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 43
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Waldo M. York acquired a good education in his native state. At the age of seventeen he passed a successful examination for a certificate to teach, and after that until he was twenty-two he taught school, worked on his father's farm, and continued his own education in private schools. He was principal of a high school at the age of twenty. He was admitted to the bar in the Supreme Court of Maine at the age of twenty-two, and immediately began practice and has rounded out more than a tull half century of active membership in the legal profession.
He early sought the Far West as the arena of his action and service. In the spring of 1871 he moved to Seattle, then in the Territory of Washington, and just beginning its growth as an important city of the Northwest. He opened an office for the practice of law, and was soon given good patronage. He had the ability of the New Englander, was a good scholar, and by studious habits and hard work attracted friends and clients. on every hand. In 1872, at the age of twenty-six. and after a res- idence of only a little more than one year in Seattle, he was elected Judge of the Probate Court of King County, an office he held two terms. He
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resigned to renew his connection with the practice of law at San Fran- cisco. While at Seattle he married the eldest daughter of Rev. George F. Whitworth, D. D., a prominent Presbyterian divine of Washington Territory. His marriage was not the only proof of his confidence in the Whitworth family, since in San Francisco he began the practice of law in partnership with his wife's brother, John M. Whitworth. It was with general regret that the people of Seattle parted with Judge York, who had distinguished himself while Probate Judge, and it was the general opinion that he might have had that office as long as he desired.
Judge York practiced law in San Francisco for twelve years. The firm York & Whitworth was employed in much important litigation throughout the state. One case in which Judge York succeeded in obtain- ing a judgment for his clients involved property worth over a million dollars, and several, other cases related to valuable and important inter- ests. Judge York's home while in practice in San Francisco was at Berkeley, where he becanie interested in real estate and still has property there, and was equally interested in the affairs of municipal government. He served four years as city attorney of Berkeley. While there he wrote many articles for the local newspapers on topics of municipal reform, and busied himself with much other authorship of articles relating to the laws of the state and national politics. His life in the West made him an interested student of the Indian question. An essay of his pub- lished in 1877 brought out a doctrine seldom advocated at that time, requiring that the laws establishing and maintaining Indian reservations were wrong, and that Indians should be treated as American citizens, and held amenable to the same laws and business regulations as other people.
About 1887 Charles A. Shurtleff became a member of the firm, the title of which was York, Whitworth & Shurtleff. Soon afterward, in 1889, on account of overwork and a desire for change of climate, Judge York left San Francisco and came to Los Angeles, where he has been a resident for thirty years. His reputation as a lawyer had preceded him, and there was little opportunity to rest from the strenuous routine of labor which had engaged him at San Francisco, but the climate of Southern California soon restored him to vigorous health.
In tlie fall of 1890 James McLachlan was elected district attorney of Los Angeles County. Always an important office, at that time it was extremely so, in view of the litigation that had to be handled by Mr. Mclachlan and his force. Mr. McLachlan endeavored to organize his office so that no outside assistance would be required in the management of the cases. Among others selected for his deputies Judge York was proffered the position of chief deputy. The offer was a distinction in itself, since Mr. York had no personal acquaintance with Mr. McLach- lan. For two years he handled much of the civil litigation for Los Angeles County. One of the cases, justly celebrated, was the railroad tax case, in which Judge York contended that the assessment of railroad property by the State Board of Equalization was legal, notwithstanding a franchise was assessed with other property at a gross sum, and he successfully contended that the franchise assessed was a state and not a Federal franchise, and therefore subject to taxation. He also appeared in the bank tax cases, and in the Tahiti Orange Tree case, where he suc- cessfully contended that a ship load of orange trees infested with scale, imported from the Tahiti Islands, was a public nuisance. Judgment by the court for the destruction of the infected trees was rendered, and under it the trees were destroyed.
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Judge York, after two years with the district attorney's office, formed a partnership with Mr. Mclachlan under the name Mclachlan & York, a firm that had a great and important practice, representing several public officials, acting as attorneys for the State Bank Com- missioners for Southern California, for the public administrator of Los Angeles County, for the Whittier State School, as well as private and corporate interests.
