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 37
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Mr. Van Loan was an advocate of all outdoor life and sports and a devotee of golf, fishing, hunting and automobiling. He was a member of the Los Angeles Country Club and the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and thousands of celebrities throughout the country knew and loved "Charley" Van Loan. They, and his reading public, were greatly shocked to hear of the tragic accident which occurred when his automobile went over a cliff in the San Bernardino Mountains, July 16, 1914, when he suffered a broken jaw and a compound fracture of the left forearm, the use of the latter being lost to him. However, he recovered and again plunged into work, and some of his best writing was done during the next four years. In 1919 Mr. Van Loan accepted an appointment as associate editor of the Saturday Evening Post, and in November, 1919, went to Philadelphia to assume the duties of that position. Not long after his arrival nephritis developed, causing his death March 2, 1920. Following the news of his death, his father sent the following telegram
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to his daughter-in-law: "Our hearts suffer with yours in your great sorrow. Father." A few minutes later his own death occurred from shock.
Mr. Van Loan married a San Francisco girl, Emma C. Lenz, a daughter of Caroline Vander Leck. Mrs. Van Loan survives him, with two children, Virginia, aged thirteen, and Richard, aged eleven.
JOHN COMFORT ALLEN, who is active head of the Latin American Trade Bureau in the Chamber of Commerce Building at Los Angeles, has developed an indispensable service to that increasing group of interests now engaged in or promoting trade relations between California and the Pacific Coast and Latin American countries. The essential purpose of the bureau is the extension of American trade to the Southern re- publics, and its facilities include an expert personnel and a vast amount of classified information and foreign connections for handling all the problems, including correspondence, selling, shipping, banking, credits, collections and other matters involved in trade relations with the Latin American countries. An important auxiliary of the Trade Bureau is the publication of "The Neighbors" and the "Los Vecinos," both monthly publications, the former in English and the latter in Spanish.
In building up and directing this business, Mr. Allen possesses the benefit of a wide experience, gained by an actual residence covering twenty-six years in Mexico and other Latin-American countries. Dur- ing all those years his work and business brought him a varied and com- prehensive knowledge of transportation, commercial, financial and agri- cultural conditions in Latin-America, and covering the last four years of his residence there, that is from 1910 to 1914, he was in the consular service of the United States in Mexico. He has been established now nearly six years in Los Angeles.
Mr. Allen was born at Belfast, Allegany County, New York, at the home of his parents, Joseph Allen and Phoebe (Comfort) Allen. He has an interesting ancestry, and through his mother is a member of an American family that has been in this country for over two centuries. His paternal grandfather, Joseph S. Allen, was born in Glasgow, Scot- land, March 9, 1794. At the age of sixteen he ran away and joined the British army as a means of getting to America. After reaching Canada he deserted the British forces, crossed over into the United States, and soon afterward, his sympathies being thoroughly American, he enlisted in the American army for service in the War of 1812. He served as a private until the close, and then moved to Greenwich, Wash- ington County, New York, where he married into one of the most select aristocratic families. Many years later he went to what was then re- garded as the West, Cattaraugus County, New York.
In the maternal line Mr. Allen's great-great-great-grandfather, Rob- ert Comfort, was one of several ancestors who served in the American Colonial and later wars. Robert enlisted in 1715 in Captain Daniel Stevenson's Company at Newtown, Queens County, New York. His son Jacob, great-great-grandfather of Mr. Allen, was born in 1726 at New- town, was a volunteer of Captain Remsen's company of militia, and on April 11, 1759, at the age of thirty-three, enlisted in Captain Morse's company. The great-grandfather, Richard Comfort Sr., born in 1745, at Fishkill, Dutchess County, New York, was enrolled in the Dutchess County militia with the Second New York Regiment in 1775, at the be- ginning of the struggle for independence. He married Charity Perkins,
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and died at Deer Park, New York, in 1824. Each of these soldiers had several brothers who were also officers or enlisted men during the colonial or revolutionary period.
