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 40
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Edward S. Irvin was born at Valparaiso, Indiana, January 19, 1860, son of Samuel and Catherine (Keller) Irvin. He attended public school at Hebron, Indiana, and at the age of eighteen taught in that vicinity for about a year. For two years he was employed as a drug clerk at Hebron and then worked in a dry goods store for another two years.
It was with this experience and training that he came West and located at Ontario, California. For one year he worked at different lines and then came to Los Angeles and for two years was clerk with H. C. Worland, druggist and postmaster at Boyle Heights. Mr. Irvin worked one year as chain man under Henry Dockweiler, the Los Angeles city engineer. For about a year he was a general workman in the shops of the Los Angeles Metal Works, and when that concern was absorbed by the American Can Company he remained in the cost depart- ment of that corporation until 1903. At that date the American Can Company discontinued its Los Angeles branch and Mr. Irvin went with the newly organized Los Angeles Can Company as vice president and secretary.
He is a charter member of Hollenbeck Lodge of Masons, is a member of the Los Angeles Credit Men's Association, is a democrat and belongs to the Christian church. At Hebron, Indiana, January 1, 1884, he married Miss Hattie Bryant. They have two children, Samuel B. and Ruth. Samuel was born in 1885, was educated in public schools, and did his first work with the Sunset Telephone Company and at pres- ent is cashier and timekeeper with the Los Angeles Can Company. The daughter, Ruth, is a graduate of the University of California, specializ- ing in the study of languages, Spanish, Greek and Latin, and is also a talented young musician. She is a member of the Acholth Sorority and of the Eastern Star. Mr. Irvin and family reside in a beautiful home at 1722 North Van Ness Avenue in Hollywood.
LYNN HELM gave up a profitable practice at Chicago in 1896 to become a resident of Los Angeles, and for twenty years he has ranked as one of the leading members of the southern California bar.
His individual career is part of a notable family record. His father, Henry Thomas Helm, was one of the distinguished lawyers of Illinois. He was born in Tennessee in 1830, grew up in Ohio, was a graduate
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of Miami University and was admitted to the Illinois bar at Chicago in 1854. He was associated with some of the ablest Chicago lawyers of the old regime. Besides his ability as a lawyer he was known as a niining expert, and as an authority upon trotting horses and many phases of agriculture. At one time he wrote a book upon the trotting horse in America that was long considered an authority. He married Julia Lathrop.
Mr. Lynn Helm was born at Chicago, son of these parents, Octo- ber 29, 1857. He received his preparatory education in Lake Forest Academy and in 1875 entered Princeton University, where he was a classmate of Woodrow Wilson. He received his A. B. degree in 1879 and in 1882 was awarded the Master of Arts degree. He studied law in his father's office and was admitted to the bars of Indiana and Illinois in 1881. For fifteen years he was a lawyer of high and influential connections in the Chicago bar.
Since coming to Los Angeles Mr. Helm has handled many notable cases. Among them are the Lowe and Dobbins gas cases, and the case of Dobbins vs. the City of Los Angeles, which Mr. Helm finally won in the United States Supreme Court. In 1901 he was appointed referee in bankruptcy of the United States District Court of southern California for Los Angeles County, and also served as master in chancery for the United States Circuit Court. At the end of his term, in September, 1915, he resigned as referee in bankruptcy and requested the judges not to reappoint him. However, he is still active in the general practice of law. He is author of several legal treatises, and was a commissioner to the Conference on Uniform Laws. He was the second man chosen to the office of vice president of the California State Bar Association, and was president of the Los Angeles Bar Association in 1908-09. In January, 1917, he was elected a member of the Los Angeles Board of Education and since July 1, 1917, has been president of that body. He was formerly identified with a number of social clubs, but his only membership at present is with the California Club.
Mr. Helm married, April 26, 1888, Miss Annie Horlock. Mr. Helm is very proud of his three children, especially his son who has won merited distinction in France. His oldest child is Elizabeth, who received her education at Dana Hall and Wellesley College, and is now the wife of W. S. Rosecrans of Gardena, California. Lynn Helm, Jr., was a student in. Princeton University when the war broke out with Germany. He enlisted in May, 1917, for the Officers Training Camp, and from there was sent to Douglas, Arizona. In March, 1918, he was transferred to the School of Fire at Fort Sill, and on July 1, 1918, went to France as first lieutenant of the 11th Field Artillery. During the last month of hostilities he was on the battle line and in June, 1919, left Vallehon (the Artillery School), and returned to America. For gallant work in action in the district north of Argonne he was awarded the distinguished service cross and was first lieutenant. The younger son, Harold, attended Phillips Exeter Academy and is now in the third year at Princeton University.
AGNES SWOBDI MEADE has a well earned fame of her own in south- ern California, quite apart from that associated with her late husband, G. Walter Meade, for his artistic and professional work. Her appeal is to the eternal feminine and to the women of southern California, "Swobdi Millinery" is the last word in fashion and good taste. Her stores are at Los Angeles, Pasadena and Coronado.
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Mrs. Meade is a remarkable business woman-many regard her as the foremost in Los Angeles. When she came to California twenty years ago she was Miss Agnes LaMonte Swobdi. She came here for her health. Doctors had allowed her a lease of only two years longer. Health, wealth and an extremely large share of content and happiness have been her lot.
She was born in the city of Berlin, of Polish and French parentage. Her parents moved to Vienna, where her father engaged in business with his cousin, manufacturing men's silk hats, and he was there at the time of his death in 1845, at the age of twenty-nine years. The mother died shortly afterward, when the daughter was two years old, and she was reared by her father's sister, who had no children of her own. At the age of ten years the child accompanied her uncle and aunt to America, their destination being San Jose, California, where the aunt's chum was located, but owing to her illness and death they never got any further than Nebraska. An orphan indeed Mrs. Meade then became, but Mr. and Mrs. K. J. Willis took her under their care and for the next six years she was raised and educated by them, and this being the formative years of her life she gives much credit to Mother Willis for her teaching.
At the age of seventeen she entered her chosen work, which she has followed to the present time.
Miss Swobdi started the millinery business at 555 South Broadway in Los Angeles. She did her pioneer work with the Terrills, who long held sway as the highest class and most exclusive outfitters for women in Los Angeles. The Terrills are now retired from business. Mrs. Meade moved to Eighth and Broadway and finally in her farsighted way seeing the trend of the times she secured her present location on Seventh street, in the heart of the most fashionable shopping district.
Mrs. Meade first leased the building now occupied by the beautiful New York store. Before she had made a single payment on the lease she sold her rights to Mr. Hagerty for a considerable advance. She then secured the present site with the floor above and the store ad- joining and sold the lease for the adjoining store and the second floor for a similar profit.
Mrs. Meade is a far sighted woman, keen in business, and has made money through her ability to select locations and furnish a service that can hardly be duplicated in the west. She pins her faith to the fu- ture of Seventh street, and owns several lots near the location of the new hotel, which is to cost several million dollars. She has already been offered a handsome increase for these properties, which she has refused. Mrs. Meade explains her success as due to concentration and being able to look ahead.
She was married to G. Walter Meade at the home of Mr. Meade's great-great-aunt, Mrs. George Babcock, at Alameda, July 18, 1909. She met Mr. Meade eight years prior to their marriage in Detroit, and as soon as he came to California they were married. He was for- merly a well known lawyer of Detroit. Mr. and Mrs. Meade as a honeymoon made an extended trip through France, spending much time in Paris. Mr. Meade was deeply interested in politics. He was a graduate of Michigan College of Law, and his father before him was a lawyer. Mr. Meade was born in Charlotte, Michigan. He was on the advertising staff of the Detroit Free Press and came out to Cali- fornia with the intention of entering the advertising business. His wife's varied concerns were so prosperous and she was in so much
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need of his services that he yielded to her prior and superior claims and thereafter was her partner in business management.
At one period Mr. Meade was advertising manager for the great manufacturing drug firm Parke, Davis & Company, at Detroit, making his headquarters in New York. While connected with the Detroit and Lansing newspapers he gained a wide acquaintance through that state and became prominent in the democratic party, serving as secretary of the State Central Committee. He was at one time press clerk of the Senate of Michigan.