In 1893 Hon. W. P. Wade, one of the judges of the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, died. The first of January following Governor Markham appointed Judge York to fill the vacancy. It was an unex- pected choice of a man whose appointment gave most general satisfac- tion to all concerned. In the fall of 1894 the republican convention con- sidered eight candidates for the two places on the Superior bench to be filled. Judge York was the only candidate nominated at the first ballot. His opponent in the subsequent campaign was a lawyer of learning and ability, who had received the nomination from both the democratic and populist parties, but Judge York had a large majority at the polls. His term of office ran for six years, beginning January 1, 1895. In Novem- ber, 1900, he was re-elected to the Superior bench, and his second term began January 1, 1901. When his term of service expired January, 1907, he had given thirteen years to the onerous and important office, and his record throughout was entitled to the commendation it received.
Judge York, who has been much in public life, is noted as a public speaker and has received numerous honors during his residence in Southern California. In 1898, when the term of United States Senator Stephen M. White expired, his name was urged for the vacancy, but he refused to make any active campaign. He served as a member of the Board of Education of Los Angeles in 1915-16. Judge York is a re- publican in politics, a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Associa- tion, the City Club of Los Angeles, the New England Society, and the State of Maine Society of California. Mrs. York is a member of the First Presbyterian Church and has given much time to Red Cross work. Judge York is still busy with his law practice in the Merchants Trust Building, 207 South Broadway. His home is at 1129 West Twenty- second street.
Both his children are prominent in Los Angeles affairs. His daugh- ter, Miss M. Jessie York, is now a member of the Board of Education of Los Angeles. His son, Judge John M. York, is now serving his eighth year as judge of the Superior Court. 1
HERMAN WASHINGTON FRANK, president of the Harris & Frank Company, one of the oldest and largest commercial houses on the Pacific Coast, concerned himself so intimately with the affairs and institutions of Los Angeles during the last thirty years that his name has come to be associated not with any one line of business or civic activity, but with the growth and welfare of Los Angeles as a whole.
Mr. Frank is a Western man, having been born at Portland, Ore- gon, July 4, 1860. His father was a pioneer merchant, establishing him- self in business at Portland as early as 1854. H. W. Frank was well educated, attending Whitman Seminary, now Whitman College, at Walla Walla, Washington. When only fourteen years old he began his busi- ness career in a country store. The experience may have been monoton- ous at tmes, but the training was invaluable, since it gave him a first- hand knowledge of many branches of commerce. He served as assistant postmaster, telegraph operator, and also as assistant agent for Wells
Shwefrants
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Fargo & Company. One of the first messages he ever received over the telegraph wire was one telling of the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876. This message he posted on the windows of the store for the information of the local rustics.
About that time, in 1876, he removed to San Francisco. Here he became connected with a wholesale clothing house, and was assistant bookkeeper, cashier and traveling sales agent over Oregon and Idaho. That was before Idaho had any railroads, and the customary method of travel was by sleigh or stage. Frequently two days and nights were spent between towns of any size. Mr. Frank was first in business for himself as a general merchant at Alameda.
On coming to Los Angeles, in 1887, he joined Mr. L. Harris, a veteran merchant of the coast, and in 1888 they formed the company of Harris & Frank, now a corporation. Their first store was at Temple and Spring streets. This firm erected the first building ever leased in Los Angeles, known as the Allen Block. Harris & Frank now own and occupy the building at 437 South Spring street. Continuously since 1887 Mr. Frank has been a Los Angeles merchant. He is also a director of the Merchants National Bank, secretary of the Riverside Vineyard Com- pany, owning eighteen hundred acres of land in Riverside County, and is president of the L. Harris Realty Company, Incorporated.