John Comfort Allen acquired his education in common schools, by home study, and by extensive travel and experience in Latin America and the United States. He has been affiliated with the Masonic Order since 1898, is a member of the American Lodge at Monterey, Mexico, and in 1911-12 was secretary of his lodge. In politics his views are liberal.
At San Juan Bautista, Tabasco, Mexico, March 11, 1901, he mar- ried Lillian Thornton Desmarets, daughter of Henry L. and Lillian (Thornton) Desmarets. Miss Desmarets also come from Revolutionary stock on her mother's side, and her father was a Union soldier in the Civil war and afterward became a prosperous business man in Southern Mexico. Mr. and Mrs. Allen became well known in different parts of Latin America and in Los Angeles. Their many years of married life were most beautiful, only to be separated in January, 1919, when Mrs. Allen was called away by death.
ELMER ELLSWORTH COLE has been in business in Los Angeles since 1900 as a real estate and mining broker. He came to California from the Middle West, and was born in New England, at Milan, New Hamp- shire, December 21, 1863, son of L. H. and Emily Lydia ( Phipps) Cole. As a boy he attended grammar school in Portland, Maine, an academy at Lancaster, New Hampshire, and after completing his educa- tion went to the Northwestern states and engaged in the land business. For a time he lived at Minneapolis, and spent about four years in Chi- cago. Mr. Cole came to Los Angeles in March, 1900, and has since been at the head of a prosperous real estate business.
He is a member of the Los Angeles Realty Board and the Los An- geles Chamber of Commerce, the Municipal League, California Club, City Club, Los Angeles Country Club, Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Auto- mobile Club of Southern California, and belongs to the Masonic fra- ternity. In 1892 he married Miss Laura Mayhew. He has two sons, Lloyd E. and Harold L. Cole, both Stanford University men. Lloyd saw one year of service overseas with the Ninety-first Division, was a lieutenant and participated in the battle of the Argonne Forest. Harold L. spent fifteen months with the aviation branch of the army, eight months in the flying field at Montgomery, Alabama. Both sons are now at home.
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DON MANUEL DOMINGUEZ. Of the old California of romance, under the Spanish and Mexican regimes, a conspicuous representative was the late Don Manuel Dominguez, whose surviving daughters, including Mrs. John F. Francis, still own a large portion of the magnificent domain which at one time was a royal grant to the Dominguez family.
The late Don Manuel was born in San Diego, January 26, 1803. His father, Don Cristobal Dominguez, was an officer under the Spanish government, and a brother of Juan Jose, who received from the King of Spain a concession of ten and a half leagues of land comprising the Rancho de San Pedro, in Los Angeles County. At the death of Don Juan Jose in 1822, Governor Pablo de Sola gave this rancho to Cristobal, from whom it descended to Manuel, and the latter made it his home until his deatlı.
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In 1827 Don Manuel married Dona Maria Engracie Cota, daughter of Don Guillermo Cota, a commissioner under the Mexican government. To their marriage were born eight daughters and two sons.
Many of the responsible positions of trust in the early history of Los Angeles County were held by Manu 1 Dominguez. In 1828 he was elected a member of the Ayuntamiento of Los Angeles. In 1828 he was a delegate to nominate repres. ntatives to the Mexican Congress. In 1832 he was first alcalde and judge of the First Instance for Los Angeles In 1833 he was elected territorial representative for Los Angeles County to the State Assembly at Monterey. He was one of the officials called to the Conference of Monterey in 1834 for the purpose of secularizing the Missions. In 1839 he was chosen second alcalde for Los Angeles. and in 1842 elected first alcalde and judge of the First Instance, and in 1843 served as prefect of the Second District of California. In 1849, after California had passed to the jurisdiction of the United States, he served as a delegate to the First Constitutional Convention, and in 1854 was made a supervisor of Los Angeles County. A number of high positions were offered him under the United States government, but these he in- variably refused.
A portion of his great ranch, amounting to twenty-five thousand acres, he retained until his death, which occurred October 11, 1882. In 1884 all this land, except the island and several thousand acres near the mouth of the San Gabriel River, was divided among his six daughters. This property is still owned by his descendants, and they have carefully preserved the adobe house in which Don Manuel and his good wife lived happily for fifty-five years. Mrs. Dominguez died March 16, 1883.
