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 35
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general counsel for the Southern California Edison Company ; also as- sisted the firm of Avery & French in their office until October 1, 1913, and for one year and two months held the office of first assistant United States attorney of this district. For a short time he was assistant at- torney for the Los Angeles Wholesale Board of Trade, but for the last four and a half years has been steadily engaged in a large general prac- tice, though specializing in casualty insurance work.
He has a prominent clientage, representing the American District Tele- graph Company, the Los Angeles District Telegraph Company, the West- ern Indemnity Company, the United States Lloyd, the United States Casualty Company and the Western Union Telegraph Company. His forte is the trial of cases before court or jury, and he is in court two- thirds of his time.
While in Oklahoma Mr. Stone represented the Missouri, Oklahoma & Gulf Railway and the St. Louis & San Francisco Railway for seven years, and was also attorney for the Western Union Telegraph Com- pany at Ada about the same length of time. He is a member of the Order of Railway Employes. Since coming to Los Angeles he has tried a number of important cases as a representative of the United States government.
Mr. Stone has always been active in democratic politics. He is a Knight Templar Mason and still keeps his membership in Ada Lodge No. 16 in Oklahoma, being a charter member of that lodge. He served it as recorder three years. He is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World at Ada and is a member of the Golden State Camp of the Mod- ern Woodmen at Los Angeles. He also belongs to Borak Temple No. 75 of the Knights of Pythias at Los Angeles.
Mr. Stone married Miss Eleanor Anna Warren, of Iola, Kansas, at Ada, Oklahoma, November 26, 1907. She was born in County Wex- ford, Ireland, of Presbyterian ancestry, and was brought to this coun- try by her parents at the age of five years. She was liberally educated, receiving the degrees A. B. and A. M. from Ottawa University, at Ot- tawa, Kansas, and she met her husband while principal of schools at Ada, Oklahoma. In Los Angeles Mrs. Stone takes a great interest in the Parents-Teachers Association, and is also connected with the social clubs of Hollywood. They have one daughter, Eleanor Louise, who was born at Ada, Oklahoma.
J. M. WATERMAN. In the great volume of publicity that has been given to the resources of southern California in recent years, particularly those relating to the growing of agricultural crops, the name of J. M. Waterman has appeared probably as frequently as that of any other in- dividual. Mr. Waterman has practically a national reputation for his work in connection with the marketing and co-operative selling move- ments of California farmers, especially among the producers of California lima beans. With almost thirty years of experience in business affairs in 'the state, his word is considered an authority on many subjects closely and vitally related to the welfare of California agriculture.
Mr. Waterman, one of whose chief business interests is the J. M. Waterman Selling Agency, represented not only in California but by local and sub agencies in many parts of the country, has had his home in Los Angeles since 1904. He was born in Bavaria, Germany, August 17, 1871, a son of Max and Emma (Bruell) Waterman. His parents spent all their lives in Germany, where his father was a cattle raiser, and he died at the comparatively early age of fifty-six. The widowed
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mother passed away a few years ago, when over seventy. In their family were four sons and three daughters.
J. M. Waterman and two of his brothers came to the United States, the brothers being Emil, of San Francisco, and William M., of Los Angeles. Emil, the oldest, was the first to come to this coun- try, being followed by William, four years later, while J. M. came in 1888. All have lived in California for thirty years or more. The brothers, however, have all been back to Europe several times, J. M. Waterman having been twice on the continent within the last twelve years.
Mr. Waterman received his early education in Germany under private tutors. At the age of fourteen, when his education was fin- ished, he went to work in a wholesale dry goods establishment, and had three years of training before he came to the United States, at the age of seventeen. Landing in New York City, he remained a few weeks, and then started for California, stopping off a few days in Chi- cago and Omaha. From San Francisco he went to Hueneme, was there a few weeks, and thence to Los Angeles. Returning to San Fran- cisco, he became a student in the old Eddy Street school. After three weeks he left his studies to go to work, and spent nine months in a general merchandise store in Shasta county. Once more back in San Francisco he remained a brief time and then came south to San Jose and found work in the store of A. & H. Martin as a bundle wrapper at three dollars a week. He was there two and a half years, was earning $150.00 per month and took care of all the cash and bookkeeping of the establishment. While the salary was not important, the business was one which presented a fine opportunity to the young man to learn, and his employers put everything in his way to encourage him. Later they found a position for him in San Francisco with Levi, Strauss & Company, wholesale dry goods. Beginning again at fifty dollars a month, at the end of two years he was getting a salary of a hundred fifty dollars a month. All the time Mr. Waterman cared less about the money remuneration and more about the opportunities to learn business methods thoroughly.
