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 16
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Fifth generation: Allen Verden Crisler (father of Lewis Allen Crisler Sr.) was born in Morris, Grundy County, Illinois, September 15, 1852, and now resides near Glen Ellyn, Illinois. He married Clara Conner in New Richmond, Clermont County, Ohio, October 10, 1877. She was born in New Richmond, Clermont County, Ohio, No- vember 29, 1848, and died in Los Angeles, California, May 11, 1918. She was the daughter of Captain Andrew Lewis Conner and Mary Chapman Jeffries.
The immigrant Conner was Arthur Conner, born in Ireland in 1739, and died in New Richmond, Ohio, October 27, 1822. His wife was Mary Ware or Wyre, who was born in Ireland and died in Pennsylvania.
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He first settled in Pennsylvania, later moving to Campbell County, Ken- tucky. His son, Andrew Conner (War of 1812), was born in Ireland, April 28, 1765, and died in New Richmond, Ohio, August 28, 1850. He married a widow, Elizabeth Pike (Lewis), who was born in Delaware and died in New Richmond, Ohio, October 26, 1821. Third generation : Captain Andrew Lewis Conner, born in Campbell County, Kentucky, No- vember 15, 1811, died in New Richmond, Ohio, May 25, 1891. He mar- ried Mary Chapman Jeffries in New Richmond, Ohio, July 21, 1833. She was born March 16, 1816, in Auburn, New York, and moved to New Richmond, Ohio, in 1823, where she died November 18, 1906. She was the daughter of John Chapman Jeffries, born in Haddonfield, Camden County, New Jersey, and Deborah Starkweather, born in Auburn, New York.
Lewis Allen Crisler Sr. received his education at Hughes, in Cin- cinnati, Ohio. He married Edna June Cooke in Los Angeles, California, November 15, 1905. She was born in Montrose, South Dakota, June 23, 1885, and is the daughter of William Henry H. Cooke (born in Pough- keepsie, New York, April 1, 1840. died in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, December 18, 1893), and Alena Margaret Dockstader (born in Mont- gomery County, New York, August 31, 1847). They have one son, Lewis Allen Crisler, Jr., born in Los Angeles, California, July 13, 1909.
GEORGE K. HOME, the chief of police of Los Angeles, is in his present office and profession not through the chance of politics or by reason of haphazard fate or circumstance. A number of years ago he took up detective work as a free personal choice, though at that time he was successful in other lines of business. He has been connected with the police and detective departments of Los Angeles for many years, and it is a matter of general satisfaction that a man of such eminent qualifica- tions is head of the police department today.
Mr. Home was horn in Mercer County, Illinois, January 19, 1879, a son of John R. and Mary ( McCurdy) Home. His father, who was born in Mercer County July 7, 1846, was educated in the public schools and Monmouth College, was a merchant, later a building contractor, both in Mercer and Henderson Counties, Illinois, and in 1880 went to Ottawa, Kansas, and spent about a year opening coal mines. From there he came to Los Angeles and was one of the earliest contractors operating in the drilling of oil wells in Southern California. For a num- ber of years he was associated with E. L. Doheny and put down some of the first wells for that great oil magnate. Since 1913 he has lived retired. John R. Home and wife were married in Mercer County, Illinois, and they have two living children, George K. and Paul, both of Los Angeles.
George K. Home was about two years old when his parents came to Los Angeles. He attended grammar and high schools to the age of eighteen, but already had acquired much practical business experience: When ten years old he became a vendor of the Times and Herald news- papers in mornings and evenings and during vacations. For one or two vacations he also worked for his father in oil well drilling, and at the age of eighteen, on leaving school, he took up that as his regular voca- tion. He first became connected with the police department as patrol- man at the age of twenty-five. After two and a half years he took a leave of absence and went to Tampico, Mexico, where he had charge of an outfit developing an oil field for the Pennsylvania Oil Company of Mexico. After seven months he brought in a large gusher for that
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company and then returned to Los Angeles. Resuming his work with the police department, he was acting detective seven months, was then made a regular detective, and in the spring of 1913 was promoted to detective sergeant. The following winter he was made inspector of police at headquarters, and in January, 1915, became first deputy chief of police, and in January, 1916, made detective lieutenant. May 1, 1917, after an examination, he was appointed captain of detectives and still holds that title and responsibility. His elevation to the post of chief of police came at the hands of Mayor M. P. Snyder in July, 1919.
