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 III > Part 12
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In disposition he was very ambitious, possessed wonderful executive ability, and throughout his enterprises were permeated with a high degree of public spirit. At one time he had the largest vineyard, thirty- six hundred acres, owned by any individual in the world. For two years he made wine. His vineyard was located near the town of Florence. After it had come into full bearing, an insect attacked it and so ravaged the vines, attacking the roots, that in a few months' time they were practically all gone.
Remi Nadeau also deserves lasting memory for the pioneer part he played in developing the beet sugar industry in Southern California. At one time he had some twenty-eight hundred acres in this crop. His beet fields were in the Bliona district, where is now Playa del Rey. The making of sugar was accomplished by a crude process. Later he sent a large sum of money by a friend to Europe for the purpose of buying machinery used abroad for the manufacture of sugar beets. The ma- chinery was shipped to California, and on arrival it was found to be un- workable, and Mr. Nadeau lost over a hundred thousand dollars by the venture. However, his initiative was of tremendous worth and really started the beet sugar business in Southern California. His handling . of this and other affairs showed the large scale on which his mind
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R. NADEAU
ONE OF A NUMBER OF STORES AND STATIONS OWNED BY R. NADEAU.
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operated. At one time he planted the largest barley field anywhere in the world, thirty thousand acres, in the vicinity of Inglewood, then called the Centenella Ranch. The expected and usual rains did not come that year and here again was entailed a loss of two hundred thousand dollars.
The Nadeau Hotel, which he built in 1885, is still running as a hotel, recently remodeled and quite modern. He also owned the land at Fifth and Olive Streets now owned by the City Water Board. The old Nadeau residence, a two-story white house, stood at the southwest corner of Fifth and Olive Streets. He lived there many years and died there January 15, 1886. Remi Nadeau had that restless and inexhaustible energy which kept him at work without vacation until he had worn his body out. He died at the age of sixty-eight years.
In Concord, New Hampshire, he married Miss Martha Fry, a native of New Hampshire. They were the parents of seven children, three of whom died in childhood. The others reached mature age, and two are still living, George A., a resident of Los Angeles, and Mary R., wife of James H. Bell of Los Angeles. Both reside on Nadeau Street, name for their father, and George occupies part of the old ranch and lives at the old ranch house.
FRANK S. FORBES, now one of the judges of the Justice Courts of Los Angeles, and a successful lawyer of this city for ten years, came to Southern California as a Congregational minister and for many years was well known both in the East and the West for his work in that denomination.
Judge Forbes was born in Waldo County, Maine, January 10, 1860, son of Almon S. and Barbara Ann (Rich) Forbes. His interests have always been scholarly and he acquired a good education in his youth and has supplemented it by attending some of the foremost educational in- stitutions of the country. He attended public school and in 1881 gradu- ated from the Maine Central Institute, a preparatory school. In 1885 he took his Bachelor's degree from Bates College, at Lewiston, Maine, and forthwith entered the Theological Seminary of Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio, where he graduated in 1888. His first call as a Con- gregational minister was in the church at Omaha, Nebraska, where he served until 1890. He was pastor of a church in Ogden, Utah, until 1894, and then temporarily resigned from the ministry to take post- graduate work in Harvard University. He made a special study of sociology, and while at the university was one of the city visitors of the Associated Charities, that work giving him a splendid opportunity to learn and observe the conditions in one of the poor Jewish quarters at Boston. In 1895, on account of poor health, Mr. Forbes had to leave the severe New England climate and come to California. Until 1901 he was pastor of the Congregational Church at Santa Barbara and in that year accepted the call to the East Side Congregational Church at Los Angeles. He was with that church until 1906.
In 1905 he entered the College of Law of the University of Southern California, graduating in 1908, and was immediately admitted to the bar of the State of California. He at once began practice, and in 1910 was elected judge of Justice Court, Department C, an office which now requires all his time. Judge Forbes is a Mason, a member of the City Club, of the Presbyterian Church, and in politics a republican. Septem- ber 21, 1887, at Oberlin, Ohio, he married Cora E. Gardner. Mr. and Mrs. Forbes have adopted and reared four children, two of whom are
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orphan brothers of French parentage, but of American birth, named Allen Joslyn Forbes and Charles Joslyn Forbes.