For some time he was at Hueneme in Ventura county working for his brother William at twenty dollars a month and board. This was a general merchandise store, but the feature of the business which espe- cially appealed to Mr. Waterman was the handling of products direct from the farm to the market. At this time Mr. Waterman was a member of the National Guard of California. When war broke out with Spain in 1898 he was serving as corporal of Company H, 7th Regiment of Ventura. This company had its baggage aboard a steamer three times but was never sent to the field of action. In the meantime Mr. Waterman had an offer from a San Francisco house to go on the road as a traveling salesman, and he spent a year traveling. He then engaged in business for himself at San Jacinto in Riverside county,. handling products and selling general merchandise direct to the con- sumers. This business was terminated during 1900-01 when the farm- ers suffered an almost complete crop failure. In 1902 Mr. Water- man, returning to San Francisco, engaged with his brother Emil in the grain and bean business for two years.
About that time Los Angeles began attracting the attention of the world by a revival of business and by promise of becoming one of the chief cities of the country. Mr. Waterman decided that his future lot would be cast with the city of the south. His brother Emil chose
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to remain in San Francisco, and is still in business there under his own name.
On coming to Los Angeles in 1904 J. M. Waterman opened an office under his own name, also built his home, and has since been very suc- cessful in a number of lines of business, but chiefly in the buying of beans direct from the farmers and selling them all over the United States, Canada and Europe. He is and has been one of California's largest bean buyers and distributors. In both lima beans and grain he does a tremendous business, and his activities as a merchant and in connection with many movements of benefit to the producers have re- ceived special attention in many papers and magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post. Mr. Waterman conducted at his own expense a laboratory for some time, involving an outlay of a considerable amount. The purpose of this laboratory was to put certain matters that had theretofore been guess work on a real scientific basis. He has always been impressed with the necessity of a scientific knowledge of what the soil is capable of, before putting seed in the ground, and what he has done in this direction has been a matter of general benefit and interest to all of Southern California. His laboratory experiments were conducted not only for soil examination, but with a view of determin- ing the best fertilizers and also the production of the bacteria for crop inoculation.
Mr. Waterman was manager of the Lima Bean Association, which started in 1908, and was with it as long as the farmers of California supported the organization. An extensive article on the Lima Bean Association of California was written by John S. McGroarty, editor of this publication.
The J. M. Waterman. Selling Agency is Mr. Waterman's individual business, with main offices at Los Angeles, but represented in San Francisco and with other offices and representatives all over the United States. He has also been active in the warehouse, storage and canning business, under the name of the Farmers Warehouse Company and Calima Canning Company.
Mr. Waterman is a republican in politics, though he voted for the progressive candidate for governor, Hiram Johnson. He has been a Mason since early manhood, has attained the thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, is a Shriner and belongs to the various Masonic bodies at Los Angeles. He is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Brentwood Country Club, Argonaut Club and Merchants Ex- change Club of San Francisco, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Automobile Club of Southern California. His offices are in the Corporation Building and his home at 442 South Normandie avenue.
CASSIUS DAVIS BLAIR has had a remarkably wide and diversified ex- perience for a man of his years. He has been engaged in chemical, min- ing, hydraulic and construction engineering on many important projects, is a lawyer and business man, and is closely associated with some of the larger business and civic enterprises of Los Angeles.
He was born at Los Angeles September 4, 1882, his birthplace being a house at the southeast corner of West Seventh and Figueroa (then Pearl) street. His father was Nelson Theodore Blair of Dayton, New York, who came to California in 1873 and located at Los Angeles in 1878. Nelson Theodore Blair married at Plano, Tulare County, in 1873 Ellen Davis, whose father, Thomas Davis, settled at Chinese Camp, Tuolumne County, in 1850. Ellen Davis was one of the first graduates
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of Northwestern University at Evanston, Illinois, after it became a co- educational institution. From that time until her marriage she was a teacher in western schools.
