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 30

Author: McGroarty, John Steven, 1862-
Publication date: 1921
Publisher: Chicago : American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 746


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 30


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others, including the Lillian tract and the Los Angeles View tract, giving his entire attention to this business. He was associated as a partner with Philo Beverage for a time but later operated individually. He erected some thirty residences and business blocks from Cherokee street to Las Palmas avenue.


Mr. Grass married Eulalia Pinta, who was of Italian and French parentage, and is survived by his widow and the following children : Eulalia Bertha, Mrs. C. L. Hogan; Julia Blanch, Mrs. Edward N. Klar- quist ; Eulalia Marie, Mrs. Clinton W. Evans, of Pomona; Lillian Marie, Mrs. Hart Nesbit, of Pomona; Joseph F. Grass, Jr., of Merced ; and three children of his wife by a former marriage: Dr. Joseph O. Chiapella, a surgeon of Chico, California; Edward Emile, of Holly- wood, and Stephen Eugene, of Los Angeles who were reared by Mr. Grass as his own sons. His children were born in the south. Addi- tionally he left twelve grandchildren. Nominally a republican, Mr. Grass often voted independently. He belonged to the Masonic fraternity and the Order of Foresters. His death occurred December 12, 1918, and he was laid to rest according to the rites of the Roman Catholic Church, to which he belonged.


RIGHT REV. JOHN J. CANTWELL. In 1918 the Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles welcomed as its new bishop John J. Cantwell, D. D., who has been a consecrated worker in California nearly twenty years, and was called to his present duties from his former position as Vicar Gen- ral to the Archbishop of San Francisco.


Right Rev. John J. Cantwell was born in County Tipperary, Ire- land, in 1874. A number of his family have been distinguished in the annals of the church. Several of his uncles were priests, and Bishop Cantwell himself has two brothers in the clergy: Rev. James P. Cant- well, Chancellor of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, and Rev. William J. Cantwell, rector of St. Anselm's church, San Anselmo, California, while a still younger brother, Arthur, is a student at St. Bernard's Seminary at Rochester, New York.


Bishop Cantwell received his academic education in the college of the Jesuit Fathers at Limerick and pursued his theological studies at St. Patrick's College, Thurles. He was ordained a priest in 1899 and at once came to California, being assigned to the Archdiocese of San Fran- cisco. His first mission was at Berkeley, and for five years he was assist- ant to the rector of St. Joseph's church. His learning and eloquence quickly won him distinction and gave him great opportunities for service in the University City, where he interested himself especially in the Catholic students at the University of California, and through his efforts brought about the organization of the Newman Club in that city.


In 1904 the late Archbishop Riordan called Father Cantwell to the post of secretary, an office demanding a fine combination of learning, courtesy and administrative ability. It was his fulfillment of the obli- gations and responsibilities of his new post that brought him quickly the regard and confidence of a growing number of the clergy, laity and non- Catholics. Upon the appointment of Archbishop Hanna to the see of San Francisco Father Cantwell in 1915 became Vicar General of the Archdiocese. This position he held until he came to southern Cali- fornia to assume the duties of Bishop of the Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles.


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THE SAWYER SCHOOL OF SECRETARIES. In one of the most modern cities in the world, where every form of business and social service reaches its highest perfection, it is a matter of interest to note that there is only one school for the preparation of secretaries to serve the manifold purposes comprised in the broadening significance of that term. It is a business school of the higher grade, where upon the foundation of routine technique is superimposed a training in independent thinking, initiative and the intelligent action which modern business demands.


Probably the primary purpose in the minds of the founders of the school was to afford opportunities for training the man and woman who already possessed a formal high school or college education but without special fitness for a place commensurate with their latent abili- ties in business life. The directors of the school have therefore been pioneers, and have given the institution a faculty of university train- ing and study, with an admirable balance between theory and practice. It is noteworthy that the course in commercial law is handled by one of the attorneys associated with the Title, Insurance & Trust Com- pany of Los Angeles; the bookkeeping is under an expert accountant ; and the business correspondence is given by a post-graduate of Co- lumbia University, prepared especially for high school and college teach- ing of English.


