– Michael Dobkins
On this date in 1958, the Long Beach Independent reported the award winners of the second annual Children’s Daze Art Show sponsored by the Seal Beach Artists’ League as part of a summer weekend series of outdoor art exhibits just east of the Seal Beach pier. The show displayed an assortment of fifty paintings and sculptures. The judges were from the Long Beach Museum of Art.
The top ribbon was awarded to six year-old Kathy King of 114 12th Street by unanimous vote. Other winners were:
SEVEN TO NINE YEARS OF AGE
First place: Sonia Ericson, 8, of La Habra
Second place: Claudia Nissley, 8, of 1211 Electric Avenue
TEN TO ELEVEN YEARS OF AGE
First place: Rusty Burris, 10, of 108 25th Sunset Beach
Second place: Connie King, 10, of 114 12th Street
Third place: Meta Nissley, 10, 0f 1211 Electric Avenue
TWELVE YEARS OF AGE
First place: Jolyan Pratt of 277 Bay Shore Avenue
Second place: Adriene Werth of 16822 Pacific Coast Highway
THIRTEEN TO SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE
First place: Dawn Ericson, 14, of La Habra
Second place: David Brown, 13, of 224 4th Street
Honorable mention in the sculpture category went to Meta and Claudia Nissley
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1920, Seal Beach fans of fresh milk were presented with an opportunity to enjoy the freshest of milk. A “Fresh Jersey Cow” who was a “fine milker” and”very gentle” was listed for sale in the Santa Ana Register’s classified ads by F. L. Bailey at 259 5th Street.
Ninety-nine years later, F. L. Bailey and the cow are gone and the address has been changed to 412 Marina Drive, but there is still milk (and other beverages) available at Marina Liquor, one of the businesses at this location.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1934, silent film actress Ruth Clifford filed for divorce from her husband, restaurant and real estate investor, James A. Cornelius, after ten years of marriage. Clifford wanted custody of their four-year old son and temporary alimony of $500 a month.
Ruth Clifford and James A. Cornelius in Happier Times
The complaint claimed that Cornelius had beaten Clifford several times and once it had been severe enough to require the care of a doctor. The suit also accused Cornelius of committing infidelity with with a Miss Marian Elder, a pretty secretary at his beach home at 2304 Electric Avenue in Seal Beach on August 14, 1933. (Electric Avenue once extended across Anaheim Bay and the beach house was probably destroyed when the Navy dredged Alamitos Bay and removed all the beach cottages along its shore.
Ruth Clifford had been a big star in the silent era, but her full credit list ranges from 1916 to 1977, including providing the voices for Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duck in some Disney cartoons from the late forties and fifties. So Cornelius cheated on both Minnie and Daisy from a certain perspective. What a bum.
The divorce was finalized in 1938, Ruth Clifford would live for another sixty years.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1926, the 7:15 p.m. Pacific Electric red car west bound on the Seal Beach to Long Beach line made an unexpected detour at First Street and Ocean Avenue.
Normally, the red car would continue across the Ocean Avenue bridge to the Long Beach Peninsula. This time it took an unexpected turn on the sharply curved spur tracks into the Los Angeles Gas and Electric Corporation steam plant property. It crashed through the gates, but the motorman was able to slow the car enough to avoid derailment, and the only injury was his bruised elbow.
This March 11, 1933 photo shows the spur tracks into the steam plant property in the asphalt in the bottom left half of the photo. You can also see damage from the Long Beach earthquake.
Philip A. Stanton, founder of Seal Beach, witnessed the incident from the front porch of his home on the corner of that intersection. He had actually seen a man with a young boy turn the switch immediately in front of his house a few minutes earlier, but Stanton had assumed the man was a Pacific Electric employee.
A better view of the Stanton house from where he saw the incident. The switch in front of the house appears to have been removed. This photo was taken after the taller steam plant stack was replaced with this shorter one due to the 1933 earthquake damage.
The Pacific Electric abandoned this line in February of 1940, the bridge to the Long Beach peninsula was removed in 1955, and the steam plant was torn down in 1967. The Pacific Electric tracks of the spur leading into the power plant property still remained well into the seventies — decades past when the last red car rode down Ocean Avenue.