Cassius Davis Blair attended public schools at Los Angeles, but went to work at the age of fifteen. During 1890-99 he was employed in the manufacturing plant of the Yosemite Company of California, and while there made a special study of chemistry and engineering as applied to manufacturing. This company sent him to the New England states in 1900 to install new plants.
In 1901 the Alabama Dredging and Jetty Company put him in charge of special construction of equipment to cope with the peculiar conditions of the "Y" cut off, Port Tampa, Florida. He then returned to California, and during 1902-3 was with the Calkins Manufacturing Company, min- ing machinery and chemicals. While there he made a special study of assaying and metallurgy and assisted in perfecting a line of appliances for those purposes. During the latter part of 1903 he joined the Cali- fornia Mines Corporation in Calaveras County, California, and later in the same year went to Eldorado District in Nevada, where he remained until 1906.
Again returning to California, Mr. Blair assisted in laying out several subdivisions, including Beverley Hills, and in the fall of 1906 became one of the members of the initial parties in the preliminary work on the Los Angeles Aqueduct. He was transferred to the City Engineer's Depart- ment, and while his duties kept him in Los Angeles he entered the Uni- versity of Southern California College of Law as a special student, com- pleting the course entirely by attending night sessions. Passing the bar examination, he was admitted to practice in all the courts of California in January, 1912, and soon afterward to the United States Courts.
Much of his professional and technical service since then has been in association with various movements for the improvement of the Los An- geles business district, particularly that of West Seventh and West Sixth streets. He is counsel for several large property holders and is counsel and director of some highly productive manufacturing and agricultural® organizations in the southwest. Mr. Blair is president of the Pecos Valley Investment Company of California, a director of the Seventh Street Com- pany, Greenfield Farms and Talbot Manufacturing Company, all of Los Angeles.
In politics Mr. Blair is a republican. He is affiliated with East Gate Lodge No. 290, F. and A. M., Pacific Chapter No. 192, Order of the Eastern Star, serving as its worthy patron in 1914, is a member of Ramona Parlor No. 109, Native Sons of the Golden West, and his church associations are Episcopalian.
At Santa Ana, California, September 5, 1906, he married Mildred Cormany Wetzel, a daughter of Peter W. and Margaret Loraine (Cor- many) Wetzel. Her father was born in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, in 1855, and her mother was a native of Lancaster, Fairfield County, Ohio. Mr. and Mrs. Blair have one son, Philip J., born at Los Angeles June 15, 1909.
ALBERT J. WALLACE has been a resident and active figure in the busi- ness and civic life of Southern California for thirty years. His business energies have been absorbed by merchandising, banking, and large opera- tions in lands, especially swamp reclamation work. For a dozen years he has been a factor in oil development, operating with Mr. McQuigg in the organization of the Traders Oil Company, of which he is an official.
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Mr. Wallace was born at Wellington, Ontario, Canada, February 11, 1853, a son of Donald and Harriet (Lasby) Wallace. He was liberally educated in the public schools and in Victoria University, Toronto, Can- ada. He was preparing for the Methodist ministry until failing health obliged him to give up that profession. In 1878 he went out to the prairies of North Dakota and engaged in merchandising, farming and banking in Pembina County until 1886. In that year he came to Los An- geles and has since been a prominent real state operator, his work as a real estate man figuring largely in the constructive processes of reclama- tion. The Traders Oil Company, of which he is secretary and director, is one of the principal producing companies in the Midway Field. He is also a director of the American Fuel Oil Company.
Mr. Wallace has long been prominent in the public life of his city and state. He was chairman of the Finance Committee of the Los Angeles City Council for three years. For four years, during 1911-14, he served as lieutenant governor of California. Though a republican, he has also been especially prominent in anti-liquor work, both state and national, and is state president of the Anti-Saloon League of California. He is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the California Club and City Club. In 1912 the University of Southern California gave him the honorary degree LL. D.
