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 35
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The latter acquired his early education in the public schools of Pasadena, also attended a business college, and had his first opening in the banking profession as an office boy with the San Gabriel Valley Bank at Pasadena, then under the presidency of Mr. Frank Bolt. This bank building stood at the corner of Fair Oaks and Colorado and is well remembered for its old-fashioned stairway of twenty steps leading from the street to the main entrance.
Albert E. Edwards was for twenty years connected with the First National Bank of Pasadena. He entered it as bookkeeper in 1898, and won successive promotion until in 1916 he was chosen president. While the welfare and prosperity of this bank was his constant aim and thought for twenty years, Mr. Edwards enjoyed the position and influence of a state and even national authority on finance. He was long prominent in the California Bankers' Association, being elected a member of its executive council in 1908, and in 1910 chairman of the executive coun- cil. In 1911 he was elected vice president, and on May 24, 1912, was chosen president of the State Association. He presided at the annual Bankers' Association Convention in. 1913 at San Diego, and at that time declined the nomination as a member of the executive council of the American Bankers' Association in favor of Mr. Stoddard Jess. At the Oakland meeting of the State Association in 1914 he was again nom- inated a member of the executive council of the National Bankers' Asso- ciation, and beginning in the fall of 1914 served three years in that capacity. At the time of his death he was regarded as a logical candi- date for president of the American Bankers' Association.
One of his personal friends was Mr. George M. Reynolds, former comptroller of the currency and president of the Continental and Com- mercial National Bank of Chicago. Mr. Reynolds paid the following tribute to Mr. Edwards: "After testifying to Mr. Edwards' sterling in- tegrity, courage, broad vision and keen intelligence, I am of the opinion that his admirable consideration for others, his constancy in being fair and just with his associates and competitors, and his genial and optimis- tic nature, constituted his dominating personal characteristics. He was ambitious to a degree, patient though forceful, was extremely thoughtful and considerate of others, and with his sunny disposition had the happy faculty of making friends readily and drawing closer with increasing endearment the longer the friendship lasted."
Mr. Edwards helped organize the Annandale Golf Club, and served as its president, director and in other offices. He was a member of the
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California Club of Los Angeles and the Twilight Club of Pasadena. During the war he gave much of his time to the interests of the govern- ment, serving as fuel administrator for Pasadena. He was an enthusias- tic golfer, also an automobile enthusiast, and it was love and esteem, as well as business leadership, that made him a great force in his com- munity and state.
July 28, 1904, Mr. Edwards married Miss Hazel Hl. Wheeler at Pasadena. Her father, Rev. Albert E. Wheeler, was a prominent minis- ter and for many years served various churches of the state of Wisconsin. Mrs. Edwards' uncles all became clergymen and represented several different denominations. One brother, Nathaniel Wheeler, at the time of his death, was pastor of a church at Escondido, and his widow later became the wife of Robert J. Burdette. Another uncle, Robert Wheeler, has for twenty-five years been pastor of the First Presbyterian Church at Omaha. Mrs. Edwards acquired her early education under the per- sonal direction of her father. She inherits her cultivated literary tastes and tendencies, and is now doing some clever scenario writing. She has also made a study of scientific child training. Her two children are Marian Natalie, born in 1910, and John Wheeler Edwards, born in 1913. i
ALEXANDER MILLARD FILLMORE MCCOLLOUGHI, M. D. Many inter- ests came to know and appreciate the services of the late Dr. McCollough, not only as a practicing physician but as a very enterprising and original business man, who left his mark on many affairs of Southern California. He came to Los Angeles about a quarter of a century ago, with a wide and successful experience as a physician and business man.
Dr. McCollough was born at Malaga, Ohio, November 26, 1852, and died at Los Angeles August 19, 1909. His parents were Dr. J. G. and Margery McCollough. He early determined to follow the same profes- sion as his father. After getting his public school education he entered the Jefferson Medical College, from which he graduated in 1876, and was also graduated at Cincinnati, Ohio. For several years he practiced at Catlin, Illinois. In the early eighties he went to the boom town of Wichita, Kansas, and was one of the physicians of that city until 1888. Removing to the Northwest he retired from his profession, and at Ta- coma, Washington, organized the Union Savings Bank and Trust Com- pany and served as its president until 1892.
