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 42
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Mr. James Hosick was well educated, attending the public schools at Edinburgh and also Fettes College in that city. At the age of nine- teen he landed in New York and at once crossed the continent to Los Angeles. He reached America with a cash capital of fifteen dollars and with no immediate prospect of an improved fortune or condition. At Los Angeles he worked at different employments and attended a business college. But the work which revealed his latent abilities came when the opportunity was afforded him by Mayor McAleer to become police detective. He was with the Los Angeles police department for thirteen years, most of the time in charge of the Bureau of Identifica- tion. He became an expert in theory and practice in the Bertillon Sys- tem of criminal measurement, including finger prints, and his work brought well deserved fame to the Los Angeles Police Department. Records of that department show many exceptional services. He was given a diamond medal by the Board of Supervisors for exceptional bravery and a vote of thanks for conduct as a police officer in 1912 when he captured Carl Warr, known as the "dynamite fiend," when Warr came into the police station with a bomb concealed about his person and for the purpose of blowing up the building. Mr. Hosick was also one of the conspicuous figures in the famous case of the McNamara brothers, charged with complicity in the dynamiting of the Los Angeles Times Building, which resulted in the killing of twenty-one persons. Mr. Hosick was charged with the difficult and dangerous task
Robert a. Gibbs
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of bringing J. B. and J. J. McNamara from the east, and drove them eight hundred miles across the continent, exercising every precaution to prevent interference by labor union men. Mr. Hosick was indicted for kidnapping the brothers, and four times had to face trial at Indi- anapolis on four different indictments. Each time he was found not guilty by Federal Judge Anderson of Indianapolis.
Mr. Hosick after leaving the Police Department was chief deputy in the prosecuting attorney's office, under Joseph McKeeby, then prose- cuting attorney, but now Major McKeeby of the Expeditionary Forces in France.
Mr. Hosick began the study of law in 1911-12, and had as his instructors Earl Rogers, E. J. Fleming and Kemp B. Kemper. He was admitted to the California Bar January 23, 1913, and for the past five years has been in active practice, except for two years spent in the prosecuting attorney's office. Mr. Hosick has a host of warm friends in Los Angeles, among all classes of people, and has built up a fine clientage during the two years of his professional career.
It would probably be Mr. Hosick's opinion that the preceding account leaves out the one most important and significant factor-his wife. Mr. and Mrs. Hosick throughout their married life have had a singular congeniality of interests and tastes. Mrs. Hosick made a thor- ough study of the theory of crime detection, and became almost as expert in criminal identification as Mr. Hosick himself. In fact it was through their joint efforts that the Police Department is indebted for their reputation as possessing one of the best identification bureaus in the west. When Mr. Hosick studied law he had an equally able ally in Mrs. Hosick. She is thoroughly versed in the profession, and was his tutor and presided over his quizzes. When Mr. Hohick was indicted for the kidnapping of the McNamaras he acted as his own attorney, and Mrs. Hosick was his legal adviser in the trial of the cases at Indian- apolis.
Mr. and Mrs. Hosick were married at Ventura, California, June 16, 1895. Her maiden name was Edith Loretta Fulstone. She is a native daughter of California, and grew up in Ventura. Mr. and Mrs. Hosick have one daughter, Agnes Aileen, who was born at Los Angeles, was educated in the public schools, also at Kernard's. Business College of Los Angeles, and the Cumnock School for Young Women of this city.
Mr. Hosick is a republican in politics, is secretary of the Caledonian Club, a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he and his family are Presbyterians.
PAGE MILITARY ACADEMY, a boarding and day school for young boys, was founded in 1908 by Mr. Robert Adams Gibbs, and under his man- agement as head master it has now completed ten years of most suc- cessful history.
While the school has been maintained along the general lines of public schools, the Page School has many special and highly commend- able features. Boys between the ages of five and fourteen are enrolled, and while the school is not sectarian as to religion or exclusive as to class, an appropriate sifting process keeps out boys whose previous associations and character would make them undesirable. Due to the successful record of the school in past years, the number of pupils is such that classification is possible not only in the regular grades cor- responding to grammar schools, but a division into classes within each
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grade, so that there is a sufficient number in each class to promote wholesome rivalry and competition, and at the same time the teaching faculty is large enough so that each pupil receives appropriate and methodical attention from the staff of instructors. The first four grades are taught by lady teachers, and beginning with the fifth grade the boys are under men teachers, each one a specialist in some line of study.
