American Biography

Felipe Neri Gomez was born at Monterey in California on May 25, 1832. His father, Rafael Gomez, was a native of the State of Jalisco, Mexico. He was educated for the law, and in 1829 the Mexican government sent him to California on legal business. He died at Monterey in 1839, as a result of blood poisoning.

On March 7, 1831, Rafael Gomez married Josefa Antonia Estrada, daughter of Jose Marino and Ysabel (Arguello) Estrada. Jose M. Estrada was a lieutenant in the State of California. The Estrada and Gomez families came to California as early as 1801 and were in the Government service. The father of Ysabel Arguello was Louis Arguello, of one of the most ancient families of Monterey. Besides Felipe Neri, Rafael and Josefa Gomez were the parents of Ysabel, Juan, Mariana and Rafael.

Felipe Neri Gomez, though only seven years old when his father died, had all the advantages that wealth and social station could bestow. The administrator of his father’s estate was David Spence, who carefully looked after the education of the youth. He sent him to the Hawaiian Islands in order to learn the English language under the direction of the missionaries. On his return he was sent to the Seminary of Law at Guadalajara, Mexico, from which he graduated. This training gave him unusual qualifications to take charge and administer the Gomez estate.

Mr. Gomez in 1872 was appointed postmaster of Monterey, California, and held that office for eighteen years. During ten years of this time his daughter Josefa acted as his assistant. She was the first woman accepted for the duties of assistant postmaster in the records of the postal department. She served as assistant postmaster until her marriage to Mr. Hubbard, who was of German and Scotch ancestry and died in 1919.

Mrs. Alfred G. Duffield was born in Dundee, Scotland, daughter of George Smith and Katharine Rae. She was educated in Dundee and was married to Alfred G. Duffield, an Englishman at London.

Mrs. Duffield came to America in 1908 and since 1917 has been superintendent of the Maternity Cottage at Los Angeles. She was given this post immediately after completing her training.

The Maternity Cottage was organized March 28, 1907, by the Woman’s Alliance Maternity Cottage Association. The first cottage was dedicated May 24, 1907, the second cottage was purchased in April, 1909, the third cottage erected and dedicated June 27, 1920, and in August, 1924, the first addition was erected. This association was incorporated April 9, 1909.

The institution is conducted on a semi-charitable basis. The full fee for twelve days of confinement is twenty-nine dollars, but some of the figures for the year 1929 will illustrate to what an extent the service [p.238] is a great philanthropy. During that year 513 babies were delivered, including six sets of twins, 247 boys and 266 girls. The charges in forty of these cases were less than ten dollars, and fifty-two cases were sole charity. During the same year the hospital management made 1,851 prenatal examinations and gave away twenty-one full baby layettes.

The utmost trust has been placed in Mrs. Duffield by Mrs. William Baurhyte, the president, and the other members of the board of directors of the association. The hospital has nearly doubled its capacity during Mrs. Duffield’s management. There were only seventeen beds when she took charge and now there are thirty. Her work has constantly shown that she possesses that reliability and responsibility which are the chief requisites in such a place of trust as she occupies.

Harris Newmark, who died April 4th 1916, came to Los Angeles in 1853. Just a year before his death, his memoirs, entitled Sixty Years in Southern California, a work of reminiscences and sketches which will remain one of the standard sources of information on the Southwest, was published. The author was one of the most prominent actors on the stage of pioneer and later activities in Southern California.

He was born in West Prussia in July, 1834, the son of Philip Newmark and Esther (Meyer) Newmark. Reared and educated in Germany, Harris Newmark, for a short period, represented his father, a manufacturer of shoe-blacking, in Sweden. In 1853 he left Gothenburg, in October of that year, reaching Los Angeles, whither his older brother, J. P. Newmark, had preceded him and with whom he was for a time associated in business.

In 1865 Harris Newmark established a wholesale grocery firm, first conducted under the name of H. Newmark and later H. Newmark and Company, which soon became one of the most influential wholesale houses in the Southwest. Before the era of railroad transportation, Harris Newmark supplied a large part of the wagon trade that reached the most remote inland communities.

In 1885 Mr. Newmark retired and the firm name was changed to M. A. Newmark and Company when his son Maurice took over management. After retiring from his grocery activities, he entered the hide and wool business, in which he continued for ten years, finally in 1906 withdrawing from all business cares.

