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 24
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MILTON LINDLEY, now deceased, merchant and banker of Los An- geles, California, was born in Guilford County, North Carolina, in 1820, the son of David and Mary (Hadley) Lindley. He married Mary A. Banta at Belleville, Indiana, in 1849, and to them were born nine chil- dren, of whom five are now living. They are Walter, a physician of Los Angeles; Hervey, a capitalist of Seattle, Washington; Albert, a farmer of Stockton, California; Ida B., professor of Latin in the Whittier Col- lege ; and Bertha, Mrs. John E. Coffin of Whittier, California.
Mr. Lindley's paternal ancestors were Scotch and English, while on the maternal side they were Quakers, of English and Irish extraction. His father was a farmer, who moved to Indiana from North Carolina when the boy was twelve years of age, and there Mr. Lindley received his education, working on the farm until he reached his majority. He learned the harness and saddlery making business, and for six years was engaged in this vocation at Monrovia, Indiana.
In 1850 Mr. Lindley took up general merchandising at Monrovia, but after four years, on account of impaired health, he moved to Hen- dricks County, Indiana, and there went in for farming and outdoor life, returning later to the merchandise business. He remained there for
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twelve years, with the exception of a short absence, when he was sent East by capitalists of his section to study the new national banking system.
Upon his return to Indiana Mr. Lindley aided in the organization of the First National Bank of Danville, Indiana, remaining with that institution until 1866, when he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was in the real estate business there for nine years, or until 1875, when he moved to Los Angeles, having spent two winters in the latter place on account of his health.
Mr. Lindley purchased forty acres of land adjoining the western limits of the city and made his home there until 1882, when he sold the property. During his ownership he devoted the land to fruit culture, but in recent years it has been transformed into what is called Ellendale Place, one of the handsome residence sections of Los Angeles.
Early in his residence in Los Angeles County Mr. Lindley, a stanch supporter of the republican party, became a factor in politics. In 1879 he was elected county treasurer of Los Angeles County and served for three years, holding over one year on account of a change in the state constitution relative to county officers. In 1884 he was elected a member of the County Board of Supervisors, serving as chairman of the Finance Committee during the years 1885 and 1886. This was the last political position he held, but he never ceased to take an active interest in the affairs of the republican party and was one of its advisors up to within a few years of his death in 1894.
Mr. Lindley is remembered as one of the men who took a prominent part in the upbuilding ot Los Angeles, which was only a town of five thousand inhabitants when he first landed there. He was an enthusiastic believer in the future of the city and did all in his power to advance its interests. He was an extremely active operator in real estate, and was one of those pioneers who aided in making the city what it is today.
While a careful business man, he was also noted for his generosity, and gave liberally to various churches, charitable and educational enter- prises, in addition to lending a helping hand to young men in business. He was a man of great enterprise and public spirit and, besides the part he took in the actual business development of the city, figured on frequent occasions in purely civic movements, intended for the general upbuild- ing of the section.
Mr. Lindley's example has been ably followed by his sons, who today are among the leading professional and business men of the West. They are doing their share in carrying to completion the work begun by their father and other substantial men of his day.
He died in his home at Los Angeles, May 11, 1895, aged seventy- five years. His widow survived him eighteen years, quietly passing away at the family home November 3, 1913, age eighty-four years.
Mrs. Lindly was one of the founders of the first kindergarten school in Los Angeles, was very active in establishing the Los Angeles Orphans' Home, and up to within a short time of her death took a forceful, useful part in woman's work in this city.
WALTER LINDLEY, M. D., physician and surgeon of Los Angeles, is secretary and medical director of the California Hospital, one of the largest and most notable private institutions in America of this character. He was born at Monrovia, Indiana, on January 13, 1852, a son of Mil- ton and Mary Elizabeth (Banta) Lindley. Milton Lindley, one of the pioneers of Los Angeles, was not only a very active real estate operator
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of the city and one of its most effective developers, but also county treasurer, and member of the board of supervisors. Few men of the formative period of Los Angeles accomplished as much constructive work as Milton Lindley, and his name is held in grateful remembrance by the elder generation.
