by Paul R. Spitzzeri
With death of John E. Hollenbeck in early September 1885, just a few months before a transcontinental rail link was made to greater Los Angeles by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, helping significantly in ushering in the great Boom of the Eighties, his widow, Elizabeth Hatsfeldt, assumed control of his $300,000 estate and, with the help of trusted friends and advisors, proceeded to build upon this already substantial fortune.
This would be a good time to elaborate on the background of the couple, thanks to a 1934 work by William Stewart Young, a Presbyterian minister and close associate of Elizabeth, titled A History of Hollenbeck Home. Young recorded John left his family home in Pecatonica, Illinois, northwest of Chicago and near Rockford at age 17 and returned to Hudson, Ohio, near Akron and Cleveland and close to his birthplace and where he worked as a machinist.
After being marooned in Nicaragua in late 1851 while on his way to the California Gold Rush, John worked on river steamships, as a trader, and providing entertainment to travelers on their way to the Golden State, before purchasing a hotel, store, a steamship and a business supplying wood to river steamers. As we noted in part one of this post, he met Elizabeth, a recent arrival in the Central American nation.
Young related that she was the daughter of a wheelwright and the youngest of three children and that, when she went to work as a young woman, her father kept her wages, using them too often of alcohol. At around 17, she married a widower named Eagles who had two grown daughters, but he soon died, leaving Elizabeth some $15,000. Her second marriage, to a man named Walter, was also short-lived and the gambler died after just 18 months, with her inheritance winnowed down to just $1,500.
On her arrival in Nicaragua, she loaned John money for his hotel, was made manager, and then married him on 30 March 1853. Significantly, Young recorded, John stated that “she had as much to do with making our money as I had and a little bit more,” high praise for Elizabeth’s financial ability and acumen. The birth and death of their only child and the conditions of the Walker filibustering expedition in Nicaragua, resulting in the destruction of almost all their worldly possessions and the author quoted from a letter by Elizabeth, twenty years after the death of John, Jr., and the fact that “there has been an aching void in my heart ever since.”
In the years of struggle that followed, as the Hollenbecks ran a general merchandise business, John had to take long sabbaticals at Kingston, Jamaica and Havana, Cuba “to get relief from attacks of fever” while he still hoped to finally get to California. When he decided to make the trip to Los Angeles, he experienced profits of some $15,000 yearly, and, on settling in the Angel City in spring 1876, despite losing $20,000 invested in the Temple and Workman bank, “his business sagacity and prophetic foresight saw, not Los Angeles the Spanish pueblo . . . but the future popular city . . . here was a sleeping giant about to be awakened and his day was not far distant.”
From 1874 to 1880, Hollenbeck acquired not too far south of 7,000 acres of land in nearly thirty transactions totaling close to $110,000. The Boyle Heights house, described in some detail in part one, was “for a long time one of the show places of the city” with “elaborate grounds, in outline largely as they are today.” An early 1875 letter by John enthused that Los Angeles had “the finest climate and [is] one of the finest countries I ever saw.” In reference to the bank failure, Young wrote that it was “owing to the reckless and extravagant policy of its chief owner,” F.P.F. Temple and, tellingly, John wrote, in mid-September 1875, “I do not like the way Temple and Workman do business.”
By far the largest of his local landholdings was 5,563 acres of Rancho La Puente and Young also mentioned Edward’s interests in the Spring and Sixth Street and Main Street and Agricultural Park streetcar lines, as well as his deep involvement in the Commercial and First National banks. Also of note was his assistance in land acquired by the First Presbyterian Church, with the Hollenbecks congregants until a church was erected in Boyle Heights, as well as extensive travels undertaken by the couple between 1882 and 1884.
As for the Boyle Heights house, denoted as “La Villa de Paredon Blanco,” this being the prior name of the community, Young related that the Hollenbecks “were royal entertainers” and “their home was the scene of many joyous occasions” as well as “a rendezvous of kindred spirits.” Mary Julia Workman, daughter of their neighbor and close friend, William H. Workman (mayor in 1887 and 1888 during the peak of the boom and treasurer from 1901 to 1907), remembered that
In our house, it was the unwritten and family tradition that never were there finer or better friends and neighbors than Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck. We loved them for their own, sterling qualities and for their evidences of friendship and loyalty to us . . .
Mr. Hollenbeck had a most delightful and dynamic personality. He combined qualities that are no often found in such perfect balance. He was genial and radiant, but he was also loyal and reliable. He was generous and kind, but he was farseeing and practical and had unusual business ability . . . There was something magnanimous and noble about his character that made him universally beloved.
Mary Julia went into some detail about her recollections about the Hollenbecks, though much less was said about Elizabeth. One anecdote was that, when a Workman son contracted scarlet fever, Mary Julia and a sister “were taken to Mrs. Hollenbeck,” who had an ample supply of cookies “and the most marvelous dresses with trains” and “who had come to our rescue with a kind invitation to visit here.” During the brief exile, “the days passed happily” as “dear Mr. and Mrs. Hollenbeck knew just how to charm away our homesickness.”
In remembering John’s passing, Workman recalled “dear Mrs. Hollenbeck was always a model of devotion, after his death, just as she had been during all the years of their married life.” Moreover, “how nobly she carried on is a matter known to many,” though it was added that only those who knew Elizabeth before John died, “can fully appreciate her brave spirit.”
As to the “stewardship of the Hollenbeck estate,” Young praised Elizabeth’s courage and added that she and John had acted together in their business life and the terms of the will were such that they were “an expression of her husband’s confidence in her ability as a financier.” