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 25
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leanor Miller Cleanor
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1918. It was a period of great growth and prosperity. The parish church was improved and redecorated, a rectory built, and in 1918 a parochial school was established by purchase of the Academy of the Holy Names. Under his pastorate a new parish, St. Elizabeth's, was erected in the northeastern part of the city. Father Quinlan was long a member of the Diocesan Examiners, the Examinatores Cleri, and the Diocesan School Board, and in June, 1918, was appointed a Diocesan Consultor. His last work was done in behalf of the raising of funds for the Knights of Columbus war work. Father Quinlan is survived by his mother and two brothers and a sister in Ireland, and one sister, Sister Mary Regina, at Los Angeles.
As successor to Father Quinlan St. Andrew's church received one of the best known Catholic clergymen in California. Rev. John M. McCarthy was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he finished his classical course in 1884, studied theology in All Hallows College in Ire- land, and pursued his philosophical studies in the College of the Propa- ganda at Rome. He was ordained June 24, 1890, and on October 20th of the same year was appointed to his first mission in the Old Plaza Church, Los Angeles. August 16, 1893, Bishop Mora appointed him rector of St. Francis de Sales' Church at Riverside, where he labored successfully five years. In October, 1898, he took up his duties in St. John's Church at Fresno, and rounded out a period of twenty years in that parish. During that time St. John's became one of the most im- portant parishes in the diocese.
In January, 1906, Father McCarthy was made a Diocesan Con- sultor, and in November of the same year was appointed Private Cham- berlain to His Holiness, the late Pope Pius X, with the title of Very Reverend Monsignor. Then in June, 1909, he was made a Domestic Prelate with the title Right Reverend Monsignor. Father McCarthy celebrated his silver jubilee in 1905. In June, 1918, he was reappointed Diocesan Consultor.
ELEANOR MILLER is founder and head of The Eleanor Miller School of Expression and Music, an institution that has proved its right to exist, grow and flourish, and in seventeen years has contributed its share to the enrichment of many communities where its former pupils have gone.
The school has had its home in Pasadena for the past nine years, and was originally founded in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was opened in that city September 15, 1903, occupying two small rooms on the fifth floor of a public building in St. Paul. There was vitality and ability both in the school and its founder, and its following increased until in March, 1907, the school moved to a three-story stone building of its own with ample grounds at St. Paul. Miss Miller is the daughter of a California forty-niner, and probably on that account she was attracted to the Pacific Coast and determined to re-establish her school in the beautiful city of Pasadena. The present building is located at 251 Oakland avenue.
While primarily a school of expression the Eleanor Miller School has grown and expanded until it now offers many courses in the fine arts, including music, and in the different years the school has had some of the foremost teachers and lecturers in the field of literature and belles lettres. In Pasadena the school has become an institution, where literary culture seems to centralize,
Miss Miller is a native of Illinois. Her father traveled from the Middle West overland by ox team and wagon to Sacramento in 1849,
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and had varied experience in the West as a prospector. He often told his daughter many glowing tales of the gold in the earth and the gold in the sky of California, and it was the haunting memory of those stories which constituted at least one influence to bring her west.
Miss Miller is a graduate of the Columbia College of Expression. She taught in the public and normal schools of Illinois, and in Lincoln University. Later she had charge of the Department of Expression in Pillsbury Academy and in Hamline University, and also taught dramatic work in Minnesota State University.
Miss Miller has done much lyceum and chautauqua work all over the country, and has given entertainments in practically every state. Each year in Pasadena she prepares and delivers a series of lecture recitals on Browning and Shakespeare and the modern drama. Six . years ago, recognizing the need of an organization for musical people in Pasadena, she took the initiative in organizing the Fine Arts Club, and this club has held its regular meetings in the Miller School. She also organized a branch of the Dickens Fellowship which meets with her each month. The Young Women's Christian Association of St. Paul was founded in her school, and that institution is now flourishing and has a splendid building of its own. At the present writing Miss Miller is engaged in forming a society known as "The League of the Golden Word," which she originated for the purpose of promoting inter- est in the spoken and written word and intelligent expression in all lit- erary forms. She is responsible for some wonderful pageants held in California, one being under the auspices of the Shakespeare Club and involving the talent and services of a thousand people. She also super- vised a pageant held in the Yosemite at Camp Currie, and some years ago organized and presented a pageant in the auditorium of St. Paul, which probably represented the high watermark of an artistic entertain- ment in that city.
