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 53
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He and his wife were married at Chicago. She is a descendant of Roger Sherman, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. They were very proud of their only son, Harold, who died at the age of twenty-nine. Under the stage name of Hal Godfrey, he was very successful in vaudeville, and appeared on all the leading circuits in the United States and England.
LORIN ANDREW HANDLEY is president of the Board of Public Works of Los Angeles, and has been one of the most conspicuous factors in the municipal and civic affairs of Los Angeles for the past ten years.
He was born at Franklin, Indiana, February 12, 1881. His par- ents were Josiah H. and Nancy Jane (Carnine) Handley. Among his ancestors were Matthew Handley and Daniel Boone. He was educated in the public schools of Johnson County, Indiana, and graduated from Hanover College, Indiana, in 1902. He took his Master of Arts degree from Princeton University in 1904. While at Princeton he was a student of Constitutional law and jurisprudence under Woodrow Wilson.
Mr. Handley first came to Los Angeles in the capacity of educator. In 1905 he went to Emporia College, Kansas, to occupy the chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy and also as a teacher of International Law and Economics. In 1907 he became identified with Occidental College at Los Angeles, where he continued his work three years.
He has always been interested in politics and government and left the college at Los Angeles to make the race for Congress on the demo- cratic ticket. In December, 1910, he was elected city clerk of Los An- geles, and from that office was appointed a member of the Board of Public Works by ex-Mayor Alexander. In January, 1912, he was
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elected president of the Board, and on January 7, 1919, was again chosen president for the seventh consecutive term. This is the longest term ever given to any president of the Board in its history.
Mr. Handley is vice chairman of the Democratic State Central Com- mittee, and in 1916 was a presidential elector. He brought with him to California an ardent admiration for the qualifications of Woodrow Wil- son and while Mr. Wilson was still governor of New Jersey Mr. Handley organized the Woodrow Wilson Club of Los Angeles, the first club of that name in the United States. Mr. Handley is now serving his second term as president of the League of California Municipalities.
He is a member of the Highland Park Presbyterian Church and has long been prominent in church work. For the past five years he has been on the executive committee of the Church Federation. He is a member of the noted Princeton. Literary Club, the City Club, the Whig Club, the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, is a Phi Gamma Delta and a member of the Woodmen of the World and the Independent Order of Foresters.
July 12, 1905, he married Miss Elizabeth Jane Baldridge at Mount Carmel, Illinois. They are the parents of four children: Joseph B., aged thirteen and in the public schools; Donald L., aged eleven ; Mary F., seven years old and a kindergarten pupil; and James R., aged five.
ADOLPH HELIODOR KOEBIG. After years of experience and rigid training, Adolph H. Koebig is deservedly ranked among the most promi- nent consulting engineers of Southern California, and his work in con- nection with numerous irrigation projects is of such an important nature that too much credit can scarcely be accorded him. Of foreign birth, Mr. Koebig has been an American citizen for many years, and is thor- oughly identified with the best interests of his adopted country. He was born in Mettlach, Prussia, Germany, May 17, 1852, and was educated in the Carlsruhe Gymnasium, and after his graduation in 1869, went directly into the military service and for six years was an officer in the army with the rank of lieutenant of artillery and of the engineering corps. Being retired from the service on account of invalidism, he studied in the University of Carlsruhe, from which he was graduated in 1877. For the subsequent three years he was in the service of the department of roads, and was engaged in canal and railroad construction in Germany and Alsace-Lorraine. Becoming interested in American affairs through belonging to the first American base ball team in Germany, Mr. Koebig decided to come to the United States, and consequently applied for a leave of absence for a period of six years, and upon receiving it sailed for this country. As he was married on January 31, 1880, to Miss Helene Kieffer, he brought his bride with him, and landed in New York City during 1880. For the first six months after his arrival, Mr. Koebig was engaged in superintending the building of furnaces for some large smelting works, and was then called to Denver, Colorado, and employed by the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad as chief assistant to the chief engineer in the Southern Division of this road. Later he became chief engineer of an extensive mining corporation. In 1884 he returned to Germany, and after a brief period came back to the United States, and in December of that same year applied for citizenship papers, receiving his first ones in 1885 and his final ones in 1888. From 1884 to 1885 Mr. Koebig was placed in charge of the development work of iron mines in Northern Michigan, leaving that state for California at the close of 1885, and had charge of a silver mine at Calico, that state.
