Died in Long Beach: Cemetery Tales

DIED IN

LONG BEACH

Cemetery Tales

CLAUDINE BURNETT

AuthorHouse™

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© 2016 Claudine Burnett. All rights reserved.

Photos from the author, Duke Fuller, William Rogers, Long Beach Public Library

For more about the author and her books go to www.claudineburnettbooks.com

Also check out her blogs

www.historiclongbeach.blogspot.com;

and

www.historicsealbeach.blogspot.com

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Published by AuthorHouse 06/25/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1102-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5246-1101-9 (e)

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

LONG BEACH CEMETERIES

Municipal (Signal Hill) Cemetery

Sunnyside (Willow Street) Cemetery

Forest Lawn/Sunnyside Mausoleum

& Memorial Garden

Palm Cemetery

All Souls Cemetery

Long Beach Cemetery Wars

CARETAKERS OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD

Long Beach Sanitarium

Seaside Hospital

Woodruff Sanitarium

Doctors

Undertakers

Monument Makers

CITY LEADERS AND POLITICIANS

City Founders

The Bixby Family

Board of Trustees

First City Council

Mayors

Governors

ILLUSTRIOUS LOCALS

Newspaper Men & Women

Cuthbert Family Band

School Teachers

Religious Folk

Influential

Alaskan Gold Rush

POLICE AND FIRE

City Marshals

Police Chiefs

Police Casualties

Fire Department

TRAGIC DEATHS

Murderers and Their Victims

Influenza

Died Too Young

Odd Deaths

ACCIDENTAL DEATHS

Railroad

Pacific Electric

Bicycles

Motorcycles

Automobile

Jitney

Airplane

Firearms

Industrial

Natural Gas

Oil Fields

Bixby Hotel

Empire Day

Pike

DROWNINGS

Seashore

Bathhouse Plunge

Alamitos Bay

Harbor

Colorado Lagoon

VETERANS

Civil War

Spanish American War

Mexican Revolution

World War I

HAUNTED?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

"Death is not something we should run from.

It’s only a monster under the bed if

you don’t talk about it."

INTRODUCTION

Southern California was a rough and tumble place to live in prior to the arrival of the Southern Pacific in 1876. The railroad immediately produced a calming effect, brought on by the visible connection to civilization. Many decided Southern California wasn’t such a bad place to live after all, including William Willmore.

In 1880 William Willmore attempted to build a community in what would later become Long Beach, but it wasn’t until 1886, a year after the Santa Fe Railroad arrived and broke the Southern Pacific’s monopoly that the region finally began to show life. A price war broke out decreasing the price of a one-way ticket from $52.50 in 1883 to $4 in 1886. Throughout the United States those looking for a new start in life bought tickets to California on the spot. Once here many never returned to their former homes.

Those who made it to Southern California wrote back home with tales of an untapped paradise that seemed all the more glorious because it was suddenly within reach. Real estate men portrayed it as the Promised Land, where the fine climate insured health, and fertile soil, a profitable living.

Long Beach was one of the many Southern California cities that grew out of the railroad fare wars. It was built by men and women who toiled to make it the great metropolis it is today. These are the tales of the dead who died or are buried in Long Beach. Some were illustrious in their time, others just common folk with interesting stories to tell.

I’ve tried to concentrate on those buried in Long Beach cemeteries, but other cemeteries are also listed. Where possible, I’ve included the names of the cemeteries where those I’m writing about are buried. If none is mentioned it means I couldn’t find it. Many of the stories in this book are of deaths occurring prior to the cemetery wars that erupted in the 1920s following the discovery of oil on Signal Hill. After that more desirable Cities of the Dead, as they were called in earlier days, opened up to provide a more picturesque final resting place. But what makes Sunnyside and the Municipal Cemetery different from all others is the question of whether the bodies are still there.

While working at Long Beach Public Library a wonderful volunteer, Judi Cameron, helped me search and add local obituaries to the library’s Long Beach History Index from local newspapers such as the Los Angeles Times, Long Beach Press, Evening Tribune and Press-Telegram. You can find an abstract of these obituaries on the library’s website www.lbpl.org. Unfortunately this project was discontinued because of budget cuts and only includes obits up to 1922. In later years many of these obituaries made their way to the website Find-a-Grave.

In writing this book I was able to track dates and military histories through the free on-line genealogy source Family Search. The greatest research tool in learning about World War I veterans was the book compiled by Long Beach Public Librarians in the 1920s Long Beach in the World War. Also, the Los Angeles Herald has recently come on-line for searching, adding additional information to the stories told here.

