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 38
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which was operated partly as a branch of the firm Finlay & Brunswig of New Orleans. The business was continued under that style until 1907, when Mr. Brunswig bought the Braun interests and the firm name was changed to the Brunswig Drug Company. This is one of the largest wholesale drug houses in the West. It was established on a modest scale, and through careful, conservative business administration its vol- ume of business has mounted steadily, until it now totals several millions yearly, while the business as a whole furnishes employment to three hun- dred people. There is a branch at San Diego, others at Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona, and the territory of operation covers California. Ari- zona, the Mexican Republic, parts of New Mexico, Nevada and Utah, the Hawaiian Islands and the Orient into Indo-China. The pharma- ceutical laboratories alone employ more than a hundred, producing chem- ical products, pharmaceutical, medicinal and toilet preparations, and every druggist in the Southwest knows the company and its high ideals and effective, competent business administration.
In passing it should be noted that the Brunswig Drug Company con- tributed forty of its best members to the overseas forces, including the son of the president of the company, who enlisted in the United States Aviation Corps and served one year in England and France.
It is doubtful if any Californian knows the great theater of the west- ern battle front more intimately than Mr. Brunswig. He was born in the fortified city of Montmedy, in the valley of the Meuse, thirty miles fron Verdun. All of the battlefield has been covered by him many times in his younger days with bicycle, and he is familiar with every frot of it. He graduated from the college of Etain, a city six miles from Verdun, which was blown up in 1914 in the first rush of the Germans on Verdun, and is now a mass of ruins. The Weovre Valley, so fre- quently mentioned in war dispatches in earlier years and part of the American sector in the Argonne campaign, is likewise a familiar haunt of Mr. Brunswig, being his native heath. He used to study botany and gather plants there in his college days, years before the Germans began gathering corpses.
Mr. Brunswig on coming to the United States located at New Or- leans, and several years later was admitted as a junior partner to the great drug house of Finlay & Company, the name being changed to Fin- lay & Brunswig. It was an extension of the interests of this firm, as already noted, which brought Mr. Brunswig to Los Angeles. The only municipal office Mr. Brunswig ever held was as police commissioner of New Orleans.
However, he has been identified with a number of quasi-public organizations. For the past four years he has led the French relief measures on the Pacific Coast. In August, 1914; he became actively asso- ciated with and organized the French Red Cross for tie states of Cali- fornia and Arizona, and is active chairman of that branch of the Red Cross. He is also executive head of the Pacific Coast Division for Fatherless Children of France Society, and directs the work of that organization in eleven states, including the Hawaiian Islands. He also organized the state of California two years since for the American Com- mittee for Devastated France. He is president of the French Alliance, president of the France-Amerique Committee, president of the Salon Francais and formerly served as local director of the California Amer- icanization Committee. During a visit to Washington some time ago Mr. Brunswig successfully obtained tonnage to send a relief ship with food
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and clothing to France. This thousand-fon cargo of food donated by Southern California voiced a message which did much to arouse the spirit of the French civilians behind the lines.
Mr. Brunswig is a member of the California Club, the University Club, and the Los Angeles Country Club. He married Miss Marguerite Wogan at New Orleans. She is a daughter of one of the oldest French families of that city, a lineal descendant of the d'Augustin, governor for France of the San Domingo and Haiti Islands at the time of the revolu- tion of the blacks, led by the famous Toussaint Louverture.
NATHANIEL BLAKE BLACKSTONE, the founder, president and gen- eral manager of the N. B. Blackstone Company until 1918, was born at Livermore, Maine, January 20, 1843, son of Nathaniel and Mary (Sawyer) Blackstone. His parents, who spent all their lives in Maine, were old fashioned New England Christian people. His father was a farmer. Nathaniel B. was the youngest of nine children, four sons and five daughters, and is the last survivor. His home and early en- vironment were calculated to bring out his self reliance and industry. He left school at the age of seventeen, and at Brockton, Massachusetts, laid the foundation of his experience in dry goods as an employe of H. W. Robinson. Five years later he went to Boston, became an em- ploye of a wholesale dry goods house, and eventually rose to a part- nership in the firm of Ewing Bros. & Company.
Mr. Blackstone cante to Los Angeles in February, 1887, and be- came associated with his brother-in-law the late J. W. Robinson in the Boston Store. In 1895 Mr. Blackstone opened a store of his own under the name N. B. Blackstone Company. As a merchant he has had several different locations, his first business being on Spring street near Temple opposite the old Court House. From there he moved to the corner of Third and Spring in the Douglass Building when it was first built, next to Broadway between Third and Fourth, and was there ten years until the handsome new building now known as Blackstone's was erected and opened on September 20, 1917. Each move being to secure larger and finer quarters as well as better location for the in- creased business. Mr. Blackstone continued actively associated with the affairs of this company until 1918, when he sold out his business and retired after serving fifty-eight years in the dry goods business.
For several years he was a director of the National Bank of Cali- fornia and now is a director of the Merchants National Bank. He is a member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, and in former years was an active worker and one of the directors of that organiza- tion. He is a member of the California Club of Los Angeles, of the National Republican Club of New York City, the Maine Society of Cali- fornia, and in the First Congregational church was .a trustee for ten years, holding that position when the church edifice was built. His home is at the corner of West Twenty-eighth Street and Orchard Avenue, a residence which he built twenty-six years ago.
Mr. Blackstone was as fortunate in his home life as he was in business. On September 29, 1917, he and his good wife celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Their marriage was celebrated at Brock- ton, Massachusetts, September 29, 1867. The bride was Miss Louise Robinson, a daughter of H. W. Robinson, in whose store Mr. Blackstone had acquired his first business experience. She was a sister of the late J. W. Robinson, long prominent in Los Angeles mercantile circles. Mrs.
N. B. Blackstone
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Blackstone was born at Stow, Massachusetts, and was educated in pub- lic schools and the Lasell Seminary at Auburndale, Massachusetts, where she and her husband lived for seventeen years before coming to California. Mrs. Blackstone died November 25, 1918. While her am- bition never extended beyond her home, intimate friends and church, she cultivated many charitable interests, which engaged her time and means for a number of years. Two children were born to their mar- riage. The daughter Anne Louise died at the age of eight years. The son, H. Winthrop Blackstone, was born in Auburndale, Massachusetts. For fifteen years he was vice-president of the N. B. Blackstone Com- pany.
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JOHN K. WILSON, superintendent of Blackstone's and for thirty- two years an active business associate of Mr. N. B. Blackstone, may be said to have begun his Los Angeles career with disappointment and defeated hopes. Stories of fortunes won overnight in real estate had lured him from the Middle West, but the tide had turned before he arrived in Los Angeles in 1887 and with the bursting of the boom he found it necessary to accommodate his glowing expectations to the modest rewards of a mercantile clerk.
Mr. Wilson was born on a farm near New Madison, Ohio, Jan- uary 24, 1858, son of Nathaniel M. and Mary Emily (Rush) Wilson. His mother is still living in Los Angeles with her son John in good health at the age of eighty-three and an active member of the Emanuel Presbyterian church. Nathaniel M. Wilson was for many years a farmer and stockman in Ohio and played quite an active part in democratic politics in that state. In 1887 he brought his family to California, living in Los Angeles three years, and in 1890 located on a three hundred acre tract in San Diego county. That tract he developed by the planting of olive trees and gave it the name Olive Hill Ranch. It was the family home for eleven years, and later the parents returned to Los Angeles where Nathaniel M. Wilson died in 1901 at the age of sixty-nine. He still owned the ranch at the time of his death. As a stock man he has specialized in the breeding of Poland China hogs and Durham cattle. ยท John K. Wilson had only the normal opportunities and advantages of an Ohio country boy. He went to school in the winter, worked on the farm in summer, and from 1874 until he graduated in 1878 attended the high school of Greenville, Ohio. Afterwards while learning mer- chandising he attended a business college in Greenville. Beginning in 1879 he served a three year's apprenticeship in the dry goods store of George W. Moore in Greenville. The first year he was paid board and one hundred dollars and his salary was increased a hundred dollars each year until the end of the apprenticeship. After four years, with a vision of better things in the West, he moved in 1883 to Southern Kan- sas. There he became a buyer and shipper of grain. Four years in that State was a period of many vicissitudes involving grasshoppers, drought and hot winds. Therefore when he arrived in Los Angeles he had been well schooled to bear up under the disappointment in wait for him due to the collapse of the real estate boom. Soon afterwards he utilized his former training and experience and entered the store of J. W. Robinson, at that time located on Spring near Templet Street. J. W. Robinson had as his partner and associate his brother-in-law N. B. Blackstone. Mr. Wilson spent eight years with the J. W. Robinson Company. Then he and Mr. Blackstone and C. A. Smith incorporated a