The work of supervision and instruction is practically continuous, and there is a harmonious combination of the playtime and study time of a boy's growing life. The pupils are supervised not only during recitation periods, but also during the study periods, and boys are thus taught that most indispensable of all things, how to study.
As the school is maintained only for boys fourteen or under, it is not a military school in the popular sense of training youth for military duty, and the military drill and discipline have their place in the cur- riculum because by no other known means can so many benefits be conferred upon a growing boy as through this drill and discipline. While the actual military training consumes only a half hour five times a week, yet the effects and benefits in inculcating correct and orderly habits, alert bearing and obedience, have their favorable reactions throughout the entire day. Careful attention is also given to general athletic exercises.
For the first seven years after the school was founded its home was in a group of buildings on West Adams street. In the fall of 1915 the school moved to new and specially constructed buildings in the ex- clusive Wilshire district on LaBrea avenue, between Wilshire and Pico boulevards. Here the school has a campus of seven acres, and offers every facility for the utmost benefit derived from outdoor life. The buildings are unsurpassed by those of any private school in southern California. They are five in number, all two stories high, and con- nected by arcades. They are built in the familiar Spanish Mission style, and the construction is practically fireproof.
The founder and head master of the Page Military Academy, Robert A. Gibbs, was born at Fort Ann, New York, October 6, 1871, son of Theron Z. and Mary J. (Thomas) Gibbs. His father was a graduate physician. Mr. Gibbs graduated from Vermont Academy, at Saxtons River, Vermont, in 1892, and from 1893 to 1896 was a student at Leland Stanford Jr. University. From 1897 to 1900 his work was as a public speaker, and from 1903 to 1906 he was director of physical training at Rochester, New York. After work in the Summer School of the University of California and at the University of Southern Cali- fornia, he was granted his A. B. degree in 1908. Mr. Gibbs was a teacher at the Harvard School, at Los Angeles, during 1906-07. In 1908 he established the Page Military Academy. Mr. Gibbs is a re- publican in politics and a member of the Baptist Church.
April 7, 1909, he married Miss Della M. Page. Mrs. Gibbs is a graduate of the Fayette Normal University, at Fayette, Ohio, with the class of 1894; was a student of Hiram College from 1894 to 1897, after which she taught in public schools at Pulaski, Ohio, Eastonville and Denver, Colorado, from 1900 to 1905, and in 1906 was one of the founders and for three years associate principal of the Page School for Girls at Los Angeles Since her marriage she has been superin- tendent of Page Military Academy. She is the mother of one daughter, Edith Caroline, born August 20, 1912.
Mr. Gibbs has always been interested in the military side of educa- tion. In 1892 Redfield Proctor of Vermont, then secretary of war,
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recommended him for a commission as lieutenant in the United States Army. In response to his request to be allowed to serve in the great war, the adjutant general of the Western Department replied: "It is believed that you can perform a duty with your school which will be as useful to the government in the present crisis as would your services in the army be."
Mr. Gibbs is a member of the City Club of Los Angeles and of the One Hundred Per Cent Club.
RAYMOND IVES BLAKESLEE. After living most of his life in and about New York City, and practicing there as a patent attorney; Mr. Blakeslee came to Los Angeles in 1907, and has enjoyed an increasing practice and prestige as a patent lawyer and patent solicitor, in which his work has been specialized.
He was born at Bridgeport, Connecticut, September 17, 1875, son of Cornelius and Mary (Sanford) Blakeslee. All his direct ancestors have been in this country for more than two hundred and fifty years, and Mr. Blakeslee in his personal views reflects some of the sturdy and independent Americanism which made this a great nation. He is a lineal descendant of Governor Bradford of the Plymouth Colony of 1620, and of Generals Wooster and Mansfield of the Revolution.