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In 1886 Mr. Koebig was made assistant to the chief engineer of the Santa Fe Railroad at San Bernardino, California, and when later he was made city engineer of that municipality, he opened an office of his own and specialized in municipal and irrigating and mining engineering, continuing there until 1900 when he located permanently at Los Angeles, opening his present office, and continuing alone until 1910, when he took his son, A. H. Koebig, Jr., into partnership with him. Mr. Koebig has been connected with numerous irrigation projects and hydro-electric corporations all over the state, and was consulting engineer for Los An- geles and other cities. Oftentimes he is called upon for expert testi- mony in important litigation, his authority and knowledge being prac- tically undisputed. Well known in clubdom, Mr. Koebig belongs to the California, Los Angeles Country, and other clubs, and to the Municipal League and Chamber of Commerce. For three years he was president of the Engineers and Architects of Southern California; was the first president of the Technical Societies of Los Angeles; is a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ; and was president of the German Red Cross 'Relief Society of Southern California, but resigned when the United States entered the World war. Politically he is a stanch republican. The Episcopal Church holds the membership of his family. During the war Mr. Koebig was a director of the local Red Cross and chairman of the local committee on the War Savings Stamp campaign.
Mrs. Koebig was born in Luxemburg, her father being burgomaster of one of the cities of that country. The family is a very old one of Luxemburg, and socially prominent. During the late war Mrs. Koebig took a very active part in the Red Cross and Liberty Loan work. She is a director in a number of charitable institutions of Los Angeles, be- longs to the Ebel and other clubs.
Mr. and Mrs. Koebig have three children, namely: Dr. W. C., Adolph H., Jr., and Kurt J. Dr. W. C. Koebig was graduated in medi- cine, at Los Angeles, with the degree of Bachelor of Science from the University of Southern California. After serving as interne in several hospitals in this city, he went to Arizona as surgeon of the Santa Fe Railroad. Returning to California, he passed the state examination, and became resident surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad at Riverbank, Cali- fornia, holding that position for two and one-half years. Doctor Koebig then went East for post graduate work, but in the meanwhile his country entered the World war, and he returned to California, sold his practice, and enlisted in the army. About a year ago he was sent to Bordeaux, France to take charge of the orthopedic section of base hospital No. 88, he having specialized in orthopedic surgery. During his period of service he received his promotion to the rank of captain, and has now been returned to the United States. Doctor Koebig is married.
The second son, Adolph H. Koebig, Jr., and his father's namesake, is a graduate of Harvard Military School, the University of Southern California, the Leland-Stanford University, from whence he went to the Amherst College at Amherst, Massachusetts, he returned to Los Angeles and was employed as assistant location and construction engineer by various water and power companies in irrigation districts, and in the building department of the city of Los Angeles, and the good roads department of the county of Los Angeles. Having acquired a very valuable experience, and by that time measuring up to his father's exact- ing standards, the young man was taken by his father into partnership. He married Gladys Felt of Los Angeles, and they have one child, Helene
Creo Hanna
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Mary Koebig, who is six years old. The Lyons Club holds the member- ship of A. H. Koebig, Jr.
Kurt J. Koebig also attended the Harvard Military School, and for two years was a student in the University of Southern California, and for several terms was at Leland Stanford University, but did not gradu- ate, as he preferred to enter business life. He learned the fundamentals of a commercial career in the National Bank of California at Los An- geles, and then was made purchasing agent for the Silver Lake Power & Irrigation Company, leaving it for the Security National Bank of Los Angeles. He then was connected with the Bank of Italy, then with the Arnold Automobile Distributing Company. Kurt J. Koebig was married to Edna Hauerwaass, and they have one son, Frederick, who is two years old, and they reside at Los Angeles.
