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 57
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While he has been a busy man in taking care of his personal inter- ests, Mr. Kingsley has never been too busily engaged with his affairs to neglect the needs of his city or the responsibilities and duties of citizenship, and has steadfastly evidenced a civic pride that let him into numerous movements and enterprises which have promised and proven to be beneficial. In politics a republican, he has been active in party organization and has been a delegate to numerous conventions of the county, city and state, under the old time regime of ward caucus and conventions. For nine years he was Sergeant in Company C, National Guard of California, with three enlistments to his credit. His religious connections are with the Episcopal Church, which he joined in his young manhood, and the faith of which he has daily lived. Mr. Kings- ley cannot be said to be much of a club man, for his home is his great-
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est interest, and he is devoted to it as he is to nothing else. How- ever, that he enjoys and appreciates the companionship of his fellows is found in the fact that he has been a Mason for many years. In February, 1918, his name appeared on the Roll of Honor of his Com- mandery, Los Angeles. Commandery No. 9, Knights Templar, as a thirty-year member, he having belonged to that body since November 7, 1889, and was its commander in 1904. He was master of Pentalpha Lodge, No. 202, F. & A. M., in 1891, and high priest of Signet Chapter, No. 57, R. A. M., in 1892, and in the latter year was also president of the Masonic Board of Relief. He is one of Los Angeles good and constructive citizens and possesses a record well worthy of emulation by the growing generations
E. K. HOAK, a Keystone, was born at Pittsburgh November 7, 1875. His father, a Methodist minister, is now retired and living at Elyria, Ohio. Mr. Hoak was with the Cleveland Trust Company for ten years prior to locating in Los Angeles in December, 1910. For three years he was Southwestern manager of the Sunset Magazine, and resigned that position to act as Pacific Coast manager for Doubleday, Page & Company, publishers of the World's Work, Country Life, and one of the largest book publishers in the country, which position he continues to hold at the present time.
As an aggressive business man and organizer, Mr. Hoak is a firm believer in advertising and claims that any proposition which has merit can be put over with the right kind of advertising. He traveled over a quarter million miles from British Columbia to Texas making a thor- ough investigation as to general conditions in this section before becom- ing permanently located in Los Angeles.
Several years ago Mr. Hoak purchased an interest, and at a later date the entire capital stock, of The Financial News Publishing Company, publishers of Financial-Insurance News and several Financial Direc- tories and Year Books, all of which have flourished under his manage- ment.
In 1917 he was elected president, treasurer and general manager of the Mission Play, also acting as John S. McGroarty's general man- ager for his various books and writings. Mr. Hoak and Mr. McGroarty are now the principal owners of the Mission Play.
Mr. Hoak is prominently interested in a number of business and philanthropic organizations, all of which have been successful, and dur- ing the war he devoted practically his entire time to various war activities, the principal one being Pacific Coast manager of Red Cross Magazine. He was married November 10, 1898, to Frances B. Parker of Cleveland, Ohio. They have two sons and a daughter and live in South Pasadena. Mr. Hoak is a member of the Jonathan Club and Los Angeles Athletic Club. The summer home is at Forest Home, California, and also at Santa Catalina Island, California.
HAROLD C. MORTON is a young Los Angeles lawyer and entered upon his professional career under auspicious circumstances favoring success seldom excelled. Mr. Morton is a native son and was born at Los Angeles May 17, 1895.
His parents are John and Lillian (Bowers) Morton, the former a native of Philadelphia and the latter of New York. His mother came to California many years ago, being a graduate of the San Jose Normal School, and was a teacher before her marriage in Los Angeles
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in 1890. John Morton came to California about 1885 and is well known as deputy county assessor of Los Angeles county. There were two sons and two daughters in the family: Katharine S., the oldest, who died in 1911; Lindley C., of Philadelphia; Harold C. and Margaret L. All were born in California, the two older in San Bernardino county, and the two youngest in Los Angeles.