Dr. McCollough came to Los Angeles in 1892, and after several years of partial retirement went east in 1895, taking post-graduate work at the New York Polyclinic for six months, intending at that time to open a hospital at Los Angeles. On returning west he resumed active practice and was one of the reliable and successful physicians of Los Angeles until 1904.
In the meantime he had colonized a tract of land known as "The Bend Colony" in Tehama county, California. In 1894 in Old Mexico he spent a winter with his wife and son intending to develop a coffee plantation, but dissatisfaction among his partners caused him to re- turn to California. In 1905 he extended his capitalistic efforts to Cen- tral America, purchasing a banana plantation in Costa Rica as repre- sentative of Mr. Frederick W. Rindge. After that he was identified with a number of enterprises in Los Angeles and vicinity, including the California City Land Company, which subdivided the Jacob Rancho in Kings county. He also laid out the High School addition to Lindsay, California, and was owner of some orange groves in Riverside county. At the time of his death he was secretary of the Alvarado Oil Company.
Quy nebolbough
Vercon Cr & Collough.
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which had leases in the Midway oil field of Kern county, of which he was an organizer. He was one of the early physicians connected with the Conservative Life Insurance Company of Los Angeles and was its medical examiner. This company was later consolidated with the Pacific Mutual of California. Dr. McCollough was a Knight Templar and Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner and a member of all the leading medical societies. He was a republican and a Presbyterian.
April 24, 1879, he married Miss Emma A. McClenathan at Catlin, Illi- nois. She was the daughter of George E. and Sarah (Penn) Remley McClenathan. This was one of the old families of Northeastern Illi- nois, settling near Chicago when there were only three thousand people in that city. Dr. McCollough and wife had two children, Vernon C. and Vernita. The latter lives in Los Angeles with her widowed mother and is one of the city's well known and talented musicians.
Vernon C. McCollough in a brief lifetime compressed many activities sufficient to give his name an honored place beside that of his father. He was born at Wichita, Kansas, January 20, 1886, was educated at Los Angeles in the public schools and the Harvard Military School, attended the University of Southern California and Stanford University until 1908, and took his law work in the University of Southern California until 1910. After that he studied law with E. W. Freeman until ad- mitted to the bar in 1912.
In the meantime his father's death had forced him into the lead in various business enterprises and much of his time was taken up with practical affairs rather than law practice. He was secretary of the Cali- fornia City Land Company and thus became identified with the owner- ship and subdivision of the old Jacob Rancho of fifteen thousand acres in Kings county, which was entirely sold out to the settlers. The com- pany gave every assistance to its purchasers in their start and early struggles. The company collected all of its contracts and had not a single foreclosure. As secretary and treasurer of the Alvarado Oil Company Vernon McCollough had much to do with early develop- ment of the Taft-Midway field. The leases of this company were in- volved in the former Gypsum contest and presidential withdrawal orders, but after numerous hearings and several years in the land office at Washington patents were issued to the company for the land. The McCollough Investment Company, of which Vernon McCollough was secretary, dealt exclusively in its own property. He was also secretary of the Soffel Drug Company, vice president of the Porterville Alfalfa Farm Company, which engaged in alfalfa raising and dairying in Tulare county. Mr. McCollough was a member of the Southern California Lodge of Masons, the Phi Delta Phi college fraternity, and was a repub- lican and Presbyterian.
In 1918 he was putting his affairs in order with a view to entering Camp Riley at the time the armistice was signed. In order to do his utmost as a patriotic citizen he had also put in a large tract of three hundred twenty acres of wheat and conducted a dairy on his ranch at Porterville. He worked hard, undermining his strength, and on De- cember 11th, having returned home from the ranch exhausted with his labors he was stricken with influenza and passed away December 22, 1918.
EDWARD J. FLEMING. Of all the professions, the law perhaps re- quires the greatest amount of study along generally accepted uninterest- ing lines. The physician generally becomes absorbed in scientific in-
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vestigation at the beginning of his reading, while the minister starts out with mind illuminated and heart attune. The hard facts of law that have to be learned by themselves and learned in such a manner that they will quicken understanding into the comprehension that may later be drawn upon before judge and jury have very often discouraged a stu- dent at the outset and have resulted in his turning to a much easier vocation. Not so in the case of Edward J. Fleming, however. From the outset of his period of preparatory study, this prominent Los An- geles attorney has been continuously and profoundly interested in all that pertains to his profession, and the fact that after twenty-two years of practice he is still a close student and untiring investigator may have something to do with the marked success that has come to him.
