Blessings

for a New Year 2021

Dear Historical Society Members and Friends:

Although this December we were not able celebrate together at our Annual Holiday Event, we are hopeful to return to our schedule of educational programs and the Annual Luncheon sometime next summer.

This has been an historic year, not only for our community but also for our nation.  We have faced many challenges, sorrows, loss and opportunities. History will record our triumphs and failures. 

May every moment reflect our strength, fairness and dignity toward one another. As never before this is a time of caring and respect. Together our nation will heal; we rise and fall as one America.

Thank you for your continuing friendship and support. We appreciate and depend on the financial support of our members and donors during these trying times.

From all of us at the Pacific Palisades Historical Society, we wish you and your family a safe and healthy New Year.

Cancellation of our June 2020 Luncheon

 PACIFIC  PALISADES  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY

Dear Palisadian Friends and Historians:

We send you greetings and heartfelt good wishes for your continued wellbeing. These are indeed historic and trying times.

With continued consideration for all of our friends and members, the Pacific Palisades Historical Society has decided to cancel our June Luncheon.  In respect for the mandates issued by state, county and city officials, we agree that strategic caution and social distancing during this pandemic is the best way to help control the further spread of Covid-19. The health and safety of our community and local schools is paramount.

Pacific Palisades Historical Society looks forward to future gatherings with our friends and members when we can be reassured that our shared time together will be memorable and in pursuit of the best of history.

Pacific Palisades has survived epoch-making times before.  There is a lesson to be remembered in the heroic dedication that was required during World War II. Many people in the Palisades had family who served their country in the military, and local residents supported the war with many volunteer efforts, including a Palisades AWVS chapter. 

The American Women's Voluntary Services (AWVS) was the largest American women's service organization in the United States during World War II. The AWVS provided women volunteers for support services that helped the war effort, such as message delivery, ambulance driving, selling war bonds, staffing emergency kitchens, cycle corps drivers, dog-sled teamsters, aircraft spotters, navigation, aerial photography, fighting fires, truck driving, and canteen workers. Some of the AWVS work overlapped with the Office of Civilian Defense and the American Red Cross. 

Alice Throckmorton McLean founded AWVS in January 1940, well before the United States entered the war, basing it upon the British Woman’s Voluntary Services. The AWVS had about 18,000 members by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and eventually over 325,000 women were trained by AWVS. Doris Ryer Nixon founded the California chapter in August 1941.

Of course, in addition to the AWVS, women volunteered to work for the Red Cross, the USO, and other agencies. Women previously employed only in the home, or in traditionally female work, took jobs in factories that directly supported the war effort or filled jobs vacated by men who had entered military service. Enrollment in high schools and colleges plunged as many high school and college students dropped out to take war jobs. 

Many women and men of Pacific Palisades played an important role during World War II. There was a general feeling of agreement that the sacrifices were made for the national good during the war, a national commitment. 

During our current calamity, a crisis to the heart and soul of America, we must continue to rise to the moment for the greater good, protect our families, the future of our children and the long-term health of our community and planet. We solve the future together or no one wins. 

We hope as well, this has been an opportunity for positive reflection; we have been given a moment to reset the consideration of our values and what matters most. We have a fragile Democracy; it is a young history in the modern world. It is also the most fair when equity follows the law. It is worthy of our protection as stated in the Constitution. 

What is your history in the Palisades, and for what are you known? We want to hear your stories, how you and your family have been part of our town’s history. During your home-stay, during this time of reflection, there can be valuable moments spent in looking at old photos to see who you were and how you lived your lives in Pacific Palisades. A picture is worth a 1,000 words – or so they say. Please share your story and photos.

 Contact us: pacificpalisadeshistory.org or
Mail us: PPHS PO Box 1299
15243 La Cruz Drive
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272

Example of a shared experience: “Blackouts were practiced in every city, even those far from the coast. All exterior lighting had to be extinguished, and black-out curtains placed over windows. The main purpose was to remind people that there was a war on and to provide activities that would engage the civil spirit of millions of people not otherwise involved in the war effort. In large part, this effort was successful, sometimes almost to a fault, such as the Plains states where many dedicated aircraft spotters took up their posts night after night watching the skies in an area of the country that no enemy aircraft of that time could hope to reach.”
Wikipedia 

 American Women's Voluntary Services
The group sponsored units in African, and in Chinese and Hispanic American parts of the United States.  Despite hundreds of thousands of volunteers, at the end of the war, the AWVS disbanded, as their major effort was to help win the war.  

 Actresses who were AWVS members included Joan Crawford, Hattie McDaniel, Betty White and Lillian Randolph.

From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia

A Hundred Years of Fire in the Santa Monica Mountains

Bettina Boxwall and
Jon Keeley

Since its early beginning natural chaparral, indigenous Oaks and Sycamores have surrounded Pacific Palisades.  As the community has grown, residential areas have expanded into the local hillsides and canyons. With that expansion has come the ever more frightening realization that fires and wind-driven wildfires are a continuous factor in choosing to live in the hills of Southern California. Understanding this predicament may help us be better prepared.

Pulitzer Prize winning wildfire reporter Bettina Boxall of the LA Times will talk with researcher Jon Keeley of the US Geological Survey in an informed conversation about wildfire in the Santa Monica Mountains and how we can learn to live with it. 

FREE Admission
Wednesday, February 26, 2020
Program at 7:00 p.m.
Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades),
941 Temescal Canyon Rd.