Addendum – There seems to be more little curiosity about the steam plant in response to today’s post. You can find links to earlier posts and photos (including footage and photos from the demolition from Joyce Kucera) here.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1918, Barney Weaver spent the last night of his life in Seal Beach.
Details vary slightly from newspaper article to article. According to the Santa Ana Register, Los Angeles policeman Barney Weaver and an attractive young woman purported to be his wife choose Seal Beach as the site of a suicide pact. Barney Weaver had been drafted and was to leave on August 22nd, and the two had decided to die together rather than be separated. Weaver placed his revolver against her head a number of times, but couldn’t force himself to pull the trigger. Finally, he put the revolver to his own head and fired, killing himself instantly. The woman’s name was not mentioned in the story
The Los Angeles Times story two days later added many details to tale, but the article only deepened the mystery. According to Weaver’s relatives, he had received threatening letters from a woman and that the same woman had contacted the local draft board with information that resulted in his deferment due to dependents having been revoked.
The woman on the beach with Weaver that night was now identified as twenty-one year old Theresa Marie Forgeron, and the Times makes a strong implication that she was one writing the letters and contacting the draft board. She had lived with Weaver for three months, although she was alleged to be married to another man. The two had separated recently after an argument, and Forgeron told the police that Weaver had been jealous of her and had even struck her once.
The police investigation discovered that Weaver had been ordered to appear before the draft board and that Forgeron had appeared before the board. The board ordered that Weaver should marry Forgeron that day and return on the 22nd for a physical examination, after which he would most likely be shipped to Camp Lewis. The two left the board hearing in tears.
Their quarrel forgotten, Weaver and Forgeron hired an auto and drove to Seal Beach. A letter signed by Forgeron on the suicide scene stated that she was pregnant and could not live on the $30 that the army would pay Weaver. Reading between the lines, it seems likely that Mrs. Theresa Marie Forgeron would not have been eligible for any spousal benefits because she was already married to another man and had been “living in sin” with Barney Weaver those three months. This was not spelled out directly in the Times article, but the truth was that the two lovers could not marry as ordered by the draft board.
It’s possible that when the police questioned Forgeron that they received a fuller accounting of Weaver’s and her night in Seal Beach, but the Times says nothing in the story. Perhaps they had a last meal at Jewel Cafe or went dancing. Another mystery is why they choose Seal Beach. Did they have shared history there? Was it a romantic getaway that they had planned in happier times and this was their last chance to take it? There is so much of this story that exists only in the realm of speculation.
What is certain is that around 2 a.m. that night, Barney Weaver took his life on the sands of Seal Beach. Mabel Thomas, who had been near the scene, testified before Orange County Coroner Winbigler at the that she had heard a woman begging “Take me with you!” right before the shot. Four letters found in Weaver’s pocket described their suicide pact and Mrs. Theresa Marie Forgeron’s testimony lead the Coroner’s jury to rule Weaver’s death a suicide.
One of the letters ended: “I am going to take Dot with me. Please bury us together, even if you have to bury us in the potter’s field.”
There’s no one alive today that remembers Barney Weaver, and very few details about him survive. At the time of his death, he was nearing the end of his six month probationary period with the Los Angeles Police, but according to city directories and his draft registration card, his previous employment was as a conductor for Pacific Electric. It’s possible that he may have even worked on red car trolleys traveling through Seal Beach. He was born on January 22nd, 1889 in Mansfield, Missouri. His draft card listed his as being of medium height and build with blue eyes and light hair. He had already served one and a half years of military service as a corporal for the Second Field Artillery. And in August 1919, facing an uncertain future as the father of a child with a woman still married to another man, Barney M. Weaver ended his life.
After the inquest on the 22nd, Undertaker Montell took Forgeron to her grandmother’s home in Los Angeles. Later, she left and wandered the streets until nighttime and then went to her mother’s house where the police found her and brought her in for questioning (which seems odd since the death had already been ruled a suicide.)