Mr. Home is a York and Scottish Rite Mason, an Elk, Woodmen of the World and Knights of Pythias, is a member of the Union League Club, a republican in politics, and belongs to the Congregational Church. At Los Angeles, January 27, 1899, he married Alice M. Hanly. Her father was George T. Hanly, the pioneer tea and coffee merchant of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Home have four children: G. DeForest, born in 1900, is a student in Pomona College; Paul, born in 1903, attending the Los Angeles High School; Thais Marian, born in 1910, and Thomas, born in 1916.
ROBERT ROODHOUSE is a Los Angeles business man whose career is noteworthy not only because he is identified with one of the essential industries of the city, but also because he is a veteran in experience in one line of manufacture, having followed it consecutively since early youth, and through all the grades of apprenticeship, journeyman, super- intendent and executive officer.
Mr. Roodhouse was born in Hamilton, Ontario, September 25, 1870, son of Albert Robert and Annie (Taylor) Roodhouse. Up to the age of sixteen he attended grammar and high school. Then followed three years of experience in a rolling mill. His permanent career began with his apprenticeship with the McClary Manufacturing Company of London, Ontario. This company manufactured enameled kitchenware, and with the enameling and stamping industry Mr. Roodhouse has been identified ever since. After four years with the McClary Company he went to Canadaigua, New York, and for two and a half years was enamel dipper for the List Manufacturing Company, a concern manu- facturing similar products to the McClary Company. His next location was at Newcastle, Pennsylvania, where he was similarly employed by the Newcastle Stamping Company two years. Returning to Canada, he was dipper with the Kemp Manufacturing Company at Toronto six months, and then accepted an opportunity to work in the same capacity with the Royal Enameling and Manufacturing Company at Desplaines, Illinois, three years. This service was interrupt. d by eight months with the National Enameling Company at Cincinnati, followed by employ- ment one year in the same capacity with the Spellacy-Raiff Company . at Coshocton, Ohio, after which he returned to the Royal Enameling and Manufacturing Company as Desplaines for a year.
Mr. Roodhouse came west to Los Angeles to enter the service of the California Metal Enameling Company as enamel mixer. In 1914 he was elected vice president, superintendent and director of this large concern, whose manufactured products are sold all over the west coast.
ROSAMOND C. HARKER is proprietor of a growing and much appre- ciated business, The Rosemary Beauty Shop, located in the Brack Shops in Los Angeles. "Where there is a will there is a way" is well exem- plified by. Miss Harker's success, since the recognition paid her skill
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proves that her qualifications are exceptional, though she had no previ- ous training for her present line of business.
However, she is a thorough business woman. She was born at Chillicothe, Missouri, and acquired her early education in the public . schools there, and after graduating from high school attended Camp- bell University at Holton, Kansas. Returning from college she lived at home with her parents.
Her father was Major Garrison Harker who made a gallant record with the Second Missouri Cavalry during the Civil war and was wounded in the last year of that struggle. He died in 1896. Miss Harker lived in the home in which she was born until with her mother she came to California in 1909. In Missouri her father was "land poor" but they managed to save the home and grounds. Miss Harker occupied her time in working in the clubs of which she was a member, in the Epis- copal church, in which she was active in the Literary Club, and was president and youngest member for four years of the Women's Relief Corps. When the Soldiers Home was built the corps of which she was then president furnished a memorial room and Miss Harker and family furnished a room in memory of her father.
After coming to California Miss Harker worked for a time in a physician's office and later was invited to open up the hair goods depart- ment at the Coulter Dry Goods Company and from that experience established parlors of her own, first in the Y. W. C. A. Building and then in the Brack Shops. She is a member of the Business Woman's Civic Club and for six years was president of the Y. W. C. A., and is a member of the Adelphian Club, Clara Barton Camp of the Daughters of Veterans.
CAPT. SAMUEL H. WATSON is senior member of the firm Watson & Watson, loans and investments, in the Laughlin Building, and is also president of The Hollywood Cemetery Association. He has been a constructive factor in real estate and business development in Los Angeles for the past ten years. He was a man of mature business experience and achievement long before he came to Los Angeles. These achievements have insured his lasting recognition among the upbuilders and benefac- tors of one of the leading small cities of southern Illinois, Mount Ver- non, where he spent the greater part of his life and where a large business built up by him still thrives and is under the active management of his son.