JOHN F. FRANCIS. In selecting men of the past whose careers were of conspicuous usefulness in the life of Los Angeles, few have a greater variety of service to their credit than that of the late John F. Francis, who died deeply mourned by hundreds of individuals and by many in- stitutions on July 4, 1903.
He was born at Clinton, Iowa. His father was a shipbuilder and at one time was employed in the great shipyards on the Clyde and Mersey Rivers, in England. He had many experiences in America, and hnally lost his life in the mines of California in 1853. John F. Francis to some extent shared in the adventurous career of his father. When a boy he started on a voyage around the world. At the age of sixteen he enlisted in the Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, under the command of Captain David L. Payne, and had some thrilling experiences in Indian warfare on the border. That was about a year or so after the close of the Civil war. He then spent several years traveling over the plains and in the moun- tains of Wyoming, Colorado and California, and travel brought him an exact and well balanced knowledge of nearly all the European countries. He finally returned to California in 1888, but the death of a friend took him back to Europe, where he remained until 1891.
In 1892 Mr. Francis married Dona Maria de Los Reyes Dominguez, youngest daughter of Don Manuel Dominguez and a granddaughter of Don Cristobal Dominguez, who was an officer in the Spanish army at the time California came into the possession of the United States. This branch of the Dominguez family receives further attention on other pages.
After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Francis spent seven months on a tour of Europe, and while there met many of the leading statesmen
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and were given a private audience by the Pope. Mr. Francis had great dignity and distinction in personal appearance and character, was gifted with much fluency as a linguist, and always had a fund of interesting anecdotes and experiences.
During his life in California his name became associated with many enterprises for the advancement of his home city. He was a director of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce, vice president of the Free Harbor League, vice president of the Associated Charities and a prominent member of the California, Sunset and Jonathan Clubs. In 1897 he was president of the La Fiesta de Los Angeles, and as such was largely instrumental in giving that great festival its successful results as a social event and as a means of advertising the wonderful attractions of Los Angeles to the world. He was a member of the executive committee of the Sound Money League that opposed the election of W. J. Bryan in 1896. He was also one of the organizers and president of the Catholic Layman's Club and president of the Newman Club.
Mrs. Francis lives in one of the magnificent homes of Los Angeles, at the corner of Ninth and Bonnie Brae. This home and its grounds, with lawns, shrubbery and driveways, has been admired by thousands of visitors to Los Angeles.
JUDGE ROBERT WALKER MCDONALD, who died suddenly at Pasa- dena December 15, 1918, was one of the most widely known and best loved citizens of Southern California. Only fifty years of age at the time of his death he had made a comparatively brief life expressive of the highest form of service to his fellow men. He attained neither riches nor those high positions which men of great ambition crave. It was the riches of his character and the work he did that distinguished him among his contemporaries and will stand as his lasting monument.
Judge McDonald was born at Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, December 13th, 1868. His father, Marshall H. McDonald was prominent in the river transportation and coal business in western Pennsylvania for many years. He began life as captain and pilot of river boats, and at one time owned a fleet of barges, owned two tow boats and was inter- ested in two others. He was also interested in various mines in the Monongahela Valley. He was a member of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the Pittsburg Coal Exchange and other leading State organi- zations. Marshall H. McDonald married Elizabeth Hayes Scott, of Scottsdale, for whose family the town was named. This branch of the Scott family was related to that of Sir Walter Scott. One of its mem- bers by marriage, Janet Strang, was niece of Robert Burns.
Robert W. McDonald acquired a high school education in Pitts- burg and at the age of twenty-one came to California and for about two years lived on a ranch in Kern county. From that time until his death a quarter of a century later he made his home in Pasadena. He prepared himself for the law in the office of Judge Waldo M. York, and was admitted to the bar in 1901. He was soon appointed assistant city attorney, a work he performed five years, and on May 8, 1906, was appointed police judge. Subsequently he was appointed Justice of the Peace and was elected as his own successor in the fall of 1906 and at every succeeding election for twelve years was chosen by an increased majority. In later years he never made a campaign, the voters return- ing him to office as a matter of course. It was in these positions as
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judge of the police court and township court that Judge McDonald did the great work that entitled him to distinction. That work is written in the hearts and reformed character of men, and only partially can be transferred to the written page. He probably was the most promin- ent township justice in Southern California and was president of the County Organization of Justices and Constables. His work for humanity was of the sort that attracted the attention of the outside world and a number of his ideas for the reformation of drunkards and criminals have been adopted elsewhere.