Besides library volunteer Judi Cameron, I would like to thank Find-a-Grave volunteers, Duke Fuller, Clay Nenno, Tracy & Glenn Morrow, Robert Blake Reid, Randall Waldrep and many other Find-a-Grave contributors for their work at documenting burials in Long Beach cemeteries. I would also like to thank Mike Miner at Sunnyside Cemetery, and Felicia Williams and Martha Correa at Forest Lawn/Sunnyside. Dustin Borrelli of the city of Long Beach was exceedingly helpful in sharing information about the Municipal Cemetery. Thanks also goes to those who shared personal stories about their families such as Judie Lecesne about her great-grandfather Louis Bendinger, Polly Johnson about the Harnetts and William Rogers about his Long Beach relatives.

LONG BEACH CEMETERIES

Cemeteries are a place to visit friends

who no longer argue with you.

Though sometimes you might hear a rumble

coming from below.

Charles Williams’ grave, Municipal Cemetery, 1905.

Duke Fuller at Williams’ grave 2016.

Municipal (Signal Hill) Cemetery

No one knows for sure how old the municipal cemetery on the northwest corner of Orange and Willow is. The oldest marked grave is that of a Milton F. Neece (1/17/1861-12/1/1878) who was buried in 1878 at the age of 17, but old timers back in the 1950s remembered a man who used to visit the cemetery in the 1930s who told the sexton that his father had been buried there years ago when the man was just a boy. Since the man appeared to be in his 80s, it could push the date of the cemetery as far back as the 1850s.

The first map of the cemetery was printed on linen and dated February 11, 1893, according to city records. The first published reports about the cemetery were in the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald in 1898. Both newspapers reported that Long Beach was prospering. Never before had the town had so many residents. One hundred houses had been built within the past year, and there was still a shortage of places to rent to summer visitors. Tenting was still popular because of the scarcity of cottages. It was noted that the summer season was one of the best that Long Beach had in many years: no gambling, drunkenness or disorder had disrupted the good, wholesome fun.

Oldest documented grave at the Municipal Cemetery.

With this growth new public services were needed, including a town cemetery. In July 1898, the city formulated plans to take over the five acre cemetery run by the Long Beach Cemetery Association three miles northeast of town. In exchange the city forgave the Association’s debts which amounted to about $100. The state of the cemetery, however, was disgraceful. There was no water and the cemetery looked as dead as the corpses it housed. It was suggested that 1300 feet of pipe be laid connecting it with the Bouton water system. To get it in shape the city needed to spend from $600 to $1000.

A special election held January 21, 1899, authorized a $4,750 bond for park and cemetery improvements. By 1901 action was taken to improve the municipal burial grounds even more. City trustees urged that Willow Street, leading to the cemetery, be lined with straw for a quarter of a mile or so and that the paths leading into the cemetery be graded and graveled. There had been some improvements as a result of the 1899 bond measure, water pipes and hydrants had been installed, a substantial fence had been erected around the cemetery to keep roving animals from digging there, and a tool house had been built. (LA Times 10/9/1901).

In December 1901 a discussion was held about the cemetery. Most agreed that the present location was not desirable and did not warrant any outlay of money for improvements. They pointed out that the cemetery was located on a side of a hill and that the ground would wash out during storms unless a large sum was spent for terracing and curbing. But disagreement arose as to other locations to bury the dead. Improvements were made.

By January 1903 a complete clearing up of records of the Long Beach Cemetery was undertaken by a citizens’ committee headed by Mrs. E. L. Malcolm. The old record books weren’t of any help; they were kept so poorly that there was even doubt about who was buried in the graves. The early caretakers thought all they were responsible for was appointing a sexton to look after the property, but many of the sextons could not read or write and their attempt at bookkeeping and posting records was amusing, at best. Many lots had been sold, but there was no record of the owners. The citizens’ committee did seek out known private owners of the plots to determine if the plots had been used and who was buried in them. They had even agreed to a name for the long-used cemetery: Signal Hill Cemetery. (LA Times 1/31/1903). It’s interesting to note that in the current Long Beach Municipal Code (16.48.010) the cemetery is called the Long Beach Cemetery.

The citizens’ committee had done all they could. They turned what they found over to the city clerk in 1906. In his spare time Deputy City Clerk Lewis Paine would get out the old map of the cemetery and devote a few hours to untangling the bookkeeping nightmare. At one time, according to the records, one man was buried in eight different lots! In another instance five bodies had supposedly been buried in one grave and several lots sold three or four times. Paine swore that he would not rest until he finally allotted each corpse to its proper grave. Up until 2003, when volunteers including Eagle Scouts and CSULB scientists started to remap the cemetery, all we really had to go on was Deputy City Clerk Paine, and hope that the work he did was correct.