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new business under the title N. B. Blackstone Company, in February, 1896. They occupied the room recently vacated by the J. W. Robinson Company, who had moved to South Broadway. The Blackstone Com- pany has followed the southward trend of the city, and during the last twenty-five years fitted up four stores. In 1917 the company entered its present quarters at Broadway and Ninth, a building with six floors and basement and with a hundred thousand square feet of floor space. As an exclusive shop for all the fine wares comprehended under the term dry goods, Blackstone's stands pre-eminent on the Pacific Coast. Mr. Wilson held various positions of responsibility with the J. W. Robinson Company, and during his association with Mr. Blackstone has been man- ager and director, was buyer for several departments, and is still a direc- tor in the company as well as superintendent of the business in general. Mr. Wilson is also owner of some valuable industrial property at Eighth and Santa Fe. In politics he was reared a democrat, but has been a republican in national affairs since 1896. For many years he has been a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club and Chamber of Commerce.
At Greenville, Ohio, September 3, 1884, he married Miss Caroline Stephens, daughter of Martin Franklin and Alvira (Leibee) Stephens. Her father was a dry goods merchant, and for many years one of the influential republicans of the State of Ohio. In the Stephens family were six children, five daughters and one son. The son is now Governor of California, Hon. William Dennison Stephens, whose individual biog- raphy is found on other pages of this publication. Mrs. Wilson is a member of the Friday Morning Club of Los Angeles. Their only son and child is Weston Stephens Wilson. He is a graduate of Leland Stanford University with the class of 1913 and is unmarried. His special talent has been music, and he is both a composer of music and a writer of operas and songs, much of his work having earned national fame. He is a member of the firm Daniels & Wilson, music publishers of San Francisco and New York, and he divides his time largely be- tween those two cities. 1
Mr. John K. Wilson was one of seven children, five sons and two daughters, all of whom reached mature years. He is the oldest of the four still living. His only sister is Mrs. James P. Martin, of Corvallis. Oregon. His two brothers are Charles A., who has charge of the Uni- versity Branch postoffice at Los Angeles, and N. E., a Los Angeles grocer. His brother Dr. A. P. Wilson, youngest of the family, became a promin- ent physician in Los Angeles and was accidentally shot in July, 1916, while camping in the high Sierras, near Fresno.
THOMAS LEE WOOLWINE. The key to the efficiency of courts and of government generally is the efficiency of the officer delegated by law to prosecute the law's violations. That officer in Los Angeles County is the district attorney. Friends of good and efficient government have had many reasons to congratulate themselves upon the presence of Thomas Lee Woolwine as district attorney of Los Angeles County.
Mr. Woolwine has been an active member of the Los Angeles bar for over twenty years. He was born in Nashville, Tennessee, October 31, 1874, son of Samuel Shanklin and Sally (Shute) Woolwine. He was educated in public and private schools and received his L. L. B. degree from Cumberland University in Tennessee in 1903, and a similar degree from the Columbian (now George Washington) University in
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1904. He was admitted to the bar in 1899, and the same year began practice at Los Angeles. He first gained distinction in public affairs as deputy city attorney at Los Angeles in 1907-08, and the following year was deputy district attorney of Los Angeles County and prosecuting at- torney of Los Angeles. He has been district attorney of Los Angeles County since 1915. In 1910 he was the nominee of both the democratic and good government parties for the office of district attorney.
The vigor of his efforts in law enforcement was first made appar- ent by his prosecution and conviction of keepers of bucket shops, a strict enforcement of excise laws, and he was also the officer primarily respon- sible for bringing the charges of vice protection against the mayor and police commission and other officers of the city, resulting in resignations and in the "recall" of the mayor and election of his successor. This event widely commented upon by the press at the time, was the first "recall" invoked against such an officer in the United States.