He was educated in the Brooklyn High School and attended the New York Law School during 1897-98, also pursuing independent studies. He has been admitted to the California bar and the federal courts. For three years he was in partnership with Hon. Tracy C. Becker under the firm name of Becker & Blakeslee.
Mr. Blakeslee acknowledges no affiliation with political parties at present. He was formerly a progressive. He is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Chamber of Commerce and Los Angeles Bar Association. In 1906, at Norwich, Connecticut, he married Miss Helene M. Beers, daughter of Oliver and Letta M. Beers. They have two children : Loren Ray, attending the Page Military Academy, and Anita Dawn.
JOHN PATRICK COYNE. A resident of Los Angeles since 1895, John Patrick Coyne was one of the charter organizers of the Hiber- nian Savings Bank, but his principal interests in business affairs until he retired were mining and oil, and he deserves prominence among the group of men who have done mnost to develop those resources of California.
Mr. Coyne, who was born June 27, 1861, at Castlereagh, County Roscommon, Ireland, is a member of an old and interesting Irish family. His parents were Thomas and Rose. (Caulfield) Coyne, who died at the old home in Ireland, where four generations of the Coynes have lived. John Patrick has no memory of his mother, who died when he was an infant. His father was a carriage builder in Ireland and also had a small farm, conducting both enterprises. Thomas Coyne and his brother married sisters, and the families all grew up under the same roof and no property was dived until the oldest child of both families was married. When the household gathered around the table fre- quently there were twenty-two places filled. It was indeed one of the good old families, large in number and happy and congenial in all their relationships. The Coynes were exceedingly hospitable, and not infre- quently fifty people, including the families, gathered around the family table at meal time. They were all of old Catholic stock. Thomas
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Coyne and wife had three sons and two daughters. The two daughters are now deceased and the two older sons, Patrick and Thomas, still live in Ireland.
John Patrick Coyne was educated by a private tutor at home, and then served an apprenticeship in the general merchandise business under an uncle. This was an establishment in which everything was sold from a loaf of bread to a steam engine, and Mr. Coyne acquired a practical knowledge of nearly every phase of merchandising. In 1878, when he was seventeen years old, he came to the United States, and from New York City went to Oswego in that state, and a year later located at Memphis, Tennessee, where some of his relatives lived. He lived in Memphis ten years, and while there was buyer and manager of a large commercial house. Mr. Coyne came from Memphis to Los Angeles in 1895. His associates in organizing the Hibernian Savings Bank, today one of the big banking houses of the Pacific Coast, were John R. Grant, president of the Grant Construction Company, D. F. McGarry, of the McGarry Realty Company, George W. Lichtenberger, of the Lichtenberger-Ferguson Company, Thomas J. Cunningham of Cunningham & O'Connor, and G. Allen Hancock, the prominent land- owner and oil operator. Mr. Coyne kept his active interest in the bank only about a year, at which time all of the original organizers dis- posed of their interests in that bank and retired, with the exception of G. Allen Hancock. Since then Mr. Coyne has been primarily engaged in mining and oil development. All his interests in this field lie in California. He has been interested in mining for approximately twenty years. He is vice president of the Feather River Land & Mining Company, but retired from active business in 1917. He still retains his office in the Homer Laughlin Building, in which he has been a tenant since its erection and is the only one of the original tenants left in the building today.
While living at Memphis Mr. Coyne was a member of the Chicka- saw Guards of the State Militia. In politics he is occasionally influenced to independent support of certain candidates, but generally is a red hot democrat. He is a charter member of the Newman Club of Los Angeles, a charter member of the Knights of Columbus, is treasurer of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and the Cathedral Chapel Parish.
In September, 1895, Mr. Coyne and Miss Louise Henrietta Rousseau, of Memphis, were married in St. Vincent's church at Los Angeles, Rev. Father Myer, president of St. Vincent's College, officiating. Mrs. Coyne was born in Paris, France, and is a niece of Valdec Rousseau, one time president of the French Republic. She was about nineteen years old when she came to America. She had previously visited friends in Eng- land. She was educated in a French convent and met her husband in Memphis. Mrs. Coyne is a member of the Catholic Ladies' Club and was one of the organizers in Los Angeles of St. Joseph settlement work. Mr. and Mrs. Coyne having no children of their own have made many opportunities to exercise their deep sympathy through philanthropic channels, and have taken into their home and reared and educated five orphan boys.