GEORGE HANNA was born in Salem, Washington county, New York, December 18, 1845, the son of Robert Hanna and Mary Ann (Rea) Hanna. He is of Scotch-Irish descent.
Mr. Hanna attended the public schools of his native town until he was nine years of age, and his parents moving at that time to Illinois, he finished his studies in the public schools of Aurora.
He began his business career at the age of sixteen years as a clerk in a grocery store. He only remained in that position about a year and then became a clerk in a drug house, where he worked for about two years. His father and brother owned a general merchandise store in Aurora, and in 1865 Mr. Hanna bought out the interest of his father, who was desirous of retiring from business. The firm then became known as Hanna Brothers, and for the next eight years Mr. Hanna de- voted his time to the business.
In 1873 the brothers sold their Aurora business and went to Chi- cago, where they engaged in real estate operations. They handled their own property, but at the end of two years sold out and returned to Aurora, where they again engaged in the general mercantile business. In 1881 his two brothers who were in partnership with him sold their interest in the store and he continued it alone. He was thus engaged for about five years, when he made a trip to California, and was so charmed with the country that he returned the following January. At that time he remained about two months and made some fortunate real estate investments, which determined him upon locating permanently in Los Angeles.
Accordingly he returned to Illinois, and in September, 1887, having disposed of his business there, he moved his family to Los Angeles. He had purchased an orange grove in the Vernon district, just outside of the city limits of Los Angeles, on his first trip West, and he made his home there. For the first five years he was engaged in orange grow- ing, and also took an active part in the affairs of Vernon, being a school trustee and deputy county assessor.
In the late eighties Mr. Hanna was appointed receiver for the Visalia Water Company of Tulare county, California, and within a few months had the property in a paying condition. In 1892, upon closing the receivership, Mr. Hanna leased his orange ranch at Vernon and located temporarily in Tulare county. There he became interested in various enterprises and accepted the managership of a company which was engaged in extensive irrigation projects, one of which was the irriga- tion ditch from the Kaweah River to Exeter, California, now one of the finest orange-growing sections in the state of California.
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In 1895 Mr. Hanna formed the West Los Angeles Water Company, which supplied water to Hollywood, the National Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle, and other places adjacent to Los Angeles. Later Mr. Hanna and his associates purchased the West Side Water Company. of Los Angeles, and further extended their territory to include all of the west- ern part of the city proper. Mr. Hanna was one of the principal stock- holders of this company and served as general manager for a period of twelve years. During this time he established himself as one of the pioneers in the field of public utilities and aided materially in the up- building of a large part of the West Side of Los Angeles. In 1904 Mr. Hanna and associates sold the West Side Water Company and a portion of the holdings of the West Los Angeles Company lying in the city limits to the city of Los Angeles. Two years later they sold the re- maining holdings of the West Los Angeles Company to the Union Hollywood Water Company.
Previous to the last named deal Mr. Hanna purchased a large in- terest in the Security Land and Loan Company, a corporation of which H. J. Whitley was president and general manager, and purchased about 50,000 acres of land in the San Joaquin Valley. The tract included the towns of Angiola, Corcoran and Waukena, California. Mr. Hanna assumed the duties of local representative of the company and was one of the principal factors in the development of that section of California. He was active in that work for about three years, and in 1910 returned to Los Angeles, where he acquired an interest in the VanNuys and Lankershim lands in the San Fernando Valley. Since that time he has been active in that locality.
Besides the above mentioned company, Mr. Hanna is interested in various other enterprises, these including the Corcoran Water Company, of which he was president; the Security Land and Loan Company, of which he is vice-president, and the Corcoran Land Company, of which he was president. He is interested in several banks throughout Cali- fornia as a member of the Board of Directors. These are the Home Savings Bank, Los Angeles First National Bank of Corcoran, First Na- tional Bank of VanNuys, and the Bank of Lankershim.
Mr. Hanna is a member of the Hollywood Lodge of Masons and a prominent republican, although he takes no active part in politics. He was married at Aurora, Illinois, December 25, 1872, to Miss Julia Mandigo. The children of this marriage are Rea and Pauline. Rea was United States consul in China, British Guiana, South America and Chili, but now represents Gaston Williams & Company, Limited, of New York, selling their products to the trade on the entire western coast of South America. Pauline is at home with her parents.
