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 48
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JUDGE LEWIS REED WORKS is a man of sterling worth and integrity of purpose, a worthy citizen and a true friend. His ability in the legal profession has placed him in the front rank of men who are accomplish- ยท ing much in that special line, while it has also made him an invaluable public servant, and on more than one occasion he has served with dis- tinction and lasting benefit to his constituency, which is at all times the general public and his fellow citizens.
Judge Works is a native of Indiana, born in Vevay, Switzerland County, December 28, 1869, the son of John Downey Works, United States senator from California for six years, commencing in 1911, and a man of power and influence in the state and nation, and Alice (Banta) Works, who is well known throughout California as the companion and helpmate of her husband. Judge Works received his early education in Indiana, and in 1883 removed with his parents to San Diego, where he continued his public school studies, completing them later in San Fran- cisco. In 1887 he was graduated from the San Diego Commercial Col- lege. From 1882 to 1890, principally during vacations, he worked as a practical printer, but during the last year of the period he gave his entire time to the work and was half owner of a job printing business.
It was not until 1890, when he was twenty years of age, that Judge Works began to read law, and a year and a half later he was admitted to the bar of California. He engaged in the practice of his profession at San Diego until 1901, when he removed to Los Angeles, where he has made his home continuously since. He was appointed a judge of the Superior Court of California for Los Angeles county by the governor in 1913, to serve until January, 1915. At the fall election of 1914 he was returned by the people to a six-year term in the same office, to commence at the expiration of his term under the appointment. During the time of his legal practice Judge Works appeared as counsel in many important cases. He was a member of the lower house of the state legislature in 1899-1901, and in 1907-9 was first assistant city attorney of Los Angeles. In 1910-11 he served as a member of the Los Angeles Charter Revision Committee, framing very important and exhaustive city charter amendments that were voted on and adopted by the people March 6, 1911, and served as a member of the Board of Freeholders to frame a new charter of Los Angeles in the same year, also being a member of the Board of Freeholders to frame the charter for Los Angeles County, under which the county is now governed.
Aside from his political and governmental activities Judge Works has been and is still associated with many other interests which bring into constant and close contact with his fellow citizens. He was a char- ter member of Company A, California Naval Militia (Naval Reserves), the first batallion organized in California, in which he served three years and from which he was honorably discharged. He is a member of the National Academy of Political and Social Science, the National Geo- graphic Society, the National Municipal League, the Los Angeles City Club, and was at one time president of the City Club. He is also a
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member of several social clubs, and is a past exalted ruler and a life member of San Diego Lodge No. 168, B. P. O. E.
Judge Works has recently served eleven months as one of the justices of the District Court of Appeal, an intermediate court of appeal under the California judicial system. He was designated for that work by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of California, his services being required to temporarily fill the post of an absent justice of the Court of Appeal.
HARRY GEARING is a mechanical engineer, has lived at Los Angeles since 1909, and makes a specialty of the development of inventions. He has served a number of important corporations and individuals for the design- ing of special machinery, gas engines, pumps and hydraulic machinery and electrical appartis.
Mr. Gearing, while a busy man in his profession, has also become prominent in civic affairs, especially through his connections with various organizations in southern California made up of former residents of Canada. Mr. Gearing was born in Toronto, Canada, April 4, 1879. His lather, John James Gearing, was born at Reading, England, in 1851, came to Canada in 1873, and was married in Toronto. His wife, Emma Gear- ing, was born in Toronto in 1845 and died there in 1903. John James Gearing engaged in the building business in 1875 and was always inter- ested in politics and civic affairs in Canada. After eight years of illness he died in December, 1892, at Toronto. He and his wife had three sons and two daughters, all living and all residents of Toronto except Harry.
While he acknowledges a proper debt to the influence of his parents and his home in Toronto, Harry Gearing has depended upon his own ex- crtions largely for his education and his progress in affairs. As a boy he attended the city grammar schools of Toronto and in the intervals of a self-supporting career took work with the International Correspondence School and received both the degrees Mechanical Engineer and Electrical Engineer from that source. Between the ages of twelve and fifteen he was messenger boy in a Toronto shoe store, and then in succession he worked for three years box repairing in the Christie Brown Biscuit Works, for four years was employed in pipe organ repairing and build- ing at Toronto, and then did machine designing for the Schofield Machine Company of Toronto and for the Newell-Heigle Piano Action Company of the same city.