Harold C. Morton graduated from the Manual Arts High School at Los Angeles in 1913. He then spent three years as a student in the University of Southern California College of Law, taking his LL. B. degree in 1916. He paid his own expenses while in law school, working in the Los Angeles County Law Library. When he graduated he had the highest average of scholarship ever attained in the College of Law, his average for the three years being 97.2 per cent. He won the scholarship medal, and that was' an occasion of many congratula- tions by his fellow law students and the younger attorneys of the Los Angeles bar. He was president of the student body and was a mem- ber of five organizations at the law school and two honorary fraterni- ties, the Tau Kappa Alpha national honorary debating fraternity and the Sigma Iota Chi. For three years he was a member of the law debating teams.
Mr. Morton was admitted to the bar in June, 1916, and has since been in active practice except for the brief period of his army service. For a.time he was alone, and since April 1, 1919, has been associated with the law firm of Fredericks & Hanna. For two months before the signing of the armistice he was in the Aviation School at Berkeley, California.
Mr. Morton is a member of the Woodmen of the World, the Masonic Order, is a member of the National Guard of California and lieutenant in the Fifteenth Separate Company, and in politics is a republican. He is also a member of Ramona Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West.
December 23, 1916, he married Miss Dorothy F. Smith of Los Angeles, daughter of Frank C. and Mary S. (Stanwood) Smith. Her parents came to California from Texas and reside at Los Angeles. Her father is a native of Georgia, and her mother is of the old and prominent Kentucky family of Stanwood. Mrs. Morton was born in Ohio and was educated in Texas and Los Angeles, being a graduate of the Manual Arts High School in the class of 1915. They have one daughter, Mary Lillian, born in California.
JOHN S. MYERS has been a resident of Los Angeles since 1890, and since 1910 by repeated elections has served in the important office of city auditor.
He was born in Fountain county. Indiana, "On the Banks of the Wabash," December 20, 1859, a son of Calvin and Elizabeth (Mar- shall) Myers. His mother was a descendant of John Marshall of Virginia. Mr. Myers had his first conscious recollection of his father when the latter returned as a veteran soldier of the Union army. His parents finally moved to Kansas and are buried in a cemetery at Mul- vane, in that state.
Mr. Myers acquired his education in the Indiana common schools, the Indiana Normal College and Business Institute at Ladoga, where he completed the business and teachers' courses in 1881. He taught school in Fountain county, Indiana, clerked in his father's general merchandise store, and in 1884 moved out to the last frontier of Kan-
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sas, in the southwest quarter of that state, fifty miles from Dodge City and the nearest railroad. He was instrumental in organizing Clark county and its county seat, Ashland, served as the first county clerk, engaged in the real estate and newspaper business, and helped put out the first paper in the county. He was also vice-president of the Clark County Bank, and served by appointment without salary as city treas- urer and treasurer of the School Board.
Coming to Los Angeles in 1890, Mr. Myers was for several years connected with the title and abstract concerns, chiefly the Title Insur- ance & Trust Company, until 1896. Then for a time he was clerk of the Superior Court while it was presided over by Judge Waldo M. Yok, and served as deputy county treasurer until 1906. Then for a period he was again engaged in commercial and banking lines, and is still a director of the Industrial Loan and Investment Company. When partisan politics were eliminated from city elections by changes in the charter, Mr. Myers became nonpartisan candidate for city auditor and was elected and took office January 1, 1910. At every succeeding elec- tion since then he has been chosen as his own successor and is now in his tenth consecutive year. He is a republican in national affairs, but nonpartisan in city elections.
Mr. Myers has long been prominent in the Knights of Pythias, serving as keeper of records and seals for fifteen years, for many years has held the office of secretary of the Dramatic Order Knights of Khorassan, affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, and has been a state and national delegate to conventions of these fraternities. He is also a member of the Maccabees, is a member of the Union League and City Clubs, is treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of the City Club, vice-president of the National Association of Comptrollers and Accounting Officers, and is a member of the First Methodist Episcopal Church and has served on the official board more than a dozen years.
December 10, 1884, at North Salem, Indiana, Mr. Myers married Miss Lou M. Cook, daughter of Henderson Cook. She was a teacher before her marriage and for several years has been active in women's and civic clubs. Several of her uncles and two of her brothers are physicians. Mr. and Mrs. Myers have two children, Lindley C. Myers of San Francisco, and Edith M., wife of T. E. Loynahan of Los Angeles.