By 1906 the old municipal cemetery was a blot on the landscape. New subdivisions had sprung up around the cemetery when development of the Signal Hill area took off in 1905. There was the Palmvista subdivision, advertising itself as nestled among the orange and lemon orchards of Signal Hill. Lots could be purchased for $500 and the magnificent views of the ocean and mountains were thrown in for free. On June 6, 1905, the Signal Heights subdivision at the corner of Willow and California was placed on the market. There was also Sunny Slope on the corner of Atlantic and Willow where property sold for $600 to $800 and the developer vowed to plant a date palm every 40 feet along the street.

The municipal authorities had not given the graveyard any attention, despite constant petitions filed with the city trustees, asking them to spend a few hundred dollars on cleaning it up. Finally, in 1906, Long Beach’s latest city fathers considered the matter and appointed a cemetery commission, who hired someone to tend the grounds and clean it up. But the size of the cemetery was limited, in fact there was hardly enough space left to care for the average dead in Long Beach for one year. Besides improving the present grounds, something needed to be done to secure more land for the City of the Dead.

Found in a shed at the Municipal Cemetery - Who is he?

Sunnyside (Willow Street) Cemetery

A company of businessmen purchased 15 acres adjoining the Municipal Cemetery in May 1906, resurrecting the name Long Beach Cemetery Association. They planned to organize the cemetery association on the land north of Willow and offer perpetual care. It would be a private concern and offer the best in landscaping, parking and care.

By June 1907, Long Beach had a new cemetery—Sunnyside. There were 3,500 lots in the new burying grounds with ample room for five graves per lot, giving the Silent City (as cemeteries were referred to then) a capacity of holding 17,500 persons. The drives in the grounds were called Myrtle, Fern, Magnolia, Ivy and Lotus. On both sides of these drives date palms were planted along with flowers and greenery. The association guaranteed a first class water system available throughout the grounds so survivors would not have to worry about dead shrubbery and grass disgracing the graves of the departed.

Office at Sunnyside Cemetery.

In 1915, it was decided that a mausoleum was needed. Sidney Lovell, architect of the famous Rose Hill Mausoleum in Chicago, was hired to design the Sunnyside Cemetery Memorial Mausoleum, which was to be of Grecian-Doric design, approximately 50 by 175 feet. A view to die for—a stunning panorama of Long Beach and the Pacific—was to grace the front portico. In addition, only granite, re-enforced concrete, marble and bronze would be used in the construction of the building. The inside was to be finished entirely in marble, bronze and art glass with ceiling decorations tinted to match. On July 12, 1915, the Daily Telegram wrote:

Perhaps the most essential feature in a mausoleum is that of its sanitary arrangement. The sanitation of the Long Beach building will be entirely under electrical control and while more expensive to install than any other system, is perfect in its results, insuring, at all times, perfect dryness and perfect purity of air throughout the building.

In addition to the sanitary equipment being under control of electricity, the building will be provided with both electric heating and lighting service, excluding thereby all dampness and providing against any possibility of gloomy or cheerless surroundings during service within the building.

The cost of single crypts was to be about the same as earth burial, but because of the number of individual crypts and the large amount of money needed to build the mausoleum, all of the crypts had to be sold in advance of construction, and only those who purchased them ahead of time could be accommodated.

On June 23, 1921, oil was discovered at Temple Avenue and Hill Street on Signal Hill. By 1922, with producing oil wells on three sides, Sunnyside and the Municipal Cemetery were perhaps the most valuable burial grounds in the world. The hallowed earth was beginning to attract the covetous glances of prospective oil promoters. It was estimated that the 43,000 square feet comprising the burial grounds would accommodate 20 wells. On a conservative basis, the Long Beach Press reported, the 20 acres in the combined Sunnyside/Municipal cemeteries would be worth approximately $100 million. Soon the Long Beach Cemetery Wars (described later) began!

Though a compromise on where to build a mausoleum was reached in 1923, the Long Beach Cemetery Association continued to run the original Sunnyside until 1989 when it was sold to an individual who neglected the site and embezzled more than a half million dollars from the endowment fund. The state Department of Consumer Affairs took the property into conservatorship and a group of volunteers made arrangement to keep the cemetery open and continue burials. The volunteer group formed a not-for-profit corporation to own and operate the facility. On December 29, 1998, the Department of Consumer Affairs and the Los Angeles Superior Court ended the conservatorship and turned the title and deed over to Sunnyside Cemetery, Inc. The State Department of Consumer Affairs has publicly stated the reorganization and management by the non-profit group is a classic example of what can be done when the community works together.