There is addendum to this sad affair that concerns Theresa Marie’s unnamed husband. In 1920, both the Los Angeles Times and the Santa Ana Register ran articles on a Willard W. Forgeron filing for divorce from his wife, Theresa Marie Forgeron. Willard had been a soldier in World War I when the suicide occurred and had only heard about it upon his return. He filed for divorce in 1919, but in August 1920 he was finally able to provide proof that his wife was the woman involved in the suicide pact by producing clippings of the Los Angeles Times story with the picture of his wife and providing testimony from Barney Weaver’s and Theresa Marie’s Forgeron’s landlady. Willard Forgeron got his divorce, later remarried, and died in 1964.
As for Theresa Marie Forgeron, she disappeared after August 22nd. She isn’t listed in the 1920, the 1930, or the 1940 census under the Forgeron last name or her mother’s last name. In fact, her mother and her grandmother don’t show up in any city directory or census. Using the addresses given in the Los Angeles Times story about the suicide and Google street views, I was able to explore her 1919 neighborhood on the web. Her grandmother’s apartment, her mother’s house, and the apartment she shared with Barney Weaver were only a few blocks away from each other, although the 10 Freeway passes over where her love nest with Barney once stood. It’s hard not to imagine young Theresa Marie wandering those streets, wondering how it all went wrong and blaming herself for the tragedy and scared about her impending motherhood. I hope it didn’t end for her there. I hope that she went somewhere else, somewhere far away and rebuilt her life under a new name and found peace and happiness.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1976, The Rossmoor Center hosted a HUGE Bicentennial Indian Pow-Wow. The next day, they did it again.
Why Native Americans would celebrate the Bicentennial or what the heck is Indian Country Western Music are questions best not asked forty years later.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1956, The Los Angeles Times reported on the recent expansion of Seal Beach’s borders.
Seal Beach had increased from a one square mile beachside city to nine times that size by annexing some private property and what was then known as the Naval Ammunition and Net Depot. The annexation had been completed weeks earlier, and Seal Beach had a certificate from Secretary of State to prove it. This also meant that if the tri-city area of Midway City, Barber City, and Westminster incorporated as one city, Seal Beach’s extension three miles east would result in Bolsa Chica Road becoming the new border between the two cities.
The expansion was not without opposition. According to City Engineer Hal Marron, “private property-owning interests” objected to the expansion and had won a writ of mandate in Superior Court. The city’s appeal against the writ was pending.
And that’s where matters stood on August 19th, 1956. So much unsettled, and yet there was enough optimism to stage a photo op with models Bernice Hugn and Marilyn Brechtel installing a new city limits sign at Westminster Avenue and Bolsa Chica Road.
Later, Midway City decided to remain unincorporated, but Barber City folded into Westminster. And that court appeal? Sixty years later, Bolsa Chica Road is the eastern border of the city, so Seal Beach must have prevailed.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1957, The Los Angeles Times did a short profile on the recently completed renovations of the Girl Scout club house at 257 Seventh Street.
The project was launched with a presentation at J. H. McGaugh School by Mrs. Connell and Mrs. Ralph Latta of the Girl Scouts ways and means committee the previous winter. The gist of the presentation was that the original clubhouse from 1936 had become inadequate to meet the needs of the 175 Girl Scouts currently using the property.
The renovation was a community effort started in February that collected more than $4000 through a door-to-door fundraising campaign and more than 900 hours of volunteer time from parents and Seal Beach citizens. Frank Curtis directed the construction which expanded the clubhouse to 1060 square feet.
The site is still active today and is a few months away from hitting eighty-three years of serving the community and helping girls discover and develop themselves.
You can find out more about today’s Girl Scouts of Orange County by clicking here.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1969, this ad in the Long Beach Independent touting the wonders of Seal Beach’s latest real estate tract, the exotically named “Suburbia.” Later this tract would become better known as “Bridgeport.”
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1963, Village Bazaar ran this ad in the Long Beach Independent.
Village Bazaar was a women’s fashion store that operated by Marie Rogers at 137 ½ Main Steet (although BankAmericard ads listed it as 139 Main Street).
– Michael Dobkins
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