During his many years of residence in Southern California, Mr. Newmark made extensive investments in real estate in Los Angeles and its vicinity. Eventually these holdings were incorporated as the Harris Newmark Company, of which he became president. At one time he owned a large tract in the San Gabriel Valley, known as the Santa Anita Ranch, which he ultimately sold to ‘Lucky’ Baldwin. He also owned the Temple Block and was president of the Temple Block Company of Los Angeles. In 1886, Mr. Newmark acquired the five thousand acre Repetta Ranch, on which he subsequently established the towns of Montebello and Newmark, situated in one of the rich oil fields of Southern California.

In 1858, Harris Newmark joined Los Angeles Lodge No. 42 A.F. and A.M. He was a charter member of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce; was one of the organizers of the Los Angeles Board of Trade and one of its first directors; helped organize the Los Angeles Library and for many years was president of the Los Angeles Congregation B’nai B’rith. He was a member of the Southwest Museum; the Los Angeles County Pioneer Society; National Farm School Association; the Lincoln University Endowment Association, and a charter member of the California Club. After the death of his wife in 1910, he endowed part of the Jewish Orphans Home of Southern California, in her memory.

Their marriage took place in Los Angeles on March 24, 1858, and resulted in eleven children, only five of whom survived childhood — Maurice H. Newmark, Mrs. Leon Loeb, Mrs. Jacob Loew, Mrs. Carl Seligman, now dead, and Marco R. Newmark.

Edward A. Carson was born on the old Dominguez Rancho, near Los Angeles California, on June 6th 1869. He grew up with all the advantages that the family position of wealth and social position could confer. He attended public schools at Compton and in 1888 graduated from the Woodbury Business College. For three years he was a student in Santa Clara College. Carson took up the study of law, for three years apprenticing in the office of Judge H. K. S. O’Melveny, one of the most famous characters in politics and the legal profession in Southern California. Mr. Carson, however, never practiced law.

Mr. Carson was clerk for the board of supervisors for four years and then in 1899 was elected city auditor of Los Angeles, holding that office two years. He retired from public office to join the San Gabriel Electric Company, the first electric company in Los Angeles. Later this was merged with the Pacific Light & Power Company and later with the Southern California Edison Company. Mr. Carson remained with these organizations altogether for about seventeen years, until the City of Los Angeles took over the plant and business of the Edison Company, at which time he retired, in 1923.

Edward A. Carson is a Republican, a member of Los Angeles Lodge No. 99, B.P.O. Elks, and attends Saint Agnes Catholic Church. His hobbies are mechanics and photography.

Carson married at Los Angeles on April 16th 1896, Miss Cecelia C. Pearson. She was born at Los Angeles and was educated in the schools of that city. Her mother was Mrs. Mary A. Pearson, of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Carson resided at 1910 South Hobard Boulevard.

Yola D’Avril is a young French woman whose petite winsomeness and gracious personality have won to her marked favor in connection with the great motion-picture industry of California. She has proved versatile and resourceful in her artistry, has a fine conception of dramatic values and by her own ability and efforts has won the recognition that marks her as one of the brilliant and popular figures in the art of the silver screen.

Miss d’Avril was born in Lille, France, and there was living in peace and happiness with her parents and her brother when the World war was precipitated and her home district became the stage of active conflict. After having been under the direct fire of the enemy the beautiful little City of Lille was evacuated and Miss d’Avril accompanied her parents and her brother to the City of Paris. There she found opportunity to advance her education under both conflict and post-war conditions, and upon her youthful mind were made enduring impressions of the harrowing and devastating conditions and circumstances of the war period. Her father was too advanced in years to be eligible for military service, and he passed away about five years after the armistice brought the great world conflict to a close, his death having occurred in 1923.

Within a comparative short time thereafter the widowed mother came with her two children to America and after passing a few months in Canada the family came to California, where the three members have since continued their devoted companionship and where they now have an idyllic hillside home in Laurel Canyon — 2228 Laurel Canyon Drive, Hollywood.

Soon after her arrival in Los Angeles Miss d’Avril found ways and means to effect her entre into the motion-picture fold, though her debut was one of most modest order. She made application at the door of the Lasky Studios that provides entrance to persons applying for work as ‘extras,’ she was accepted and her first assignment was to the French picture entitled ‘The Dressmaker of Paris.’ Thereafter she played extras in the comedies of the Christie studios, where later she was assigned specific roles. She next played small parts at First National studios, and there came recognition of her exceptional talent and versatility, with the result that she was given a two-year contract.