Forest Lawn/Sunnyside Mausoleum

& Memorial Garden

In 1923, amid all the fighting over oil and a place for a mausoleum, a new model cemetery was established with an entrance off Cherry Avenue at 1500 E. San Antonio Drive. It really wasn’t a new cemetery, since it incorporated the earlier Palm Cemetery, donated by Jotham Bixby. Long Beach, rich with oil money, was the largest city in California without a mausoleum. Now, in order to cool down tempers, building of the mausoleum continued. A new design, drawn up by Cecil E. Bryan Inc., Chicago engineers, was selected. The new structure which would contain 3000 crypts, with family rooms priced as high as $50,000. A brochure from the time states:

Forest Lawn/Sunnyside

It is the first mausoleum anywhere to be equipped with Deagan tower chimes and pipe organ, and the only mausoleum to have an echo organ in conjunction with its regular pipe organ installation.

There is a sunny alcove dedicated exclusively to little children, finished in the lovely Botticino marble and illuminated with an imported art glass window.

An electric elevator serves the lower floor and mezzanine from the main floor. Only Bryan-built mausoleums are equipped with noiseless electric elevators for the better service of their patrons.

There are no imitations of the real thing used in the construction of Sunnyside Mausoleum. No imitation or sham marble, no imitation bronze or iron work. The woodwork is solid mahogany…"

Constructed with a Spanish theme, the roof of the mausoleum was of red Spanish tile, while the chapel itself was decorated with imported art glass. Heavy bronze doors and Italian marble for the interior trim was designed to make this a virtual Palace of the Dead. In 1935, gardens were added to the grounds; in 1945 two decorative pools, and in 1980 the mosaic of Raphael’s fresco Paradise, composed of 2.8 million pieces of Venetian glass and standing 45 feet high by 32 feet across, was constructed.

Three small chapels (the chapel of the Palms, Wilton Street and Grand Avenue) as well as a crematory and mortuary were purchased by the Forest Lawn Company in August 1960. The mortuary was renamed Forest Lawn Mortuary - Long Beach. The rest of the 38-acre cemetery was purchased by the Glendale based funeral giant in 1979. In 1987, after eight years and 200,000 man-hours of renovation, the former Sunnyside Memorial Garden took on a new look as well as a new name—Forest Lawn Memorial Park-Sunnyside.

The renovation included transforming the smallest of the three chapels into an expanded reception area, relocating the mortuary entrance, adding dozens of statues, and consolidating two narrow drives into one wide road leading to the grounds.

Today people from around the world are drawn to the mausoleum not only to view the impressive architecture, but to see the Foucault Pendulum. It is one of the largest of its kind in existence. It keeps accurate time as it makes one complete revolution every 42 hours and 48 minutes.

One of the many beautiful displays in the mausoleum.

If you want to find any relatives buried in the mausoleum or adjacent cemetery, it is best to check at the Administrative office and ask for a guide. It’s easy to get lost in the cavern of passages inside the mausoleum, and some of the names etched in marble are hard to make out. All in all, it’s a beautiful, marvelous place, this City of the Dead.

Foucault Pendulum, Forest Lawn/Sunnyside Mausoleum.

Palm Cemetery

For many years the location of Palm Cemetery was unknown. Called Palm Cemetery because of the lone palm tree marking the location, it was available free-of-charge to anyone not able to come up with the $10 burial fee at Sunnyside, or not able to transfer the body the four miles to the pauper’s field area of the Municipal Cemetery. The cemetery grounds had been used by the Bixby’s for years as a burial place for their Rancho Los Cerritos workers, but anyone could be buried there without a fee. During the obituary indexing project at Long Beach Public Library, the burial place of several of those who died in Long Beach was listed as Palm Cemetery, but where was it? Long Beach historian Loretta Berner, who grew up on the grounds of the Rancho Los Cerritos, believed it had been incorporated into the Forest Lawn/Sunnyside Cemetery on San Antonio Drive, but she had no proof. Every time I visited Forest Lawn/Sunnyside I questioned staff about Palm Cemetery, no one had ever heard of it. In 2012 I happened to get a knowledgeable groundskeeper who was helping me locate the graves I was searching for. I asked him the usual question: Do you know anything about Palm Cemetery? and was surprised that he DID KNOW! He remembered an old plaque that used to be in the courtyard of the mausoleum that said under the lawn area was Palm Cemetery!

Palm Cemetery, today surrounded by Forest Lawn/Sunnyside.