MATTISON BOYD JONES. Since coming to Los Angeles, in 1900, Mattison Boyd Jones has enjoyed a high rank in the legal profession, and is also well known as one of the prominent Baptist laymen of Cali- fornia and the West, and as a citizen whose interest goes out to every well considered movement for the general welfare.
Mr. Jones was born at Tuttle, in Laurel County, Kentucky, June 15, 1869, a son of Hiram J. and Permelia (Black) Jones. His mother was a sister of Hon. James D. Black, now Governor of Kentucky. Mr. Jones attended public schools to the age of eighteen, then taught school for two years, and took his college work at the University of Kentucky, at Lexington, where he graduated with honors with the A. B. degree in 1894. He taught school at London, Kentucky, was principal of the Laurel Seminary for one year and in the meantime diligently pursued the study of law and was admitted to the bar October 17, 1895, at Lon- don, Kentucky. He practiced a few months at London and then resumed his teaching. He was professor of mathematics and astronomy at Wil- liamsburg Institute, now known as Cumberland College, at Williams- burg, Kentucky, for two years. In 1898 he was called to his alma mater at Lexington as professor of military science and instructor in mathe- matics. He remained a member of the faculty of the University of Kentucky and also continued post-graduate work there until January 1, 1900, when he resigned to come to Los Angeles, where he began the practice of the law.
He was soon in the midst of a busy practice, and in, 1905 formed a partnership with E. B. Drake under the firm name of Jones & Drake, which was dissolved in 1909. In 1909 he associated himself with W. E. Evans under the name Jones & Evans. That partnership was dissolved in 1917, since which time Mr. Jones has practiced alone.
Mr. Jones had a very thorough military training. On his graduation from the University of Kentucky in 1894 he was ranking officer of the Battalion of Cadets. At that time Lieutenant Charles D. Clay, a grand- son of the noted Henry Clay, and a regular army officer, was professor of military science in Kentucky University. Lieutenant Clay presented Mr. Jones with a dress sword just before graduation in recognition of his one hundred per cent military record. At different times Lieutenant Clay had to go to Washington on military business, and he left Mr. Jones in full charge of the University Cadets. In 1898, when the com- mandant was recalled to his regiment during the Spanish-American war, the president of the University of Kentucky asked Mr. Jones to succeed him, and this was the first time that the commandant of the university was recruited from civilian ranks.
Mr. Jones is a man of thorough scholarship and has always been a student. He took post-graduate work at the University of Chicago in addition to the work he did at his alma mater. He is president of the Board of Trustees of the University of Redlands, and has held that post since the university was founded in 1909.
Ever since early youth Mr. Jones has given part of his time to church duties. He was one of the organizers of the Temple Baptist Church of Los Angeles. He was president of the Southern California Baptist Convention two years and is still one of its directors. He served as president of the Pacific Coast Baptist Conference, comprising all the states west of the Rockies. He is past president of the Los Angeles
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County Baptist Association and the Los Angeles Baptist City Mission Society.
In politics he is a democrat and served as alternate delegate at large from California to the Democratic National Convention at Denver in 1908. He is a director in a number of business corporations, is a member of the City Club and University Club, and for many years has been a deep student of Masonry. He is a member of both the York and Scottish Rite bodies and the Shrine, and has filled a number of chairs, being a past high priest, past illustrious master, past commander, and at present is grand king of the Grand Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of California.
At Louisville, Kentucky, January 3, 1900, Mr. Jones married Miss Antoinette Ewell Smith. They have one daughter, Lillian Winifred, now attending the University of Redlands. Mrs. Jones is a prominent club woman of California, and recently retired from a two-year term as pres- ident of the Los Angeles District Federation of Women's Clubs. She is also an accomplished musician, being now vice president of the Cali- fornia Federation of Music Clubs.
RUFUS W. BURNHAM is one of the oldest men in the service of the internationally know mercantile agency of R. G. Dun & Company. That firm was established at New York in 1841. While one of the oldest mercantile agencies in America and with a widespread service that makes the name "Dun" a common phrase in commercial transactions, it is a matter of interest to note that Mr. Burnham became associated with the company more than forty years ago and has therefore been in its service through more than half of its total existence.