On coming to Los Angeles from Toronto in 1909 Mr. Gearing served . as engineer for the Western Gas Engine Company, later as assistant en- gineer of the Oil Well Supply Company of this city, and in 1913 opened his office for practice as a mechanical and consulting engineer. His offices are in the Wesley Roberts Building.
Mr. Gearing feels an appropriate interest in his fellow citizens and fellow natives of Canada, but is a type of American whose enthusiasm for his adopted country and state has no limits. As president for 1918-19 of the Canadian Society of Southern California, as secretary of the Brit- ish Soldiers' Aid Society, and secretary of the Allies Committee he has never neglected an opportunity to emphasize the advantages of American citizenship, and it is a matter of conviction and not merely rhetoric with him that if foreign-born residents can not accept the privileges and obliga- tions of this country they should return to the land of their birth. For . three years he served as a member of the Tenth Royal Grenadiers at Toronto. As an American he is a republican voter. He is affiliated with Highland Park Lodge No. 382, F. and A. M., Eastgate Chapter No. 103,
A. Tearing.
Alsauchhonderd
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R. A. M., Los Angeles Commandery No. 9, K. T., is a member of Cove- nant Lodge of Odd Fellows at Toronto, and also belongs to the Sons of St. George. He is a member of the Optimist Club and the Union League Club of Los Angeles and the Highland Park Presbyterian Church.
November 1, 1901, he married Miss Elsie Lillian Ransom, who was born at Odessa, New York, daughter of Joel Ransom, but was educated in Toronto, where she lived and was reared by an uncle after her mother's death. She was about six months old when her mother died and of her immediate relatives she has known very little. Mr. and Mrs. Gearing have two children, both born at Los Angeles, Richard Ransom and Mary Eleanor Gearing.
ERNEST L. WALLACE is one of the younger members of the Los An- geles bar, specializing as a patent attorney, a work for which long train- ing and experience evidently qualified him. He is a graduate electrical engineer, has had an all-around training and experience in the engineer- ing profession, was for several years an examiner in the patent office at Washington, and is a technical expert as well as a legal authority on many of the subjects covered by his practice.
Mr. Wallace was born in Chicago March 20, 1879. He is a member of one of Chicago's older families. His grandfather, Edwin Wallace, set- tled in that city in 1850. His father, Joseph Wallace, was also born in Chicago and was a grocery merchant there for many years. He married Mary A. Horn.
Ernest L. Wallace attended public school in Chicago to the age of fourteen, and in 1897 completed the course of the Armour Scientific Academy. He spent a year in the Michigan College of Mines at Hough- ton, Michigan, taking the Mining Engineer course, and then returned to Chicago and entered Armour Institute of Technology, where he gradu- ated with the degree Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering in 1902. Mr. Wallace was employed during the construction of the Aurora- Elgin Electric Railway as engineer of installation of power plants for one year. The following eighteen months he spent as engineering appren- tice at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Returning to Chicago, he was for four years in charge of electrical courses conducted by the American School of Correspondence.
Mr. Wallace spent five years in the United States Patent Office at Washington as examiner, and at the same time carried on his studies in the law department of Georgetown University. In 1914 he received from that institution the degrees LL. B. and Master of Patent Law. This was the training and experience which preceded the entrance of Mr. Wallace into the bar and professional life of Los Angeles, where he has for five years been engaged in general practice, though largely attending to pat- ent law. He is a partner with Joseph F. Westall in the law firm of Westall & Wallace.
Mr. Wallace is a Scottish Rite Mason, a member of the Modern Woodmen of America, and a republican.
NELSON OSGOOD RHOADES is a resident of Los Angeles with offices in the Merchants National Bank Building, but from this city directs business interests that make him a figure and power in the commercial and industrial life of Mexico and all of Latin America.