Doctor Walter Lindley, an honored son of an honored father, comes of the best type of American stock. On his mother's side his ancestors fought in the Revolutionary, Indian, Mexican and Civil wars, four of his mother's brothers being United States officers in the latter. After being graduated from the Minneapolis High School, Walter Lindley attended Keen's School of Anatomy, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, leaving the latter in 1875, after receiving his degree of medicine, following which he went to Los Angeles to practice medicine, and since that time has been one of the greatest factors in the modernizing of that city.
As health officer of Los Angeles, member of the board of educa- tion and superintendent of the County Hospital of Los Angeles in the days when the city was emerging from the condition of a Mexican pueblo, Doctor Lindley did much for the future of the place.
Doctor Lindley was one of the founders of the Los Angeles Orph- ans' Home, the Los Angeles Humane Society, and the College of Medi- cine of the University of Southern California, the latter one of the fore- most institutions of its kind in the United States. He also founded the Whittier State School of California, a reformatory institution for the youth of both sexes, which has been of estimable penologic and educative value, and served for many years as president of its board of trustees. His greatest work, however, is the California Hospital.
The California Hospital was built by physicians and surgeons of Los Angeles in 1897, the spacious buildings being surrounded by ample grounds for the health and recreation of the patients.
Although during the great war, the hospital was short in attendants, the superintendent of the nurses at the urgent request of the govern- ment devoted more than half of her time to enlisting nurses to go over- seas. Sixty-six of the graduates of its training school for nurses enlisted and two of them became chiefs of base hospitals. Numbers of the other employes, and three-fourths of the hospital physicians volunteered and went across. The California Hospital during the war, at the request of the Red Cross, took care of a large number of members of families of absent soldiers at less than one-half of the cost to the hospital of their maintenance.
Following the founding of the hospital, Doctor Lindley organized the Training School for Nurses, the first of its kind established in Southern California. He is ex-president of the California State Board of Medical Examiners; ex-president of the State Medical Society; ex- vice president of the National Conference on Charities and Corrections ; and was appointed by President Cleveland as Pacific Coast delegate to the great International Prison Congress held in Paris in 1895. He was in 1895 given the degree of LL. D. by St. Vincent's College.
He is a director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of Los Angeles, and holds a position of solid financial integrity. As .a member of the board of directors of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and chairman of the committee on publications and statistics he has done much toward the advancement of Southern California. He is one of the directors of the Los Angeles City Library and is intensely interested in having a central library building erected. His learned and facile
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pen has found valuable employment in the Southern California Prac- titioner, a publication which he created thirty-five years ago, and which is steadfastly devoted to advancing the standard of the profession of California.
His literary works include "California of the South," :""Shakes- peare's Traducers, a Historical Sketch," "Irish Drama and Irish Dra- matists," and numerous papers and pamphlets on medical, social and climatological subjects.
Doctor Lindley is a member of the California University, Celtic, Sunset and Los Angeles Country clubs, and the Historical Society of Los Angeles.
ALBERT J. SHERER, a native of Wisconsin, has spent practically all his life in California, and since 1896 has been one of the able members of the Los Angeles bar.
He was born in Sauk City, Wisconsin, March 27, 1872, fifth among the thirteen children of Rudolph and Elizabeth (Snyder) Sherer. His father was a merchant in the east, and in 1872 settled in Ventura, Cali- fornia, and subsequently moved to Los Angeles where he died in 1899. He was a Civil war veteran, serving first with the Tenth Michigan Cavalry and afterwards in the Commissary Department. His widow is still living at Los Angeles and in California all the ten surviving children, six sons and four daughters, have their homes.
Albert J. Sherer was educated in the grammar schools of Compton and graduated from the Los Angeles High School in 1891. He is a graduate with the degree Bachelor of Philosophy from the University of California at Berkeley with the class of 1895. He studied law with Judge Curtis D. Wilbur at Los Angeles. Judge Wilbur is now a Jus- tice of the State Supreme Court. Mr. Sherer was admitted to the Cali- fornia bar in 1896 and has handled a civil practice almost exclusively. His present associate and partner is Robert Young, and they maintain offices in the Higgins Building. Mr. Sherer is also president of the Municipal Securities Company of Los Angeles.