Light refreshments following the Program

Ample free parking on the street and in the parking lot below the theatre on Temescal Canyon Rd.
If you are not already a member, please support us as a PPHS member if you can.



Lorraine Oshins Lecture Series

Author Donna Rifkind previews her recent book:  “The Sun and Her Stars:  Salka Viertel and Hitler’s Exiles in the Golden Age of Hollywood.”

Monday, May 13­, 2019, 7:00pm 

Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades).

This free annual lecture series is made possible by a generous donation from the family of Lorraine Oshins who was an active member of the PPHS Board and President from 2001-2003.

Inceville’s Native American Community and Its Hollywood Legacy

February 26, 2019
Pierson Playhouse, Theater Palisades,

Archivist Marc Wanamaker and PPHS President Eric Dugdale team up for a special presentation about this under-explored aspect of early Hollywood history. The program will feature a number of rarely seen images from Wanamaker’s legendary Bison Archives.

“Lost Santa Monica & Palisades – Images Found”, Randy Young

A unique photo exhibition curated by Pacific Palisades historian Randy Young’s 40 years of collecting stunning historical images of Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon showing panoramic views of the early landscape and development of both Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon. A rare exhibition, and historic once-in-a lifetime experience for historians of all ages.

June 23, 2018 5:00-8:00pm
Gallery 169, 169 West Channel Road, Santa Monica  
www.gallery169.com
Members and Guests – Free

Artist's Opening Reception

Saturday, May 5th, 2018 5pm - 8pm.

Gallery 169 is proud to announce a presentation of a historical images by Randy Young.

The photo exhibition that Randy Young will be presenting May 5th is a culmination of 40 years of collecting historical images that describe the early landscape and the development of both Pacific Palisades and Santa Monica Canyon. These images became the framework for several books produced by Betty Lou and Randy Young on the area.

The photographs were obtained from many different sources such as the Pacific Palisades Historical Society, Ernest Marquez, and Zola Clearwater Collections.

The presentation will include images ranging from small postcards to huge custom made Panoramas from the 1890s.

Randy Young was born in and grew up in Pacific Palisades. His Parents Betty Lou and Dr. Tom Young always instilled in their son that this was the coolest place to be from and that it should be protected. Thus started a partnership that used history and photos to protect their town. A life of activism followed.

Randy was public schooled at Paul Revere and Pali High. He received a degree in photography from Art Center College of Design and for many years had a commercial photo studio in Culver City. But his real passion was producing books on his neighborhood with his Mother, Betty Lou writing the text.

This was the beginning of his life of activism for preservation. Especially for open space parks and historic structures. His photography and graphic skills has been used to further those goals. He is still at large doing those things.

"Lost Santa Monica & Palisades Images...Found!" will be on view at Gallery 169 from Saturday, May 5th through June 2018.

Complimentary valet parking available the night of the opening. 

169 West Channel Road, Santa Monica, CA 90402
310.963.3891
Gallery169.com

Making America's Largest Urban National Park: The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area – Ranger Mike Malone

October 2, 2018
Lelah T. Pierson Theater, 941 Temescal Canyon Rd, Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area overlaps more area and zip codes -- including the 90272 zip code of Pacific Palisades -- than any other unit in the National Park system. Over half of its nearly 154 thousand acres is protected parkland and open space preserves.

In a program especially created for PPHS, Mike Malone, a long time ranger at the SMMNRA, will detail the history of the park's creation, and its natural and cultural history. He will also outline the recreational opportunities and the unique partnerships between park agencies and conservation organizations that move it forward today.

Malone is a retired National Park Service Ranger who worked with Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Mike continues to remain active as a volunteer leading hikes, managing volunteer group projects, staffing both NPS and state park visitor centers and doing community outreach with film history presentations of the Santa Monica Mountains. He was featured on an episode of Huell Howser's California's Gold, discussing the film history of the Paramount Ranch.

Lorraine Oshins Lecture Series

This annual free lecture series is made possible by a generous donation from the family of Lorraine Oshins who was an active member of the PPHS Board and President from 2001-2003.
First Inaugural Lecture at Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades),
May 2, 2018

Domesticity and Resistance: Woman and Activism in Early Cold War Pacific Palisades.

Guest speaker: Janet Brodie, Professor of History, Claremont Graduate University and long time Pacific Palisades resident.

Dishing the Dirt on the Uplifters Club in Rustic Canyon

Free lecture on the history of the Uplifters Club in Rustic Canyon by Historian Randy Young, Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades), May 15, 2017

Hollywood’s Spies: The Undercover Surveillance of Nazis in Los Angeles

Author Laura Rosenzweig discusses her book and the story of 1930’s Nazi Germany’s intrusion into American political culture and how Los Angeles was a particular hotbed for this extremist political activity.  Learn how Jewish executives of the motion picture industry secretly paid private investigators to infiltrate, monitor and report on the political activities of these groups.  Free lecture at Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades), October 25, 2017.

Murder in the Palisades!

Urban legend actress Thelma Todd and her famous Sidewalk Café and the mystery of her tragic, unsolved death. Free lecture by Randy Young, Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades), 2016.

Cowboys of the Palisades

Free lecture on the very lively history of Palisade Cowboys from the movie days of Thomas Ince, cattle rustling to Will Rogers and his famous horse Soapsuds.
Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades), 2015

Celebrity Residences in the Palisades: Quiz: Who lives in What House?

Randy Young and Roger McGrath conduct a comical quiz of Urban Legends both true and false!
Lelah T. Pierson Theater (Theatre Palisades), 2013