EDWARD TURNER SHERER. From the standpoint of ability, educa- tion, training and successful experience, Edward T. Sherer stands in the . front ranks of the representative members of the Los Angeles Bar Association.
He was born in Santa Barbara, California, February 16, 1878, and physically as well as mentally is a wholesome, typical native son of the Golden West. His parents, Rudolph and Elizabeth (Snyder) Sherer, were united in marriage in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and became the parents of thirteen children.
Rudolph Sherer was a brother of Jacob Sherer, whose name was so honored and loved by all of Switzerland, having been elected and served two different terms as president of the Swiss Republic. Rudolph Sherer was a man of large importance, both socially and commercially. He was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1840, and was fortunate in the ad- vantages of higher education, claiming as his alma maters several schools of importance, including the University of Berlin. He fluently mastered
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several languages. After completing his education he participated in his father's interests, the latter being in the stock business, and under contract sold to various governments.
Rudolph Sherer came to the United States in 1860, and in the early days of the rebellion enlisted for military service with a Michigan divi- sion of the Federal army. In 1865 he received his honorable discharge. Coming to California, he reached San Francisco in 1868. Following this he was connected with the Senator Bard interests, this necessitating a change of residence to Santa Barbara. Later he invested in two hun- dred acres of ranch land near Compton, which he cultivated in connection with commercial interests in the latter city until the close of his life in 1898. He was an active republican and secretary of the United Work- men, a man whose life record was unimpeachable.
Edward T. Sherer attended the public schools of Compton and in 1896 was class president of the senior class of the Los Angeles High School. After taking the course of law at Stanford University he located first in Seattle, Washington, to practice his profession, later en- gaging in general practice in Los Angeles actively and successfully up to the present time.
Too much can not be said in praise of this splendid man, but his exceptional reputation for integrity and professional honesty must not be omitted, as well as his keen insight into the intricacies of his profes- sion. With his wife he is a consistent member of Immanuel Presby- terian Church. He was married November 6, 1902, to Mary Brown Roberts, of old Virginia stock, a niece of John Gaw Knox of Visalia, who came to California sixty years ago, and is called the father of Tulare county.
Mr. Sherer is a director of the Citizens Savings Bank of Compton, a Scottish and York Rite Mason, Shriner and a member of the Los Angeles Bar Association and the Los Angeles Country Club, a golfer of local reputation and a winner of many trophies.
MRS. ALETHA MAXEY GILBERT, whose position as "City Mother" of Los Angeles makes both her personality and work of extreme in- terest, is a native daughter of California and her parents were real pioneers.
She was born at El Monte. Her father was Warren Wocdson Maxey, and her mother Lucy Utheria Thompson. The father raised fine stock and was the pioneer to open up Lytle Creek, where he took a government claim and developed a ranch which afterward sold for a large sum. He began there with a log hut, and the bears frequently came about the hut. It is the section called Glen Ranch now, near San Bernardino. He came out to California in 1851.
Mrs. Gilbert's mother was nine years old when she first came to El Monte. She came to California from Iowa by ox team. The party was snowed in in the mountains, went without food except for crow meat and what game could be secured, and for another period they were without water. Danger and hardship also came to them from the Indians. They stopped at Tucson, where a band of Indians surrounded them and were going to take away their food and blankets. Lucy Thompson, just as the redmen were drawing their bows and arrows, jumped up and took a piece of fire to light the pipes of the Indians, who praised her for her bravery, and that act warded off death from the party. When Lucy Thompson was sixteen years old she eloped with Mr. Maxey. She became the mother of seven children. When Mr. Maxey died she took up a squatter's claim at Azusa and reared her
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family alone. When her children were old enough to be self-supporting she married Thomas Gray. When she married him, Mr. Gray owned three hundred twenty acres in a fine portion of Los Angeles, on the site of the present location of Harvard School. Two children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Gray.
Mrs. Gilbert attended school at Azusa and Los Angeles. In 1886 she became the wife of T. M. Gilbert, who was a stationary engineer and ran the first electric railway in Los Angeles.
