Published by the San Marino Historical Society

The San Marino Historical Society The Michael White Adobe Post Office Box 80222 San Marino, California 91118-8222 Tel. 626-796-6023

WINTER 2002

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE On Memorial Day, May 28, 2001, the City of San Marino and the San Marino Historical Society joined ia a pro- Dear Members: gram in Lacy park, attracting over 100 spectators. City Councilman Matthew Lin spearheaded the occasion, As always, it takes some nudging to finalize our which will henceforth be an annual event. membership renewals. Please look at the enclosed letter, see which category you’re in, and respond, if appropriate. For various reasons, we’re running behind last year and need all possible support. The year 2001 was a good one in several ways. We had three highly successful programs, pro- duced the quarterly “Grapevine”, got monthly pho- tos in the Tribune, conducted docent tours (upon request), maintained the Old Adobe, and helped to prevent demolition of the Thurnher House. In addi- tion, we co-sponsored the Memorial Day ceremony in Lacy Park (see photos in this issue.) and facili- tated the San Marino tour of the Alumni Group of Gen. Patton’s 3rd Army, 818 TD BN, last summer. Midge Sherwood, Founding president of the San Marino The coming year will present the challenge of work- Historical Society gave the keynote address focusing on ing with the city on the Thurnher House repairs, co- San Marino’s General George Patton. ordinating the occupancy with the Recreation Of- fice, inventorying all of our possessions, updating our corporate status, arranging the division & mov- ing of appropriate items from the Old Adobe, and catching up on long-delayed filing & archiving of photos & papers. Obviously, volunteer help will be needed.

Our February 11, 2002 program will be preceded by our annual meeting and election of Board Members. Please come.

Jim Elliot introduces the color guard, composed of Paul Crowley ROTC cadets from John Muir High School. President

San Marino Historical Society SAN MARINO HISTORICAL SOCIENTY Officers 2001-2002 PROUDLY PRESENTS

*President Paul Crowley “ TIMES *VP, Membership Bill Ferry AND THE *VP, Programs Ave Maria Bortz CHANDLER FAMILY” *Treasurer Greg Thompson BY *Corresponding Secretary Marlene Elliott MIKE CURRY *Recording Secretary Emile Ferry *Parliamentarian Marilyn Peck Monday, February 11th, 2002, 7:30 pm *Librarian Judy Carter Southwestern Academy *Historians Kenneth Veronda 2800 Monterey Road Peggy Winkler San Marino Newsletter Chris Datwyler Gene Platz With the sale of the Los Angeles Times to the Curator, White Adobe James Elliott Tribune in March 2000, the 119 year saga of the Chandler City Representative Betty Brown, Vice-Mayor family and their ownership of the Los Angeles Times City Liaison Eugene Dryden came to an end. On Monday, February 11, 2002, Nick Docents Peggy Winkler Curry, SMHS Class of 1961 and historical researcher at Communications Carolyn Holmstrom the , will speak on the history of the Los Stoneman Mural Marilyn Peck Angeles Times and the respective roles of four genera- Social Katy Benton, Dorothy Ohlson tions of Chandlers: Harrison Gray Otis—the founding pa- Advisory Ben Salvaty triarch; Henrry Chandler—the empire builder, Norman and

Buff Chandler—who brought culture to Los Angeles; and Historical Collections and Architectural Survey John Holmstrom, Sander Peck, Marilyn Peck, Gene Platz, Otis Chandler—who built his great-grandfather’s legacy Alan Weirick into a major global media powerhouse.

Adobe Restoration and Preservation PUBLIC INVITED—ADMISSION IS FREE Paul Crowley, Eugene Dryden, James Elliott

Assistants (General) Vera Wrobel, Sander Peck, Marlene Elliot, James Elliot, Gene Platz, Alan Weirick, John Morris (Treas.), Jeff Morris (Membership)

Scholarship Committee Sander Peck, Bob Almanza, Emile Ferry

Shirts and Totes Marilyn Peck

Docents Graziella Almanza, Katy Benton, Mary Payne, Lillian Campbell, Beth Yale, Dorothy Ohlson, Veronica Palma- Romero, Vera Wrobel, Sandy Morris, Marilyn Peck, Peggy Winkler, Ave Maria Bortz, Jim Elliott, Bea Hutter, Carolyn Holmstrom Otis racing his boys Harry and Norman, early 1960’s *Board Officers around the time of his move to Oak Grove Place in San

Society Presidents (1974-1999) Midge Sherwood ...... 1974 Mary Smith ...... 1976 Jack Sherwood ...... 1978 The third Times build- Ed Ford ...... 1980 ing, opened in 1934 Graziella Almanza ...... 1982 and is still the Times La Verne Smith ...... 1985 headquarters today. Jeanne Imler ...... 1989 Gary Fleming ...... 1991 Lillian Campbell ...... 1993 Marilyn Peck ...... 1995 Paul Crowley ...... 1999