Politically he is a republican. He is a Knight Templar Mason, a member of the various Masonic bodies at Los Angeles including the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of the Wilshire Country Club, the Automobile Club of Southern California, and the B. P. O. E. No. 99. At Los Angeles, February 22, 1899, he married Miss Alma C. Conklin, who was born in Decatur, Illinois, and educated in Los Angeles, graduat- ing from the Los Angeles high school in class of 1893. She is a daughter of Charles A. and Mary E. (Duese) Conklin. Her mother is now de- ceased. Her father is a retired resident of the city. Mr. and Mrs. Sherer have one son, Sherman A., who was born at Los Angeles and is now attending high school.
HOMER A. HANSEN, A.M., M.D. Although he distinguished him- self as a physician and surgeon during the nine years he was in practice, Dr. Hansen is best known in California for his important work in the consolidation and development of several irrigation and power projects and public utilities.
He was born in Logan, Ohio, November 2, 1872, son of John and Mary M. (McBroom) Hansen. After graduating from the Logan High School at the age of nineteen, he spent one year in traveling, largely on foot and on horseback through the Southwestern and Pacific Coast States; and then entered Rush Medical College at Chicago, graduating in medicine and surgery in 1895. After graduating in medicine, he
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practiced for nine years at Columbus, Nebraska, spending one winter during that time at the Bellevue Postgraduate Medical School and Hos- pital in New York City. In 1900 he went abroad and spent six months in Berlin as student and clinical assistant in surgery to the famous Dr. Landau, who was then surgeon to the Kaiser and his family. While there he performed many operations at the Charity Hospital, and received from Professor Landau a certificate of the highest praise for skill and efficiency.
On returning to America, he resumed his practice at Columbus, Nebraska, and remained there until he was compelled to give up his professional career on account of ill health. In the spring of 1903 the Northern Illinois College conferred the degree of A. M. upon him.
Dr. Hansen came to Los Angeles in the fall of 1903, and made his home in the big Tujunga Canyon, where he soon became strong and well again. While there he saw the possibilities for developing a water and electric power project, and associated with his brother, Charles, organized the Tujunga Company, of which he is still president and treasurer. This company purchased fourteen miles of the banks of the big Tujunga stream, beginning at a point where the stream leaves the Angeles National Forests and extending out into the San Fernando Valley. These lands have since been subdivided, and are known as Hansen Heights and Tujunga Terrace. This company under the con- trol and management of Dr. Hansen, controls the water of this stream for more than thirty-five miles, and owns ten dam and reservoir sites, lying within the boundary of the Angeles National Forests. The lands in Hansen Heights and Tujunga Terrace are supplied by water from the development of the above water supply.
Among his other activities, Dr. Hansen organized in 1905, the Searchlight Bank and Trust Company at Searchlight, Nevada, and the Lincoln County Bank at Caliente, Nevada, and was their president until he disposed of his interests in 1907.
In association with Ex-Governor Crocker of Massachusetts, and Colonel C. A. Hopkins, of Boston, Dr. Hansen organized in 1905 the Searchlight and Northern Railroad Company, of which he was presi- dent during the following two years.
Dr. Hansen is a York and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and a member of the Los Angeles City Club and the Athletic Club. He is a republican in politics.
The engagement of Dr. Hansen to Miss Marie Adeline Huber, . of Taunton, Massachusetts, has just recently been announced.
HARRY E. MOORE. While he had some preliminary banking experi- ence in Minesota, his native state, Mr. Moore for the greater part of his active career has been in the life insurance business, and for a num- ber of years has been connected with the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company of California, of which he is now assistant secretary.
He was born at St. Peter, Minnesota, July 25, 1874, son of Joseph Knight and Clara (Barton) Moore. His parents were born and edu- cated in Massachusetts. His father went overland by ox team to Cali- fornia in 1851. He returned to Massachusetts for several years and then in the early territorial period became a resident of Minnesota. He was there in the Indian days long before the building of the first rail- ways, and he and his family were several times driven from the home by Indian uprisings. In Minnesota he wa's editor and owner of several newspapers, and had the acquaintance and friendship of many of the notable men of that state.
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Harry E. Moore acquired his early education in public and private schools in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and for a time was bookkeeper and teller in a bank in the latter city. While visiting his parents in California he accepted an opening with the Conservative Life Insurance Company, and subsequently joined the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company in the San Francisco offices. Mr. Moore is a republican, a member of the California Club, Los Angeles Country Club and Athletic Club. He is very fond of all outdoor sports.