Mr. Rhoades was born in Wisconsin, June 2, 1869, a son of Nelson Carrier and Lucy Eunice (Osgood), Rhoades. His Osgood ancestors settled at Andover, Massachusetts, in 1638, and his first Rhoades ances-
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tors, Henry, of Lynn, Massachusetts, settled there in 1640. The original homesteads of both families are still in possession of their descendants. The Rhoades line goes back through the Richmonds to Thomas Rogers of the Mayflower. In the direct line the Rhoades family has furnished soldiers to all the Colonial, Revolutionary and subsequent wars of this nation.
Mr. Rhoades has had an exceedingly busy and eventful life but began his independent experience at the age of seventeen in the quiet role of a school teacher in Iowa. In the meantime he took up the study of engineering, and for many years has been in practice as a consulting engineer. His duties in that profession have taken him to such distant countries as Mexico, India, Alaska and Egypt. He made a thorough study of sanitation and water supply in Germany and in 1900, returning to Mexico, was retained by the Mexican government to build railroads, make municipal improvements and assist in the survey of public lands. For nearly twenty years Mr. Rhoades has been recognized as one of the Americans most prominent in the development of the Southern Republic. He also did much colonization work in Mexico, made the survey and revalidated the titles of the lands of the state of Sinaloa and translated many of the laws of Mexico into English.
With his associates Mr. Rhoades owns several million acres in Mexico. These properties are being rapidly developed and will be made ready for the after-war movement of Europeans to this continent.
Mr. Rhoades is an officer and director in many companies in the United States and Mexico. He is president of the Sinaloa Land Com- pany, S. A., and is a member of the firm of Garfield and Rhoades, with offices in Los Angeles, Cleveland, Ohio, and Mexico City, Mexico, the senior partner of that firm being the Hon. James R. Garfield, of Cleve- land and Washington. Mr. Rhoades is a member of the following clubs and societies: The American Academy of Science, the Pacific Astro- nomical Society, the Colorado Scientific Society, the Sons of the Revo- lution, the Society of Colonial Wars, Order of Founders and Patriots of America, the Order of George Washington, the Valley Forge Historical Society, University Club, Mexico City, Mexico; American Club, Mexico City, Mexico; Reforma and Country Clubs, Mexico City, Mexico ; Jona- than and California Clubs, Los Angeles ; Los Angeles Country Club, Los Angeles, and the Masonic Order, and other fraternal societies. He is also a life member of the National Geographic Society, the New England Historic Genealogical Society, the New York Genealogical and Biograph- ical Society, the Mayflower Society, and the National Historical Society. January 27, 1911, he married Frances James Brown.
HERBERT J. GOUDGE, who came to Los Angeles and has been a mem- ber of the bar since 1893, is prominent as a lawyer and his name is found in the membership of many of the leading social and civic organizations of the city and of Southern California.
He was born in London, England, April 26, 1863, son of Nathaniel and Agnes ( Bateman) Goudge. His father, also a native of London, died in 1863, the same year that his son was born, and was a man of no mean distinction in that great world metropolis. He was a shoe merchant and built up one of the largest concerns of its kind in England. One of the things for which his life is most interesting was his pioneer advocacy of the temperance cause in England, a country which on the whole has never taken kindly to the temperance movement so familiar in America. He was active in several temperance societies, and made an even more im-
Startery Gough
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portant contribution to the cause by helping establish a large life insur- ance company which limited its risks to total abstainers. He was very fond of music and an amateur performer himself. The brothers of Nathaniel Goudge came to the United States when very young men and settled in New York City.
Herbert J. Goudge acquired a liberal education. He graduated fromi the City of London College in 1884, and received his degree in the De- partment of Law from the University of London in 1886. For the sake of his health he spent a year in the Alps of Switzerland and then traveled about over the world until 1888 brought him to Ventura, California. His health not yet permitting the confinement of professional work, he en- gaged in farming and horticulture until 1893. In that year he sold his farm and located at Santa Paula in Ventura County, practicing law and then came to Los Angeles. In Los Angeles he was first a member of the partnership of Cochran, Williams, Goudge & Chandler, and for a quarter of a century has practiced as a member of that firm and its successors. He is now senior partner of Goudge, Robinson & Hughes. From 1900 to 1906 Mr. Goudge was first assistant city attorney of Los Angeles. He is also a director of the Home Savings Bank, the St. Anthony Mining and Development Company of Arizona, the Steel Alloys Company and other corporations.