Mr. Wallace has four children: Kenneth Clark, born in Pasadena in August, 1890, is a graduate of high school and of the University of South- ern California. He received his Master of Arts degree from Harvard University, and is now one of the superintendents of the Traders Oil Company in the Midway oil field. Donald, the second son, born in Pasa- dena in January, 1893, is also a high school graduate. He finished his course in Harvard University in 1916 and recently returned from France, where he was a bomber in a flying squadron. The two daughters are Helen Harriet, a graduate of the University of Southern California, and Katherine, a student in high school. Mrs. Wallace is the daughter of Rev. J. M. Hagar, of Los Angeles, California.
C. H. WOLFELT came to California in 1906. He brought with him a routine experience as a shoe clerk gained back in his home town of Fostoria, Ohio, while working for a shoe merchant named J. F. Peters. Mr. Wolfelt was born in Fostoria April 16, 1879, and while attending high school had worked in a shoe store.
For three years after coming to Los Angeles he was with the Wetherby-Kayser Shoe Company. He left that firm for a distinct pur- pose. Most young men are ambitious to get into a business of their own, but C. H. Wolfelt had more than an ambition, he had a vision which prompted him to strike out in new lines and build a business of a distinctive personality and atmosphere. It was his ideal to do an exclusive business, one not in competition with the common run of stores. Even ten years ago when the business was started, with the enthusiasm, good taste and ideals of the founder as the biggest part of the capital, there was something unique in the furnishing, environment and the 'equip- ment of the first shop at 432 South Broadway. Mr. Wolfelt had no purpose to attract a miscellaneous custom, but from the first regulated his patronage by a display and service which made an exclusive appeal.
Out of that preliminary enterprise has developed what is known all over the west, and because California is a social center for the world, therefore known in many continents, as "The Bootery." The Bootery
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is represented by shops in three California cities, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Pasadena. Recently plans have been formulated to estab- lish another branch of the business in New York City. These shops exist solely to supply the exclusive and high class patronage of women. The business furnishes a wide variety of styles in woman's footgear, but practically only one class, that of the highest. Those who exemplify the quiet elegance of good taste in their dress do not consciously seek to advertise the origin of the goods they wear, but among women of that class in California it is more and more taken for granted that their common tastes find satisfaction when shoes are concerned in "The Bootery" shops.
The business, conducted under the name C. H. Wolfelt Company, was greatly enlarged in 1913, with the opening of a shop at San Francisco . and another in Pasadena. The San Francisco store is at 152 Geary street and the Pasadena store in the Maryland Hotel Building. The business was incorporated November 9, 1908, with Mr. Wolfelt as president.
Mr. Wolfelt is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Brent- wood Country Club, Culver City Country Club, Automobile Club of Southern California, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and Merchants and Manufacturers Association.
At Los Angeles May 28, 1907, he married Miss Mabel C. Ander- son, who was born and educated in southern California. They have a daughter, Martha Louise, born at Los Angeles. The family home is at 2211 Budlong avenue. However, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfelt spend much of their time in New York City. Mrs. Wolfelt is the champion woman auto- mobile driver of the world. In 1918 she won all the cups and broke all the records for a woman at the wheel.
CHARLES W. LYON, a prominent native son of the Golden West, has achieved distinction as a hard working and capable lawyer, a member of the firm Fredericks and Hanna in the Merchants National Bank Building at Los Angeles. This prominent law firm comprises four attor- neys-J. D. Fredericks, Byron C. Hanna, Arthur L. Veitch and Charles W. Lyon.
Mr. Lyon was born in Los Angeles September 13, 1887, a son of James H. and Laura Emma (Simpson) Lyon. His father and mother were natives of Maine. The Lyon ancestry goes back to the earliest set- tlement of New England, one of the family connections being the famous John Alden, and in a later generation the poet Longfellow was a relative. The Simpsons are an old family of Machias, Maine, where they were established in Revolutionary times. James H. Lyon and his wife were married in Maine, and the former came to California fifty years ago around the Horn, his wife subsequently joining him after a trip across the plains. James Lyon during his active life was a carpenter foreman and architect, and constructed many of the old-time buildings in Los An- geles. In early life he was noted as an athlete, being the champion long- distance runner of Los Angeles for a number of years. The family home was formerly on Fifth and Spring streets. The parents are still living. both well preserved, and of their family of nine children five sons and two daughters are still living. Some of them are now in other states. Mrs. Frank K. Eckley, the oldest child, lives at Fresno, and she and her husband are well known socially and also in a business way both at Los Angeles and Fresno. Josiah F. is a past president of the Native Sons of the Golden West, is a telegraph operator for the Southern Pacific and
Frydlinger,
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a resident of Los Angeles. Ludlum Longfellow, the youngest of the family, is with the United States Army at Camp Kearney.
