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 58
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Mr. Chavez again represented New Mexico as territorial delegate to the Democratic National Convention at St. Louis in 1904. He is a member of the City Club, Knights of Columbus and a Catholic. At So- corro, New Mexico, in October, 1883, he married Fanny V. Martin.
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Mrs. Chavez passed away in January, 1897. They had three interesting and talented children: Stanislao R., who was recently discharged from the army ; Cosette's special talents are as a scenic painter ; Felipe C. is now serving as official clerk of the Judge Advocate's Court of the United States Forces at Vladivostok, Russia. Mr. Chavez was again married, in September, 1897, to Miss Ellen M. Olsen of Wisconsin. The one daughter of this union is Henrietta Couchita, who is a student of vocal music under the widely known Professor DeLara.
GEORGE C. PECKHAM, realty and investments, with offices in the Hibernian Building, has been a factor in the business life of Los Angeles for the past fifteen years. He came here from North Dakota, where he laid the basis of a successful business as a merchant and became. prominent in real estate operations in and around Fargo.
Mr. Peckham is of New England ancestry and his early associations were with Old Lyme, Connecticut, where he was born February 9, 1871, a son of George Henry and Fannie M. (West) Peckham. Though he spent his early life on a farm, he early came in touch with commercial life and college ideals. He was graduated from Buckley College at New London with the A. B. degree. While in college he worked as an apprentice in a general store. Going West to Fargo, North Dakota, he engaged in general merchandising and the machinery business and. prosecuted his affairs on a broad scale. He also invested in land and was a leader in the real estate development of Fargo.
Since coming to Los Angeles in 1903, Mr. Peckham has devoted his time to manufacturing, investments and real estate. A specialty of his real estate business has been making subdivisions. He is president of the George C. Peckham Company and of the National Car Seal Com- pany.
Mr. Peckham is also well known in social circles, being a member of the Automobile Club of Southern California, the Los Angeles Elks, the Woodmen of the World, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber of Mines. He married Elizabeth Young in 1892, and by that marriage has two sons.
IRA FRANCIS THOMPSON, a graduate of the University of California School of Law, has achieved success in the legal profession and has been in active practice at Los Angeles for the past ten years. He is the second member of the well-known firm of Manning, Thompson & Hoover, in the Merchants Trust Building.
Mr. Thompson was born in Shaw Valley, Wisconsin, June 20, 1885, a son of Josiah and Elisabeth (Alderman) Thompson. His father, a native of Pennsylvania, was a manufacturer of woodenware at Shaw Valley, Wisconsin, where he located about 1880. The Thompson family came from Scotland in 1675, lived in New Jersey for a number of years, and went to Pennsylvania in 1704. At one time members of this family owned the site of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and many of the descendants are still in that locality. Josiah Thompson's older brother was on one of Commodore Perry's battleships in the battle of Lake Erie. Josiah Thompson died at the age of sixty-eight, and his wife at forty-eight. Ira Francis was only six months old when his father died, and eighteen months old at the death of his mother.
He acquired his early education in the country schools of Crawford and Grant counties, Wisconsin, and in early boyhood came to California and continued his education in Eureka, graduating from the high school there in 1904. He spent four years in the University of California at
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Berkeley, and took the six years' law course in that time, graduating B. L. in 1909. He was admitted to the California bar July 2d of that year, and did his first work in the profession at Oakland, but since March 1, 1910, has been a resident of Los Angeles. He became associated with John F. Manning under the name Manning & Thompson, and since July, 1912, Mr. H. D. Hoover has been a partner. The firm of Manning, Thompson & Hoover handles an immense general practice, devoted ex- clusively to the civil side of the law, without participation in criminal cases. The junior partner, H. D. Hoover, and Mr. Thompson were classmates and special friends in the university and graduated the same year. Mr. Hoover has made a splendid record in the National Army. He was commissioned a first lieutenant at Camp Lewis, was transferred to the Judge Advocate's Department, and has been in France since May, 1918. He went overseas with the rank of captain, and two weeks after reaching France was made a judge advocate and now holds the rank of major in the Ninety-first Division. He participated in three offensives during the summer and early fall of 1918.