SIMON LEVI. One of the outstanding figures in the commercial life of Southern California for nearly half a century was Simon Levi, who died at his home in San Diego, September 14, 1918. While he laid the foundation of his career at San Diego, his interests in later years iden- tified him prominently with the Los Angeles community both as a mer- chant and as one whose constant thought and spirit were closely united with the generous men of the world.
He was born in Bohemia in 1851, and his age at death was sixty- seven years, eight months and nineteen days. At the age of twelve years he came to the United States, and after a brief stay in New York City and Syracuse came to California, arriving in San Francisco in March, 1863. For two years he worked and earned a living at Auburn in Placer County, but his chief experience and apprenticeship as a mer-
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chant was the eight years he spent in the employment of Sweitzer-Sachs & Company of San Francisco.
He came to Southern California with a very limited capital, and in 1873 opened a general merchandise store in Temecula, then a part of San Diego county, now in Riverside county. He developed a complete merchandise service for that community, but in a few years sought a larger field in San Diego, where he was associated with his friend and business preceptor Abraham Klauber in the wholesale grocery business. The firm of Klauber & Levi was for many years the leading wholesale house in San Diego. After the retirement of Mr. Klauber Mr. Levi founded the house of Simon Levi Company, San Diego and Los Angeles, and continued its head and moving spirit until his death. Of his charac- ter às a merchant one of his old friends and associates said: It is almost proverbial in this community that everything that bears the name of Simon Levi is beyond being questioned. It can be said without any qualification in the business world in which Mr. Levi was a merchant his high standard of probity was never excelled. With him a promise made was a debt paid and an unfilled obligation had the vitality of the judgment of a court of competent jurisdiction. The same attributes that made him a pillar of strength in the commercial world found even more beautiful and complete expression in his private life. No husband was ever more devoted, more loyal or more tender. At the end of forty- three years of happy married life Mr. and Mrs. Levi were the same loving and devoted couple as in the days of their honeymoon. No father was ever more thoughtful, more considerate, more just. As a friend he was fidelity itself. As a citizen he was always mindful of his civic duties. In his private life he always without apparently attempt- ing to do so displayed in a marked degree the charitable impulses of a noble heart. No appeal to him in a worthy cause was ever left inan- swered. His high sense of honor never would permit him to compromise a wrong, yet I have never known him to fail to find some palliation or excuse for those who had fallen by the wayside."
How responsive the community of Los Angeles was to the death of such a citizen is well expressed by an editorial in the Los Angeles Times of September 20, 1918. This editorial reads: "Current San Diego newspapers contain very full accounts of the funeral honors paid to the late Simon Levi, long identified with the commerce of San Diego and Los Angeles and whose sudden death last Saturday evening was reported in the Times. A large delegation of Los Angeles business men attended the funeral, which was held in the Masonic Temple. The eulogies pronounced indicate how highly Mr. Levi was esteemed in the South- land as a citizen, friend, brother and leader in affairs. Mr. Eugene Daney said of him: 'I have never met a man who in his daily life, his family relations, his business associations and in his varied activities more beautifully and thoroughly measured up to the standards of good citizenship. The name of Simon Levi in the business world was synonymous with honor. Everything that he did and every thought he entertained had first to stand the acid test of his correct standards of honorable conduct.' It is a blessed thing to leave the world with a judgment like that upon one's career, but it is thrice blessed so to have lived in the world as to merit it."
JAY B. JACOBS. A business organization that represents the last word in efficiency of equipment, personal and business system is the Simon Levi Company of Los Angeles, a wholesale grocery house but giving particular attention to highly specialized lines of that business. Men qualified by experience to speak, say that this company has the
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most perfectly appointed handling plant in the country. It is in every sense a high grade business, and one that performs a big public service through the efficiency with which it distributes a large line of food products to the trade.