He is a member of the California Club, Sunset Club, Union League Club, City Club, Municipal League, Chamber of Commerce, San Gabriel Country Club, Los Angeles and State Bar Associations, is affiliated with Westlake Lodge, F. and A. M., and with the Scottish Rite bodies at Los Angeles. Politically he is a republican and is a member of the Epis- copal church.
February 1, 1893, at Los Angeles, he married Nellie Agnes Tighe. They have three children: Agnes, a graduate of Occidental College ; George, born in 1895, a graduate of the Los Angeles High School, now serving as a sergeant in the Coast Artillery ; and Mildred, a student in the Girls' Collegiate School.
D. W. Woods, one of the younger members of the Los Angeles bar, is assistant secretary and a member of the legal department of the Gen- cral Petroleum Corporation.
He was born in Pasadena, California, January 17, 1893, son of Rob- ert A. and Kate Ethel (Whitney) Woods. His father, who was born near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1873, was reared and educated in that locality and on coming west located at Pasadena where he was repre- sentative for a wholesale woodenware house of St. Louis, Missouri, in the southwestern territory. In 1901 he returned east and located at Cleveland, Ohio, where he is now engaged in the wholesale coal business.
D. W. Woods first attended school in Los Angeles, but went east with his parents and continued his education in the public schools of Cleveland until 1911. Returning to Los Angeles, he took further work in high school, and was employed on a salary for a year and a half. He took his law course with the University of Southern California, and was admitted to the bar in 1915. He was in practice for himself one year before he became identified with the General Petroleum Corporation. Mr. Woods is a member of the Advertising Club of Los Angeles, is a republican, and a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church. At Los Angeles December 19, 1917, he married Norma Hoover. They have one child, Warren, born November 3, 1918.
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JOSEPH H. SPIRES came to Los Angeles in 1888, was one of the men who supplied the faith, enthusiasm and unlimited energy, and though not at the beginning a wealthy man he inspired much of the capital which created the solid ground work on which the modern metropolis rests as its foundation.
The late Mr. Spires was born at Walpole, Ontario, Canada, August 9, 1853, youngest son of Stephen and and Mary Belle (Foster) Spires. His father was a native of Lincolnshire, England, and his maternal ancestors were Scotch-Irish. Joseph H. Spires worked on his father's farm, and had only limited opportunities to acquire an education, most of his knowledge being the product of much private study and experience. About the time he was twelve years of age his father through misplaced confidence lost his farm and the family moved to Buffalo, where Joseph went to work in a crockery store and worked hard and long hours for the meager stipend he received. When he was eighteen the family removed to Michigan, where his savings helped to start his father on a small farm.
Joseph H. Spires made his name well known in Michigan and later in Southern California as a hotel man. He was first employed as night clerk in the old National Hotel at Grand Rapids, and was successively clerk and manager of some of the best known hotels of Western Michi- gan, including the Cutler House at Grand Haven, the Hofstra House at Muskegon, and in 1886 he opened the new Macatawa Beach Hotel. He had also for a time engaged in the manufacture of shingles and clap- boards at Silver Lake until his mill had exhausted the timber resources. In 1887 he inaugurated the commissary system in the new Soldiers' Home at Grand Rapids, and introduced new methods of handling food supplies for five thousand men. After putting the system in operation he took charge of the Park Place Hotel at Travers City.
Unremitting work had seriously impaired his health and he had to seek a milder climate. In the latter part of 1887 he came to California and after a brief experience at mining in Calaveras county came to Los Angeles in September, 1888. Here he became manager of the Fre- mont Hotel.