Mr. Thompson is a republican in politics and was quite active in the party while living at Oakland. He is affiliated with Elysian Lodge No. 418, F. & A. M., at Los Angeles, is a member of the Union League Club, Los Angeles County Bar Association and California State Bar Association, and a member of the Delta Chi fraternity.
June 1, 1910, at Los Angeles, he married Miss C. Hilda Manning, daughter of John F. Manning, senior partner of Manning, Thompson & Hoover. Mrs. Thompson was born in San Diego, was educated in the Los Angeles High School and the University of California, and was member of the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority at the university. She is a member of the California Women's Federation, active in the Parents- Teachers Association and belongs to the Fifth Church of Christ, Sci- entist, of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Thompson have one daughter, Cora Elisabethi, and a son, John Francis, both born in Los Angeles.
G. EDWIN WILLIAMS, portrait photographer, has been following his profession at Los Angeles for the past ten years, coming here from New York, and has contributed an important reputation to the creative artistic activities of Southern California.
He was born in New York City and educated there, and on leaving school tried various commercial pursuits, but his artistic temperament led him into taking up photography, and his success in this line shows he made no mistake. Then for a number of years he was employed with leading photographers over the country, and while in that work he originated the practice of "Home Photography," getting away from the stiff and formal work which so long characterized the ordinary photographic studio and making portraits in the natural home environ- ment. It is his work along that line that is the basis of Mr. Williams' enduring fame as an artist. He came to Los Angeles in 1910, and intro- duced home photography to the Pacific Coast. He has made photo- graphs of America's leading people at the various winter hotels, and his clientage grew until in 1913 he was compelled to open a studio at 1832 West Seventh street. His reputation is national if not international. He is often called East to make portraits of prominent people in their homes, and his collection of originals comprises hundreds of notables known in this country and abroad.
Mr. Williams is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Rotary Club, and is affiliated with Wilshire Lodge of Masons, the Los Angeles Consistory and the Al Malaikah Temple of the Mystic Shrine.
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JESSE YARNELL came to Los Angeles in 1866. He was one of the earliest newspaper editors and publishers in California. He helped found at least two of the newspapers which now stand out as among the greatest institutions of the "fourth estate" on the Pacific Coast. He was a man of varied capabilities and varied services. He was an important personage in Los Angeles when it was just beginning its modern de- velopment. His influence was not dwarfed as the city grew and ex- panded, and even in later years he was counted upon as one of the men whose support was essential to many forward movements, and whose in- fluence was indispensable in the better life of the community.
Jesse Yarnell died at his home, at 134 South Bonnie Brae street, January 19, 1906, being then sixty-nine years of age. He was born June 20, 1837, at Gratiot, in Licking county, near the Muskingum county line, in the state of Ohio. As a boy he learned the printer's trade at Zanes- ville, Ohio. He worked there in the newspaper business about three years, and in 1862 came to California, settling at Placerville, the old mining center originally called Hangtown. He bought a controlling in- terest in the Placerville Daily News, the first paper of Placerville, and was identified with its management until 1866.
On coming to Los Angeles in the latter year Mr. Yarnell started the weekly Republican. A year later he sold the material of this plant, and eventually it was used for the publication of the Evening Express, a newspaper launched by Mr. Yarnell and his brother George, togetlier with Mr. George Tiffany, John Painter and Miguel Varilla.
Later Mr. Yarnell, associated with T. J. Caystile and W. W. Brown, started the Weekly Mirror. Subsequently Nathan Cole came to Los Angeles and established the Daily Times, which he sold to the Mirror Company. The Mirror was finally purchased by Col. H. G. Otis and associates and incorporated in the Times-Mirror Company. That brings the institution within the record of the history of the present Los An- geles Times, one of the greatest daily papers in the country. Under the direction of Mr. Yarnell, the Weekly Mirror had an influential and prosperous career and was well fitted to be one of the corner stones of the Los Angeles Daily Times of the present.
The late Mr. Yarnell was a lifelong advocate and stanch supporter of prohibition. Throughout his newspaper career he never neglected an opportunity to make his journals express his views on that subject. After selling the Mirror he associated himself with Commodore Rufus R. Haines and Julius Martin in establishing the Western Wavc, which was conducted as an out-and-out prohibition paper. After a year they sold the Wave, and it was finally merged into what was the California Voice. the representative prohibition paper on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Yarnell was also identified with the organization of the old firm of Kingsley & Barnes, later Kingsley, Barnes & Nenner Company, and was one of the incorporators and the first president of the first cable street railroad into Los Angeles, the old Second street line, which started at Second street on Spring and terminated on Belmont avenue. This old cable line played an important part in the development of the hill section of Los Angeles.