Mr. Frank's friends say that he has given more time to public affairs than any other man in the city. In 1895 he was the second elected pres- ident of the Merchants Association, and for many years has been identi- fied with the Merchants and Manufacturers Association. He was chair- man of the committee of this organization which raised a large fund and put unemployed men to work during the hard times succeeding the Spanish-American war. He was also chairman of a committee to raise funds for the Times sufferers after the explosion of the Times Building. With Judge Charles H. Sibert, he succeeded in raising thirty-five thous- and dollars for this purpose. He is credited with having raised more money for direct burdens of charity than any other one man in Los Angeles. Mr. Frank for fifteen years was president of the Associated Charities, and was father of the Tag Day idea on the Pacific Coast. Five successive Tag Day yearly campaigns were held with great success under his iniation and the plan was adopted by many other cities on the coast. Mr. Frank was a member of the School Board of Los Angeles from 1895 to 1914, and president of the board two different times. He is a director of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce and director for the Red Cross Chapter of Los Angeles, and is a former vice president of the Municipal League. Mr. Frank is a Mason, Shriner, Maccabee, Elk and Woodman of the World.
In 1888 he married a daughter of Mr. L. Harris, his business part- ner. They have two sons, Lawrence P. Frank, who served in the United States Navy, and is now treasurer of Harris & Frank, Incorporated, and Alvin H. Frank, of the firm Frank & Lewis, stocks and bonds. Mr. H. W. Frank, while not a politician, is a firm believer in the idea that business men should take an active interest in civic affairs and help in deciding the policies of our country.
JOHN N. METCALF has enjoyed much more than the average routine and associations of the successful lawyer. His enterprise has been directed constructively in behalf of much iniportant development work in Southern California. For the past sixteen years he has been a resident and has engaged in the active practice of law at Los Angeles.
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He was born at Hamburg, in Fremont County, Iowa, May 2, 1872. His father, Thomas E. Metcalf, was a prominent Californian, who set- tled at Pasadena in 1883, being one of the pioneers of the Iowa Colony and at one time owning the heart of that beautiful city. He was also founder of the town of Escondido, and left his mark in developing townsites in the West. The mother of Mr. Metcalf was Elizabeth Met- calf, who at the age of thirteen crossed the plains to Colorado with her parents. They drove by carriage from their big plantation in the South to the Missouri River, and thence she went in a prairie train to the site of Denver, Colorado, and while en route she witnessed the killing of several members of the party by Indians.
John N. Metcalf graduated from the San Diego High School and was a member of the graduating class of 1895 from Leland Stanford University. He was the first treasurer and nominated the first president of the first class and also nominated as the first president of the first student body at that university. After leaving university Mr. Metcalf read law in the offices of Senator John D. Works and Judge O. A. Trip- pett, while they were practicing at San Diego. His home and offices were in San Diego until he removed to Los Angeles. At one time he was in partnership with Judge Frank G. Finlayson and former Senator Y. R. del Valle. For four years he was assistant district attorney at San Diego under Judge T. L. Lewis, now presiding judge of the San Diego courts, and for four years was attorney for the State Harbor Commis- sion.
Mr. Metcalf has had many active interests both as a lawyer and otherwise in San Diego coast land and San Joaquin ranch lands, and also in oil and mineral resources. He was the discoverer of a use to be made of the coast shore pebbles for grinding cement. Formerly all this mate- rial was imported from Norway and Sweden. He furnished the city of Los Angeles all the pebbles used during the construction of the Los Angeles aqueduct. Mr. Metcalf also discovered valuable oil and gas lands in Central California and has been advisor and attorney for a number of large oil and gas corporations in the state.
Mr. Metcalf has always taken a considerable interest in republican politics. However, he refused any nomination for office until 1919, when he lacked only a few votes of being put on the republican ticket at the primaries as candidate for city attorney. Mr. Metcalf is a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and the Automobile Club of Southern California, and his church associations are Episcopalian.
September 15, 1904, he married Miss May Krille of Denver, Colo- rado. Her father was a banker and wool merchant, and for three terms served as mayor of Trinidad, Colorado. Mr. and Mrs. Metcalf have two children, Elizabeth Jane, born in 1912, and Virginia May, born in 1913.
MRS. MARGARET TALMADGE, whose home is now at the Hotel Savoy, in New York City, is mother of the famous Talmadge daughters, bright and particular stars in the movie world.