Captain Watson's grandfather was Dr. John Watson, a native of Maryland, who as a youth was taken by his parents to Virginia. He grew up and was educated in Old Virginia, and supplemented his studies under a private physician by a course in the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia from which he graduated. He was a very hard work- ing and able physician, and had the distinction of being the first regular physician to practice medicine in Jefferson County, Illinois. About 1803 he married Frances Pace. In 1811 he moved his family to Bourbon County, Kentucky, subsequently to Pendleton County that state, and in 1821 made the journey overland to Jefferson County, Illinois. In a two-horse wagon besides his wife and children, he carried all his earthly possessions. It was a typical pioneer expedition, through a country of heavy woods, filled with wild animals, and it required stout hearts to settle in such a new country as Jefferson County, Illinois, was at that
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time. Doctor Watson lived for a year on a farm at what is known as Mulberry Hill, and then changed his residence to a farm on the Van- dalia highway, a mile and a half from Mount Vernon. For many years he divided his time between farming and the practice of medicine, his services in a professional capacity being in great demand, especially until other physicians came into the county. Frequently he would ride horseback for fifty or perhaps a hundred miles from his home. Dr. Watson died June 3, 1845. He was of Welsh ancestry.
His son John H. Watson, was born in Virginia, in 1805. He was six years of age when taken to Kentucky, and sixteen when the family arrived in Jefferson county, Illinois. He had only such advantages as could be acquired in the subscription schools, in the early part of the nineteenth century. None the less he became a successful business man and highly influential citizen. His brother Joel F. Watson was at one time the wealthiest man in Jefferson County, Illinois. John H. Watson, in 1827, married Miss Elizabeth Rankin. For several years he worked as a carpenter and in time built up an extensive business as a contractor and builder. For twenty-four consecutive years he served as a justice of the peace and for one term as county treasurer of Jefferson county. He was a charter member and for many years a diligent and generous member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Mount Vernon. Politically he was a democrat, as was his father before him, and for many years was a leader in the party in his county. He died September 26, 1860, and was buried under Masonic auspices. His wife, Miss Ran- kin, was a native of Tennessee, and her family were also pioneers in Southern Illinois.
One of her nine children was Samuel H. Watson, who was born at the home of his parents at Mount Vernon, Illinois, November 5, 1838. He attended the local schools there and at the early age of seven united with the Methodist church, and has been a faithful member of that church for seventy-three years. When he was ten years of age he went to St. Louis, and had a thorough business training as clerk until his eighteenth year. From that time until 1860 he clerked with a business house at Tamaroa, Illinois, and then returned to Mount Vernon and was connected with a mercantile firm until the outbreak of the Civil war. He was one of the first young men of Jefferson county to volunteer his services to the government and in the summer of 1861 he became a private in Company G of the 40th Illinois Infantry. He was promoted to quar- termaster sergeant, and on April 1, 1862, was made second lieutenant, the following year was promoted to first lieutenant, and in January, 1863, was detailed to act as aide on the staff of his commanding general. March 5, 1864, for meritorious conduct he was promoted to captain of his com- pany. His duties during the latter part of the war were as brigade inspector. Captain Watson's record as a soldier was such as his descend- ants may properly cherish. He was with his command through all its varied campaigns, participating in the battle of Shiloh, siege and capture of Vicksburg, siege of Knoxville, battles of Missionary Ridge, Jackson, Mississippi, and the Atlanta campaign and march to the sea under Sherman.
Following the war Captain Watson was in the drug business for a short time at Mount Vernon. For about a year and a half he conducted a clothing store. Leaving his native city he was in business for eleven years at Ashley, Washington County, Illinois, where he built up a large business dealing in livestock, handling agricultural implements and machinery and also as a coal mine operator in that noted coal region
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of southern Illinois. Selling out his interests at Ashley in 1879 he returned to Mount Vernon and established an implement store, which in forty years has progressed until it is one of the largest enterprises of its kind in Southern Illinois. The business for many years has been both wholesale and retail and also manufacturing. Captain Watson in time turned over the chief duties of management to his sons Fred P. and Harry W., and the title of the establishment today is the Fred P. Watson Company.