His part in these varied enterprises indicates the characteristic most prominently associated with Mr. Yarnell in the minds of his associates, his broad-minded judgment and public spirit. By a degree of justice his name belongs among the builders of modern Los Angeles. He assisted in laying out several additions to subdivisions in and around Los An- geles. He was one of the incorporators of the old Indiana colony, the
Jesse Marmell
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foundation of the beautiful city of Pasadena. He also helped re-establish the Troy Laundry Company of Los Angeles, which became one of the best institutions of its kind in the southern part of the state. He was secretary of the company for eight years. He was also president of the Portland Land & Water Company and of the Richfield Land & Water Company, and in later years became interested in the oil development in his section of the state.
As a worker of the prohibition party he was several times nom- inated for office on that ticket and was three times elected to represent California on the National Party Committee and also on the State Com- mittee, and chairman of the county organization. He was a member of the Los Angeles Pioneers' Association and held one of the highest offices in the state organization of the Good Templars. For over twenty-five years he was an active member of Merrill Lodge, I. O. G. T.
The late Mr. Yarnell was heir to a splendid inheritance of char- acter from his ancestors. His mother was a direct descendant of Oliver Cromwell, a near relative of ex-President Zachary Taylor and Bayard Taylor.
At Placerville, January 18, 1865, Mr. Yarnell married Miss Susan Caystil:, daughter of Thomas and Esther (Lea) Caystile. She came to California with her parents around the Isthmus of Panama in 1855, when only nine years of age. After they came to Los Angeles Mr. and Mrs. Yarnell lived on a five-acre tract at the present site of Figueroa and Pico streets, and for many years their home was the present family residence at First and Bonnie Brae streets. The three daughters of the family still occupy that family residence. The old church at Placer- ville where Mr. and Mrs. Yarnell were married is still standing. Mrs. Yarnell, who died in October, 1919, was not only a Los Angeles pioneer, but distinguished for many rare qualities of beauty and generosity. She moved in the best social circles, but much of her time was given to charity and she befriended and worked for children in particular. Her father was born on the Isle of Man, and her mother in Liverpool, Eng- land. Thomas Caystile was one of the early settlers at Placerville. The original family stock of the Caystiles goes back to ancient Spain. The Yarnells were of English descent, and one of the name was a surveyor with George Washington.
Mr. and Mrs. Yarnell had five children, the youngest, Ramona, dying at the age of eighteen. The only son is Ellis T. Yarnell. The three daughters are Esther, Katherine and Mrs. Jesse Y. Kimball. They are all native Californians, Mrs. Kimball being a native of Placerville, while the others were born at Los Angeles.
CHARLES E. TOBERMAN is president and active head of the C. E. Toberman Company, Real Estate. A young man, he has had a long and varied and successful business experience, is possessed of a tre- mendous fund of energy and business drive, and through his organiza- tion has directed many of the improvements which are keeping Holly- wood abreast of modern progress.
Mr. Toberman was born at Seymour, in Baylor county, Texas, February 21, 1880, a son of Philip and Lucy Ann ( Blackburn) Tober- man. He attended grammar and high school until he was fourteen years old. He spent three years in the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas and for one year was a student in the Metropolitan Business College at Dallas. Mr. Toberman entered business through the avenue of stenography. For a short time he was employed as a
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stenographer by the Sanger Bros. dry goods house of Dallas, was public stenographer at Wichita Falls, Texas, two years, moved to Los Angeles in 1902 and was stenographer with the Santa Fe Railroad Company in the Freight Department seven months; was bookkeeper for six months with the Bond Baking Company, wholesale bakers and candy makers : returned to Wichita Falls and established a hardware store, but after a year sold out and came again to Los Angeles, where he was bookkeeper in the storage plant of the Los Angeles Ice and Cold Storage Company. He was then persuaded to return to the Bond Baking Company as secre- tary, and after resigning that position was cashier for Edward D. Silent, Real Estate, until 1907. He was then city treasurer of the city of Holly- wood until Hollywood was annexed to the city of Los Angeles. Since 1907 he has been in the real estate business in Hollywood, and in 1912 incorporated the C. E. Toberman Company, of which he is president.