Mrs. Talmadge's daughters are Norma, Natalie and Constance. Norma and Constance are known to millions of the devotees of the photoplay, and Natalie, who was formerly private secretary to Roscoe Arbuckle, is now playing important roles in support of her sisters. In another year she, too, will be featured. Norma Talmadge was born in Jersey City, and the other two girls in Brooklyn. They grew up in and
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around New York, and having to earn their own living, the girls took up the movie stage. Norma went with the Vitagraph Company in 1911, under the management of Van Dyke Brook. Leaving the Vitagraph studio, she went with the Griffith studio, under D. W. Griffith. Later she formed her own company, with Joseph M. Schenck as president, and her pictures are now released through the First National Exhibitors' Circuit. Miss Talmadge makes her home in New York City at the Hotel St. Regis.
Norma Talmadge's best known pictures are "Safety Curtain," "Her Only Way," "Poppy," "The Moth," "The Forbidden City," the scenes of which are laid in China; "The Heart of Wetona," "Probation Wife," "The Isle of Conquest," "She Loves and Lies," "A Daughter of Two Worlds," "The Woman Gives."
Constance, the youngest daughter, made a wonderful hit in D. W. Griffith's presentation of "Intolerance." She was the "Mountain Girl" in the Babylonian scene. Mr. Griffith has taken this scene from "In- tolerance" and has used it as basis for a wonderful new picture. Con- stance next became a star for Lewis J. Salzwick, and made a series of comedy dramas for him, including "Sauce for the Goose," "Silk Stock- ings" and "Good Night, Paul." Most of her pictures were made in Los Angeles for the Select Films. Then she formed her own company, with Joseph M. Schenck as president, and during 1919-1920 starred in "A Temperamental Wife," "A Virtuous Vamp," "Two Weeks," "In Search of a Sinner" and "The Love Expert," all adapted by John Emer- son and Anita Loos.
Norma Talmadge first became interested in the movies while cutting out pictures from magazines. Her first pictures were made with Flor- ence Turner and Maurice Costello. She has the reputation of being one of the best dressed girls on the movie stage, and is the fashion editor of the Photoplay Magazine, writing twelve articles per year on clothes. She is very fond of swimming, and Constance is equally fond of dancing and fast motoring. Natalie's favorite sport is golfing. The family have made several cross-country trips and for several years maintained a home in Los Angeles, but now all live in New York.
REGINALDO FRANCISCO DEL VALLE. A member of the Los Angeles bar for forty-five years, the routine work and varied services of Reginaldo Francisco Del Valle in the law and in public affairs constitute a real and worthy distinction. He is one of the prominent California lawyers, and has long been a leader of the democratic party in the state.
He was born at Los Angeles December 15, 1854, son of Ygnacio and Ysabel (Valera) Del Valle. He was liberally educated. From 1867 to June, 1871, he was a student in St. Vincent's College. He then entered Santa Clara College, at Santa Clara, where he was graduated bachelor of science in June, 1873. He was soon afterward admitted to the bar and began practice at Los Angeles, and was admitted to plead in the Supreme Court. In 1893 he was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Del Valle is an authority on parliamentary law and has carried a large private clientage through many successful cases in all the courts. In a local way he served for twelve years and is now reappointed as a member of the Board of Public Service in charge of the water and power department of Los Angeles, part of the time serving as president of the board.