Mr. Burnham, who has had charge of the Los Angeles branch agency since 1894, took charge of this office seven years after it was established in 1887. The first location of R. G. Dun & Company in Los Angeles was 232 North Main Street, where the office was maintained over twenty years, and since 1908 Mr. Burnham has had his headquarters in the International Bank Building. Through the experienced direction of Mr. Burnham the Dun & Company agency has become an indispensable factor to the business community, and has facilities for the most perfect and reliable information as to credits and financial conditions generally.
Mr. Burnham was born in Windham, Connecticut, January 21, 1851, and was only three months old when his father, William Burnham, died. His mother, Ellen (Bass) Burnham, is still living, at the age of ninety years, and retains her faculties almost unimpaired. She resides at Andover, Connecticut.
Mr. Burnham was educated in public and private schools at Wind- ham, Connecticut, and Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and as a young man went to work in a book and stationery house at Norwich, Connecticut. He was employed there seven years and after that was with a dry goods house at Hartford, Connecticut. He first came to the West in 1877, and in 1878 entered the employ of the R. G. Dun & Company at Kansas City. He was sent to Denver, Colorado, as manager of the company's agency there in 1880, but resigned in 1884, and for thirty-five years has made his home on the Pacific Coast. For ten years he spent most of his time traveling as a reporter for Dun & Company, and in 1894 took the man- agement of the Los Angeles office.
During his long residence in Los Angeles he has been a valued leader in many movements for the upbuilding and progress of the city and county. He served on the executive committee of the Municipal
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League since it was organized until 1914, and for several years was first vice president. He was a director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Com- merce from January, 1912, to January, 1916, and has been a member of its more important committees. In 1896, during the first Mckinley campaign, he was one of the five members of the executive committee of the Business Men's Sound Money Club. He is a member of the Sixth Agricultural District Association, in charge of the Exposition Park, and served as chairman in 1919. Mr. Burnham is also a member of one of the most exclusive clubs in the city, the Sunset Club, which he served as president in 1908. He is a member of the Jonathan Club, City Club, Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, and during the war was very active as a leader in both the Red Cross and Liberty Bond cam- paigns, heading a team in support of both organizations.
Mr. Burnham resides at the Bryson Apartments. He married, at Oakland, California, December 30, 1887, Miss Marion Bennison. She died at Los Angeles February 8, 1917. Mr. Burnham has one daughter, Mrs. Richard H. Oakley of Los Angeles, who was born at Oakland and educated in the Los Angeles High School and is a graduate of Marlboro School for Girls at Los Angeles and of Dana Hall in Wellesley. Mrs. Oakley has two daughters, Barbara and Jean, natives of Los Angeles.
SIEGFRIED G. MARSHUTZ is a pioneer optician and optometrist in Southern California, having been in business in Los Angeles for over thirty-three years. An entire gencration of Los Angeles people have been familiar with his stores, always located in the newest sections in the business district, and representing the highest type of exclusive optical service enterprise in the West.
Mr. Marshutz was born in Bavaria, Germany, August 18, 1862, a son of Morris and Getty (Steinfeld) Marshutz. He acquired a thorough high and technical school education, graduating at the age of sixteen. His early studies were preparatory to the profession of optometry. After leaving school, however, he worked in a glass manufacturing business until he was twenty-one, when he left home and came to New York. He remained there but a short while, answering the call of the West, feeling that greater opportunities were open for him there. Traveling through the West, he arrived in San Francisco at Christmas time in 1884. Shortly after New Year's of 1885 he went to Sacramento and engaged in the optical business there. Up to that time optical goods had been handled as a side or incidental line to other businesses, but Mr. Marshutz opened there the first exclusive optical establishment in Sacra- mento. Leaving Sacramento, he came to Los Angeles in 1887 and estab- lished likewise the first exclusive optical shop, his first place of business being adjoining the old United States Hotel, on North Main Street. He remained ih re until changing conditions, need of larger and better quarters and the greater convenience to his patrons influenced him to move to the newer business sections, and in 1915 located at his present address, 227 West Seventh Street.