During the past ten years Mr. Toberman has handled more than seventy per cent of the subdivision real estate work in Hollywood. In 1913 his organization erected a handsome four-story and basement office building at the corner of Hollywood boulevard and Highland avenue, and in the rear put up a four-story fireproof building facing Highland avenue, used by the Hollywood Fireproof Storage Company, of which he is secretary and director. He owns a number of business blocks along Hollywood boulevard and is president of the Hollywood Studios, Inc., recently established at Hollywood.
Mr. Toberman is a past master of Hollywood Lodge No. 355, A. F. & A. M., he is a member of Hollywood Chapter No. 120, R. A. M., Golden West Commandery No. 43, K. T., is a member of the Mystic Shrine, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Episcopal Church, and in politics is independent.
At Wichita Falls, Texas, April 25, 1902, he married Josephine W. Bullock. They have three children, all in public school, Jeannette, the oldest, being a high school girl, and the younger two are Homer and Catherine.
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CLIFFORD A. ROHE is a Los Angeles lawyer. He studied law and had his first experience in the profession in Chicago, and since coming to Los Angeles in 1912 has been a member of several partnerships of the highest standing and with a prominent record in the civil courts.
Mr. Rohe was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, February 12, 1888, a son of Anthony J. and Anna (Cooper) Rohe. He attended the Cathedral Parochial School and the public schools of Cincinnati, and while a clerk in the law offices of William F., Arthur B. and Fyffe Chambers carried on a night course in a city high school. While in Chicago Mr. Kohe was a student in Loyola University, where he graduated from the Law Department with the degree LL. B. in 1910. From college he entered the law office of Cummins, Stearns & Milkewitch, and was with that Chicago firm until 1912.
On coming to Los Angeles he was admitted to the California bar and then formed a partnership with Alfred Barstow under the name Barstow & Rohe in July, 1912. Soon afterward Wesley Beach entered the firm, which became Barstow, Beach & Rohe, and so continued until the death of Mr. Beach, April 30, 1916. Mr. Beach was succeeded by Frank A. Jeffers in the firm, the title being Barstow, Rohe & Jeffers. In September, 1918, Mr. Barstow withdrew and Joseph F. Devin be- came associated as Rohe, Jeffers and Devin. This firm handles a large general practice, but does no criminal work. Mr. Rohe is a member of
Harry A Solancing
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the Los Angeles County Bar Association, California State Bar Associa- tion, American Bar Association, and was president of the Lincoln Law Club of Chicago. He is also a member of the Phi Alpha Delta fra- ternity, Los Angeles Athletic Club, City Club, Brentwood Country Club, Chamber of Commerce, One Hundred Per Cent Club, is a fourth degree Knight of Columbus and a member of the Dantian Society. While at Loyola he was captain of a baseball team and also played semi-pro- fessional baseball in Chicago. He has continued his athletic record in Los Angeles and is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. He has won several cups for swimming and handball. Mr. Rohe is a re- publican in political affiliation and a member of the Catholic Church.
At Chicago, November 24, 1910, he married Loretta M. Kelly. Their four children are Virginia Bernice, Robert Anthony, Barbara Marie and Carolyn Loretta. Virginia and Robert are students in the public schools.
HARRY GEORGE JOHANSING is a member of Cass & Johansing, in- surance brokers. A firm established only a few years ago, it has at- tracted the attention of insurance men by the rapidity and volume of its increasing business. As brokers' liability insurance, this firmn stands in the very front rank in California.
Mr. Johansing has been in the insurance business ever since he left school. He was born at Cincinnati, Ohio, October 15, 1883, a son of William and Anna (Lighter) Johansing. His parents were born in Europe. The father was a contractor and a resident of Cincinnati for twenty-five years, dying in that city in 1908. Since 1914 the widowed mother has lived at Los Angeles. She was the mother of seven sons.