Mr. Fleming was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 28, 1872, a son of Peter Fleming, who came to Los Angeles in 1874. Subsequently Peter Fleming had much to do with the development of Southern Cali fornia and the eastern part of Los Angeles County, and particularly in the upbuilding of Pomona and Ontario. Edward J. Fleming was but two years of age when he accompanied his parents to the Pacific Coast, and this has been his home ever since, he being essentially a product of California and its institutions. After attending public schools in South- ern California, he became a student in Pomona College, and after his graduation therefrom began the study of law with P. C. Tomser, a well- known Los Angeles attorney. He was admitted to the bar in 1897, and in that year opened an office and began the practice of his chosen calling. Two years later, in 1899, he was made city attorney of Pomona, a posi- tion in which he served from 1899 to 1902, and in 1903 became deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County, retaining that position until 1907. In the latter year and 1908 he was prosecuting attorney for the city of Los Angeles, and since 1908 has been engaged in private practice. Mr. Fleming is recognized as possessing one of the keenest minds in the legal profession of Los Angeles, is active in public affairs, and is a man of sterling qualities who is absolutely upright and honorable in all his dealings. He is greatly sought after as general counsel for large Los Angeles corporations. A successful corporation lawyer must not only be an alert and broad member of his profession, but a keen and far-seeing business man. His is pre-eminently the domain of practical law in which hard fact and solid logic, fertility of resource and vigor of professional treatment are usually relied upon, rather than ingenious theory and the graces of oratory. When to these qualities are added oratorical power, and the humor, geniality and unfailing courtesy of a gentleman, Mr. Fleming's main traits have been set forth.
Mr. Fleming was married at Los Angeles, California, April 27, 1897, to Gertrude Dennis, and they have resided in this city since 1913. Mr. Fleming holds membership in the Masons, Knights of Pythias, In- dependent Order of Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World and Knights of the Maccabees. He also has various other professional, business, civic and social connections and is an active and valued member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and the Municipal League.
MRS. KEARNIE CROSS. No history of Los Angeles, especially of its early years, is complete which fails to take account of its pioneer women. Leaving homes of comfort and refinement in the states further East, they braved the discomforts of life in a new community, animated by the devoted love of woman for the man of her heart, and full of en-
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thusiasm for rearing in the new land of the West the institutions of re- ligion, education and charity. While our minds are thrilled by the stirring narratives of the enterprise and deeds of the pioneers in trade, in manufactures, in the professions and in politics, our hearts swell with emotion at the mention of the names and the abundant works of their companions in courage and in toil.
The roll of these noble women of the early days includes the name of the late Mrs. Kearnie Cross, whose death occurred at Los Angeles March 14, 1918. Born at Columbus, Ohio, November 26, 1846, as Kearnie Happy Cope, in her childhood she was known as "Ker'nappy," accord- ing to the English custom of abbreviating names into nicknames. Her parents were John and Margaret Cope, and she was a descendant of the English families of Bull, Roe and Cope. She had five sisters : Margaret, the widow of John Cope; Lucy Christmas, deceased, who was the wife of Gerard Huiskamp, also deceased; Abbie Roe, the wife of George Thompson; Mary, the widow of Frank Richards, and Ellen, deceased. Mrs. Cope, Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Richards all reside within a few blocks of the former home of Mrs. Cross, 661 Lucas avenue, Los Angeles.