Mr. Marshutz was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Associa- tion of Opticians, also of the California State Association of Opto- metrists, as well as a charter member of the American Optometrical Association. Largely through his personal influence a bill was passed requiring all opticians to be examined before a newly created State Board of Examiners in Optometry before being permitted to practice. California was the second state in the Union to adopt this standard as applied to optometrists and opticians, though today there are forty-four states having similar legal requirements.
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Mr. Marshutz was one of the charter members of the Westgate Lodge No. 335, F. and A. M., which was instituted in November, 1898.
When in 1896 the world was startled by the announcement that Doctor Roentgen of Germany had discovered a new and hitherto un- known kind of rays, the now so-called X or Roentgen rays, Mr. Marshutz at once secured a copy of Doctor Roentgen's original lecture on the subject. As a member of the Los Angeles Academy of Science, before a record audience, Mr. Marshutz read, on March 11, 1896, the first paper, regarding Doctor Roentgen's startling discovery.
He was the founder and for seven years president (until he re- signed) of the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California, located at Huntington Park, of which he is now honorary president and a director. He is also a director of Congregation B'nai B'rith, and from 1905 to 1909 served as a member of the Los Angeles Public Library Commission.
Mr. Marshutz did much active work in civil matters as well, as, for instance, he was instrumental in having the streets south of Eighth Street, between Flower and Figueroa Streets, paved, being chairman of a committee appointed for that purpose by the Municipal League. He also secured the paving and ornamental lighting system on Pico Street, as well as the franchise for the extension of the West Pico car line from Flower Street to Main Street.
July 8, 1892, at Los Angeles, he married Miss Hattie Wolfstein. They have two sons, Herbert Stanton, aged twenty-five, and Stephen Carl, aged twenty-one. Herbert S. is a graduate of the Polytechnic High School and the Stanford University, and during the war was in the Motor Transport Corps. He was discharged December 18, 1918, as first lieutenant in the Motor Transport Reserve Corps, and is now en- gaged in the importing and manufacturing business in New York. Ste- phen C. attended the Polytechnic High School also and is a graduate of the Los Angeles Medical School of Opthalmology and Optometry, and has successfully passed the examination of the State Board of Examiners in Optometry, held in Los Angeles September 15 and 16, 1919.
Mr. Marshutz is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, Merchants' and Manufacturers' Association, Municipal League, Los Angeles Athletic Club, and is a republican.
WILLIAM H. RICHARDSON. An important business and a beautiful store probably known to every resident of Los Angeles is the Richardson Music Company. The founder and head of this concern has had a career of progressive development, beginning as a utility boy in a local music house. He has a high standing among musical goods salesmen on the Pacific Coast.
Mr. Richardson was born in Los Angeles, March 19, 1884, a son of Joseph and Mary A. (Hobbs) Richardson. His father, a native of Dumfries, Scotland, was educated in public schools and business college at Edinburgh, and at the age of twenty-six came to the United States and located at New Orleans, where for a time he was engaged in busi- ness. He came to California with his brother, John M., a sea captain, in 1880, locating for a short time in San Francisco. Later he moved to Los Angeles, where for a number of years he was in business handling farm implements and carriages. In 1896 he went to Japan to represent American manufacturers. In October, 1900, the vessel on which he was a passenger collided with another in Nagasaki Harbor and he was drowned. He married, in Los Angeles, in 1882, Mary A. Hobbs, daugh-
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ter of William Hobbs, who founded the First Baptist Church of Los Angeles in 1870. Later he did extensive work in the Southwest as a missionary. William H. Richardson is the oldest of three children. His brother Jack is in the navy yard at Mare Island, California. The young- est brother, Charles M., recently returned from France, where he served in the Three Hundred Sixty-fourth Infantry, Ninety-first Division. He was in some of the major operations on the various fronts, being credited with participation in battles of Ypres, Lys, the St. Mihiel and Meuse Argonne offensives.