The president and active manager of this business at Los Angeles is Jay B. Jacobs, who even as a youth showed promise of brilliant per- formance in his career. He was born at Antioch, California, Decem- ber 5, 1871, a son of M. H. and Bertha Jacobs. As a boy in the public schools, the Lincoln Grammar School of San Francisco, he distinguished himself by all-around scholarship, and was one of the two highest in standing among the graduates. He was awarded both the Lincoln and Bridge medals when he graduated at the age of fifteen. He then entered commercial high school, but at the age of sixteen left his studies to get into the work for which his talents especially equipped him. For two years he was salesman for Louis Saroni, candy manu- facturers, spent a few months with a general merchandise house at El Rio, Ventura county, was secretary and manager for two years of the Capital Candy Company, at Sacramento, and then removed to Los Angeles, where his initiative enabled him to start the Pacific Coast Biscuit Company, of which he was secretary and manager until 1898.
Resigning that office, Mr. Jacobs moved to San Diego, and be- came actively associated with the Simon Levi Company, wholesale grocers, whose main establishment was at San Diego. In 1903 Mr. Jacobs came to Los Angeles to open the business in this city, and the formal opening came on June 1, 1903. The officers of the company then were Mr. Simon Levi, president ; Mr. J. B. Jacobs, vice president ; Bernard Levi, secretary (son of Simon Levi). Their first headquar- ters were at the corner of Boyd and Los Angeles streets. Later they removed to 231-5 South Central avenue, and in 1918 the company came into their present magnificent quarters at 796 Market Court, the whole- sale terminal. The firm of Simon Levi Company is housed in a mod- ern, three-story reinforced concrete warehouse and office building, in the construction of which vast experience was utilized and many points of superiority were added which will insure adequacy for years to come. They handle a general line of California dried fruits, and in this line handle more goods than all the other jobbing houses in Los Angeles combined. They also deal in grocery specialties, canned fruits and vegetables, and a full line of staple products. The company at Los Angeles employs fifty persons, operates over twenty automobiles and auto trucks, and the general prosperity and growth is reflected in the fact that it began with a paid-up capital of but twenty-five thousand dollars and today the company employs a surplus and capital of over two hundred thousand dollars.
In 1905 Mr. Jacobs became vice president and manager of the cor- poration, and since the passing away of Mr. Simon Levi in 1918 has been president. He is also vice president and director of the Simon Levi Company of San Diego. He has been honored with the office of president of the Produce Exchange, and is well known in social and civic circles, being past master of Westgate Lodge, A. F. & A. M., a member of the Scottish Rite bodies and Mystic Shrine, Los Angeles Athletic Club, San Gabriel Country Club, Union League Club, and in politics is a republican.
June 15, 1898, Mr. Jacobs married at San Diego Sara Levi, daugh- ter of Simon Levi, the well known San Diego pioneer and founder of the Simon Levi Company. Mr. and Mrs. Jacobs have two children,
Carlos S Hardy
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Beatrice E., a graduate of the Hollywood High School and active in Red Cross work, and Harold S., aged seventeen, a student in high school. A very important event took place in Mr. Jacobs' immediate family September 23, 1919, when his daughter Beatrice became the wife of Jules G. Hexter, of Dallas, Texas.
CARLOS S. HARDY, a resident of Southern California since 1909, is distinguished in the United States and abroad as an authority on fra- ternal insurance law. He has been a lawyer over thirty years, practicing in Texas, Illinois and California. It is claimed for Mr. Hardy that he is author of the standard and only authentic works on fraternal societies, fraternal insurance and fraternal insurance law. These products of his authorship are in all the state and court libraries throughout the United States, Canada, Australia and in many parts of Europe.
Mr. Hardy was born near Minden, in Webster Parish, Louisiana, a son of Charles L. and Elizabeth Hardy. His mother's great-great- grandfather was John Ratcliff, one of the founders of Virginia and earliest colonist settler at Jamestown, Virginia. Charles L. Hardy's father, Henry Hardy, fought in the War of 1812 against the British, and in the Mexican war of 1846. Charles L. Hardy himself was for four years a Confederate soldier.
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