Kearnie Cope received her education in the public schools of Keo- kuk, Iowa, where she attended high school. She lost her father when she was still in her teens. At that time she learned to tailor vests, thus becoming self-supporting, and during the Civil war assisted in conduct- ing the shoe store of her brother-in-law, Gerard Huiskamp, whose clerks had joined the colors. It was while there that she was courted by a dashing young infantry officer, Captain Henson Huff Cross. He was born at Phillippi, West Virginia, March 19, 1833, at 9 a. m. "I know the time," humorously states the venerable physician, "because I was there." At five years of age he started attending the summer school, and by the fall of the same year was able to spell words of two syllables. When he was eight years old his father and neighbors built a log cabin school, so that the children could attend during the winter terms, and when he was twenty-five he moved to the county seat and there attended pay school. When the Civil war came on his sentiments were with the North, and in spite of the fact that he had two brothers with the com- mand of "Old" Moseby in the gray ranks, and a brother-in-law also fighting in the Confederate forces, he enlisted as a private in Company D, Thirtieth Iowa Volunteers. During the siege of Vicksburg, one dark night the young Southerner, fighting for the Union, gained his first sleeve stripes through a disobeyance of orders. He was detailed with eight men in charge to guard a gully and told to shoot on sight should any one enter. Instead, when some one approached, he warned his men not to fire, and hailed. The answer came out of the darkness: "For God's sake, don't shoot! It's Deane!" This saved the life of Lieutenant Deane of the Union forces. Later he received further promotions, and when he received his honorable discharge, it was with the rank of captain.
His action in joining the Union army caused Dr. Cross to be termed the "black sheep" of the family, and when he returned to his home, it was to find his cattle and property had been confiscated, thus making it necessary that he begin life anew. About his first action upon reaching Keokuk, Iowa, was to resume his courtship of Miss Cope, to whom he was married September 6, 1866, by the Rev. Doctor Westover of the Baptist Church. He secured employment in a drug store at Keo- kuk, where he began the study of medicine and surgery, and remained
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in that city until 1883, in which year he came with Mrs. Cross to Los Angeles. Here he built a home on Spring street, on the present site of the Alexandria Hotel Annex, and this land is still owned by the family, in whose possession it has been for nearly fifty years. Next he owned a drug store on Grand and Sixteenth streets, and later bought nearly four acres on Alvarado street, between Eleventh and Twelfth, where he continued in business for many years, although he is now living in retire- ment at his Lucas avenue home, which he has made his place of residence for the past eighteen years. With him lives his niece, Kearnie Nancy (Cross) Hair, who has been with him for fourteen years; her husband, Raford Hair, whom she married in 1909, and their small son, Raford Jr .; also Verna Thomas, another niece, who has been with him eight years, and her husband, Wayne Thomas, who was a sergeant in the World war and is now manager of the stock department of the Miller Rubber Com- pany, Los Angeles branch. Mr. Thomas was overseas, remaining four- teen months.
Dr. Cross' ancestry is English, and his grandfather, the emigrant to America, was twice married, having fifteen children by his first mar- riage and sixteen by his second union to a Miss Barbary of Alsace- Lorraine. He settled at Rollsberg, where the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road crosses the Cheat River, in Tucker County, West Virginia. The doctor's mother was Nancy (Cunningham) Cross.
Mrs. Kearnie Cross was a domestic woman, conscious of her fem- inine charms, not unmindful of the duties of hospitality, nor careless of the claims of social life. Yet she also felt it her duty to aid her husband, and in this connection qualified as a pharmacist, being thus able to assist him in compounding prescriptions. She was a member of the Ladies' Relief Corps of Barlett Logan Post, Grand Army of the Republic, and her life was an active if not conspicuous one. During her long residence in Los Angeles she gathered about her numerous friends, in whose memories she will always remain as a fragrant, loving presence.
CHARLES CARROLL MCCOMAS. Members of the bar in Southern California have long held in the highest respect the character, influence and high minded qualities of the late Judge C. C. McComas, who be- came identified with the Los Angeles bar more than thirty years ago. He was a brave and dutiful young officer of the Union army during the Civil war. By hard work and close attention he earned a high place in the law, and his entire life was directed to a singularly good pur- pose and high end.
Judge McComas was born on his father's farm in Jasper county. Illinois, August 10, 1846, a son of Charles Carroll McComas, who repre- sented the Virginia branch of the McComas family. Charles C. Mc- Comas moved to Decatur, Illinois, in 1861, and on the 4th of August, a few days before his sixteenth birthday, he enlisted in the 115th Regi- ment of Illinois Volunteer Infantry. He was mustered in as corporal, and after the battle of Resaca was promoted to first sergeant and later to first lieutenant. At the battle of Chickamauga he was severely wounded in the right side while serving as a color guard, with a posi- tion in the center of his regiment. On recovering from his wound after six months in the hospital he rejoined his command and remained in service until the close of the hostilities.