The three principal courses of study offered by the Sawyer School are the secretarial course, business training and intensive training. Any school is judged by its results, and the Sawyer School has been in ex- istence long enough to demonstrate the fact that the possessors of its diplomas possess a distinction resting upon real and broad qualifica- tions for the post of responsibility to which they aspire in the business world.


The directors of the Sawyer School are Miss Camille M. Giffen and Miss Françes Jackling. Miss Giffen is a daughter of G. M. Giffen, a pioneer of Los Angeles and long associated with the G. M. Giffen Com- pany, seal estate. She received her B. L. degree from the University of California with the class of 1914, and in addition to her duties in the Sawyer School is an instructor in history at the Manual Arts School of Los Angeles.


The other director, Miss Frances Jackling, was reared and was a resident of the city of Seattle until nine years ago. She received her Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts degree from the Uni- versity of California in 1914, and was then a teacher in Miss Head's School and later instructor of physical education in the Hollywood High School. It was recognition of the need for a higher type of busi- ness woman that induced these two far-sighted young women to enter their special field of education, and the results of the Sawyer School show that they chose wisely and have accomplished a notable service in their pioneer undertaking.


ADELINE AND JULIA RIDDLE, M. D., who came to Los Angeles in 1917, were for nearly a quarter of a century active and successful practi- tioners of medicine in the state of Wisconsin, where they did pioneer work for their sex in the profession of medicine and achieved many noteworthy distinctions.


The sisters were born at Derby, Indiana, daughters of Robert Henry and Elizabeth (Gayley) Riddle. The family during the early seventies moved out to the Indian frontier in Kansas and lived in that state nine years. While there the girls had their first schooling in a school con-


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ducted 'in a typical prairie dugout. From Kansas the family inoved to Waitsburg, Washington, where the young ladies attended grammar and high schools, graduating in 1884. Both subsequently taught school at Dayton, Washington. Mary Adeline left her work in the conven- tional vocation of teaching in 1890, and Julia in 1891, both entering the Women's Medical College of Chicago, now the Women's Department of Northwestern University. M. Adeline graduated with honors and the M. D. degree, the following year continuing her studies in the Hah- nemann Medical College at Chicago, from which homeopathic institu- tion she also received the M. D. degree in 1894. In that year her sister Julia graduated from the Women's Medical College, and both located at Oshkosh, Wisconsin. For three years they were engaged in separate practice and then became associated as partners.


For several years they had to overcome strong prejudice against women practitioners, and they were among the first to overcome those prejudices and achieve recognition and remunerative work. They re- mained at Oshkosh until 1917. At Oshkosh they were editors of the Journal of Preventive Medicine, published under the auspices of the Wisconsin Medical Women's Association and devoted to instruction in proper food, hygiene and moral education. Through the medium of this magazine Drs. Riddle & Riddle became widely known and were called upon as lecturers. They lectured before various state organiza- tions and other societies on the subject of hygiene and moral educa- tion. During 1912 they gave all their time and talents to the cause of suffrage. They made the first automobile tour of Wisconsin, their home state, in the interest of suffrage in company with Minona S. Jones. In that year suffrage was first submitted to the voters of Wis- consin.


Drs. Riddle and Riddle were meinbers of the American Medical Association, Wisconsin State Medical Association, Wisconsin Medical Women's Association, but now of the California State and County Medical Societies, the State Local and the Race Betterment League of Wisconsin, and Dr. Adeline was chairman of the Health Department in the State Federation of Women's Clubs. It is believed they are the only sisters practicing medicine together in the United States. Dr. Julia was the only woman physician appointed as a legally authorized medical examiner for the Travelers Life Insurance Company, and also the only woman to be appointed as surgeon for the Wisconsin Central Railroad Company.


While at Oshkosh the sisters offered their services as physicians and surgeons in the Medical Reserve Corps of the United States Army. On receiving orders to go before the Medical Examiners of Wisconsin they passed the mental examination but objected to complete the physi- cal examination before male physicians and asked that a woman be ap- pointed for that work. Subsequently going to Washington, an interview with General Gorgas, Surgeon General of the Army, brought out the fact that women physicians were not being commissioned under the Medical Reserve Corps upon the same terms as men, but were placed on a salary without official recognition, the military honors going to male physicians only. Refusing to accept this unjust discrimination, the sis- ters decided to come to California to resume their private practice. They had several times visited this state and intended to locate here when they retired. Coming as they did in 1917, while many male physicians and surgeons were engaged in war work, they filled a patent need and found immediate recognition and service. They have their


Е. а. Тогдатину


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offices in the Consolidated Realty Building and their home at 4615 Kings- well avenue, in Hollywood. The sisters are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Dr. Adeline has an adopted daughter, the child of a former patient. Her name is Lenore Adeline Riddle and she is now seven years of age.


ERNEST A. MONTGOMERY, a permanent resident of Los Angeles since 1904, though his associations with the city date back to the early '90s, is one of the most conspicuous figures in mining circles in the far west. While for a number of years he has been considered a capitalist, doing business on a large scale and controlling great resources and furnishing employment to hundreds of men, there was a time when he was in the ranks shoulder to shoulder with the prospectors, toiling to the limit of physical endurance, and sharing all the dangers and hardships that have been so long associated with the life of the western mine operator.


He was born in London, Canada, November 24, 1863, son of Alex- ander and Jane (Chapman) Montgomery. He is of Scotch ancestry. His paternal grand-uncle was General Richard Montgomery, leader of the ill fated campaign against Quebec at the beginning of the Revolu- tionary war. Mr. Montgomery received his first schooling at London, but later his parents moved to Stuart, Iowa, where he attended school and busied himself on the home farm.


In 1884 he started for the mining regions of the northwest. He was in Idaho and Washington, where he had meager success; then going to Nevada, where he devoted a few years' time in developing and operat- ing gold mines. There are few of the wealthy associates of Mr. Mont- gomery at Los Angeles who understand better the old axiom about eating one's bread by the sweat of one's brow. Mr. Montgomery has always credited a considerable share of his early success to his congenial relations with the Indians. He showed fairness and consideration for the red men, in contrast with the usual attitude of whites toward Indians, and he became recognized as a decent, honorable man in every Indian community. The Indians helped him instead of thwarting him in his enterprises, and he has a lasting debt of gratitude for the helpfulness extended to him by his old Indian friends.


Nearly twenty years elapsed from the time he set out from the Iowa farm until he had achieved recognition as a successful mine operator. In 1901 he helped organize and develop what is known as the Mont- gomery district in Nevada. One of his early properties there was the Johnnie Mine, which netted him a small fortune. After this came his operations in Inyo county, California, where he developed the World Beater and O Be Joyful properties. Fifteen years ago Nevada held the center of the stage among new mining districts. Mr. Montgomery was at Tonopah in 1903, and for a time shared with others in an effort to get a railroad into the Tonopah district. His reports, based upon intimate investigation and knowledge of the country, prevailed with the directors and builders in locating the route of the Los Angeles, Daggett & Tonopah, a road that was subsequently turned over to and completed by the Tonopah Tide-water interests.


Mr. Montgomery resumed his active mining operations in 1904 around Tonopah, and in September of that year located the Shoshone Mine in the Bullfrog district of Nevada. The property was rapidly developed, and at the end of sixteen months had become so conspicuous as to attract the attention of Charles M. Schwab and his financial asso- ciates. In the meantime Mr. Montgomery had acquired a generous for-


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tune but was not yet ready to retire. In 1905 he obtained control of the Skidoo Mine on the edge of Death Valley in California. After spending half a million dollars in development work and installation of machinery he brought out ores which in a few years returned him dividends more than the amount of the original investment. Mr. Mont- gomery was one of the original property owners of the Goldfield district in Nevada who in the fall of 1903 organized the camp and named it Goldfield.


In recent years Mr. Montgomery has extended his interests into the mining districts of old Mexico, and was also identified with the mining camp at National, Nevada. He also became extensively inter- ested in the oil fields of Tampico, Mexico, and was formerly a director of the Mexican Premier Oil Company. He is now vice president of the Topila Petroleum Company and president of the Panuco Excelsior Oil Company, both properties being of great value. Very recently he has taken an interest in the mining of silver on the west coast of Mexico.


He has served as vice-president and director of the American Mining Congress, and to him is due the credit for the splendidly successful con- vention of that congress held at Los Angeles in 1910. He is also a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and of many technical, business and social organizations, including the Masonic Order, the Mystic Shrine, the Jonathan Club, the Rocky Mountain Club, of which he is a charter member, and the Chemical Club of New York and the American Club of Mexico City. July 23, 1912, at New York City, Mr. Montgomery married Miss Antoinette Schwarz, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frederick Schwarz.


JOHN D. FREDERICKS as District Attorney of Los Angeles county handled the famous prosecution and trial of the McNamara brothers for the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times Building in 1911. Prob- ably no criminal trial in America has been more extensively written up and is more familiar to public knowledge both in this country and abroad. All of the important moves in securing evidence against the McNamara brothers were directed by District Attorney Fredericks, in- cluding much of the brilliant part played by the detective W. J. Burns. The part which reflects the greatest credit upon Mr. Fredericks' judg- ment and skill in the case was his influence in securing a direct con- fession of guilt from the McNamaras, thus avoiding a prolonged trial in court, which under the conditions would have been regarded as an out and out contest between capitalism and organized labor.


Mr. Fredericks, who has to his record many other achievements in his profession, has been a member of the Los Angeles bar for a quar- ter of a century. He was born at Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, Septem- ber 10, 1869, son of Rev. James T. and Mary (Patterson) Fredericks. In the Fredericks family every male member for over two hundred years has been either a physician, minister or lawyer.


John D. Frederick attended the public schools of his native town, the Trinity Hall Military Academy at Washington, Pennsylvania, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College in 1890, with his A. B. degree. The same year he came to California, and while teach- ing in the Whittier State School for three years read law and was ad- mitted to practice in 1893. From 1899 to 1903 he served as Deputy District Attorney of Los Angeles county and it was his success in hand- ling a number of criminal trials that brought him the nomination and election as District Attorney of the county in 1902. He was re-elected


Alu. Mitchell


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in 1906 and in 1910, filling the office continuously from 1903 to 1915. Besides the McNamara case which brought him international fame as a prosecuting lawyer, Mr. Fredericks handled a case of much interest and importance in 1906 when he represented Los Angeles county and other California counties contesting before the Federal courts the case against the owners of the patent on oiled roads. Mr. Fredericks con- tended that the process was not patentable, and after a hard fight se- cured a verdict which made the process of oiling roads public property.


Mr. Fredericks served as Adjutant of the Seventh Regiinent, Cali- fornia Volunteers, in the Spanish-American war. He is a republican, a Presbyterian, a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner, a member of the California and Los Angeles Athletic Country Clubs and also the Automobile Club of Southern California. In 1896 he married Agnes M. Blakeley, of Los Angeles. They have four children : Doris, John D., Jr., Deborah and James B.


BYRON CALVIN HANNA is a prominent young lawyer of the Los An- geles bar and has spent all his life since early childhood in this state.


He was born at Kansas City, Missouri, January 2, 1887, and in 1891 when he was four years of age his parents Phil K. and Florence E. (Townsend) Hanna moved to California. He was educated in public schools and received his degree in law from the University of Southern California. Preparatory to his professional work Mr. Hanna had sev- eral experiences and employments, at first with the Wells Fargo & Company Express, then as an accountant, later as a stenographer, and finally as a lawyer. He was admitted to the bar by the Appellate Court at Los Angeles January 2, 1908. He served as city attorney of the City of Venice eight years, as chief deputy district attorney of Los Angeles county two and a half years, having been appointed to that position February 1, 1911. He became a niember of the law firm Thorpe & Hanna December 1, 1910, and for the past five years has been a mem- ber of the firm Fredericks & Hanna with offices in the Merchants Na- tional Bank Building.


Mr. Hanna is affiliated with the Masonic Order and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Los Angeles County Bar Association, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Delta Chi Fraternity, and in politics is a republican. His home is at 933 South Kingsley Drive in Holly- wood. He married at Riverside July 16, 1917, Daisy May Boycott, a daughter of Walter J. Boycott. Mr. Hanna has one daughter, Ruth Hanna.