In addition to her educational and social work Miss Miller is active in church life. Each Sunday she teaches a class of adult students num- bering four and five hundred, in the First Methodist Episcopal church of Pasadena.
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CHAMP SHEPHERD VANCE has been a resident of California since 1885, and has given his years to mercantile enterprise and especially to engineering and the management of large public utility corporations. He recently became second vice president of the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation.
Mr. Vance was born at Abingdon, Virginia, July 10, 1864, and rep- resents an old Virginia family. His parents were Captain James and Anna Eliza (Castleman) Vance. Though his early life was spent in the years following the Civil war, when the South was prostrate in indus- trial resources, Mr. Vance was given good advantages in school, attend- ing Abingdon Male Academy until 1879 and then pursuing instruction in the Cumberland College at Rose Hill, Virginia, until 1882. His first commercial work was as traveling salesman for Lee, Taylor & Snead, of Lynchburg, Virginia. He was with that firm until 1884 and the following year on coming to California identified himself with an entirely new profession. For about a year he was employed as a chain man with the United States Engineering Corps under Major George B. Pickett. These engineers were at the time retracing the old Spanish grants and investigating the Benson land frauds. In 1886 Mr. Vance was promoted to assistant engineer under Major Bickett, with whom he remained until 1888.
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In that year removing to Los Angeles Mr. Vance engaged in the retail grocery business under the firm name of Bethune & Company. Later he was member of the firm Edwards & Vance and of Bowen, Edwards & Vance. In 1894 he sold his interests in this firm and accepted and held until 1897 the post of United States Internal Revenue Collec- tor of the port of Los Angeles.
For twenty years Mr. Vance has been one of the men responsibly identified with the great corporation which has been krown since June 22, 1899, as the Los Angeles Gas & Electric Corporation. When he first went to work as solicitor for this enterprise it was the Los Angeles Lighting Company. From solicitor · he was promoted to manager of operations, subsequently to third vice president of the company, and on August 1, 1917, was elected second vice president.
Mr. Vance is widely known in engineering circles. He is a mem- ber of the American Gas Institute, the Pacific Coast Gas Association, the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, the Illuminating Engi- neering Society. He served three years in the National Guard of California, having an honorable discharge dated in 1893. Mr. Vance is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, the Automobile Club of Southern California, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and is a member of the Episcopal Church. He was one of the organizers and for many years treasurer of West Lake Lodge F. and A. M., and has attained the thirty-third supreme honorary degree in the Scottish Rite Masonry and is also affiliated with the K. C. C. H.
November 27, 1895, at Los Angeles, he married Miss Clementine Blanche Conradi. They have two children, S. Conradi and Adele. The son, now twenty-one years of age, was educated in the grammar and high schools of Los Angeles, at Occidental College and is now con- nected with the Davis Bournville Acetylene Welding Company. The daughter attended the Westlake School for Girls at Los Angeles and the Miss Hamlin School for Girls at San Francisco.
FRANK D. TATUM, who came to Los Angeles when a boy, was for- merly in the lumber industry, but since establishing the Frank D. Tatum Company has made this one of the leading firms in handling general real estate, with an increasing emphasis upon business property.
Mr. Tatum was born in St. Louis, Missouri, November 1, 1885. His father, the late Joseph Tatum, who was born in St. Louis, in 1837, had a distinguished career as a lawyer. He graduated from Yale University with the class of 1859, and soon afterward entered the work of his profession at St. Louis. During the Civil war he served as lieutenant in a company of cavalry, and was in the army until 1865. He then resumed his practice in St. Louis and for a number of years was attorney for the Anheuser-Busch interests. At one time he also served as state senator. In January, 1896, he retired from his pro- fessional work, and lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1916. He was an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic. At St. Louis he married Adell L. Lynch, of an old and prominent St. Louis family.