July 2, 1906, at Los Angeles, he married Bessie Eloise McCauley, daughter of J. D. McCauley. They have one daughter, Shirley Vir- ginia Moore.
FRANK R. STRONG became a modest factor in the real estate busi- ness of California nearly thirty years ago, and his interests have acquired increasing importance until today he is senior member of the firm Strong, Dickinson, McGrath Company, with offices at 1015 Marsh-Strong Build- ing in Los Angeles. Mr. Strong built the twelve-story Marsh-Strong Building at Ninth and Spring streets, and this is one of the finest office buildings on the coast.
He was born at San Diego, January 5, 1871, a son of Dr. D. W. and Mary A. Strong. He acquired a public school and business college education, and at the age of nineteen went to work for Easton, Eldridge & Company in their San Diego office. In 1891 he acquired the San Diego branch of this firm, forming a partnership with M. D. Arms under the name Strong & Arms. In 1895 he moved to Los Angeles, becoming associated with the late F. B. Wilde under the name Wilde & Strong. In 1900, upon the retirement of Mr. Wilde G. W. Dickinson became his partner, and the firm was Strong & Dickinson until a few years ago, when the present title was acquired.
Mr. Strong and his associates have been particularly successful in subdivision work. They have handled eighty or more subdivisions, and have owned and developed vast tracts of Southern California prop- erty not only city and town lands, but farms and ranches. Mr. Strong is individually the owner of two large ranches near La Mirada, twenty miles from Los Angeles, and a four hundred acre hog ranch at San Jacinto.
Mr. Strong's home comprises a beautiful estate of a hundred acres at La Canada, seventeen miles north of Los Angeles.
CHRISTIAN J. CASPER is president of the Cambria Spring Company, operating one of the large plants which are giving a new industrial character to Los Angeles as a metropolitan city.
This business was established in 1911 at 913-921 Santee Street. It has chiefly specialized in the manufacture of automobile truck and coil springs, wheels and bumpers. They also manufacture tire racks and have a special department in the plant for spring repairing. The auto- mobile industry knows the quality of the product, especially through the "Cambria Patent Spring" and the "Spring Steel" Bumper." The busi- ness has grown and prospered, and today its plant includes three build- ings, each 150x50 feet, running from Los Angeles Street to Santee Street, between Ninth and Tenth. The business has in fact doubled within two years. The plant is equipped with the most modern machin- ery, and sixty persons are on the payroll. Christian J. Casper is presi- dent and general manager; Robert W. Sheldon is vice president; Mil- lard A. Casper is secretary and treasurer, and J. N. Nordon is assistant secretary.
Christian . Casper
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Christian J. Casper is a veteran in the flour milling industry, but his extensive experience has also brought him an exceptional knowledge and skill in the general iron and steel working business. He was born in Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin, February 14, 1861, son of Mathias and Gertrude Casper. His father was also a flour miller. Up to the age of fourteen Christian J. attended public schools, and then worked steadily in his father's flour mill to the age of nineteen. He then went to Milwaukee and got a position in a large flour mill to take up the new process of milling from the Burr system to the Roller process. Satis- fied he had acquired sufficient knowledge he went back home to his father's mill to remodel same to the new system and it became one of the best known flour mills in the state. He operated same until his twenty-third year. Going out into the world he was employed in a flour mill at Dodge City, Kansas, until 1886, and during that time helped grind many of the pioneer crops of the western prairie. For two and a half years he was located at Junction City, Kansas, being identified with flour milling and also doing special work for the Allis-Chalmers Company, of Milwaukee, machinery manufacturers. Then for six and a half years Mr. Casper operated a flour mill at Chaska in Carver County, Minnesota, was in the same business two and a half years at Lake Crys- tal, Minnesota, and was then elected by the directors of Milwaukee Street Railway Joint Welding Company as superintendent of the new process of welding rail joints, in which he was very successful. After this he was chosen by the Allis-Chalmers Company, manufacturers at Milwau- kee, to take up some expert machinery operations, taking up the then new process of milling for said Allis-Chalmers Company as indirect expert under the general agent, J. F. Harrison, located at Minneapolis, at that time. Mr. Casper was sent to Melrose, Minnesota, to take charge of a large flour mill which was at that time converted into the Universal Bolting System of Milling. The change was made and the successful operation of the new process was brought about in the short period of four months. From Melrose he went to Atwater, Minnesota, starting a new mill there for the Atwater Milling Company, of which Marcus Johnson was president. Two years or more he spent there and then removed to North Branch, Minnesota, where under his own exclusive methods and management he took over for a large corporation, a flour mill which has been operated there and which was on the verge of bank- ruptcy. In six months time Mr. Casper had put the mill on a paying basis and its stock which had been actually depreciated had been restored to its normal market value.