Page 2 SOUTHWESTERN ACADEMY’S HISTORY LINKED WITH CITY’S Eighty years ago this winter, the 180 acre portion of Rancho Los Robles at the western end of San Marino were sold to a widower planning to open a boarding school to care for his young son and other boys. The piece of former governor George Stoneman's ranch, from the South Pasadena and Pasadena city limits east to the Granada wash, was fully planted in Valencia orange groves except for an old barn and stables, a few specimen trees that had been given the governor (including one of the first grapefruit and three avocado trees brought from Guatemala), and Stoneman's empty ranch house, designed by Myron Hunt in 1913. Maurice Veronda had come as an infant from a village high in the Alps of northern Italy, his family and village migrating in 1892 to mine soft coal on the Illinois prairie. Veronda had earned a law degree and served with the U.S. Army artillery in the Great War, finding himself posted to Fort McArthur in San Pedro when his young wife died of tuberculosis. A boarding school seemed a good career to work with youth while uniting his family. Veronda's father and siblings moved into the ranch house while starting construction of other school buildings. To raise money, Veronda and a partner laid out streets from Carlaris south to Wil- son and sold lots for $200- building a few Spanish Colonial-style homes for an additional $500. The new school could only be entered from the end of Monterey Road at the South Pasadena boundary, along a rutty dirt lane called Lopez Road. Southwestern Academy took its name from Charles F. Lummis' concept of the southwestern United States being a land unique in spirit. Lummis him- self came from his El Alisol home in the Arroyo Seco to dedicate the new school on April 7, 1924, sending a bill for a princely $50 to a stunned Mau- rice Veronda in the next day's mail. With over 80 other boarding schools operating in the Los Angeles area-there were five in San Marino and Pasadena already-survival was a struggle. Meanwhile, staff and students took on the task of chopping down orange trees, clearing a dirt sports field, dragging in a surplus French cannon and caring for several horses while keeping up with studies. A sunset volley was fired from the refurbished cannon for a few months in 1925 until people in the just-completed homes Southwestern's marching band lined up on the still-unpaved Monterey Road in along St. Albans complained of the noise. (The cannon sat decaying on 1929. Stoneman's barn and the old cannon are center-Left. the school's front lawn, enduring camouflaging in WWII and many coats of orange-and-black or blue-and-white paint after SP-SMHS divided, until sent on Lend-Lease to defend Fleming House on Caltech's Olive Walk from Page House neighbors.)

Lincoln Hall, completed in 1925 as Southwestern's main class center, includes an auditorium where several San Marino organizations began, including City Club, the American Legion post, Community Church, the Christian Science church, and our own San Marino Historical Society, which held its organizational and its first public meetings at Southwestern. Today's campus, just eight of the original 180-acre ranch land, includes sixteen class- rooms, a gym, art and music studios, dining rooms, and four boys' dorms (girls live a mile away, coming to campus from breakfast through dinner). Originally single-sex, as all boarding schools of the time, Southwestern's classes became coed in 1939; originally offering grades one through ten, graduating from junior high at the end of 10th grade under Pasadena's 6-4 -4 plan, the school begins today with sixth grade, continuing through a college preparatory high school and placing graduates in competitive col- leges and universities across America. The school incorporated not-for- profit in 1937, with Maurice Veronda continuing its direction until his death in 1961. After a few years with interim heads, his son Kenneth became Southwestern's headmaster in 1968. A few boys came by train from Mex- ico and Guatemala in the 1930s to live at Southwestern and learn English. After World War 11, international students began coming from Europe, then from the Middle East and South America. Desiring to broaden the international experience, Southwestern's board of trustees established a policy in 1975 setting enrollment as half-American, half from other nations; around forty different countries are represented in the student body each year, including a growing number from the former Soviet and its satellite nations and from all Asian countries. In 1963, the school opened a second campus in the red rock canyon country of northern Arizona, near Sedona. "Class A Basketball" started outdoors on dirt in 1928 - The roof of Hotel Hunt- Beaver Creek Campus offers outdoor educational experiences for stu- dents rotating from the different environment of San Marino. ington can be seen above the goal posts.

Activities and sports have been important for Southwestern's students since the school opened in 1924, though much has changed over the years. San Marino's oldest newspaper is Southwestern's CONFAB, printed on old hand presses where Southwestern teacher Frank Collins later began to produce the San Marino Tribune. The presses are still on campus, though today's CONFAB is all digitalized. Students built a radio station in 1925 that broadcast their jazz orchestra as far as the neighboring Huntington Hotel. Varsity football was played against neighboring junior highs in the 1920s along with the new sport of basketball. Horses on campus were replaced by Shetland ponies in the 1930s, and the ponies were gone by the late 1940s. Surely one of the city's first television sets was a large box with a 12" screen given to the students in 1947 by an alumnus then starring in the new medium. A decade later, another alumnus brought to campus an explanation of a new Sperry-Rand computer he was using that filled a five story building at Stanford. Southwestern's campus at the start of the 21st century holds more than a hundred PCs, anyone far more powerful than Stanford's first. And Southwestern's 1921 Model T covered wagon sits retired in a campus garage today. Southwestern's accredited programs are often better- known in cities around the world than in the school's home town, as alumni and parents are scattered across the globe. But San Marino's residential prep school continues into its ninth decade to educate local and visiting boys and girls, to teach American culture and community service, and to stay an important part of the San Marino community.

Page 3 OLD SAN MARINO - 1924

St. Albans Road, south of Huntington Drive in 1924. New subdivision and young palm trees in foreground, Hunt- ington-Sheraton Hotel in distance.

St. Albans Road (center) crossing Huntington Drive in 1924, with new subdivision on its’ lest. Old Mill and Lacy Park just off photo, north of Mon- terey Road.

The 75 year old Thurner House is at the Virginia Road entrance to Lacy Park just of the top of the above photo.

WEBSITE Visit our web page to learn more about your Soci- ety’s programs and activities: www.smnet.org SHIRTS ‘N TOTES (Click on “Community Resources” and then on We are still selling sweatshirts, T-shirts and tote bags with the “San Marino Historical Society”) colorful map of San Marino. They make wonderful gifts or souvenirs of our city. Profits go to ours services to the com- or go directly to: munity. If you wish to purchase them call Marilyn Peck at www.smnet.org/comm_group/historical/ (626) 449-4572. Page 4