Some of his other interesting activities are detailed in the follow- ing extract from the Southland Magazine of August, 1911. "We are given to understand that within the next several weeks there is to be edited and published in Los Angeles a periodical devoted exclusively to art and the varied crafts. It will be issued under the pleasing name of 'The Pacific Arts and Crafts News.' Mr. G. Walter Meade, for many years associated with Mr. Sheridan Ford, one of the world's recognized art critics, editor of the first and unexpurgated edition of 'The Gentle Art of Making Enemies,' 'Art a Commodity,' "The Art of Folly,' etc., will be the publisher. Mr. Meade is an authority on art pictorial. He will shortly announce the editorial staff and the location of the general offices."
Mr. Meade published a series of attractive little booklets under the general title of "Hours with Famous Americans," of which the second was the story of "Champ Clark." The book is handsome typo- graphically and as entertaining as the Fra's Little Journeys. It is written by John Hubert Grensel. The book is published in an edition de luxe lim ted to five hundred copies.
G. Walter Meade was killed April 10, 1913, instantly, when his automobile skidded on a curve near San Juan Capistrano, slid over an embankment and catapulted into the arroyo below. He was driving to Coronado, where he intended to open a branch shop.
One paragraph from a Los Angeles newspaper of that date reads: "Mr. Meade's career of professional honor covered a moderate life- time of useful endeavor along social, political and literary lines. Mr. Meade was forty-seven years old, had been a publisher in Detroit and Lansing and was a lawyer of splendid reputation in Detroit."
WARREN L. WILLIAMS, a member of the Los Angeles bar, acknowl- edges Michigan as his native state but has been a resident of Los Angeles practically all his life.
He was born at Lansing, Michigan, June 23, 1882, a son of Charles Brewster Williams, who was born in County Clare, Ireland, in 1842, came as a boy to the Province of Ontario, Canada, finished his educa- tion there, and then took up a career as an agriculturist, a vocation which he his steadily followed ever since. For many years he farmed near Lansing, the capital of Michigan, but in 1882, when his son Warren was an infant, came to Los Angeles and has been able to adapt himself agreeably and profitably to the business of farming in this section of California. He married at Lansing, Michigan, in 1879, Mary Cather- ine Hunt.
Warren L. Williams, only child of his parents, attended grammar and high school at Los Angeles, graduating from high school in 1900. He was in business several years before he became a lawyer. For two years he was salesman in the W. E. Cummings shoe store, and then salesman with the C. M. Staub Shoe Company until 1905. Mr. Williams
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selected the university of his native state of Michigan as the source of his legal education. His studies there were interrupted in April, 1906, when on account of the California earthquake he returned to Los Angeles. He then attended the Southern California College of Law and was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court in 1907. In the follow- ing year he began practice and was appointed deputy district attorney. In 1909 he was appointed judge of the Police Court to fill an unexpired term of Judge H. E. Austin, and continued in that office until January, 1915. In March, 1915, he became city prosecutor, and concluded his official service by resigning from this office in 1917 to take up private practice. Judge Williams is widely and favorably known for his vari- ous official connections and has well earned, the confidence and trust of a large part of the population of Los Angeles.
He is a member of Henry L. Orme Lodge No. 458, A. F. and A. M., belongs to the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Union League Club the City Club, and in politics is a republican. At Los Angeles, Decem- ber 31, 1910, he married Maria Theresa McAuley, whose father was a pioneer of Los Angeles and for many years was engaged in the general contracting and building business. He erected the old Baker Block, one of the landmarks of the city.
EMIL OLCOVICH as president and directing head of one of the mer- cantile corporations of southern California doing a business of more than a million dollars annually is one of the interesting figures in business affairs, and a man whose career may be followed with profit and inspiration.
A native son of California, he was born at San Francisco, October 14, 1875, son of Bernhard and Carrie (Vaneberg) Olcovich. His father was a pioneer westerner. Born in Posen, Poland, and educated there, he sought the broader and better opportunities of American life and institutions, and in 1856 came to the United States. By way of the Isthmus of Panama he continued until he reached San Francisco, and thence went to Carson City, Nevada, by mule team. That was a number of years before the first transcontinental railroad was opened. He had a general merchandise store at Carson City until 1875, when he returned to San Francisco and engaged in the importing business. He was well known in the business section of San Francisco. He finally retired in 1906 and died in 1908.