In 1879 he was elected to the State Assembly of California from
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Los Angeles on the democratic ticket, and was re-elected in 1880. In the latter year he also served as a presidential elector on the democratic ticket headed by Hancock and English. In 1881 he received a com- plimentary vote in the State Legislature for speaker of the House. In 1882 he was elected senator from Los Angeles County, and during his term of four years served part of the time as president pro tem. In 1884 he was a democratic candidate for Congress. Four years later he was chairman of the State Convention at Los Angeles, and in 1890 was nominated for lieutenant governor. In 1892 he was chairman of the Committee on Resolutions of the State Convention at Fresno. In 1894 lie was chairman of the State Convention at San Francisco. Mr. Del Valle has been a member of every State Convention of his party in Cali- fornia for over thirty years. His services as a campaign orator have been in demand both here and elsewhere. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention at Kansas City some years ago. In the first Wilson election he was presidential elector, one of the two democratic electors out of a total of thirteen electors. In the second Wilson election he was also an elector. He was sent by Wilson as special United States representative to investigate Mexican conditions in 1913. Mrs. Del Valle took an active place in the social sphere created by her husband. After almost thirty years of married companionship and home life, Mrs. Del Valle passed away March 13, 1920. She was the mother of two daughters, Mrs. Lucretia Louise Grady and Mrs. Allan V. Duncan. Lucretia Louise before her marriage became widely known through her wonderful work as the star in John S. McGroarty's "Mission Play." Her husband, Mr. Henry F. Grady, served as a dollar-a-year man at Washington during the World war, and at present is investigat- ing banking conditions in Europe for our government.
MADAME CONSTANCE BALFOUR. One of the results of the titanic conflict between the dominant powers of the world has been the reten- tion in this country of artists of international fame who otherwise might not have been induced to give to their own land all of the benefit accruing from their genius. Madame Constance Balfour, whose name is known all over the civilized world to music lovers, has been induced to devote her great talents to voice culture and concert work with Los Angeles as her headquarters, for the present at least. In spite of her metro- politan training and manner, Madame Balfour is a native-born Amer- ican, and on both sides of her house traces back to Mayflower stock. Both of her parents are still living.
Carefully educated by parents who early recognized the genius of their daughter, Madame Balfour attended a girls' finishing school at Mt. Carroll, Illinois, following which she took a two years' post-graduate course at Lincoln, Nebraska. Having decided to take up the arduous training for a musical career, the ambitious girl went to Europe and for eighteen months studied in Paris with the Italian Sbriglia, and then for the subsequent three months was at Berlin under the best masters. She then returned to America, but later went back to Europe, and was sing- ing in London when war was declared in 1914.
Madame Balfour is not only a singer of note, but a teacher of voice culture. She has sung in England, Scotland, Wales, South Africa and the United States, doing both concert and operatic work, her first con- cert in this country being in 1909, when she toured the Middle West. The first appearance in London of Madame Balfour was before the
Constance Balfour
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mayor of Westminster in 1911, and she continued to sing in the city of London until 1914. For one season Madame Balfour was special soloist with the Imperial Russian Ballet, directed by Alexander Kosloff, at Devonshire Park, Eastborn. „Not only did she sing at all of the larger theatres of London, but toured England with Von Vescey, recognized as England's greatest violinist, during which period she was assisted by Winifred Christie. In the United States Madame Balfour sang with Nordica, Beecham, Beecham Symphony Orchestra of England, Ben Davies and Hugo Heinz. She was soloist for the Ellis Club on five dif- ferent occasions. This club was established in 1888. In 1915 she was soloist at the San Diego Exposition. When the Stratford Inn was opened, Madame Balfour sang in the open air theatre. Upon three separate occasions she has been the soloist for the Los Angeles Sym- phony Orchestra. In New York she sang at the Hippodrome and the open air stadium. An opera, "The Legend," a lyric tragedy in one act, by Jacques Byrne, music by Joseph Breil, was written especially for Madame Balfour and dedicated to her. This opera was produced at the Metropolitan, in New York, during the season of 1918-19.
On December 29, 1895, she was united in marriage at London, Eng- land, with Henry Balfour, a singer of note, and they became the parents of one daughter, Eveline, who at the early age of twelve years shows great promise of developing into a musical genius both in voice and piano. Madame Balfour is interested in the Dominant Club to the extent of being one of its active members.
Nature has given Madame Balfour much, voice, person, musical temperament and dramatic aptitude, and these she has improved and developed. She has the true fire of genius, and has learned through years of ceaseless study to compass repose and symmetry. This country has not produced many artists, but in Madame Balfour is to be found the qualities once thought could only be developed through generations of association with the masters of musical cultivation in the old world. For the sake of her countrymen, it is to be hoped that Madame Balfour will be content to rest upon her foreign gathered laurels and devote herself to delighting American audiences, as she is so well able to do.
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