Other notable achievements also were his prosecutions of David Caplan and M. H. Schmidt, who were identified with the nation-wide dynamite conspiracy and who were convicted of having had a hand in the destruction of the Times Building in 1910. Mr. Woolwine also prose- cuted and secured the conviction of twenty-one large baking corpora- tions and individuals for conspiracy to stifle competition in the sale of bread. His investigation of the sugar beet situation in California brought about the appointment of a commission by the National Food Adminis. tration to rectify then existing conditions which were oppressive to the beet growers and consequently to the consumers themselves. During the last two or three years the activities of his office have been forcibly directed toward the suppression of profiteering and the prosecution of members of the I. W. W. and other treasonable organizations.
While his official record has been marked by due aggressiveness, it has also been distinguished not less by humanitarian methods. Mr. Woolwine was recently a candidate for governor of California on the democratic ticket, being the only aspirant for that office who has always been a democrat. He is a democrat in national affairs, but, as his record shows, has been independent and non-partisan so far as local questions of law and order are concerned.
Mr. Woolwine is a man of literary tastes and has given his wide experiences appropriate setting in various writings. He is author of "In the Valley of the Shadows," a novel published in 1909. He is a member of the Los Angeles Bar Association, is past president of the local alumni of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and is a member of the Wil- shire Country and University Clubs. His offices are in the Hall of Records and his home at 1040 Kensington Road. November 7, 1900, he married Alma Foy of Los Angeles.
FREDERICK C. LANGDON is a hard working member of the Los An- geles City Council, has spent a number of years in Southern California, was formerly a dentist by profession, and has acquired numerous private interests which have engaged his time when not in the service of the public.
Dr. Langdon was born in Rock County, Wisconsin, February 28, 1868, a son of Chauncey and Jerusha (Sprague) Langdon. He acquired a liberal education, beginning in the district schools of Wisconsin, attend- ing the State Normal School at Whitewater, Wisconsin, and at the age of twenty-two entered the University of Iowa. He took a three years'
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course in two years, and at the end of that time passed a successful examination before the State Board of Dentistry. Dr. Langdon prac- ticed in Jones County, Iowa, eight years, until failing health compelled him to abandon his business and come to Los Angeles. Here, after re- newing his studies and graduating from the dental department of the University of Southern California in 1901, he resumed practice and was so engaged until 1909, when he again had to retire on account of ill health. During the following two years he became interested in and was a director of the Long Beach Salt Company, manufacturers of salt. Dr. Langdon was first elected a member of the Los Angeles City Council in 1912. He was re-elected three times. Then, after an interval, he was again chosen a member of the Council in 1919. In the meantime he has looked after his extensive personal interests. He is a Scottish Rite Mason, an Elk, a member of the Union League Club, City Club, is a republican in politics and a member of the First Congregational Church.
At Oxford Junction, Iowa, August 6, 1895, he married Rena M. Carter. They have three children: Lucy A., the oldest, a native of Oxford Junction, Iowa, is a graduate of the Westlake School for Girls of Los Angeles, and is also a graduate of Stanford University. Carter H., who was born at Oxford Junction, October 3, 1898, is a graduate of the Los Angeles Polytechnic High School and is employed by the Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Company. The youngest is Mary A., a student in the Los Angeles High School.
WILLIAM DENNISON STEPHENS resigned as member of Congress and was appointed lieutenant governor July 21, 1916, and was sworn in as chief executive March 15, 1917. At the state-wide election in November, 1918, he was elected governor by a majority exceeding 132,000, for the term ending January, 1923.