Her life in the country developed in her tastes for all out of door sports, swimming, diving, horsemanship and other athletics. When a young girl she frequently would board the horse cars and the drivers would allow her to drive back and forth. Her brothers kept a wood and feed yard at Second and Spring streets, selling grain, wood and coal and taking care of the teams that came to town. Mrs. Gilbert has a daughter, Mrs. G. E. Staininger of Berkeley. She also has two grand- children.
As "City Mother" Mrs. Gilbert is a part of the police system of Los Angeles. She is the first woman to hold this office in the city, and has been engaged in police work for twenty-eight years. Her mother was the first police matron of Los Angeles, and Mrs. Gilbert had her primary experience as assistant to her mother. Her mother was in that work for sixteen years before her death, and Mrs. Gilbert was appointed head matron of the jail as her successor, a position she held for ten years. She also did all the work in assisting at the Receiving Hospital, assisted in surgery, and for ten years there were only two women to share in all this responsibility. For four years after that she was on outside work with the Juvenile Protective Association. In 1914 she was appointed City Mother and was given an advisory board of ten women of the clubs and prominent citizens.
In her office are concentrated the care of children who have no parents, or whose parents do not perform their duty; adjustment of many "domestic relations" cases, and by the elimination of court pro- cedure frequently saves the city and county many hundreds of dollars. Mrs. Gilbert has raised eight thousand dollars by entertainments and from other sources for an emergency fund, and many hundreds of dol- lars have been given to finance new societies for public welfare, includ- ing contributions to Dr. Maude Wilde for the Baby Home. Her organi- zation still has a cash Liberty Bond of a thousand dollars and a balance of two thousand dollars on hand. They established a day nursery, pro- viding two nurses, and care for forty-five babies daily without charge for working mothers. Mrs. Gilbert also raised the money to send the Police Band on California Day to San Francisco. She is a member of the Woman's City Club and of the Million Club.
Through her efforts the city ordinance has provided for a general clean-up of sore spots, like penant stands, where men would shake dice with women, has prohibited girls from shooting galleries and all such places of amusement, and prosecutes men who laid girls liable in those places. A similar ordinance has prohibited the newspapers from adver- tising girls who had made mistakes, and she also secured an ordinance insisting on lights being placed on tonneaus of all jitney busses to insure protection to young girls.
WILLIAM A. SPILL. Since 1911 Mr. Spill has been a resident and an active member of the Pasadena bar. He earned prominence as a lawyer, newspaper man and public official in Ohio, his native state. For a number of years he was editor of various Ohio newspaper, and has
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been a more or less regular contributor to journalism. He practiced law at Warren, Ohio, until 1905, when he removed to Cleveland and served as judge of the Municipal Court of Cleveland during 1908-09.
He was born at Mineral Ridge, Trumbull county, Ohio, November 21, 1876. Mineral Ridge is a little community not far distant from Niles, and along the same thoroughfare four miles from the house where Mr. Spill was born stood the birthplace of William Mckinley in Niles. Julge Spill is a son of George and Martha Jane (Williams) Spill. His parents were both natives of Wales, and the maternal grand- father, Rev. Ambrose Williams, was a Welsh Baptist minister. Judge Spill was named for his two grandfathers. His paternal grandfather, William Spill, was born at Thornbury, England, about seven miles from Bristol, where his father, William Sr., was a master shoemaker, a free- holder and a man of exceptional education. Grandfather Spill spent his life as a farmer and coal miner and came to the United States about 1853, when Franklin Pierce was president. George Spill worked with his father as a coal miner, and in Eastern Ohio they were associated in the ownership and operation of coal mines. In 1868 they opened a general store at Mineral Ridge, Ohio. This was continued until 1880 under the name William Spill & Son. In the meantime the wife of George Spill had died, and his own health being poor, he retired from business and his death occurred in March, 1883, when about forty years of age. His wife had died in January, 1879, aged about twenty-three. The old Spill store occupied a portion of a log cabin. It was a very popular general mercantile establishment. The partners usually laid in a supply of a hundred chests of tea at a time and also great quantities of cheese and cider and other favorite commodities. William A. Spill is one of two children. His sister, Martha J. McCorkle, died in Ohio in 1915.