In the words of the Pasadena Star-News: "He was a human judge. There was nothing automatic or mechanical about his work. Every new case appearing before him was a fresh human problem and was so considered. He took a personal interest in the unfortunate. To him a common drunkard was a man who should he helped, not punished. He was unfailingly fair and just in all his decisions and did not hesitate to impose punishment where punishment was due, but in instances such as a drunkard he believed a cure rather than punishment was what was required. He originated the system whereby the city of Pasadena made it possible for drunkards to take the cure in a private institution, with the understanding that they were expected to consider the money paid out in their behalf as a loan and were to repay it. Almost without excep- tion they have repaid it.
"Judge McDonald was a man of high ideals and splendid char- acter. The finer things of life appealed to him. He had a strong sense of what was fair and right, and of the decencies of life. His considera- tion for others was often remarked upon. He knew there was some good in everybody, and unfailingly found that good and fostered it. His personal interest in the cases of unfortunates who appeared before him brought many a man and woman back to a basis of decent, substantial citizenship after they had reached a stage where they were beyond the sympathy or compassion of the average individual.
"The judge was a friendly adviser and counsellor to the whole community and this fact was so generally recognized that he was called upon to do more work outside the court, without financial reward, than he was in the court. He liked to straighten out family and neighbor- hood tangles in such a way that they would not be brought into court, and his quiet work, friendly interest, good humor, patience and good advice brought happiness back to many families that had lost it. He had a great fondness for children and was much interested in juvenile work. At the same time, he held that there was danger of carrying the probation idea too far, and, while he frequently extended probation, he invariably saw to it that the conditions under which it was granted were lived up to.
Probably there has been no death in Los Angeles county in recent years which has so moved men of all classes to sincere grief as that which suddenly took away the life of this kindly and disinterested judge and humanitarian. Tributes to his impressive character and service came from every side, and while many of them were similar in language, all of them were marked by spontaneous feeling, in itself a fact of the highest significance as to the true and exalted work of Judge Mc- Donald.
Since his death a happy means of perpetuating his memory was the decision of the Department of Public Parks and Buildings to name a new public park in his honor. The motion preliminary to that decision
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contains a tribute of special interest: "The people of Pasadena would be pleased if the life of the late Robert W. McDonald, so typical in its integrity, kindly and unselfish service and public spirit of the best quali- ties of Pasadena citizenship, should be commemorated by naming a park in his honor; therefore it is hereby ordered that the said new park be and it is hereby named 'Robert W. McDonald Park.'"
At the age of twenty-five Judge McDonald married Miss Estelle Corson. Her mother was Flora Goodwin, whose ancestors were the Fitzgeralds, one of the powerful and prominent families of Ireland. Her father was Major Joseph B. Corson, who served as a major in the Union army in the Civil war, later moved to Sheyboygan, Wisconsin, and became identified with the upbuilding of that city and state, being a railroad man and at one time owner of the Sheboygan Chair Factory and also interested in farm lands. From Wisconsin the family moved to Kansas, and in 1884 for the benefit of Major Corson's health came to California, reaching Pasadena by stage. Major Corson took an active part in the growth and upbuilding of Pasadena. He was a director of the public library and otherwise influential in the city's progress. Mrs. McDonald was educated in Southwest Kansas College at Winfield and finished her education at St. Margaret's Marlborough School in Los An- geles. Mrs. McDonald and five children survive Judge McDonald, the children being Malcolm, Elizabeth, Janet, Joseph and Barbara Anne.