Frank D. Tatum was eleven years old when his parents came to Los Angeles. In the meantime he had attended public school in St. Louis, and continued his education in the Los Angeles grammar and high schools to the age of seventeen. After a year in the Browns- berger Business College he became a salesman for the J. E. Cook Mer- cantile Company. Following that for four years he was a salesman for
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the L. W. Blinn Lumber Company. While in the lumber business Mr. Tatum's most important experience was the year he spent in the eastern states as sales representative for the Pacific Lumber Company. His special mission was to introduce and create a demand and appreciation for the famous Redwood Lumber. His efforts opened up a wide market for that timber, and the demand has steadily grown until today there is hardly a retail lumber yard anywhere which does not carry some stock of redwood.
On returning to Los Angeles, Mr. Tatum founded the Frank D. Tatum Company, to handle general real estate, and in this line he has been particularly successful. He is a member of the Annandale Country Club, the Los Angeles Athletic Club, is a republican in politics and a member of the Catholic Church.
November 14, 1910, at San Francisco, he married Terese Murphy. They have three children, Donn, born in 1912, Natalie, born in 1914, and Warde, born in 1915. The oldest is a student in St. Brendan's parochial school.
GEORGE SIMPSON SAFFORD was born in Perry, Wyoming County, New York, in 1854. He had read some of the fascinating writings of John Muir, and they had made a deep impression on his youthful mind. Hence, shortly after his mother's death, when he was seventeen years old, his most obvious thought was of the great West.
Los Angeles, which proved to be his goal, was then a thrifty town of about five thousand people, half American, half Mexican, with the atmosphere not so much of a frontier settlement as a foreign city. There was no rail connection with the world of activities beyond, only a railroad of about twenty miles to Wilmington, and the principal means of transit was by coastwise steamers between Wilmington and San Francisco, one trip a week.
In this primitive but congenial and promising community, young Safford cast his lines. He was of pleasant address and ready observa- tion and endowed with ambition, industry and correct standards.
I formed his acquaintance in the spring of 1874, having recently arrived in Los Angeles on the same quest as himself. From that time until his death-a period of more than forty-four years-the bond of confidence and friendship established between us never suffered a flaw. On a basis similarly ideal and enduring there was soon formed a little coterie of young fellows engaged in the struggle for the main chance, whose temperaments made them congenial. This group included, be- side George and myself, Andrew M. Lawrence, Fred W. Wood and Frank A. Gibson. Cicero in his "De Amicitia" says that the friendships of youth seldom extend into mature life, "for either personal interests or the matter of taking a wife come in to work a separation." It was not so with us. As the wives came along, they were adopted as sisters, and there were double the number to rejoice with us in our success and to sympathize with us in our adversities and sorrows.
Alas, the original five are all gone now over the Great Divide, all but the one who writes these lines.
Mr. Safford was successively bookkeeper and cashier on the Los Angeles Morning Herald, secretary to Dr. T. O. Stanway, then the leading physician of Los Angeles, and then bookkeeper and cashier of the Santa Anita Ranch, for E. J. Baldwin, for several years. It was at this time, in 1879, he married Miss Emma O'Melveny, daughter of Judge H. K. S. O'Melveny. The wedding was in the old homstead on the corner
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Geo. S. Safford.
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of Second and Broadway (then known as Fort Street). A little over a year later the Safford family was rejoicing over the birth of a son.
My friend's next employment, as I recall it, was as agent for the Southern Pacific Railroad at Pantano, Arizona, a position which he held for four or five years. His wife's brother, Edward O'Melveny, was agent at Benson, twenty miles to the eastward. The two families decided to return to Los Angeles in 1884. During their sojourn in the wilder- ness they had both saved a little capital and with it they purchased a trucking business. Their experience as railway agents, had well equipped them for this line of work and they proceeded to organize the California Truck Company, and place it on a basis commensurate with the rapidly growing requirements of the city. Subsequently, E. H. Sanderson, a cousin by marriage, was taken into the company, and later Mr. O'Melveny sold his interest. Mr. Safford was chosen president of the corporation and remained so till the time of his death. The business grew rapidly, and has long been regarded as one of the most substantial in the city. It is now carried on by H. B. Safford and Rowe Sanderson, sons of the founders.