Hopefully another plaque will be put in place, along with the names of some of those found during the indexing project of obituaries at Long Beach Public Library. Though most of those buried there remain unknown, here are the burials I found in the Long Beach Press and Daily Telegram. They include:

James J. Taylor (?-8/14/1918) died at Seaside Hospital. In July he was found in a shack at Alamitos Bay, ill and destitute. He was well known for his sand sculptures, for which he received donations on which he lived. There was always a mother and child figure, which he called Cast Up by the Sea, along with a variety of other molded art works.

Rafalile Rodister (1911-9/4/1918) died at the county hospital. Her family lived at 1045 Euclid Avenue in Long Beach.

H. D. Lash (?-10/16/1918) probably died of influenza.

Dolly Ross (1901-10/1918) was the daughter of Chaney O. Ross and Daisy M. Ross. She probably died of influenza.

Juan Sambodal (?-2/15/1919).

Camille Inez Geese (?-12/9/1919). She was the infant daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Homer Geese, 1774 Cerritos Avenue, Long Beach.

Jennie Aguillar (1890-1/10/1920). The 30-year-old native of Mexico was survived by her husband Joe Aguillar.

Thomas L. McGregor (?-3/18/1920) was the infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas A. McGregor of 1121 Gladys Avenue, Long Beach.

Luria Nieto (1909-5/10/1920) died of tuberculosis, age 14. She was the daughter Trinidad and Mortina Inianta Nieto.

Dorothy Ortis (1877-1/25/1921) died at her home, 104 Coronado Avenue, Long Beach.

One strange influenza related story was reported in the November 2, 1918, Long Beach Press. Several Mexicans had removed an old walnut casket from Palm Cemetery and were in the process of replacing the corpse with the body of a person who had just died when they were discovered by a cemetery employee. When F. A. Decker, secretary of the Long Beach Cemetery Association, arrived on the scene the Mexicans had already fled, but he found human bones strewn about the area of the grave. The casket, which looked to be about 25 years old, was falling to pieces. When police arrived at the cemetery they discovered the Mexicans had returned since Decker’s departure and buried a body in the grave. The identity of the Mexicans was never learned, nor was the identity of the person buried by them.

Anyone, according to local historian Loretta Berner (12/15/1909-10/23/1997, buried Mountain View Cemetery, Beaumont), could be buried in the cemetery. She remembered, as a girl, seeing people come to the cemetery with a body and simply burying it. No records were kept. Could this have been what the Mexicans had done? A loved one had died of influenza, they had come to bury the corpse, dug a hole and found it already occupied?

All Souls Cemetery

There’s one more Long Beach cemetery I haven’t mentioned: All Souls Catholic Cemetery at 4400 Cherry Avenue, almost across from Forest Lawn/Sunnyside. It opened on June 5, 1950, with the first interment being held by Paramount Mortuary for the late Ray Schloemer (7/8/1901-1/3/1950).

The 142 acres was purchased for a cemetery by Archbishop J. Francis A. McIntyre in September 1948. Burials intended for the new cemetery were temporarily entombed in Calvary Mausoleum in East Los Angeles. A total of 85 transfers from Calvary to All Souls were accomplished within a week of opening. It was Sheelar McFadyen Mortuary who handled the largest moving of the dead with 41 transfers.

All Souls Catholic Cemetery.

Today the cemetery advertises over 19,000 square feet of enclosed space; three large visitation rooms; a chapel with seating for 220 people with a vestibule to accommodate larger gatherings; seven private arrangement rooms; after-service reception area with kitchen amenities to accommodate 80 people; large parking lot; full-service flower shop; mortuary and cemetery administrative offices in one convenient location; fully handicapped-accessible amenities; several large public areas, including a comfortable visitor lounge and a large, private family meditation room; and two courtyards with lush greenery.

All Souls is also known for a tragedy that occurred there when a twin-engine plane crashed into the cemetery at 3:07 a.m. on the morning of August 7, 1965. The crash wiped out two families and hurled bodies and plane parts into a housing tract. The accident, which occurred in heavy fog, was less than 1,500 feet from the home of the pilot James Whitmarsh. The Dent and Whitmarsh families were aboard the Beechcraft and all 8 were killed.

A sheriff’s deputy said that if the pilot had traveled another few hundred feet before crashing he would have taken out another dozen people, at least. Fortunately there were no injuries in the housing tract. Power lines, however, were knocked down, throwing the area into darkness and adding to the confusion. A ten foot wide and three foot deep trench marked the crash site. The impact was so violent three bodies of those on the plane were hurled through shrubbery and a heavy chain link fence into the backyards of houses on Deeboyar Avenue. The body of young Terry Whitmarsh crashed head first