows opening on the interior court or patio. In the midst of the patio there rose the stately palm which remains there to this day. In the long period of nearly a century the Old Plaza Church Rectory has undergone many and considerable changes.
The Church of Our Lady after a century of vicissitude remains a landmark of the forethought and wisdom of Spain, and is cared for by those of the same nationality as founded it and is now in the charge of the Immaculate Heart Fathers. Without losing its identity it has been transformed into a large and commodious house of worship.
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JOSEPH D. RADFORD .. Los Angeles lost one of its most prominent bankers and public-spirited citizens in the death of Joseph D. Radford in 1918. He had been a resident of California over twenty years, and was a banker of long and tried experience when he came west.
He was born in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, April 14, 1857, son of Joseph Radford. He graduated from the Fond du Lac High School in 1875, and immediately afterward went to work as a messenger with the First National Bank of Fond du Lac. He became bookkeeper, and in 1883 became connected with the private bank of Nelson Story at Boze- man, Montana. In 1896 he came to Los Angeles, and for two years was assistant cashier for the National Bank of California. He located at San Jose in 1898 and became cashier of the Garden City Bank and Trust Company, later holding the same position with the First National Bank. Returning to Los Angeles in 1907, he became vice president of the German-American Savings Bank, and resigned from that institution to become vice president of the Hibernian Savings Bank. On the advice of physicians, he retired from business and gave up his position in the bank in 1914.
The welfare of the city in every way was dear to him, especially those movements and undertakings which meant a broader and better city for those who live in it. He was chairman of the committee to celebrate the opening of the Owen's River Aqueduct. He served at one time as president of the California Bankers' Association. For four years he was president of the Los Angeles City Playground Commission, and Mayor Woodman named a new municipal summer playground at Con- verse Flats in honor of Mr. Radford. He was a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, a Republican, a member of the Federation and City Clubs, of the Jonathan Club, the San Gabriel Country Club, the Municipal League, and was an elder in the Emanuel Presbyterian Church.
In 1881 he married Miss Maria M. Pinney, who died in 1901. His only daughter is Mrs. Wilber J. Hall, of Los Gatos, California. In 1908 he married Mrs. Florence (Rivers) Stowell.
JUNE RAND. Despite the action of certain dignified and chivalrous senators who recently defeated the bill for national suffrage, extending the franchise irrespective of sex, America is accommodating itself so rapidly to the new work and the new sphere of woman that her achieve- ments outside the old conventional realms now seldom excite surprise, much less criticism. In fact, the great organs of publicity no longer find "news matter" in the admission of a woman to the bar or to membership in any of the learned professions, and the tribute of distinction is awarded her not at all for her choice of work or profession, but solely because of some extraordinary mark she has made in her particular field.
The magazines and the general newspaper press had much to say in the last year or two of June Rand of Los Angeles. Without a doubt June Rand is an exceedingly interesting young woman, interesting as a woman, the more so because of her business ability and the business which she has built up and which represents today the flowering of a distinctive purpose and ideal of her own mind. It is hardly conceivable that any mere man could have done what she has done, but if it were possible, that man would be singled out for distinction quite apart from the question of his sex.
June Rand was born at Indianola, Nebraska, in 1896, and com- pleted her education at Christian College, in Missouri. She is a daugh- ter of Mr. and Mrs. Arthur James Rand of Denver. She is also a niece of William F. Carey, a great American engineer and railroad builder, who
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is vice president of the China corporation which built and reorganized the railroad systems of China, and more recently has become head of the contractors supplying the American government with spruce for aeroplane construction in the northwest.
Since girlhood June Rand has been noted for her independence of judgment and action. She is also prompt in decision, considered one of the most vital elements in the success of a good executive. Almost her first important decision and determination was to come to California, and once here she opened her heart to all the charms of the country and has never gone back east. Her father and mother have visited her, but she has acknowledged no other home than California since she left school in Missouri.
About that time she was visiting at the home of her uncle, William F. Carey, above mentioned. She was invited to go with Mr. and Mrs. Carey to China, an invitation she accepted. All was in readiness down to the packing of her trunk. The day before departure she went to see "Daddy Long Legs," and the play, coupled with a lonesome letter from her mother, made her so homesick that she unpacked her trunks and told her uncle she could not go. Her passports all had been secured and Mr. Carey was naturally disappointed. He informed her that she was old enough to know her mind, and if she was ever going to know it, it must be now, and added "whatever you do, take up something definite and make a success of it. If you make a success of whatever you undertake now, write me that you have one year from now and I will stand with you."
This interview with her uncle doubtless had some influence, but the influence should not be exaggerated, since June Rand undoubtedly had the fire within her which is not kindled or quenched by any transient or temporary event or circumstance.