Miss d’Avril played in many of the pictures in which the late Milton Sills was starred, including ‘The Wrecking Boss,’ ‘Valley of the Giants,’ ‘Hard Boiled Haggerty,’ ‘The Silent Lover,’ and others. She has appeared also in pictures with Jack Mulhall, Ben Lyon and other screen celebrities. Her first appearance in talking pictures was in ‘The Love Parade,’ and more recently she finished her exquisite rendition in the screening of the talking play entitled ‘Those Three French Girls.’ Miss d’Avril has been an earnest and loyal worker in her chosen profession and has received most favorable recognition as an artist of exceptional talent and most winning stage presence, while her personality has gained to her a host of friends in the land of her adoption. She is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Alvin Eichwaldt was navigator of the Dallas Spirit with Capt. William Erwin. They set out in 1927 across the Golden Gate in a vain attempt to rescue the missing Dole race flyers and has since been numbered among “the unreturning brave” of whom Byron sang so eloquently. Somewhere in the broad Pacific he went a martyr not merely to the restless spirit of adventure but even more to that high impulse which in all ages has impelled men to dare and sacrifice for a great cause and willingly risk their lives for their fellow men. Aviation has rallied to its standard the hardiest spirits of our generation, but none with a more colorful life career than that of Alvin Eichwaldt. Here it is possible to review only briefly that life which will always reserve its proper niche of fame in the history of aviation.

He was born at Alameda, California, at the beginning of the present century, and was only twenty-seven when, after journeying and experiences that took him to practically all parts of the world he started on his last flight from the vicinity of his birthplace. He was a son of Ivan August and Florence (Delonoy) Eichwaldt. His father was a Russian, a cavalry officer who was an instructor in the Spanish-American war. His mother is of old Colonial American ancestry, a descendant of General “Honest Tom” Marshall, who as aide de camp to Washington and helped build Fort Necessity, and also of John Fitch, the first governor of Connecticut. Mrs. Florence Eichwaldt, after the death of her beloved son, continued to make her home at Haywards. She and her son had pioneered in the field of aviaculture and her fame has spread abroad to England, France and Germany. In her gardens can be seen many of the rarest specimens of birds in the world.

At the age of five years Alvin began to travel, and visited Russia, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Austria, Italy, Spain and the Azores. At sixteen he visited Mexico and the South American republics. He was fourteen when the great war broke out in Europe and from the first he was more than eager to get into the fight. So at the age of sixteen he enlisted in the navy with a 100 per cent record in every test. He was rated signal man and at once began to show of what he was made. His first assignment was as quartermaster on the old gunboat Annapolis, patrolling the Central American Coast, where he was detailed to hunt out and destroy German wireless stations. The knowledge of wireless he had gained as a child was of value and made him a most efficient locater of German stations that were at the time directing the raiders and submarines that had become such a dreadful menace to all allied shipping.

Even while engaged in these duties and in still more hazardous assignments when he was called to the European war zones he remained a constant lover of nature. This is revealed in the hundreds of letters he wrote, letters filled with descriptions of birds, eggs, strange tropical fish, wonderful insects, brilliant butterflies, tree wonders, gorgeous sunsets, cloud formations, and rainbows.

Later he was chasing German submarines along the South Atlantic and Canal zone and after these terrors of the sea had been pretty well driven from American waters the American naval forces concentrated in the foreign waters, helping close the only entrance to the high seas by planting the mine barrage across the North Sea. It was into the North Sea that young Eichwaldt was sent. It was the most hazardous work ever done by any navy, but it was accomplished. Quite awhile before the armistice was signed the United States began to get the mine sweeping fleet outfitted and Eichwaldt was in Chester, Pennsylvania, as naval inspector, detailed to watch the building of the U. S. S. Turkey, when the war ended. Immediately afterwards the soldiers began returning home but the navy’s work was not finished. The thousands of mines laid beneath the waters of the North Sea had to be removed. Eichwaldt was assigned to the mine sweeper Turkey, which he had helped to put into commission, and in April, 1919, was on his way to the Orkney Isles. Strangely enough he went to the war saving lives instead of destroying them. Never once during those terrible years did he have a chance to fire upon the enemy. The mine sweeping was a peace time project and that fact perhaps made the constant danger even greater by contrast. Everyday boats were disabled by terrific explosions caused by mines containing hundreds of pounds of T. N. T. and Eichwaldt had been at this work less than a month when the Turkey was blown up. He escaped injury and was soon assigned to the Black Hawk and later to the Oriole. As he wrote in one of his letters:

The war is over, the war is won and other navies are resting. We are still fighting–men against diabolical mines, to make the North Sea safe for England’s ships, for Germany whose atrocious submarine warfare arrayed the civilized world against her, for Belgium, Denmark, Norway and the world’s commerce, and even glory is not our price. They call us heroes–yes? but unsung, and, worse, unscrubbed.

On June 21, 1919, young Eichwaldt witnessed a part of the historic scene at Scapa Flow when the great German fleet that had surrendered was scuttled by their crews. On September 30 he wrote: “The gate is opened, the last man has gone from the scene. We have taken 8,706 mines this month. Our sweeping record is 1,925. I sank or exploded 200 by rifle fire.”

In one of the letters he wrote to this mother from Brest in France he spoke of his plans for the future, including: “The little house and big garden you’ve always wanted. It will not be many years before I can save enough to be independent. I’ve a profession and am going to make the very best of it. There is a chance to improve navigational instruments and improvement to be made in planes. While in Pennsylvania I studied aeronautics as much as possible. Aviation is the greatest thing in the world. You know I was always crazy about it. Some day I will navigate a plane across the sea.” It was on November 19, 1919, that the fleet of sweepers and subchasers came to anchor off Staten Island and at last the “Suicide Club” as the mine sweepers were called, was home. Alvin Eichwaldt was twenty years old when he left the navy. He immediately took examinations, got a license as a navigating officer and secured a position as such within a few weeks after he reached home. He rose rapidly in his chosen profession. At twenty-six he was known as a skillful navigator, licensed to command a ship of any type on any ocean. And immediately after his return he assisted his mother in making their dreams come true in the little home they bought at Hayward, in the back yard of which they built pools, trellises, bird houses, arbors, arches and masses of flowers until it became the show place of the town. Here he entertained his friends and also communed with his pals and cherished plans for what they would do.

Soon after Rogers unsuccessful flight to Hawaii one of Alvin’s war time friends, an instructor of aviation, was anxious to make a transoceanic flight and Alvin was to be the navigator. The death of the backer of the flight upset their plans and it was not until Ernie Smith and Charles Carter prepared to make such a flight that the youthful navigator again took an active interest in flying. Carter was a shipmate of Alvin’s. Eichwaldt charted his course, marked out the degrees on the tailfin of the plane for checking the drift, gathered weather reports, swung compasses and spent every minute he could spare giving a hand wherever it was needed during those exciting days when the Smith plane was being made ready to race the army plane to Honolulu.

Soon afterward he became acquainted with Gordon Scott, the navigator of the Golden Eagle. Other planes entered in the Dole race began to gather at the airport and Eichwaldt’s one desire was to navigate one of them. Then came the message that he had been chosen to navigate the Dallas Spirit for Capt. Bill Erwin. In this historic race it will be recalled that eight planes started, two of them crashed on the field and of those that got away the Oklahoma soon returned disabled, then the Miss Doran came back for repairs and started out again, and finally the Dallas Spirit came in sight with a great hole ripped in her fuselage and it was only by the marvelous skill of Bill Erwin that the crippled monoplane landed. Before the Dallas Spirit had been made ready again the Dole race was a tragic history. Two of the planes reached Honolulu and two others, the Golden Eagle, with Eichwaldt’s friend, Gordon Scott, and the Miss Doran were somewhere lost in the Pacific. Eichwaldt felt that these gallant flyers might perhaps be rescued by a plane flying above them with a visibility of eighty miles, and accordingly on August 19, 1927, he and Captain Erwin set out again in the refitted Dallas Spirit, having installed a radio and carrying floats with water and provisions that could be let down to the survivors if they were sighted. Hundreds of watchers stood and saw the Dallas Spirit with its pilot and navigator rise and fly across the bay and out of the Golden Gate in a quest that should be remembered whenever the valor of American youth is called in question.