Charles W. Lyon, the eighth child, was educated in Los Angeles, attending public schools and business college. At the age of fifteeen he went to work for the Title Insurance and Trust Company, spent six years with that organization, and at the same time carried on the study of law in night school. He left the company at the age of twenty-one and con- tinued his law work in the office of Thorpe & Hanna and was admitted to the bar in 1910 at the age of twenty-three. He remained with the firm of Thorpe & Hanna, and that firm today is Fredericks and Hanna, with Mr. Lyon a junior partner.
Mr. Lyon has been prominent in republican politics for a number of years. In 1914 he was elected to the Legislature from the Sixty-second District, being then twenty-seven years of age. He was re-elected in 1916 and in 1918 was chosen to the State Senate to represent the Thirty- fourth District. His four-year term began January 1, 1919. The Thirty- fourth is the largest senatorial district in California. Mr. Lyon served as city attorney of Venice, California, in 1917-18. He was only twenty-one years of age when he was elected president of Los Angeles Parlor No. 45 of the Native Sons of the Golden West. He is past state president of the California State Aerie of Eagles, which has over thirty thousand members in California. He is past president of Ocean Park Aerie No. 924 of this order, and is exalted ruler for 1919-20 of Santa Monica Lodge of Elks No. 906. He is also affiliated with Ocean Park Lodge No. 369, A. F. and A. M., and is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Mr. Lyon and family reside at 700 Victoria Avenue at Venice. He married Miss Nancy Player Janney on September 21, 1912. Mrs. Lyon was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Frank G. Janney. Her father was one of the eminent metallurgical engineers of America and the world, and was one of the founders of the famous Utah Copper mines, was mill superintendent of all the copper mines of Utalı and of other mines in Arizona, and was associated with the noted Colonel D. C. Jackling in many of his enterprises. Mrs. Janney, the widowed mother of Mrs. Lyon, lives on South Harvard boulevard in Los Angeles. Mrs. Lyon received her education in Los Angeles, being a graduate of the Westlake School for Girls. She is a member of Santa Monica Bay Woman's Club. Their two children, both born in Los Angeles, are Nancy Jane and Charles W. Jr.
SIMON NORDLINGER. The modern cosmopolitan world of Los An- geles has appreciation of one of its most perfect and adequate commer- cial institutions in the handsome establishment at 631-633 South Broad- way known as S. Nordlinger & Sons, Gold and Silversmiths. Without doubt it is one of the largest and finest jewelry houses on the Pacific Coast.
When the founder passed away a few years ago he had two worthy successors in his sons, who are the proprietors today. Simon Nord- linger was a conspicuous example of the genius and skill of a foreign country transplanted to the rich and virgin soil of America. He was born in Alsace-Lorraine, near the Swiss border, May 11, 1845. At the age of thirteen he left home to become an apprentice under a Swiss watch- maker. In 1864, at the age of nineteen, through the generosity of his uncle in New York City, he came to America and spent about four years in New York. The spirit of the west attracted him and he came
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as far as Cheyenne, Wyoming, remaining there eight months, until the first transcontinental railroad had been completed. He traveled to San Francisco as a passenger on the first transcontinental train to reach that city at the Golden Gate. The opportunities he was seeking were not present in San Francisco. Then followed a visit to southern California, where his quest was likewise unrewarded until from San Diego he stopped at Los Angeles, visiting a young man who had been one of his companions in Switzerland. This friend informed him of a watchmaker who desired to sell his business. After a brief negotiation Mr. Nord- linger bought the shop. This transaction occurred in 1869. At that time Los Angeles had about five thousand inhabitants, perhaps two thousand whites and the remainder Mexicans and Indians. Involved in the deal there was no special stock and little more in fact than a place to work. The shop was in an old one-story adobe shack with a floor space of about 12x40 feet on Commercial street between Main and Los Angeles streets.
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