Fortunately for the world, most young people begin life with high ideals of the importance of the service they can render, and fortunately, too, some of them actually realize their ideals. June Rand had a desire to be useful in some practical way. She was not especially fond of needle- work, except in the planning and creating side. At her little home in Hollywood she made a few dresses of gingham, very practical and de- signed to be worn as house dresses. The first ones she wore herself, and then made some for her friends, and finally some of the shops in Hollywood were buying her product. This initial success encouraged her to try some of the big stores in Los Angeles. Robinson's store gave her her first big order, for twelve dozen dresses. There are many thous- ands of women all over this country who have worn the dresses made by June Rand, but they know them by a distinctive name, the "Sassy Jane" dresses. Miss Rand as a girl had been nicknamed "Sassy Jane," a name that stayed with her and which she later affixed to her product. Her first dresses she not only planned, but made by hand, though the latter part of the work was rather tedious and distasteful. After the popularity of her dresses was established and with numerous orders coming every day, she rented two plain foot machines, employed some women as stitchers, supervised the work during the day, and at night cut her patterns on the floor for the following day's work. She had never heard of buttonhole machines, and she therefore made all the buttonholes by hand, much to the surprise of the shopkeepers, who had not seen hand-made buttonholes in years. One day she went through the Fischer factory, Mr. Fischer showing her the cutting machines and the pressing machines and the entire layout. While there she made
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arrangements by telephone with the Singer Company for a power ma- chine. One power machine could do the work of four foot machines, and with only one operator. About that time she rented a small, room in the old Hellman Building, at Second and Broadway, and installed in it the one power machine, and she continued cutting and designing the dresses at night, and during the day acted as general salesman for her factory. As soon as other stores had heard of the "Sassy Janes," orders began coming in in large lots, justifying the addition of more machines, and gradually all the crude and laborious features of her plant were eliminated and, so far as possible, systematic arrangement and machinery left Miss Rand free for the larger work of supervision, planning and creation. However, for fully six months after the introduction of the first machines she did the cutting and planning at night.
There were other features of her business which were applied gradually. She did not understand at first the vital connection between industrial expansion and capital. Her limited finances, even with the big growth of the business, handicapped her progress. Finally she visited Mr. Avery, president of the German-American Bank, and after he had made a personal inspection of her factory and looked over her order book, hie loaned her half of the value of the five thousand dollars worth of orders outstanding at that time.
This brief story of June Rand can only serve to suggest many of the difficulties and experiences she had as a Los Angeles business woman. One point must be kept in mind, that she is now only twenty-two years of age, and her business career covers only two or three years at most. Hence the developments above noted came rather rapidly. The next important one was when she formed a company. The Sassy Jane Com- pany is incorporated under the laws of California, at first with a capital of ten thousand dollars, and later for fifty thousand dollars. June Rand is actual head of the business and president of the company. Her asso- ciates are Mr. Victor Levy, of the firm Jules Levy & Son of San Fran- cisco, lace importers, and Mr. Sidney Chaplin, representing the interests of Charley and Sid Chaplin. Though the business is only about two and a half years old, the company is now doing six hundred thousand dollars worth yearly, employs in the model and sanitary factory on the sixth floor of a modern fireproof building a working force of a hundred eight- een persons, besides fifteen salesmen who carry the "Sassy Jane" dresses all over the United States and to Honolulu. Instead of one or two power machines, there are now one hundred fifty machines of different types and for different purposes, and at the head of this business, recognized as one of the largest of its kind in the west, and, in fact, a large institution in Los Angeles, irrespective of kind, remains June Rand, active, vigilant, expert in detail, and with a mind constantly planning and creating new ideas, and with that freshness of outlook and spirit which is of course natural to one so young, but which is the more remarkable because through an active and varied experience which comes to few women she has kept her ideals unimpaired and has in fact seen her dreams come true.
And the dream that all women are supposed to dream has also been realized. September 7, 1918, June Rand and Captain D. Marshall Taylor were married at San Diego. Captain Taylor at this writing is Judge Advocate at Fort MacArthur. He is a graduate of the University of California School of Jurisprudence and was commissioned a lieutenant in the regular army soon after war was declared with Germany. Cap- tain Taylor is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Taylor O. Taylor of Pasadena.
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HENRY WELLS PETTEBONE, a resident of Los Angeles since 1897, has been an important factor in business and manufacturing affairs, and for many years has been one of the directing heads in the Forve- Pettebone Company, dealers and manufacturers of gas and electric fixtures.
Mr. Pettebone was born at Dorancetown, Pennsylvania, September 4, 1860, son of Jacob Sharpes and Sarah (Williamson) Pettebone. This branch of the Pettebone family was established in America by John Pettebone, a French Huguenot, who settled in England and, on coming to America, located at Windsor, Connecticut. One of his sons, Noah, removed to Pennsylvania in 1769, settling in the Wyoming Valley. He was a direct ancestor of Henry Pettebone.
The latter had a public school education in Pennsylvania, and in 1878 graduated from the Wyoming Commercial College. Reasons of ill health caused him to come west to Colorado, where for about ten years he was traveling salesman, with headquarters at Denver, for R. Douglas & Company. In 1889 he became traveling representative for the St. Louis Glass and Queensware Company, and during the next eight years de- veloped an immense business for this firm over the southwestern terri- tory, to which he was assigned.
