Forefathers

I’ve been obsessed all weekend with researching my roots. Well, not my roots exactly, more like the roots of my neighborhood—tracing the people who lived in the various houses on my block over the past hundred years and finding out what happened to them after they left the hood. I’ve already mentioned my obsession with Henry Jensen, the man who built our house for his family and who lived here from 1909 until his death in 1944. Jensen built some of the earliest movie theatres on the West Coast (including the magnificent Raymond Theatre in Pasadena which is facing imminent ruin at the hands of greedy developers) as well as many beautiful L.A. structures including other homes in our neighborhood. I’m still on the hunt for the only living relative of Henry Jensen that I know about, his great-grandson Robert Matthews, who last I heard was a 50-year-old lawyer in Orange County. So far every address I’ve tried has been a dud but I haven’t given up. Robert, if you’re out there, let me know!

But this weekend, thanks to insomnia and a subscription to Ancestry.com, I started mapping out the rest of the neighborhood, becoming as engrossed in the lives (and deaths) of the people who once occupied my block as I am in my own family’s history in the shtetls of eastern Europe. The hours flew by as I studied the handwritten census forms from 1910, 1920, and 1930, along with the Social Security Death Index and World War I Draft Registration cards, my eyes aching like those of a Talmudic scholar hunched over the Torah. There are few things that give me a greater rush than successfully cross-referencing the right names and dates to find missing pieces of the puzzle. I can feel the past coming alive during my research, the ghostly images from years gone by filling up the geography I now inhabit.

As I conjure up the forgotten history of this neighborhood, it's as if I’m paying penance for the years of neglect that transformed the area from one of the most fashionable districts in Los Angeles to a gang-infested wasteland that was tearing down mansions as fast as they could prop up hideous, poorly constructed cardboard boxes masquerading as housing. Our neighborhood is now cleared of the crack houses and ruins of the L.A. Riots during which several of the storefronts on the corner of our block were torched. The old-time neighbors who care about their homes are more visible now, as is the incoming breed of yuppies (including me and Kendall) who are so appreciative of our gorgeous old homes and the rich histories they contain.

Why is it so thrilling to me to trace the stories of people who have been dead for more than a generation? I added many details to my master list of what our neighborhood looked like in its heydey. I discovered a fascinating mix of lawyers, doctors, tailors, real estate agents, orange growers, owners of gold mines, a silent movie actress, the lead saxophone player in Paul Whiteman’s orchestra, the rabbi who married Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer, a famous architect of Craftsman houses and his one-year-old son who went on to become an Oscar-winning Art Director, along with countless people of all ages who did not work but were listed by the census workers as having “own income.”

The renowned architect I mentioned is Frank M. Tyler, responsible for some of the most beautiful homes in Los Angeles. Realtors today invoke Tyler’s name as a major selling point and the prices of the homes he built in the area have skyrocketed since we moved here a few years ago. I am a big fan of Tyler’s work and was thrilled to find him living down the street in the year 1910. At that time the 33-year-old architect resided in the stately new home that he designed for his father-in-law, John Burkhart, 54, who himself was a master carpenter along with his son, Harry, age 27. John and Beckie Burkhart’s daughter Lillian had married Frank Tyler in the summer of 1904. At the time of the census, the Tylers had a five-year-old son named Donald and a rambunctious one-year-old boy, born on March 28, 1909, named Walter. The children’s grandfather, William Burkhart, was living with the family following the death of his wife. Also on the census rolls was the Burkharts’ live-in housekeeper, Julia del Vescoso, 55, who had emigrated from Turin, Italy at the turn of the century.

Fast forward to 1920 and we find that Frank Tyler’s fortunes have grown considerably. Now his in-laws live in his house instead of the other way around, a large estate on Casitas Avenue. I guess some architects can’t stop building themselves new houses because by 1930 the middle-aged Tylers are living in yet another exclusive L.A. neighborhood while Lillie’s parents reside in a different Tyler-designed house back on Casitas with their son Harry who is 47 and unmarried (what’s going on there, Harry—inquiring minds want to know!).

Frank’s son Walter, who lived on my street as a young boy, inherited his father’s design sense but instead of building homes he used it to make his way in the movie business as a successful Art Director. Beginning with “Henry Aldrich, Boy Scout” in 1944 (the 11 Henry Aldrich films were Paramount’s answer to MGM’s successful Andy Hardy franchise), Walter went on to art direct some of the most prominent films of the next three decades including “A Place in the Sun,” “Roman Holiday,” “Sabrina,” “The Ten Commandments,” most of the Elvis Presley musicals, all of the early Neil Simon films from “The Odd Couple” to “The Out-of-Towners,” and ending with John Frankenheimer’s “Black Sunday” in 1977. Tyler was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won in 1950 for Cecil B. DeMille’s “Samson and Delilah.” He died on November 3, 1990.