Captain Watson paid his first visit to Los Angeles in 1888. He set- tled here permanently in 1906, and from the first has made careful and judicious investment in real estate. Handling chiefly his own property, he and his son have done a large business in buying and selling and in placing loans and investments.
In March, 1909, Captain Watson bought the controlling interest in The Hollywood Cemetery Association and is president of that magni- ficent beauty spot, many of its most beautiful features having been planned and carried out under Captain Watson's administration. Cap- tain Watson is also president of the Ojai Valley Oil Petroleum Com- pany. He is a member of Stanton Post of the Grand Army at Los Angeles and is a Knight Templar Mason. He is one of the members of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Los Angeles, belongs to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles Realty Board, and is secretary and treasurer of the Cedar Grannis & Mining Company of Arizona.
His choice of political affiliation was a departure from that of his ancestry. He began voting as a republican, and for many years was a party leader in Jefferson County, Illinois. Without solicitation on his part he was put on the ticket as a candidate for representative, and was elected by a large majority in a democratic district, carrying that county, strongly democratic, by an overwhelming vote. He was also a member of the State Republican Committee as long as he would consent to serve. In 1891 he was chosen mayor of Mount Vernon. His administration was conspicuous for inaugurating a plan of improving the streets with granitoid sidewalks and brick paving, and from his administration dates the ascendancy of Mount Vernon as one of the best paved cities in south- ern Illinois. He encountered a tremendous opposition on the part of many conservative citizens when he paved the public square with brick, but the opposition of these former years long since changed to gratitude. For two terms Captain Watson was postmaster of Mount Vernon, and during his terms was inaugurated the system of city free delivery and the delivery of mail on various rural routes radiating from Mount Vernon. Captain Watson also lent his influence and personal capital to the establishment of several distinctive industries at Mount Vernon, including the canning and knitting factories, also the Loan and Savings Bank.
October 1, 1860, Captain Watson married Miss Anna Goetschius, a native of Massachusetts, daughter of Isaac D. and Elizabeth Goetschius. both natives of New York State. Captain and Mrs. Watson had two sons, Fred P. and Harry W. Mrs. Watson died December 23, 1911, and was laid to rest in the beautiful Hollywood Cemetery. On Decem- ber 23, 1913. Captain Watson married Mrs. Josephine B. Green, of Los Angeles. His home is at 357 South Alvarado Street.
HARRY WALCUTT WATSON, vice president and secretary of The Hollywood Cemetery Association, is also associated with his father, Cap- tain S. H. Watson, whose career is described above in the real estate and
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investment business, and is an official and director in several well known business organizations.
He was born at Ashley, Illinois, December 16, 1867, and graduated from the high school of his father's home town, Mount Vernon, Illinois. He took his college work in the University of Illinois at Champaign. Mr. Watson first came to Los Angeles in 1899, and for six months was a salesman for J. T. Sheward. After that he was teller in the Uni- versity Bank at Los Angeles until 1893, and then returned to Mount Vernon, Illinois, where he and his brother Fred P. engaged in the wholesale and retail piano business, under the firm name of Watson Brothers. Mr. Watson continued a member of this prominent firm for about eighteen years. In 1911 he returned to Los Angeles and took the active management of The Hollywood Cemetery Association. He is also one of its stockholders and its vice president and secretary, and gives much of his time to the affairs of the association.
He is also a director in the Continental National Bank of the Ojai Valley Petroleum Company, the Commonwealth Home Building and the Dragon Mining and Development Company. Mr. Watson is a republi- can, a Shriner, is an officer in Los Angeles Commandery No. 9 of the Knights Templar, a member of the Elks Lodge at Mount Vernon, Illi- nois, and is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias, Sons of the American Revolution, Sons of Veterans, Los Angeles Athletic Club, Chamber of Commerce, Automobile Club of Southern California, Los Angeles Realty Board, and the Fire Underwriters Board of Los Angeles. He is a member of the West Adams Street Methodist Episcopal church.