Mr. Pettebone became a permanent resident of Los Angeles June 17, 1897. For several years he was connected with the W. G. Hutchison Company, manufacturers of gas and electric fixtures. Then, in Novem- ber, 1901, he helped organize the Forve-Pettebone Company. For sev- eral years they did only a retail business in gas and electric fixtures, but gradually branched out as manufacturers, and in the course of eighteen years have become one of the largest firms in the southwest in their line. They are manufacturers and wholesalers, and also maintain a retail store in Los Angeles. Mr. Pettebone was president of the company until August, 1910, when, on account of ill health, he assumed lighter re- sponsibilities, now acting as vice president. His firm is a member of the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association of Los Angeles, and for twenty years he has manifested a commendable interest in everything affecting not only the business prosperity of the community, but also its social and civic welfare. He is a member of the Chamber of Cominerce and the Municipal League, is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, and a life member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. From his own experi- ence he has become an enthusiastic advocate of outdoor life and health- ful sports. His favorite recreation and health builder is surf bathing. He spends a large part of the year at his summer home at Venice, the nearest beach to Los Angeles. Mr. Pettebone also owns other valuable real estate interests in Los Angeles.
March 15, 1899, he married Bertha R. Webber, now deceased.
RIGHT REV. JOSEPH HORSFALL JOHNSON was consecrated Episcopal Bishop of Los Angeles in 1896, and has endeared himself to southern California by thousands of services and by the example of a saintly life.
He was born at Schnectady, New York, June 7, 1847, a son of Stephen Hotchkiss and Eleanor (Horsfall) Johnson. He is of the same family as Dr. Samuel Johnson, who was the first American Episcopal clergyman ordained in England for work in an American congregation. Dr. Samuel Johnson was the first president and his son the third pres- ident of Columbia College, at New York.
Bishop Johnson graduated A. B. from Williams College in 1870,
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and from the General Theological Seminary in 1873. He was awarded the degree S. T. D. by the General Theological Seminary in 1908. He was made a deacon in 1873, and a priest in 1874, and his first work in the ministry was with the Holy Trinity Church at Highland, New York, which he served from 1873 to 1879. He was rector of Trinity Church, at Bristol, Rhode Island, during 1879-81, and in St. Peter's Church at Westchester, New York, from 1881 to 1886. In the latter year he was called to the rectorship of Christ Church in Detroit, and served there the ten years prior to his consecration in 1886 as Bishop of Los Angeles. Bishop Johnson married, on June 14, 1881, Isabel Greene Davis, daugh- ter of Isaac Davis of Worcester, Massachusetts. They have one son, Reginald Davis Johnson, an architect, with residence in Pasadena.
In the issue of March, 1919, Pomona College Quarterly Magazine contained as its leading article an appreciation of Bishop Johnson, writ- ten by one who had long been associated with him in the work of his diocese. From this article is taken the following paragraphs, since they express an estimate that is both just and dignified :
"No one can appreciate the character and work of Bishop Johnson who does not know that from his point of view the service of consecra- tion represents an ideal that is anything but obsolete ; that the supreme interest of his life through all the varied and exacting details of ad- ministrative responsibility is the spiritual interest ; that the only success he craves in his Episcopate is to be able, through his ministry, to make the presence of God more real to those for whose spiritual welfare he is especially responsible and to all with whom he comes in contact. No one knows better than he that a bishop is placed at a certain disadvantage with the public by reason of the necessity of devoting so much time to the affairs of organizations and finance, religious and social conven- tionality. There are times when he finds the religious ineffectiveness of much that he has to do, when he would be inclined to say with Mr. Wells in 'The Soul of a Bishop,' 'Is there any tub-rolling in the world more busy and exacting than a bishop's ?'
"Bishop Johnson is keenly interested in Pomona College, being vice president of the trustees of that institution since 1912, and as well in the educational work of southern California. He is president of the Board of Trustees of the Harvard Military School in Los Angeles, and has established the School for Girls at La Jolla. The Hospital of the Good Samaritan, the Church Home for Children and the Neighborhood Settlement in Los Angeles are also under his direction.
"With the more or less direct responsibility for the management of these institutions, the care of any one of which would constitute a man's work; with the supervision of ninety-eight churches of various sizes, scattered over a territory as large in area as the state of Pennsylvania; with the stream of requests that come to him to preside at meetings, to serve on boards of benevolence, to lead community movements, to arbi- trate church disputes; with an office that is the mecca for seekers of all kinds, from the man who comes for spiritual advice to the one who wishes to sell a book or borrow money, Bishop Johnson really has little option as to any day's schedule. He must give himself to the duties of the day as they pass along, regardless of their relative spiritual sig- nificance. But the controlling and unifying factor in his work is the spiritual perspective that regards nothing as 'common' and that holds secular things as sacred, and makes sacred and secular ministrations alike, the agency of spiritual influence.
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