In a short time Mr. Spires was drawn into those enterprises where his service was of greatest benefit to the development of southern Cali- fornia and became the basis of his own considerable fortune. His far- sighted vision enabled him to understand better than most people the meaning of the proposed system of suburban railways. He was one of the early associates of General M. H. Sherman and E. P. Clark in promoting the line from Los Angeles to Pasadena. He secured the right of way for that line and also for the Santa Monica line, and accepted in lieu of cash payment for his services. He gave the best that was in him to this work, and his judgment was rewarded in after years by the enormous increase in land values. He also organized with Edwin Densmore the Yucca Manufacturing Company, to utilize the fiber of the Yucca plant. In 1902 he bought the Western Fuel Gas & Power Com- pany at Redondo Beach, which he eventually put on a paying basis. He also organized with Mr. C. H. Sweet the Sunset Brick & Tile Com- pany, which was later consolidated with the Los Angeles Pressed Brick Company. In 1900 Mr. Spires began the agitation for the widening of Hill Street from Sixth to Pico streets, and after this movement had resulted in giving Los Angeles one of its best thoroughfares he worked out a similar plan for Sixth Street. Mr. Spires was heavily interested in the development of real estate in Los Angeles, and while his own for-
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tune was greatly prospered by the development in which he took a part, his course throughout was one of unselfish public spirit. He served on the Chamber of Commerce, Good Roads Committee, Aqueduct Dedica- tion Committee, and the secretary of the Chamber of Commerce recog- nized his services as invaluable and said: "No other has given more of his own time to the work of the Chamber. He acquired a remarkable knowledge of everything pertaining to Los Angeles and his good judg- ment, business sagacity, sound logic and great foresight made him an invaluable member."
He was interested in Sonora, Mexico, mines from 1898 to the time of his death. He sold the gold claims for $75,000 in the early '90s and conditions in Mexico preventing work with safety he let the other mines lapse.
Mr. Spires while not possessed of the most rugged health and con- stitution, was supplied with a will and energy that kept him busy every moment of his time. In the words of a statement found in one of the local Los Angeles papers : "His optimism was of such a character that men in the financial world credit him with being an invaluable asset during the dark financial days of the 'scrip' and to him is due the fact that a number of larger financial concerns who went through the panic are in existence today and thriving. Men of his hold are empire build- ers and go to make up the brains and energy of the country. His rapid rise in the world was due entirely to his optimism and his absolute faith in the future of this section of the country."
Mr. Spires was a member of the City Club, the Automobile Club of Southern California, Chamber of Commerce for twenty-eight years. Into a comparatively brief life he compressed an enormous amount of achieve- ment and energy. His death occurred at Los Angeles, January 3, 1913, at the age of fifty-nine. As a young hotel man in Michigan Mr. Spires met and on April 2, 1879, at Grand Rapids, married Mary Harrison, daughter of John Harrison of Pontiac, Michigan. Mrs. Spires survives her honored husband and resides at 1501 South Hoover Street.
ANDREW H. ROSE, a member of the Los Angeles bar, carries many business responsibilities as well as a large private practice, and has pur- sued with success a number of diverse undertakings and enterprises.
Mr. Rose represents one of the early families composing the Ca- nadian colony at Ontario, California. He was born at Toronto, Canada, January 20, 1879. His father, Henry J. Rose, was a native of Oxford, England, was brought to Canada when a boy, was in the drug business for a number of years at Toronto, and at one time was lecturer on chem- istry at Toronto University. In 1888 he moved to California and joined the Canadian colony at Ontario, where he continued the drug business until his death in February, 1911. At Toronto he married Charlotte E. McCord. They had four children: Walter Malins, a well-known Los Angeles lawyer, now deceased ; Mrs. A. K. Neales and Mrs. J. F. Fred- endall, both of Ontario, California ; and Andrew H.
Andrew H. Rose was seven years old when he came to California. He graduated from Chaffey College at Ontario in 1897, was a student in the Hastings Law College at San Francisco until 1900, and afterward entered Leland Stanford University, from which he graduated with the A. B. degree in 1905. On returning to Los Angeles he became associated with his brother, Walter M., in editorial work, chiefly in compiling Rose's Code of Federal Procedure. That was the last work Walter M. Rose did before his death in 1908. In 1905 Andrew H. Rose was admitted to
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the bar by the District Courts of Appeals and after the death of his brother he took up private practice. In 1914 he formed a partnership with H. F. Scovill under the firm name of Rose & Scovill, but since 1916 he has been handling his law practice alone.
Mr. Rose is an enthusiastic student of aeronautics and has done much to promote the practical application of this science in Southern California. In 1917 he and Earl Remington organized the California Aviation Com- pany, of which Mr. Rose became president. This company completed a contract to furnish planes for the government. He and Remington also organized and Mr. Rose is secretary of the Aeronautical Society of California.
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