At Los Angeles, December 23, 1899, Mr. Watson married Helen Widney, daughter of Judge and Mrs. R. M. Widney. Judge Widney has long been a distinguished figure in the life and affairs of Southern California and Los Angeles. He laid out the city of Long Beach, built the railroad to that town and drafted the charter for the city. He also erected the first house in Santa Monica. He is a prominent jurist and has long been a factor in public and charitable institutions in his section of the state. Mr. and Mrs. Watson have two children: Harold G., born at Mount Vernon, Illinois, who married Dorothy Emmerson; and Widney Watson, born at Los Angeles, who married Forest Hill Bower.
HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY. Apart from the strong claims and peculiar interest it makes upon its patrons, Hollywood Cemetery, with its won- derful landscape effect, the fruition of the plans of one of the ablest landscape engineers in the United States, Mr. Earnshaw of Cincinnati, is a spot of remarkable beauty, probably not excelled by any burial park in the West.
The Hollywood Cemetery Association is a corporation organized under the California laws July 17, 1899, with capital stock of two hun- dred thousand dollars. All the original bonds issued in 1899 were paid twenty years later, and the association has no indebtedness. The organ- izers were F. W. Samuelson, Homer Laughlin, W. F. Bottsford, I. N. Van Nuys, H. C. Brown, N. M. Entler and John Freeman. The pres- ent stockholders are S. H. Watson, president, Harry W. Watson, vice president and secretary, J. W. Willcox, Basil H. DeJersey and Miss Ann Andrews, daughter of the late Josias J. Andrews.
This association planned and has perfected the first modern park plan cemetery in the Los Angeles district. Elaborate provisions and safeguards have been carried out, so that the interests and desires of individual patrons might in no wise interfere with the wise and well
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considered scheme for maintaining beauty, dignity and charm of the cemetery as a whole. Thus while the grounds have become a most appropriate and tasteful home for the dead, their exterior features reveal few of the conventional characteristics of old time cemeteries, and impress the beholder more than anything else as a beautiful memorial park. In all the buildings the Mission style of architecture has been adhered to, and all construction material is California granite. At one of the entrances is a beautiful chapel; with pipe organ, and in the tower above has been installed a set of the Vanduzen chimes by the Eliza A. Otis Memorial Association. Other features of the cemetery administration provide for non-sectarian interment, permanency of the grounds under an unlimited charter from the state, and perpetual care for all the lots, due to a provision whereby approximately a third of the cost of each lot is set aside in a trust fund for care and improvement. This trust fund now aggregates $125,000. Besides the art of landscape gardening, shown in the beautiful driveways, trees and shrubs, there are many interesting memorials, including the magnificent Otis shaft, one of the most conspicuous features of the grounds from a distance, and also the Times Memorial Monument to those who lost their lives in the wrecking of the Times Building.
The list of lot owners in Hollywood Cemetery include many of the most prominent and best known people of California, to mention only a few, Arthur Letts, W. A. Clark, Jr., J. Ross Clark, Thomas E. Gibbon, Edwin T. Earl, the late Harris Gray Otis, G. J. Griffith, Dr. Henderson Hayward, L. W. Blinn, W. A. Barker, Rt. Rev. Joseph J. Johnson, Willis H. Booth, Dr. W. Jarvis Barlow, L. Behymer.
LYMAN FRANK BAUM. Although the career of a literary or pro- fessional man seldom exhibits any of those striking incidents that seize upon public feelings and fix attention upon himself, the late LYMAN FRANK BAUM proved an exception to the rule. From maturity until his death his career was one of laborious yet enjoyable and contented literary effort, and the high distinction which he attained was evidence that he possessed genius of an extraordinary quality. There never has been an author of juvenile stories who attained wider popularity among children . or who found his way into the hearts and affections of readers of all ages, as did Mr. Baum. For, although his work was almost exclusively dedicated to children, there were many of more mature years among his readers who found keen enjoyment in his delightful whimsicalities, which enabled them to live over again their own happy childhood, while follow- ing the adventures of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and his many mythical, amusing and entertaining associates.
L. FRANK BAUM was born at Chittenango, New York, May 15, 1856, a son of Benjamin Ward and Cynthia (Stanton) Baum. His father, one of the earliest oil men, owned rich possessions in the Pennsylvania fields, and both John D. Rockefeller and John Archbold were at one time in his employ. Mr. Baum received an academic education at Syracuse, New York, which was later supplemented by instruction from a private English tutor.
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