ROBAH J. BINKLEY. As president of the Sugar Machinery Com- .pany, Robah J. Binkley is a manufacturer whose products are known practically wherever sugar making is an industry. The Sugar Machinery
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Company has been developed as a business largely on the basis of pat- ented and perfected devices that were created first in Mr. Binkley's brain and worked out by his own experience and skill.
Mr. Binkley is a very young man, but has long been traveling the road of independent self effort. He was born October 13, 1889, twelve miles from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. His early days were spent on his father's farm in that noted section of North Carolina. His father, Daniel Binkley, was a Methodist minister, and also an extensive land owner. The mother, Miss Laura Jarvis, was a native of North Carolina. His great-great-grandfather Binkley was of English and Scotch ancestry and an early settler in the colonies of the east. Daniel Binkley was widely known for his generosity, and expended a large part of his earnings as a minister and as a planter on charitable causes and missionary work. He and his wife represented the ideals of married companionship, living together in harmony and in effective cooperation and presenting an example of good not only to their own children but to the entire community. ยท
R. J. Binkley being a minister's son was very conscious of the fact and at the age of fourteen he determined to shift for himself and escape the common conventional criticisms usually made of the son of a minister. With his parents' permission he left home, and at that time could scarcely read or write. He attended a school at Lewisville, North Caro- lina, and from there joined a construction camp at Thomasville, North Carolina, in the building of a new railroad. Later he was employed by the engineering department of the Southern Railway until he was eigh- teen years old. Meantime he was making assiduous efforts to improve his education and his practical abilities. Every night he wrote his name many times, studied spelling, and read everything he could find. His edu- cation for the most part was derived from night study. He also studied to perfect himself in the practice and theory of civil engineering.
About 1907, at the age of eighteen, Mr. Binkley came west to Los Angeles, and tried to secure employment in railroading, but found so many applicants ahead of him that he resigned that ambition altogether. A friend in Pasadena was a landscape gardener, and with him young Binkley secured a position with one of the large hotels trimming shrubs and taking care of the grounds.
At the age of nineteen Mr. Binkley married Helen Soper, of Pasa- dena. It was a youthful marriage but has proved to him the greatest single good fortune of his life. Mrs. Binkley is a native of California, and her father was a wealthy real estate owner, being one of the pro- moters of Long Beach, and also owns some property in Hollywood. Mr. and Mrs. Binkley have two children, Dorothy Lois, born in 1909; and Robert Joe, born in 1913. Mr. and Mrs. Binkley live at Long Beach and also have a home at Pomona. Mrs. Binkley is an active club woman,' has organized several clubs and during the war was prominent in Red Cross.
After his marriage Mr. Binkley went to Montana to investigate the irrigation situation, but not being satisfied with the outlook he returned to California and in 1908 went to work in a sugar mill as a mill hand or station man. He remained three years, and during that time began experimenting in sugar machinery. He invented several devices which were not successful. The fifth one proved of immediate value. A very good friend, a patent lawyer of Los Angeles, recognized the possibili- ties of his new devise and took it to Washington and secured a patent. The sugar mill for which he had been working adopted the invention but
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refused to pay Mr. Binkley anything for it, claiming that he had used their time and shop to perfect his patent. He was discharged from their pay roll and immediately started out to sell his patent. In his travels he found other men who wished him to sell their devices. During his work of experimentation and while his invention was developing Mr. Binkley had accepted assistance from his friends until he owed nearly four thousand dollars, but within three months after his device was patented he had paid it all back. To perfect his invention he worked at night in the blacksmith shop of a friend, and finally he formed the partnership of Binkley, Page & Stepps, and as the business grew it was eventually incorporated as the Sugar Machinery Company. Mr. Binkley now has the controlling stock and is president of the company.