Emil Olcovich after graduating in a public school course in 1891 came to Los Angeles. Here he found his first opportunity to make a living on a modest scale and acquire a mercantile experience as sales clerk with the Mammoth Shoe Company at 315 South Spring Street. He was paid teu dollars a week until his superior ability was recognized. In 1894 he was promoted to manager of the business. That was the beginning of the present enterprise now conducted under his name and familiar to the retail public over the greater part of California. In 1900 Mr. Olcovich bought out his employers and with Max Streicher continued under the firm name of Olcovich & Streicher until 1909. In that year Mr. Olcovich made a further step in working out his great plans and ideas as a merchant, and having bought out his partner incorporated the Emil Olcovich Company. He is president, Albert Olco- vich is vice president and A. M. Schulte is secretary.
There is probably not a shoe house on the Pacific Coast better known and doing a larger and more rapidly growing business than this. The company operates a chain of shoe stores, with branches in the
C. W. HYATT
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cities of San Diego, Oakland, San Bernardino, Pasadena, Bakersfield, Fresno and Santa Barbara. The company is capitalized at three hun- dred thousand dollars, does an annual business valued at more than a million dollars and has more than a hundred people working in the different departments and stores.
Mr. Olcovich is also president of the Emil Olcovich Investment Company, is president of the Central Park Investment Company, and a director of the Business Men's Cooperative Association and a mem- ber of the Chamber of Commerce and Merchants and Manufacturers Association. He is affiliated with the Masonic Order and in politics is a republican.
CAPTAIN CHAUNCEY WEEKS HYATT. For a residence of a quarter of a century in Los Angeles, a residence accompanied by many distinctive labors and fruits in behalf of the advancement and progress of southern California, memory of the late Captain Chauncey Weeks Hyatt deserves more than passing mention in this history.
He was born at Kent, Putnam county, New York, February 28, 1838, son of James Duncan and Minerva (Meade) Hyatt. His paternal grandfather was a son of Jesse Hyatt, a Revolutionary soldier. James Hyatt, father of the Revolutionary patriot, was, according to family tradition, one of three brothers who came from England early in the eighteenth century. These brothers became separated and their names thereafter were variously spelled, as Haight, Hiet, Hoyt and Hyatt. Their descendants bearing these names have become very numerous. Captain Hyatt was the seventh son and ninth child in a family of four- teen, of one mother, all of whom survived until the youngest was forty- five years of age, and each became the head of a more or less numer- ous family. The old homestead where Captain Hyatt spent his youth was in the rough and rugged part of eastern New York, where the residents, who depended upon agriculture for their living, as did the father of Captain Hyatt, had to combine stern and unremitting industry with the utmost thrift and economy. All the children of the household were required to labor during the summer and attend a five months' term of school in the winter.
It was under this discipline that Captain Hyatt grew to manhood. Aside from the common schools he had a limited course in the Ray- mond Institute at Carmel, New York. In 1854, when sixteen years of age, he left his native community and started for the far west, going to Wisconsin and settling in the wilds of Sheboygan county. There he became a school teacher. He left his position in the school room at the very outbreak of the Civil war, in May, 1861, to enlist in Company C of the Fourth Wisconsin Infantry and served to 1865. That was the first three-year regiment to leave Wisconsin. It was soon ordered to New Orleans, and was the first regiment to enter Crescent City. Captain Hyatt remained with his command until after some of the first unsuccessful attempts to capture Vicksburg. He was then pro- moted and assigned to duty with the 38th Wisconsin Infantry, and was with that command from Cold Harbor to Appomattox. He participated in all the desperate battles of the campaign, and was in command of his company in nearly every engagement, being acting commander even before he was commissioned captain. At the close of the war his com- pany presented him with a beautiful sword inscribed with the battles in which he had engaged.