One who knew Judge McDonald well felt that his character and attitude were best expressed in the well known lines:
"Let me live in my house by the side of the road, Where the race of men go by -- They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong Wise, foolish, so am I. Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat, Or hurl the cynic's ban? Let me live in my house by the side of the road, And be a friend to man." ١
WALTER H. LUTZ, who came to Los Angeles twenty-five years ago, probably stands as close to the large financial interests of the city as any other man, and has enjoyed continued and consecutive advancement in banking affairs. He is now assistant to the president of the First Na- tional Bank.
His father was a banker before him, and practically all his own expe- rience since boyhood has been in that business. He was born at Norris- town, Pennsylvania, December 22, 1872, son of Harrison M. and Sarah (High) Lutz. His father died in 1918, and his mother in 1916. Mr. Lutz received his early education in the grammar and high schools of his native city, and his first training in banking was in the employ of the Centennial National Bank of Philadelphia. He went with this institu- tion not as a favored employe, but as a boy whose advancement de- pended upon his own merits, and eventually he achieved some con- siderable degree of trust and responsibility. He was there until he came to California in 1894. His first position in Los Angeles was with the National Bank of California as receiving teller. Then, in the spring of 1898, he took a similar post with the First National Bank, and has been connected with that institution now for over twenty years. Later he became first paying teller and in 1905 was made auditor of the bank. In January, 1919, he was elected to the office of assistant to the president.
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June 15, 1898, Mr. Lutz married Miss Genevieve Church of Port- land, Oregon. Mr. Lutz is popular in social circles, a member of the Valley Hunt Club and the Cauldron Club of Pasadena, the Pasadena Board of Trade and the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Non-Denominational Church, and in politics, while nom- inally a republican, is very likely to put the qualities of the man ahead of his partisan label.
WILLIAM H. FLETCHER has been a Los Angeles resident over thirty years, a former real estate and oil operator, and for the past twenty years has lived at 312 South Westlake avenue, where he built and owns a beautiful home.
Mr. Fletcher has had a long and active career, including service as a Union soldier during the Civil war. He is a veteran of the photo- graphic art, as an amateur and for commercial purposes. He is familiar with all improvements in photography from the time of the daguerreo- type process of the fifties up to the modern complicated technique.
William H. Fletcher was educated in the common scho Is of Lyn- don, Vermont, and acquired his first knowledge of the photographic 'busi- ness in 1857. For a number of years in the East he was in the jewelry and drug business, conducting the two jointly for eight or ten years, and later was a druggist exclusively for about fifteen years. For twelve years he was postmaster at Lyndonville, Vermont, until he was let out of that office for political reasons at the election of Grover Cleveland.
Mr. Fletcher came to Los Angeles in 1885 with the intention of establishing a drug business. He found the city amply supplied with stores of that kind, and for a time he employed his skill as a pho- tographer, though he never conducted a regular studio or gallery. He took many pictures which were sold to curio dealers for the tourist trade. For some five years Mr. Fletcher conducted his ranch at Burbank, and then became an oil operator under the firm name of Daggett & Fletcher. They operated in the old Los Angeles field, where they drilled some thirty wells. Mr. Fletcher several years ago sold all his oil interests. He has always been a stanch republican and has been a member of the Masonic Order since 1863. He is also a Knight Templar Mason.
Mr. Fletcher built his residence on South Westlake avenue in 1900. He is a member of the Automobile Club of Southern California. In recent years he has been collecting his old photographs of Los Angeles and vicinity, and the more valuable of them he has transferred to lan- tern slides, and uses them for the entertainment of his friends and neighbors. He also supplied many of them to the Los Angeles Evening Express, which had a special edition in which these old-time views were reproduced.
LUCIEN N. BRUNSWIG. Through his business activities as president of the Brunswig Drug Company, a Los Angeles concern of thirty-two years standing, and also because of his widely extended leadership in war relief measures, particularly the various French organizations, Lucien N. Brunswig is one of the noted men of California and has had many rare and interesting experiences and achievements.
The Brunswig Drug Company was founded January 18, 1888, first under the style of F. W. Braun Company. Mr. Lucien Brunswig and his then associate, F. W. Braun, became established in Los Angeles at that time, Mr. Braun becoming manager of the Los Angeles business,
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