Mr. Spill was reared by his grandfather. Grandfather William Spill eventually married the maternal grandmother of Judge Spill. The latter was educated in the public schools at Warren, Ohio, graduating from high school with the class of 1894. During his junior year in high school he was assigned the duty of teaching geometry to the sophomore class. He then entered the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, graduating in 1896. He was admitted to the Michigan bar in that year, and to the Ohio bar in 1897. During the next seven years he practiced at Warren, and was admitted to the Federal courts in 1899. He then moved to Cleveland, and had a successful general law practice there for five years. This practice was interrupted when the late Mayor Tom Johnson appointed him judge of the City Court of Cleveland. On ac- count of failing health, Judge Spill left Cleveland, spent the summer of 1911 in the Canadian Northwest, and after returning to Cleveland for a brief time came out to Southern California and located at Pasadena in October. He was associated with the late Judge Charles J. Willett until the end of 1913, but has since been alone in practice.
Just before the signing of the armistice Mr. Spill was slated for appointment as judge advocate with the rank of major, to be assigned to a new division being formed at Camp Sherman. In politics he is an independent. He is commissioner for the states of Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois. He has long been prominent in Masonry, though he has not transferred his Masonic affiliations from Ohio to California. In 1905-06 he was grand master of the Grand Council of Ohio, the largest Grand Council in the world. He is a member of all branches of the order, including the Eastern Star
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and Shrine, and has been a thirty-second degree Mason since 1899. He is a life member of the Scottish Rite and Shrine and was master of his lodge at Warren, Ohio, when it celebrated its centennial. For twenty- two years he has been affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a member of Mahoning Lodge No. 29 at Warren, a lodge more than three-quarters of a century old. He is a member of Pasadena Lodge No. 672 of the Elks, and Lodge No. 38 of the Knights of Pythias in Pasadena, also Pasadena Aerie No. 517 of the Eagles, and he and all his family are members of All Saints Episcopal Church at Pasadena.
While at the University of Michigan Judge Spill was editor of the University of Michigan Daily, and at one time was editor of the Warren Daily Chronicle and the Warren Daily Tribune in his home town in Ohio. Some of his writings have been published in the Ladies' Home Companion and the Motor, and he has written other articles on govern- ment regulation of railroad rates.
October 1, 1901, he married Miss Minnie A. Biggers at Warren, Ohio, where she was born and reared. She finished her education in Dana's Musical Institute and the New York State Normal College at Albany. Mrs. Spill is a member of the Shakespeare Club of Pasadena, is chairman of its Club House Committee, and well known in social circles. The family resides at 1091 North Los Robles avenue. Their one daughter, Geraldine B., born in Warren, Ohio, is now a senior in the Pasadena High School.
ESTANISLAO V. CHAVEZ, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, has spent all his life in the Southwest, and before coming to California was prom- inent in the law, public affairs and the democratic party in New Mexico. He is descended from a very prominent family of New Mexico, and those especially prominent were: Francisco Javier Chavez, governor of the province of New Mexico in the years 1822-23, and the first governor under the Mexican government; Antonio Jose Chavez, who was gov- ernor in 1828-31; Mariano Chavez, who was acting governor in 1835, and Jose Chavez, who was acting governor in 1845.
Estanislao V. Chavez was born in Socorro county, New Mexico, June 15, 1862, a son of Jesus Maria and Luz Torres Chavez. He at- tended public schools, St. Michael's College, conducted by the Christian Brothers in Santa Fe, and at the age of twenty-one became chief deputy under his father, who was county clerk, clerk of the Probate Court, county commissioner and ex-officio county assessor. At the age of twenty-four Mr. Chavez was elected county clerk to succeed liis father. In 1892 he was elected a member of the Territorial Legislature of New Mexico, serving two years. He was also territorial delegate from New Mexico to the Democratic National Convention at Chicago when Cleve land was nominated. Mr. Chavez read law in the office of Judge Ira E. Leonard at Socorro, and in 1902 was admitted to the bar. He practiced one year at Socorro and then at Albuquerque, where he was attorney for the Santa Fe Railroad until 1907. In that year he came to Los Angeles, and is still one of the attorneys of the Santa Fe System. In 1912 he was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court at Wash- ington, D. C.
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