Have I lost you yet? Are your eyes glazing over as you wonder why I can’t seem to focus on the here and now with the same zeal that I reserve for these useless tidbits that form the historical archive in my brain? I just wanted to illustrate how one name on a 95-year-old census form can start spreading its tendrils until I find myself doing extensive research on families that one hour earlier I knew nothing about. I’ve also been buying old L.A. high school yearbooks on eBay looking for further information on the former inhabitants of my neighborhood. Thanks to my newly acquired 1922 Lincoln High School Yearbook, I spent several hours last night researching the life and times of one Huber Smutz, class president. Come on—did you really expect me to let that name go by unresearched? I now know more about Huber Smutz and the Smutz family than I ever dreamed possible, but I’ll be kind and spare you the details.

There is a section in the yearbook containing pictures of the graduates and long descriptions of their school activities. For example, senior Franklyn Pierce was the Self-Government Secretary, Treasurer of the Lincolnian Society, Head Yell Leader, Vice President of the Glee Club, President of the Senior Dramatics Class, and Second Lieutenant of the ROTC. By contrast one single-line entry immediately stood out to me: “Hyman Zarinsky: Has zest.” Nothing else was mentioned, but then again, when you have zest, what else is there to say? I had to research Hyman, of course, and soon was able to piece together a dossier of his life which ended on October 6, 1980. But some things can’t be found in government documents. Did his wife Molly share the yearbook committee’s assessment of her husband’s zest? I can only hope. Even the pencil-written scrawls of the kids who signed the yearbook couldn’t escape my Need to Know. On one spring day in 1922, Charles Sanderson, also known as “Kid Sandie,” signed this yearbook, originally owned by a sophomore named Lena Loarmann: “Our eyes have met, Our lips not yet, But O You Kid! I’ll get you yet!” You’ll be happy to know that Kid Sandie did not try to make his living as a poet but by 1930 was living a few blocks from here with his wife Esther and was working as a bill collector for a national magazine.

This being Father’s Day, you’d think I’d turn my powers on my own dad, about whose family I know so little. I’ve tried and tried, but it’s as if they never existed. My father’s mother Jeannette, as I’ve mentioned, suffered from mental illness and was institutionalized when my father was still a boy. They were homeless from time to time and my father started working at a very young age in order to survive. He never knew his father. While there was a man named Morris Miller that possibly fathered one or both of my dad’s older brothers, it seems unlikely that he was my father’s father so the name my daughter and I carry is by default. (By all accounts Morris Miller was a no-good shmuck but let’s give him a shout out for leaving the name Miller in his wake instead of saddling us with my grandmother’s maiden name of Manosowitz!)

There has been all sorts of speculation about the identity of my father’s father, including the possibility that he was a guard at one of the asylums Jeannette frequented in the early 1930s, but short of psychic intervention, all leads have run dry. Is that why I’m so driven to research other people’s families with an OCD-like fervor? Would a therapist say that I’m somehow trying to reclaim my own lost identity through these cross-referenced names and dates? With no decent male role models, my father defied the odds and became one of the most loving and caring fathers that ever walked the earth. I hope Leah sees me as a good dad since I have no similar excuse. I’ve had an abundance of excellent male role models in my life, from Peter Miller all the way to Hyman Zarinsky and Huber Smutz!

Comments

[The Retropolitan]

Completely un-connected to your post about historic neighborhoods and ancestry:

I caught a bit of 'Monk' this weekend, hoping to catch sight of your house, but I guess it was a non-Miller-home episode. Aside from that, if you run into Traylor Howard, can you tell her that I want to marry her? I find her irresistably attractive for some reason. Thank you.

;)

[Danny]

We're only in the episodes that feature John Turturro as Adrian Monk's brother Ambrose. The one that's already out there is called "Mr. Monk and the Three Pies" and the one that they just shot is called "Mr. Monk Goes Home Again." I hope the rumor is true that they're coming back for more. The house that Turturro lives in on the show is next door to us and it is the only house in the neighborhood that is still owned by the original family who built it 100 years ago.

Will pass your proposal on to Traylor Howard. If she needs more info for the restraining order, I will give her both of our blog addresses!

[Shari]

I wonder what you might be implying about unmarried 47 year olds...?

[J.L. Jackson]

I worked for the LA City Planning Dept. from 1964 to 1973. For the final 6 months of his career, I worked for Huber Smutz who was Chief Zoning Administrator (a job created in the mid-40's I believe). He was quite a character and well liked by everyone in City government.

[Michael Smith]

Love the information you found on Frank M. Tyler. Well done! My partner and I restored a Frank Tyler down the street at 1915 S Oxford Avenue. We'd like to compare information about the prolific Mr. Tyler, if you're interested. Here's my email: [email protected].

Look forward to hearing from you. Cheers!