by Paul R. Spitzzeri
One of the more remarkable aspects of the history we share concerning the Workman and Temple family during the Museum’s interpretive era of 1830-1930 are the dramatic peaks and valleys family members experienced, with three significant periods of success being during the Gold Rush years of 1849-1855, greater Los Angeles’ first period of significant growth from 1868-1875, and the boom years of the Roaring Twenties. The counterparts, however, to this were financial disasters that struck in the mid-1870s, the mid to late 1890s and the late 1920s.
The Gold Rush brought wealth to William Workman and F.P.F. Temple as their cattle herds became of great value due to the intense demand for fresh beef for miners and others in California. After a devastating period of floods and drought during the first half of the 1860s, the development of the region following the Civil War years included Temple, with Workman as a silent partner, ascending as a key “city maker” in many areas of business, including real estate railroads, oil and banking.
This latter began with a partnership with the brilliant merchant Isaias W. Hellman, who went on to be one of the wealthiest figures in western America, but a schism led Temple and Workman to form their own bank. The privately operated institution, however, provided to be poorly managed and too subject to issuing risky loans and its collapse in early 1876, being the first large-scale business failure in Los Angeles, was a seismic shock for the city and region as it slid into a long period of economic malaise, while obviously devastating to the family.
After the great Boom of the 1880s, which occurred during the mayoral administration of Workman’s namesake nephew, William H., who also rose to significant financial success during the era, the family branches including Workman’s son Joseph and Temple’s son John suffered further crushing economic blows.
Joseph’s property of more than 800 acres at the west end of Rancho La Puente was devoted to farming and sheep raising and, after he moved his family to Boyle Heights in 1881, leased. After the boom went bust and the economy soured, including the Depression of 1893, his situation deteriorated until he borrowed from a bank and, in 1895, the La Puente land was lost to foreclosure and acquired by El Paso capitalist, Oscar T. Bassett.
The 75-acre Workman Homestead, a surviving remnant of La Puente retained by the Temple family after the bank failure and foreclosure of a loan to Elias J. “Lucky” Baldwin involving thousands of acres of land, was owned by Francis W. Temple, William Workman’s grandson and F.P.F. Temple’s son, until his death in 1888. He was succeeded by John, who was buffeted by several years of drought and the depression, so loans from a bank were secured. These, however, went unpaid and, in 1899, the Homestead was foreclosed upon and sold to Pomona realtor and orchardist Fred J. Smith.
While the William H. Workman family included continued financial success during the early 20th century, the descendants of William Workman and F.P.F. Temple were still in difficult circumstances during the era, though an amazing stroke of fortune came to Walter P. Temple and his family in 1914 when oil was found by 9-year old Thomas W. Temple II at their Montebello-area ranch.
A series of successful wells brought a significant windfall to the family and this was parlayed by Walter into further investments in oil as well as real estate, while the Temples bought the Workman Homestead and poured large sums into improvements, renovations and, especially, the construction of their stunning La Casa Nueva, of which we are commemorating its centennial.
The highly speculative nature of oil and real estate development and lavish personal spending on the house, private school educations for the four Temple children, and other expenses rapidly ate away at the family fortune. By the time the stock market crashed in New York City in fall 1929, the situation was dire, with most of Walter’s properties sold—the last holdout was the Homestead, which he desperate wished to retain. To that end, it was decided to vacate the ranch and lease it, with a deal made to bring the Golden State Military Academy from Redondo Beach.
To prepare the property for the 1930-1931 school year, the Temples moved so that renovations could be conducted, including the enclosure of the second-floor sun decks over the wings of La Casa Nueva for dormitories, the remodeling of the Workman House for classrooms and renovations of other buildings and elements of the ranch for the school. By early 1930, the Temple family was also dispersed.
On Thanksgiving Day 1929, Agnes, the only daughter, married Thomas’ University of Santa Clara classmate Luis Fatjo, and the couple went on a honeymoon that lasted about half a year, including an extended stay in Spain, where he had family, during a European trip. The younger sons, Walter, Jr. and Edgar, were sent to Santa Clara for their first (and only) year of college, this despite the increasingly dour financial picture.
Lastly, Thomas, who’d earned his law degree in 1929 from the prestigious and challenging program at Harvard University but forsook the law, pondered a possible career in banking, while also indulging his passion for regional and family history. He also remained at the Homestead in the first part of 1930 as it was in transition.
Walter, meanwhile, decided that a move to Ensenada in Baja California, México, was a smart economic choice (think of how many thousands of Americans live in that part of our southern neighbor today). The affordability of housing, food and other items was an obvious incentive to conserve cash as the Great Depression was in its formative stage. What appears to be the first of his letters from south of the order is the featured object from the Museum’s collection for this post, it being dated 3 March 1930 and sent to Thomas at the Homestead (though the address is simply: “Thomas W. Temple / Puente, L.A. County, Calif.”)
The missive began with Walter’s stating that letters from Thomas were received, including one sent by Agnes from Europe, another by Walter, Jr. and Edgar, and report cards from Santa Clara. As to the statement that “Agnes complains of having failed to receive any word from home,” her father noted that there was no known address, as she and Luis were going Paris and then returning to Barcelona. He asked Thomas to either write them about how Walter was doing or send their address to him.