After the war he supported himself by engaging in business at De- catur and studied law at night. He also took a course in the law school
alice More Infomax
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of the University of Michigan. His old regimental commander Colonel Moore showed much interest in his early career and did much to enable him to get started in his profession. He finish his law studies while a confidential clerk of Hugh Crea, the ablest lawyer of Illinois at that time. He began individual practice in 1869, and in 1871 was elected State's attorney for Lincoln county. After finishing his term he re- moved with his family to Larned, Kansas, then on the frontier, and was almost immediately elected Probate Judge. On account of the destitute condition of Kansas following periods of drought and financial depression he sought a home further west. He lived at Albuquerque, New Mexico, five years, was appointed and served as prosecuting at- torney for the Second Judicial District, and was also a member of the Territorial Senate. He was author of the public school law of New Mexico territory. In order to give his children the advantages of better schools Judge McComas removed to Los Angeles in 1886.
The following year he became assistant district attorney of Los An- geles county, and he continued to fill that office for many years. He was regarded as the superior of any prosecuting attorney the county ever had, and in 1899 one of the Los Angeles papers said that he enjoyed the record of having convicted more criminals during his service as a public prosecutor than any other officer on the Pacific Coast in a like period of time.
Judge McComas earned other high honors in his profession. He had some important responsibilities in the preliminaries to the trial of the McNamara dynamiting case in Los Angeles, and the heavy work demanded of him in that connection brought on a nervous breakdown. Judge McComas died, deeply regretted and mourned, December 22, 1916, at the age of seventy-three. He was laid to rest under the anspices of the Bartlett Logan Post of the Grand Army of the Republic.
Mrs. McComas, who survived her honored husband only a few years was one of the distinguished women of California. She was born at Paris, Illinois, in 1850, and died November 28, 1919. Her home for several years was the beautiful place near San Dimas, "The Ren- dezvous," which is still retained by her children. She was the daugh- ter of General Jesse H. and Rachel (Hines) Moore. Her father was the Colonel Moore previously mentioned as having favored and assisted Judge McComas during his early professional career. Her brothers are Rear Admiral Charles B. T. Moore, a retired naval officer, and H. M. Moore, both of Decatur, Illinois; and two of her sisters are living.
Mrs. McComas was educated in St. Mary of the Woods at Terre Haute, Indiana, taking special honors in music and literary composition and being a prize winner in elocution. On November 14, 1870, at De- catur, Illinois, she gave her hand to Judge McComas, the marriage cere- mony being performed by her father. Their four daughters were Helen, Alice Beach, Clare and "Charles" Carroll. Helen died in 1891.
Mrs. McComas was the first woman in California to conduct a magazine department in a daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Express, for the discussion of woman suffrage. She was also the first Cali- fornia woman to speak at a State republican ratification meeting, that be- ing in 1894. She was chairman of the Press Committee for Southern California during the first woman's suffrage campaign. She possessed the logical habits of thought, the forcefulness and enthusiasm that made her one of the most effective public speakers of her sex. At the Woman's Congress which met in San Francisco and adjourned to Oak-
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land she was on the program of speakers with David Starr Jordan and Edward Howard Griggs. For a quarter of a century she was an earnest worker in many vital movements in her home community and affecting state and nation. She was one of the earliest workers of the Free Kin- dergarten Association; one of the organizers of the Working Woman's Club; was a lecturer on politics, individual education in the public schools, and the common sense rearing of children. She made a thor- ough investigation of the Panama Canal during its construction and lectured and wrote many articles on that subject and published a book on the women of the Canal Zone. She contributed a chapter for South- ern California to the history of suffrage edited by Ida Husted Harper of Washington, D. C., and was a frequent contributor to more than seventy newspapers on various phases of the suffrage question. She originated the "precinct" idea in woman's suffrage campaigning. She was author of a pamphlet "An Answer to a Timely Question" covering the suffrage movement. During the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 she was correspondent for three California news- papers, and was a special contributor of travel sketches to the Los Angeles Times and various magazines. She was author of a book on child life in California, "Under the Peppers." Many readers recognize her name in connection with short stories, articles on politics and eco- nomics, that have appeared in the press and periodicals from time to time. For two years she was associate editor of the Household Journal, later the Southwest of Los Angeles.
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