Governor Stephens, who came to Los Angeles in 1887, was born at Eaton, Preble county, Ohio, December 26, 1859, son of Martin F. and Alvira (Leibee) Stephens. His father served as a member of the Ohio Legislature in 1859, and during the period of the Civil war was county treasurer of Preble county. William Dennison Stephens gradu- ated from the public schools of Eaton in May, 1876, and for several years was a teacher and law student. While well grounded in knowledge of the law, Governor Stephens never took examination for admission to the bar until July 2, 1919. At that date he was admitted to the bar by the Appellate Court of Sacramento, and now has the privilege of practice in all the courts of California. After teaching country school for three years Mr. Stephens from 1880 to 1887 was a surveyor and engaged in railroad civil engineering in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Louisi- ana. After locating at Los Angeles in 1887 he engaged in commercial business as manager and traveling salesman from 1888 to 1902. From 1902 to 1909 he was engaged in business under the firm name of Carr & Stephens, wholesale and retail grocers at Los Angeles.
Governor Stephens had been a successful business man many years before he entered public life. He was elected a member of the Board of Education of Los Angeles in 1906, serving for two years. In 1907 he was president of the Chamber of Commerce, and was a director of that body for many years. In 1909 he was mayor of Los Angeles, and in 1910 president of the Los Angeles City Water Commission and a member of the advisory commission for the building of the Los Angeles
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aqueduct. He was chairman of the Harbor Committee of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce for one or two years. For eleven years he was a major of the National Guard of California, and was 011 active duty at San Francisco during the earthquake and fire of 1906. In 1910 Mr. Stephens was elected to represent the Seventh Cali- fornia District in the 62nd Congress, taking his seat in 1911. He was re-elected for the Tenth District (part of the former Ninth District) to the 63rd and 64th Congresses, and served until 1916, when he re- signed and was appointed lieutenant-governor of California. On March 15, 1917, Mr. Stephens became governor of California for the remainder of the term ending January 1, 1919.
In 1918 he was regularly elected governor and was inaugurated in January, 1919.
The State administration of California during the critical period of the war fully deserved the admiration and stanch support given it by all substantial and sincere patriots. Governor Stephens is one of the really able and strong men in the public life of the nation today. While in Congress he was a member of the Naval Affairs Committee. He is ex-officio president of the Board of Regents of the University of California at Berkeley, and is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the University of Southern California at Los Angeles.
Governor Stephens was a leader in the progressive movement in California. He is a prominent Mason, having been elected a member of the 33rd, honorary degree of the Scottish Rite in 1908. In the same year he served as grand commander of the Knights Templar of Cali- fornia and in 1904 was potentate of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a charter member of the Red Cross of Constantine, and a member of the Fraternal Brotherhood. He is affiliated with the California Club and Sunset Club at Los Angeles.
June 17, 1891, at Poway in San Diego county, Mr. Stephens mar- ried Flora Rawson. Their only daughter, Barbara, was married in 1912 to Lieutenant Randolph T. Zane, U. S. M. C., who rose to the rank of major, and was -cited for bravery and given the Distinguished Service Cross in the World War. Major Zane died in France, October 24, 1918, as a result of wounds received at Belleau Wood. Marjorie Zane, the five-year old granddaughter of Governor Stephens, christened the destroyer Zane, named in honor of her father, Major Zane, which was launched at Mare Island in August, 1919. Mrs. Barbara Stephens Zane, daughter of Governor Stephens, also had the honor of christening the United States battleship California, built at Mare Island and launched in November, 1919.
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HAROLD BAXTER BROADWELL was one of the most popular young officials of the county of Los Angeles, and while engaged in the per- formance of duty as a motorcycle policeman was killed in an automobile collision November 9, 1919.
Mr. Broadwell was born in San Francisco, September 22, 1884, son of William B. and Alice E. Broadwell. His grandmother, Mrs. Mar- garet Hayes, who lives at 1200 East Forty-fifth street, in Los Angeles, was a Southern women and a nurse in the Confederate army during the Civil war.
Harold Baxter Broadwell was educated in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and as a boy chose to be independent of family circumstances and make his own way in the world. He supplemented his advantages
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in the public schools by study at night and in correspondence schools. His first employment was with the Wells Fargo & Company, and later he was employed by the county as deputy sheriff and from that was given his duties as motorcycle policeman.
Mr. Broadwell married Miss Elizabeth A. Dodson, daughter of J. G. Dodson. Mrs. Broadwell is a native daughter of California, and her parents were also born in the state. Her mother was born at the old Mission, El Monte. Mr. Broadwell leaves two children: Brewster Baxter Broadwell and Donald H. Broadwell.
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