William H. Richardson attended public schools at Los Angeles to the age of fourteen. He then struck out to make his own way, working as general utility boy for the Exton Music Company. He was with them four years, advancing his education by attending night school in the meantime, and he left the firm in the capacity of phonograph salesman. The following eight months he had charge of the phonograph depart- ment of the Pacific Music Company. He then went with the Southern California Music Company as phonograph salesman, and in 1914 became manager of that department. A man of recognized ability as a salesman and broad experience, he resigned to found the Richardson's, Incorpor- ated, of which he is president. The company opened its beautiful store on West Seventh Street in June, 1919. They handle phonographs, in- cluding the art models, pianos, specializing in the Welte Mignon player, and are also dealers in music and various other musical goods. Mr. Richardson is the inventor of the "Phonograph Console," used for dem- onstrating records.
Mr. Richardson is a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Los Angeles Credit Men's Association, and was secretary of the Talking Machine Dealers' Association in 1918. He is a republican. He married, in Los Angeles, Lalah A. Russ, in 1911.
WILLIAM I. GILBERT, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, with offices in the Title Insurance Building, was formerly a successful member of the bar of Oklahoma and, in addition to a general practice, represents the Southern Pacific Company in Los Angeles.
He was born at Martinsville, Missouri, August 18, 1876, son of Horace W. and Trescendia (Wren) Gilbert. His father was a native of Vermont, while the mother was born in Kentucky. They were mar- ried in Clay County, Missouri, and Horace W. Gilbert was one of the pioneers of Oklahoma, where for many years he enjoyed a commanding position in the bar. He practiced law altogether forty-six years in Missouri and Oklahoma. During the Civil war he was a private soldier. He died at Watonga, Oklahoma, in 1896, at the age of sixty-eight, and his widow is still living in Oklahoma City. They had seven children, all reaching mature years, and four living today. William I. Gilbert is the only living son and the only member of the family in California. Two brothers, Emmett W. and Harry F., are both deceased.
Mr. Gilbert was educated in the' public schools of Missouri, and at the age of eighteen years qualified for admission to the bar of Okla- homa. He began practice at Watonga with his father under the name H. W. Gilbert & Son. Upon his father's death, in 1896, he and his brother, Harry F., were associated as Gilbert & Gilbert until 1904, when his brother died. He then conducted an individual practice until 1909, in which year he moved to Oklahoma City, forming an association with C. B. Stuart and A. C. Cruce, under the name Stuart, Cruce & Gilbert. Mr. Gilbert retired from this partnership in 1913 and moved to Los
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Angeles. For two years he was in partnership with ex-Governor Henry T. Gage and W. I. Foley, under the name Gage, Foley & Gilbert, but since then has been at the head of his own organization.
Mr. Gilbert was president of the Oklahoma Bar Association during 1907, when Oklahoma was admitted to the Union. He is a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association, Los Angeles Athletic Club, City Club of Los Angeles, Automobile Club of Southern California, is a democrat in politics, a York Rite Mason and Shriner, Knight of Pythias and Elk, having membership in these several fraternities at Oklahoma City.
December 12. 1898, he married Miss Lucy Witt of Abilene, Texas. She was born and educated in that state and they were married in Dallas. Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert have two living children, Jeanne M. and W. I. Jr., both of whom were born at Duncan, Oklahoma.
IRVING HERMAN HELLMAN is a son of the late Herman W. Hell- man, one of the greatest business men and financiers of California, and since his father's death he and his brother, Marco H. Hellman, have been the executive managers of the vast Hellman estate, comprising banking, building, unimproved city properties, ranch lands and other holdings scattered over the greater part of California.
Mr. Hellman, the younger, is a building engineer by profession, and had the distinction of serving as the first reinforced concrete engineer for the city of Los Angeles. While he has not practiced his profession since his father's death, technical knowledge has stood him in good stead in the handling of his business affairs. He was born where the Herman W. Hellman Building now stands, May 10, 1883, in Los Angeles. He first attended the grammar schools of Los Angeles, and after graduat- ing from the city high school, took a special course in engineering at the Armour. School of Technology, in Chicago, and he also studied under four engineers of different nationalities, specializing in all problems in- volved in re-enforced concrete construction. Returning to Los Angeles in 1906, he took the Civil Service examination, making a high record, and soon afterward was appointed to the official position above men- tioned. In that office, which he held for a year and a half, he was the city's expert representative in passing upon all the re-enforced buildings and structures put up in Los Angeles, and one of the chief enterprises that came under his direct personal inspection was the Temple Audi- torium, one of the largest buildings in Southern California.
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