Mr. Casper had in the meantime purchased an interest in the mill. He then selected for the company a competent general manager and then after two and a half years of successful operation he severed his connection with the company.
In 1902 he returned to Chaska, Minnesota, where he had formerly lived and purchased an interest in a large brick manufacturing plant, and continued in this business for nine years. In 1911 one of the part- ners sold out and Mr. Casper continued the business with Klein Brothers until 1913. He came to Los Angeles for a visit and pleased with the Southwest returned to Minnesota and soon after sold out his interest to Klein Brothers and came to Los Angeles and purchased one-half interest in the Cambria Spring Company.
Since 1915 Mr. Casper has been president and general manager of the company. In this industry he has been greatly assisted and has the active co-operation of his two sons Millard A. and Clarence H. Mr.
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Casper is affiliated with the Knights of Columbus, the Chamber of Commerce, and the Los Angeles Commercial Board. At Chaska, Min- nesota, May 4, 1892, he married Miss Clara Riedele. They have three sons, Millard A., born in 1893, secretary and treasurer of the company ; Clarence H., born in 1895, assistant manager; and Philip K., born in 1906, a student in the St. Agnes parochial school.
BEDFORD JAMES HOWDERSHELL has represented a number of im- portant financial and real estate interests in Southern California.
He is a railroad man by training and long experience, is a well qualified lawyer, but has given his time in California largely to repre- senting railroads and eastern capital.
He was born in Alexandria, Virginia, February 7, 1876, son of James E. and Amanda S. (Nalls) Howdershell, being one of their nine chil- dren. His father was born in Fauquier County, Virginia, in June, 1846.
Bedford J. Howdershell is a graduate of Bethel Military Academy, Virginia, and studied law under Professor S. W. Green, of Georgetown, Maryland. Later he entered the operating department of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad at Washington, D. C., and remained with that company until coming to Los Angeles in 1898, where he was engaged in repre- senting eastern railroads until 1913, becoming at that time associated with the Building Owners Company in Los Angeles as managing director. In 1915 this company erected one of the largest office buildings in the city.
Mr. Howdershell is chairman of the legislative committee of the Building Owners and Managers Association of Los Angeles, is a member of the Automobile Club of Southern California and of the Jonathan Club, is affiliated with Arlington Lodge No. 414, F. and A. M., is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason, belonging to Los Angeles Con- sistory No. 3 and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M. S. of Los An- geles. In politics he is a republican.
RT. REV. MONSIGNOR JOHN M. MCCARTHY has been one of the most efficient workers in the Catholic church of Southern California for over a quarter of a century. He has enjoyed many of the higher honors and responsibilities of the church, and for the past ten years has been a domestic prelate with the title Rt .. Rev. Monsignor.
In the fall of 1918 Father McCarthy was called from St. John's church at Fresno to become rector of St. Andrew's church at Pasadena to succeed the late Rev. William Quinlan.
Rev. William F. Quinlan, of whom a brief sketch may properly be written here, was born in County Limerick, Ireland, December 14, 1878, and after his preliminary studies entered Bruff College and took his theological course in St. Patrick's College at Thurles. He was ordained by Archbishop Fennelly June 22, 1902, and soon came to America arriv .- ing at Los Angeles in September. He was one of the assistants of the Cathedral for two years, during 1905 served as temporary rector in the churches at Bakersfield and Watsonville, and upon the establish- ment of the new parish of Our Lady of Angels at San Diego in 1906 he was named its pastor. He labored conscientiously in the upbuilding of this parish for three years, and during that time erected a handsome brick church and a school building. Soon after the death of Rev. P. F. Farrelly in September, 1909, Father Quinlan was appointed to the vacancy in St. Andrew's church at Pasadena. His labors in that parish continued uninterrupted for nine years until his death on September 23,
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