ALEXANDER MITCHELL. In volume of receipts and business trans- actions the largest Land Office of the United States is that of the Los Angeles District. The receiver of this office, and the man entrusted with the responsibilities of handling over a quarter of a million dollars per annum, is Mr. Alexander Mitchell, a veteran railway man and formerly active in Los Angeles real estate affairs, and one of the courageous and unflinching advocates of democracy in principle and in party. Mr. Mitchell was appointed receiver of the Los Angeles Land Office in 1914 to succeed O. R. W. Robinson, and on the basis of his qualifications and record was reappointed June 19, 1918.


Mr. Mitchell is a native of Scotland. He was born and educated in Aberdeen, and in 1877, at the age of eighteen, came to the United States with his uncle, Alexander Mitchell. For several years he lived at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his first position was as a clerk in the


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Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Bank. From 1879 to 1883 he handled the lands of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Com- pany in northwestern Iowa. In 1884 he was made traveling passenger agent of that company, and continued in its service steadily for sixteen years. For ten years he had complete charge of all its freight and passenger business in the states of Utah, Montana, Idaho and Wyoming. In 1900 the Railway Company transferred him from Salt Lake City to Chicago, but he remained there only about a year.


The immediate cause that brought him to Los Angeles was a trip to benefit his youngest son's health. He obtained a ninety day leave of absence from the railway company, but on his own responsibility con- tinued that leave indefinitely and has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1901. For fifteen years he was one of the successful operators in the local real estate field, and his long and varied experience in handling public, railroad and other lands and properties was a most substantial recommendation for the office he now holds.


Mr. Mitchell has always been a democrat in principle and has kept his political record absolutely clear. While with the railway company at Salt Lake City he was a member in 1896 of the first Democratic Com- mittee of Utah, and took part in the Bryan campaign of that year. In 1908 he was president of the Bryan Club of Glendale, and has been a leader in every democratic local and state campaign in California for sixteen years. He never sought the honors or responsibilities of public office until he was chosen to his present position. He received the solid endorsement of the Los Angeles County Democratic Central Committee for nomination as Land Office receiver. It is a matter of special interest and note that at the time of his first appointment to this office four years ago a Los Angeles paper in noting his appointment quoted his views on government ownership of railways. Mr. Mitchell at that time under- stood many of the difficulties and obstacles that interfered with the har- monious regulation of railway rates and interests by means of the Inter- state and State Railway Commission, and predicted ultimate government ownership, and recent events have at least confirmed his proposition so far as the breakdown of railway management under public regulatory bodies is concerned.


Mr. Mitchell is a prominent member of the Order of Elks. While, a resident of Utah he became the first exalted ruler of Salt Lake City Lodge No. 85, and is therefore a life member of the Grand Lodge, and has served as president of the Local Lodge, the Fraternal Brotherhood. He is president of the "Community Sing" of Glendale. Mr. Mitchell is married and has a family of four children: Lorraine Mitchell, principal of the Columbus Avenue School; George A. Mitchell, connected with the county surveyor's office ; and Barbara I. and A. Gilbert Mitchell, both graduates from the Glendale high school. George A. Mitchell enlisted in the navy at the outbreak of the war and rose to the rank of ensign.


ARTHUR L. VEITCH is a Los Angeles lawyer whose work as a spe- cial prosecutor in several famous criminal trials has attracted wide attention. For several years he has been busied with a large general practice, and his time is fully taken up with his professional duties.


Mr. Veitch has been a resident of Southern California since 1901. He was born at Mayville, Michigan, July 5, 1884, a son of Arthur and Martha Cordelia (Choate) Veitch. His parents still live in Los An- geles, to which city they removed from Michigan in 1901. Arthur Veitch, Sr., was a druggist during his active life. He was a native of


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Oxford County, Ontario, Canada, of old Scotch ancestry, and his wife was born in Clarence, New York, and is a connection of the Choate and Todd families of New England. The name Choate has been conspicuous in the legal profession for many generations.




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