Mr. Johansing attended the parochial schools at Cincinnati, and after a course in Bartlett's Business College went to work for the Board of Fire Underwriters at Cincinnati, remaining in that service for a year and a half and acquiring much knowledge that has been utilized by him in later years. He was then connected with an insurance agency for about four years, following which he was chief local clerk for the Royal Insurance Company of Cincinnati. He entered business for him- self under the firm name of Earls & Johansing at Cincinnati, handling general insurance. Five years later the partnership was terminated and Mr. Johansing took a year's leave of absence, coming to Los An- geles in 1913. He has since made Los Angeles his permanent home, and for a time was connected with C. B. Sloan & Company, insurance brokers.
He then formed his present partnership with Louis Cass under the firm name of Cass & Johansing, general insurance brokers. No other firm in California, considering its years, has been so successful in the writing of insurance. The firm are general agents for the Standard Accident of Detroit, Michigan, and are the insurance brokers for the Automobile Club of Southern California and enjoying a very exclusive clientele.
Mr. Johansing is a member of the Automobile Club of Southern California, is affiliated with Long Beach Council of the Knights of Columbus, being a grand knight for a second term, and is a member of the Insurance Brokers' Exchange. He is also a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.
At Cincinnati, Ohio, September 15, 1908, in St. Mary's Church of Hyde Park, a suburb of that city, Mr. Johansing married Miss Millie F. Farfsing. She was born and educated in Cincinnati. They have six
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children, three sons and three daughters: Margaret, Eleanor, Harry, Walter, Mary Clare and Paul, the first three born in Cincinnati, and the last being native Californians.
Mr. Johansing and family reside at Los Cerritos, and he is clerk of the Board of Education of that suburb, and he and his wife both active as officers in the Parents-Teachers Association, Mrs. Johansing being the judge of the Board of Election and he being chairman of the Mem- bership Committee.
EDWARD SCHMIDT. There is a necessarily limited though influential and wealthy clientage in Los Angeles who have long known and appre- ciated the services of Edward Schmidt as probably the highest ciass tailor on the Pacific Coast. He is known in the Los Angeles business district as a thorough merchant, gentleman and public spirited citizen, and some people also know him and his family for its interesting his- torical associations with the old as well as the modern Los Angeles.
Mr. Schmidt, who is a member of Los Angeles county, having been born at Wilmington September 21, 1874, is a son of the late Edward Schmidt. Edward Sr. was born at Copenhagen, Denmark, February 3, 1843, grew up and was educated in his native city and was a sailor for eighteen years. He came around the Horn as captain of a sailing vessel and reached San Francisco in 1861, and a few years later, in 1867, per- manently settled in Los Angeles, where, with his brother Fred, he took up a hundred sixty acres ot government land. The site of this govern- ment claim can be identified by the modern boundaries of Vermont avenue and Wilshire boulevard. As is well known, it is now in the most exclusive residential section of Los Angeles. In 1876 Edward Schmidt sold eighty acres for five thousand dollars, and he and his brother divided the rest. He gradually sold off his share, with the exception of thirty lots at the corner of Catalina avenue and Wilshire boulevard. This, a portion of the original government claim, is still owned by his widow. Edward Schmidt Sr. retired from business in 1904 and died in 1913. He married in Copenhagen, Denmark, Pauline Lund. Of their seven chil- dren, six are living.
Edward Schmidt Jr. acquired his education in the district schools of Los Angeles county, and attended the Baptist College in Los Angeles to the age of sixteen. He then began an apprenticeship at the tailors' trade, and since 1903 has been in business for himself and has built up an establishment known all over Southern California and to many who make Los Angeles their winter home. His business employs forty peo- ple and is devoted to the highest class of men's and women's tailoring.
Mr. Schmidt is also well known in social circles, being a member of Southern California Lodge F. & A. M., Jonathan Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, and in politics is a republican. He married, at Los An- geles. Ruby Noyes, daughter of E. W. Noyes, who came to San Fran- cisco in 1849. They have four children, Leland, Edward Jr., H len and Robert. Leland is a graduate of the Los Angeles High School and is now serving as a lieutenant with the American forces in the Salvage De- partment in France. The son Edward attends grammar school, and Helen is a student in the Westlake School for Girls.
CHARLES R. BELL. Throughout his business experience, ever since leaving high school, Charles R. Bell has been working in an atmosphere of finance and banking, and during ten years of residence at Los Angeles has become well known in local banking circles and is now one of the executive officers of the Hellman Commercial Trust and Savings Bank.
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