As for Walter’s living arrangements, he mentioned the “Savoy Bungalows,” also known as the “Orange Savoy Bungalows,” which a travel guide from the period noted was an auto court, a common and inexpensive type of lodging for the area, where, presumably, a very simple cabin or cottage was available, almost certainly of one room. He added that he and his companion, Maud Bassity, who’d taken care of Walter’s late wife, Laura González, before her late 1922 death and remained at the Homestead and become his girlfriend, “expect to move to a 3-room apartment where we can do light housekeeping and be more at home.”
Since their arrival in Ensenada, moreover, Walter told Thomas, “we are making good acquaintances here having met the Mayor and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. David Zarate [David Zarate was a former chief executive and then-delegate to the Mexican Congress] of Ensenada, and a host of other people.”
Also mentioned was the Carnaval, a pre-Lent event, with many such in the Roman Catholic world as it marked the 40 days Christ spent in the desert before embarking on his ministry, still held in late February in the city, and which Walter deemed “quite a business and social success,” while he also noted that the queen “looked very charming and danced freely with almost anyone.”
As to business and family, Walter wrote his son that “I have not heard directly from Mr. Woodruff or Milton,” George Woodruff being his attorney and Milton Kauffman his business manager—both were also investors in Temple City and other projects with Walter—since he arrived in Ensenada. It was noted that Charles Tandy, who worked for the Temple Estate Company, did send checks for Walter, Jr. and Edgar for expenses at Santa Clara, as well as Walter’s monthly allowance.
Walter’s advice to Thomas was that “you call at the office and see how things are getting along” as he added “I don’t think that I shall return home for the Lental vacation and see the boys unless I am called there on business.” When the younger Temple sons were home for spring break in April, it was continued, “I think the boys should get what clothes they need in L.A., as they wrote me they want to make some purchases” and Tandy would be contacted “to arrange for their fare and clothes.” Walter then asked Thomas to “see about Frank’s salary,” this being Frank Romero, Maud Bassity’s brother, who was foreman at the Homestead, and ending with “hope the ranch is OK, and you and Frank working hard.”
There was, however, a lengthy postscript in which Walter added that Thomas should write to him in care of John Hussong, the son of Johann Hussong, a German who settled in Ensenada in the late 19th century during a bit of a gold rush and opened the famous watering hole bearing his name. Walter continued that “when we move to the apartment,” which was on Ryerson Street a few minutes’ walk from the cantina, “we won’t have use of the Bungalow address, so it is more convenient to use the above address.”
He commented that “the Hussongs [sons John and Walter] are nice boys, very accommodating and businesslike” and they had the added advantage of possessing 12-year old sherry from California that “they bought in bulk during the wet [pre-Prohibition] period and now have bottled it at [$]2.00 per q[uar]t.”
With the prior discussion of providing money for the younger Temple sons to buy clothes as well as to return to the Homestead for spring break, it is notable given the straitened financial circumstances that Walter then told his son that
On the day we left, Saturday Feb 22, I gave the Filipino [a cook at La Casa Nueva until he was let go when the Temples moved and whose name is not yet known to us] a check for $40.00 and Manuel Higuera [an employee at the Homestead] [$]15.00 on the Bank at Puente, and according to balances in my check book I had enough funds to cover the above amount unless the bank made a wrong footing in posting the book. You say in your letter the Filipino’s check was returned for insufficient funds. Go to the Bank and inquire if those checks have been presented.
Writing that he could not read other English-language papers from Los Angeles and San Diego because he was used to the Los Angeles Times, though he added that they were 10 cents each, Walter asked his son to send the issues he’d finished reading every few days, specifying that they be sent by third-class mail to save on postage. Another cost-cutting measure regarded the feeding of Prince, the Temple family’s prized German Shepherd, with Thomas told “you can get scraps in L.A. very cheap” and that Frank Romero knew sources “because Maud knows the ropes well.” This was because she was a former and future restaurant owner.
This letter is of interest for several reasons, including its recording of the date Walter Temple left the Homestead for his expatriation to México, the circumstances of his early residency in Ensenada and references to his children and the ranch. Once the military academy took possession of the Homestead, Thomas moved in with his late mother’s sister, Luz Vigare, whose late 18th adobe house just south of Mission San Gabriel still stands, and he became the city and mission historian during a long period in which he also became known as a genealogist.
Agnes returned from her long honeymoon in Europe and resided in the San Francisco Bay area with Luis Fatjo, who owned a large ranch to the south near Gilroy and who enjoyed a large income during the Depression years. Walter, Jr. and Edgar completed their only year at Santa Clara and returned home, relying heavily, as did Thomas, on a trust fund established by their late mother.
The Homestead remained under Walter’s tenuous ownership for a little more than two years, when it was lost in July 1932 to a bank foreclosure. By then, he and Maud moved from Ensenada to Tijuana and then shortly afterward to San Diego. After he was diagnosed with cancer, Walter and Maud returned to Los Angeles, where they lived in a small cottage at the rear of her parents’ Lincoln Heights residence until his death in 1938.
Impressively, Laura Gonzalez established, as early as a century ago, a trust for her children before succumbing to cancer. I’m curious whether her two younger children remained beneficiaries beyond their first year of college. If the trust persisted, I wonder if Walter P. Temple became the grantor and if it faced vulnerability to debt creditors years later during his financial collapse.
Hi Larry, thanks for your comment. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the details of what Laura wisely provided for her children, but it is another example of her financial acumen and savvy, which included her acting as de facto manager, while a teenager, of the Homestead when it was owned by Walter’s brother Francis in the 1880s. Her son, Walter, Jr., said that, if she had lived longer, the economic situation of the family would have been much different.