In February, 1865, while in front of Petersburg and when prepara-
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tions were being made for a final assault, Captain Hyatt obtained a leave of absence to go to Chicago, where on the 10th of February he was married to Mary J. Keith, daughter of William and Christie (Smith) Keith. The original home of the Keith family was in Aber- deen, Scotland, where one of their illustrious ancestors was Marshal Keith.
When the war closed Captain Hyatt settled in Tama county, Iowa, eighteen miles from Marshalltown, where he took up four hundred acres, his wife soon joining him. There he held many positions of trust and profit. He made civil engineering his principal occupation. He was county surveyor two terms. The postoffice at Badger Hill was established by him on his land, and he was its first postmaster. In 1872 he removed to Dodge county, Nebraska, and his name is promi- nently identified with the pioneer history of that Nebraska county. He was a civil engineer for several years, was county surveyor, and in 1872 he also entered the field of journalism by establishing the Daily and Weekly Flail at North Bend. He became postmaster of North Bend, and served through the administrations of Arthur and Hayes. At that time he raised the office from a fourth to a third class office. At the election of President Cleveland, Captain Hyatt, who had made a vigorous campaign for James G. Blaine, was summarily removed from office. While this was only one of a wholesale number of removals at
the beginning of a new political administration, the case of Captain Hyatt achieved national note because it was the first in which the term "offensive partisanship" was the expressed reason for the removal. That was a new term in American political history. Senator Mander- son took up the matter and made it conspicuous in Congress, and the Associated Press gave a liberal amount of space and even the Lon- don Times commented on the topic with a leader.
As an editor Captain Hyatt received many flattering comments and his paper, the Daily Flail, of Fremont, continued under his manage- ment until as a delegate to the National Editorial Convention in San Francisco he was so delighted with Los Angeles that he put his paper on the market and within a few months came west, reaching Los An- geles as a permanent resident in July, 1894. He at once adapted him- self to conditions and began earnestly to work for the upbuilding of the new city. He was one of the first to agitate the question of the annexation of his locality, known then as the old University district, to Los Angeles. When the annexation was culminated he was a mem- ber of the General Committee and chairman of the Committee on Lit- erature for the occasion. For many years he was a strong figure in real estate circles and public spiritedly aided in every phase of the grand march of improvement. He was a member of the First Bap- tist church, was prominent in the military order of the Loyal Legion, the Grand Army of the Republic, Junior Order United American Mechanics and the Independent Order of Foresters. Every cause rep- resenting the civic betterment had his support. Captain Hyatt con- tinued busy as a real estate man until the date of his death, December 28, 1917. He died at his home at 1016 West Thirty-fourth street.
Into this old home he and his wife had moved the day after they came to Los Angeles. Captain Hyatt is survived by his widow and son, Chauncey Alanson Hyatt.
Mrs. Hyatt has been a prominent worker in the Woman's Relief Corps for years, since the Rebellion, assisted in the organization of two branches of the order at Fremont, Nebraska, and also aided in the
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Mary J Keith- Byall-
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organization of the Ladies of the G. A. R., in the same city. In both branches she is past president and department aide, and for two years served as chairman of the Council of Administration. Since coming to Los Angeles Mrs. Hyatt has been equally active in the various auxili- aries of the Grand Army. She organized two tents of the Daughters of Veterans and has officiated as president and chaplain in Los An- geles. She is past lady commander of the Ladies Auxiliary of the Maccabees, is identified with the Fraternal Brotherhood, the Inde- pendent Order of Foresters, and has held the office of president of the Ladies of the G. A. R. The State Grand Councillor of Chosen Friends conferred upon her a justly deserved honor by appointing her past councillor in Los Angeles in recognition of very meritorious serv- ices rendered this order. This tribute followed her successful work in her own and other lodges throughout the state. Mrs. Hyatt has been very active in aiding old soldiers, and is probably the oldest and the most active worker for the soldiers in the whole country. She still possesses good health and a clear brain.
Mrs. Hyatt has long been a consistent church worker, belonging to the Episcopal church. She has for years been collecting for her son a fine library, one of the finest in the city.
INGALL W. BULL has been one of the busy practicing lawyers of Los Angeles for the past fourteen years, and has devoted himself to his profession with singular fidelity and ability. His success in the law has satisfied his modest ambitions without recourse to politics or other outside fields.
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