He is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and many other social organizations, and is a republican voter. He is one of the popular business men of southern California and has that character as well as genius which insure him the confidence of his associates, and in all his career of struggle and good fortune he has never wanted or lacked for financial assistance when it was needed.
FRANK ERWIN WOODLEY, serving his second elective term as repre- sentative of the Third District on the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles county, is a Californian of more than thirty years standing, and has long been prominent in fruit growing, mining, and business and public affairs:
He came west when about twenty-two years of age from Wis- consin. He was born at Menominee, in that state, April 28, 1865, a son of Rev. Mathias and Julia (Erwin) Woodley. His father and mother were both born in Pennsylvania, were married there, and his father was an old-time Methodist minister, but did all his active work in the church while in Wisconsin. He followed his son to California in 1888, and after that was interested in an orange ranch in Tulare county. He died in California over twenty years ago, and his wife passed away about the same time while on a visit back to Wisconsin. Both were laid to rest in the Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. In their family were four daughters and one son. The two daughters still living are Mrs. Ella T. Condit of Chicago, and Mrs. E. Newman, wife of a civil engineer in Fresno county.
Frank E. Woodley, youngest of the family, acquired his education in the public schools of Tomah, Wisconsin, attended law school in the University of Wisconsin, but was never admitted to the bar and never developed any practice. He gave up the law on account of ill health. Before coming to California he was in a law office at Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. In 1887 he established his home at Riverside, California, and from there moved to Tulare county, where he lived fourteen years. He was interested in the growing of oranges and also had much to do with the establishment of a water system at Porterville and had active charge of the irrigation works for fourteen years. He then spent a year with the Fay Fruit Company in Porterville, in charge of their orange packing house. On coming to Los Angeles Mr. Woodley took up real estate and mining, and that is his business at present. He is connected with several mining companies.
Mr. Woodley was elected and served as a member of the Sixty- fourth Legislature in 1913. In 1914 he was appointed a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors by Governor Johnson, and was regularly elected for the term beginning in January, 1915, and
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was re-elected for the four-year term beginning January 1, 1919. Mr. Woodley is a republican, but in his voting usually emphasizes the man and principle at stake.
Fraternally he is affiliated with Hollywood Lodge No. 355, at Holly- wood, is a member of the City Club, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Municipal League, and his church membership is with the Fifth Church of Christ, Scientist, Hollywood.
Mr. Woodley resides at 1405 Hayvenhurst Drive, in West Holly- wood. In 1893, at Porterville, he married Miss Mary Hilton, who was born and educated there and is a native daughter of California. They have two children, Harold Hilton, a high school student, and Marion Ruth. Both children were born at Porterville. The daughter inherits the strong musical tastes of her father's family, and even in the restricted circles of her friends and school has achieved a reputa- tion for her wonderful voice. She is now studying vocal music with Madam Groff Bryant, at Lombard College, in Galesburg, Illinois.
JOHN GREER CAREY. Ever since coming to Los Angeles, in 1906, John Greer Carey has been identified in some capacity with what is now the Equitable Branch of the Security Trust and Savings Bank. He acquired his first knowledge of banking in his home state of Wis- consin after leaving high school, later acquired a liberal university education, and his work at Los Angeles has brought him favorable recognition as one of the more prominent younger financiers of the city. He is now manager of the Equitable Branch of the Security Trust and Savings Bank, one of the largest banking organizations in Southern California.
Mr. Carey was born on his father's farm, in Grant county, Wis- consin, August 21, 1880, a son of John and Mary (Greer) Carey, the former a native of Wisconsin, and the latter of Pennsylvania. His father spent his life as a farmer on the place where he was born, and where his son was also born, and was a successful stock man, raising Shorthorn cattle and draft and driving horses. He died in 1899. The widowed mother, since 1909, has lived in Los Angeles, where her three , youngest children also reside. The oldest of the family is Mrs. W. H. Ott of Winona, Minnesota. Dr. G. H. Carey is the well known eye, ear, nose and throat specialist of Los Angeles, and Miss Katharine L. is vice president of the Jefferson High School of this city.
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