It's 'typical'

Postcard of Doheny Mansion recently acquired by the Archives.

'TYPICAL' ISN'T A WORD often associated with No. 8 Chester Place, but this picture postcard with a December, 1910, postmark doesn't even identify it as the opulent home of Mr. and Mrs. Edward L. Doheny. It's just a "California Home, according to the printed caption," with grounds "typical of California yards," writes sender "C.W.B."

Here's the text of the note to Miss Grace Baker of Guide Rock, Nebraska, population 690 in 1910. 

How is the Picture business coming, or have you stopped for the winter? It is like summer here and the oranges are ripening. This picture is typical of Calif. yards. Have learned to drive an auto a little and went up into Sierra Madre Mts. without a mishap Sunday. We like it fine here. Regards to your father. C.W.B. [G?] Del.

We wonder where CWB was living that gave him the idea that the Dohenys' home was just another L.A. abode. Maybe he was dazzled by all the palm trees. And what's this about the Picture business? Were people making movies in turn-of-the-century Nebraska?

In any event, if we were Miss Baker, we'd be packing our bags before the next Nebraska blizzard and on the train to the real movie capital of the world.

We have lots of other historic postcards of the anything-but-typical Chester Place on view on our repository site. Just go to http://stmary2.sdlhost.com/ and click on the Postcards box.

Postcards from Doheny, Part I

Looking south down Chester Place toward West Adams Boulevard.
The tower on the right is part of No. 7, home today of the Mount's
Student Affairs department and Campus Ministry.

WE OBSERVED AWHILE BACK that it is a lucky archives indeed that owns a batch of antique postcards.  We're fortunate today to have a batch of the digital equivalents, courtesy of our friend and historian, Don Sloper, and our St. James Park neighbor Jim Robinson.

Jim, who lives in the landmark Dockweiler House a block west of the Doheny Campus, has collected photographs and postcards from the historic neighborhood that date back to the turn of the 20th Century. His company, Robinson Residences, leases several vintage homes in the area.

In researching his book Los Angeles' Chester Place, Don availed himself of some of Jim's collection and in the process digitized nearly all of it. Don recently turned over his entire research collection to the College Archives, and Jim gave us permission to showcase his images.

We're looking forward to adding them to the Mount's online repository and making them available for viewing. There are other sources for viewing these postcards online, but we believe that we've got the largest collection in one place. That's an asset both to the Mount and Los Angeles history buffs. Watch this space for updates on availability.

Sunsest glow

HERE'S A POSTCARD that turned up in the Public Relations folders earlier this week. It's taken at dusk from a hilltop north of Chalon and looks south across Culver City, Santa Monica and the bay to the distant lights of Palos Verdes.

The College is all alone on its hill -- no Getty Center, no homes clinging to the slopes on the west side of Boehme Canyon. The Humanities Building is there but not Drudis-Biada, which dates this sometime between 1965 and 1973.

Postcards from Chalon

OLD POSTCARDS are beautiful, and lucky is the archives that has a few of its own beautiful scenes. More than once I've come across a few squirreled away in an envelope, revealing a decades-long long tradition. Here is a sampling from the 1940s. A booklet postmarked 1945 was addressed by a visiting Sister to her nephew in St. Louis. It made it back to the archives in 2007. Later versions have the graceful steeple of Mary Chapel (1939) and new library (1947). I've found a few from our Doheny Campus, which I'll post later on.