Shortly after the return of the family from Arizona occured the the birth of their daughter Helen, now Mrs. A. M. Bonsall. In 1897 Mr. Safford suffered bereavement in the death of his wife.
As a young man George Safford was observant and thoughtful, but not talkative. This characteristic was dominant with him through life. He had an alert eye for opportunities, a firm decision in grasping them and great persistence in carrying them to fruition. He was not satisfied merely to preside over a large and exacting business, but he reached out to other fields and became a real estate, oil and mining operator on a considerable scale.
He was among the first to develop the Wilshire district, holding a large interest in the Wilshire Harvard Heights tract comprising eighty acres which he bought in company with E. A. Forrester & Sons. The same syndicate later bought the Joughins ranch, of over three hundred acres south of the city which was sub-divided under the name of Angeles Mesa. Then a syndicate purchased the holdings of H. E. Huntington in the San Fernando Valley and are disposing of them under the title of the Mission Lands Company.
Although this brief summary of the career of my lifelong friend is mainly of business details, for his was a busy, practical life, there was room in it for the most steadfast friendships, the highest ideals of char- acter, the greatest devotion to those he loved, and kindliness and charity toward his fellow man.
In 1900, Mr. Safford married Miss Mae Campbell, daughter of the late J. D. Campbell.
In summing up the character of my friend, I would say that he was a man of remarkable poise. He was reserved, averse to display of any sort, and when he spoke his language was forceful and to the point. Only those who knew him intimately could tell how deep and broad a current of consideration and sympathy flowed beneath the calm surface.
He was self educated in the hard school of practical affairs, but he was well informed on all matters of public interest, and held liberal and advanced views in politics, religion and social affairs.
A citizen of Los Angeles through its years of phenomenal develop- ment, he made his way to the front ranks among its promoters and devel- opers, and left a lasting impress upon the community. He might have said in the words of Caesar, "all of which I saw, and a part of which I was."
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His fondness for nature went with him all through life. He knew and loved the mountains and streams of California and his recreation was invariably an extended trip on a trout fishing excursion. His friends all knew that if the conversation lagged, they could always stir up a lively interest by mentioning trout.
George Simpson Safford died June 11, 1918, after a brief illness. Thus he passed in the midst of an active and useful career, and left an ache in the hearts of all who loved him .- WILLIAM A. SPALDING.
C. I. D. MOORE is secretary and assistant superintendent of agencies of the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company. Mr. Moore began sell- ing insurance in 1902. He loves his profession, loves flowers, writes poetry, and is an unfailing contributor to the morale and efficiency of the great organization which he serves as an official, and a splendid example of the balanced adjustment which a few rare men can make between devotion to their business and to the human and personal interests of life.
Mr. Moore was born at Islington, near the city of Toronto, On- tario, February 16, 1865, son of James and Jacobina (Campbell) Moore. Among his close friends he has expressed a great debt to the early years he spent on a farm, not only because he developed a lasting love of na- ture, but acquired a discipline in work that requires close co-ordination of head, heart and hand. He attended the high school at Weston, Onta- rio, and spent his college career in Victoria University at Toronto, where he was graduated A. B., in 1888. He won the Prince of Wales gold medal for general proficiency covering the four years of his college course, the highest honor in the gift of the University at that time.
As a Californian Mr. Moore was first known as a teacher and educator. After graduation he received an appointment to teach in a mission college for boys at Tokio, Japan, and spent three years in the Far East. He returned to America in 1891 and for ten years was engaged in school work at Santa Monica, teaching in the high school and for several years being supervisor of all the Santa Monica schools.
Eventually he came face to face with a problem which nearly every educator must solve, presenting the alternative of remaining in the work he had first chosen at a tremendous sacrifice in financial and other rewards, or seeking some field better suited to furnish an adequate remuneration for his talents and efforts. He determined upon life insurance, and early in 1902, in the words of an article published in The Eastern Underwriter in October, 1918, "was in possession of a rate book selling life insurance for the Conservative Life of Los Angeles. He continued with that work and did not regret the change, as he more than doubled his income as a school man from the very beginning of his insurance career. For about four years he remained in the selling end, and after the consolidation of the Conservative Life with the Pacific Mutual in 1906 he was appointed assistant secretary of the latter com- pany, and the next year became its secretary, a position he has held ever since."
Quite recently Mr. Moore was given the additional title of assist- ant superintendent of agencies. He is also editor of the Pacific Mutual News. Quoting from an article in the Financial Insurance News of Los Angeles, Mr. Moore "is above all a most able life insurance man, and wrapped up in the company of which he is the secretary. If you should go to him and ask his advice upon some broad life insurance question he would probably tell you that there were others in the Pacific Mutual
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far better advised on the subject than himself; but only the men with whom he is associated closely know the real ability of the man, and to what an extent he has contributed in moulding the policies and influ- ence of this great and growing institution."
Mr. Moore served as chairman of the Los Angeles committee for raising the city's quota of over a hundred million dollars for extension work of the Methodist Church. He is an active member of the West Adams Methodist Church. He is a member of the California Club and a trustee of the University of Southern California. Mr. Moore has had a thorough literary training, expresses himself exceptionally well either as a speaker or writer, and some of his verse has received commendation.
He enjoys a happy home life. He married in 1892 Emily Maud Cochran. They have two sons and a daughter, the latter, Katherine, being a grammar school girl. Both sons were in the service of their government in the world war. Douglas E. C. was discharged from the United States Navy with the rank of ensign, and is now studying law. Rutherford D. served with the U. S. Marines and after his discharge resumed his work at Leland Stanford University.
HERMAN W. HELLMAN. It would be difficult to conceive of more emphatic . claims to the position of a pioneer in the upbuilding and advancement of Los Angeles business and finance than those presented by the career of the late Herman W. Hellman, who for a number of years was rated as the leading banker and one of the wealthiest men in Southern California.
He did not come to Los Angeles as a man of wealth and business influence, but grew up with the city from its pioneer days and from the humble role of a freight clerk made himself a power as a merchant, banker and man of affairs.
Herman W. Hellman was born in Bavaria, Germany, September 25, 1843, and was sixty-three years of age at the time of his death, October 19, 1906. He attended the common schools of Germany to the age of fifteen. Thus early he ventured to the new world, emigrating to Los Angeles, and in June, 1859, went to work as freight clerk in a forwarding and warehouse business at Wilmington, then a town adja- cent to Los Angeles. This business was conducted by General Phineas Banning, a well known figure among the pioneer characters of Los Angeles. By hard work he acquired sufficient means to enable him to return to Los Angeles, where with a cousin he established two station- ery stores. There was vitality in the business, which grew and pros- pered, but after several years he withdrew from the company to take up work on his own responsibility.
In 1870 Mr. Hellman sold his interests, and the following year was spent in Europe, visiting his childhood home. In November, 1871, after his return, he entered into a partnership with Jacob Haas, an old school- mate. Out of this grew the wholesale grocery house of Hellman, Haas & Company, which for nineteen years supplied an extensive retail trade all over Southern Califórnia, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
While a merchant he became a stockholder .and interested in the management of the Farmers & Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles. In 1896 he was elected its vice president and local manager. He finally retired altogether from Hellman, Haas & Company, and thereafter his name was most prominently associated with banking. A conspicuous service he rendered as a banker was during the financial panic of 1893. As a result of this panic disaster had come to many monetary institu-
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tions throughout the United States. The security with which the Farm- ers & Merchants National Bank of Los Angeles stood out among others whose doors were closed either temporarily or permanently, together with the long era of prosperity which followed that crisis, was largely due to the conservative and sagacious judgment of Mr. Hellman. Mr. Hellman resigned as vice president of the Farmers & Merchants National Bank in May, 1903, and entered the Merchants National Bank, becom- ing president of that institution and filled that office until his death. He was identified with many other financial concerns, and was a director in twelve banks in Southern California.
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