In view of the ravages of time among the ranks of these old-timers, it is a satisfaction to observe that at least some of those who were active before I retired are still in the trade. The first-comer was George A. Ralphs, who, reaching Los Angeles as a boy, learned brick-masonry and was known as the Champion Bricklayer of California until, while on a hunting expedition, he lost an arm.[38] With a man named Francis, he started, in 1877, the Ralphs & Francis Grocery, on the old Georgetown corner. This was the beginning of the Ralphs Grocery Company. In February, 1882, Hans Jevne, a Norwegian by birth, who had been associated with his brother in Chicago, came to Los Angeles, and a few months later he opened a small grocery store in the Strelitz Block at 38 and 40 North Spring Street. In less than no time, so to speak, the good housewives of the town were able to secure the rarest tidbits from all the markets of the world; and not only that, but Jevne, since his advent here, has been identified with most important steps in the evolution of the city. W. F. Ball for thirty years or more has been a tobacconist, and for thirty years, or somewhat less, has occupied the same premises on Spring Street, north of First. The Williams family came from England in 1882, and George soon established his grocery business out in what was then known as the University district, where he bought a block of land. George has given of his time for the public weal, having been for several terms a City Councilman. Another Los Angeles merchant who has attained success is Albert Cohn; and while his start in life, in an independent career, began a couple of years after my retirement, he had been in my employ as a clerk almost from the time of his arrival, in 1882. Marius Bellue has been located on South Alameda Street so long that it seems as though he must have arrived here in the Year One.
So much for the merchants of the city; among such tradesmen in the districts outside of Los Angeles, I can recall but three active in my day and still active in this. Alphonse Weil, a native of the sunny slopes of France, has grown up with the town of Bakersfield. John R. Newberry opened his doors in 1882, and, after moving to Los Angeles in 1893, commenced that meteoric career, during which he established stores throughout Los Angeles and its suburbs. George A. Edgar, about thirty-one years ago, brought a stock of groceries and crockery to Santa Ana and deposited the contents of his cases in the same location, and on the same shelves, from which he still caters to his neighbors.
The great flood of 1886 reached its first serious state on January 19th. All of Los Angeles between Wilmington Street and the hills on the east side was inundated; levees were carried off as if they were so much loose sand and stubble; and for two or three weeks railway communication with the outside world was impossible.
During this inundation on January 19th, Martin G. Aguirre, who was a deputy under Sheriff George E. Gard, gave an exhibition of great courage. So rapidly had the waters risen that many persons were marooned; and it was only by throwing himself on the back of his favorite horse that Aguirre, at very great risk, rescued twenty or more people from drowning, the number including many children. In the last attempt, Aguirre nearly lost his own life. Somewhat of a hero, in November, 1888, he was elected Sheriff, defeating Tom Rowan for that office.
Rebecca Lee Dorsey, another of the early women practitioners of medicine, came to Los Angeles in January, 1886, a graduate both of Eastern colleges and of a leading Vienna hospital. Peddling vegetables as a child, later working as a servant and hiring out as a nurse while finishing her course in Europe, Dr. Dorsey was of a type frequently found among the early builders of the Southwest.
Largely to a board of Commissioners, consisting of Mayor E. F. Spence, H. Sinsabaugh and the ever-ready Jake Kuhrts, appointed in 1886 when provision was made for a paid fire department, is due the honor of having successfully arranged the present excellent system in Los Angeles.
It was in 1886 that we bought the Repetto rancho, under circumstances of such interest that it may be well to tell something about the owner and his connections. Alessandro Repetto was an Italian of such immense size that he was compelled, when standing, to shift the weight of his body from one leg to the other. He was miserly in the extreme, but this was compensated for by his honesty and uprightness of character. He was also far from being neat, and I remember the way in which he dispensed hospitality when I visited his ranch to buy wool. He would bring out some very ordinary wine and, before serving it, would rinse out the glasses with his fat fingers; and it was courtesy alone that prompted me to partake of what he offered. He lived on his ranch, but when attacked by his last illness, he took a room at the New Arlington Hotel, formerly the White House, on the southeast corner of Commercial and Los Angeles streets.
There, finding him alone and neglected, I advised him to go to the Sisters' Hospital on Ann Street; but the change did not save him and after a few days he died. A fellow Italian named Scotti, a knave of a chap who was with him in his last moments, knowing that I was Repetto's executor, soon brought to my house a lot of papers which he had taken from the dead man's pockets.
Repetto being a recluse somewhat on the misanthropic order, I had difficulty in getting pallbearers for his funeral, one of my applications being to James Castruccio, President of the Italian Benevolent Society and then Italian Consul, who said that Repetto had never helped anyone, but that if I would give, in his name, five hundred dollars to charity, the attendants would be supplied. To this I demurred, because Repetto had made no such provision in his will; and Castruccio giving me no satisfaction, I went to Father Peter, explained to him that Repetto had bequeathed six thousand dollars to the Church, and stated my needs; whereupon Father Peter arranged for the bearers. All the provisions for the funeral having been settled, I cabled to his brother and heir, then living in the mountains near Genoa, whose address I had obtained from Castruccio. Repetto had really hated this brother and, in consequence, he had very unwillingly bequeathed him his large estate.
In due season, the brother, a hunchback, appeared on deck as an intimate with Scotti, and I found him to be an uncouth, ignorant fellow and a man who had probably never handled a ten-dollar gold piece or its equivalent in his life. He had on shoes that an elephant might have worn, a common, corduroy suit, a battered hat and plenty of dirt. Wishing to take him to Stephen M. White, my lawyer, I advised the purchase of new clothes; but in this, as in other matters, I appealed in vain. So miserly was he indeed, that one day, having purchased a five-cent loaf of bread in Sonora Town, he was seen to hide himself behind a building while he ate it, doubtless fearful lest someone might ask him for a bite.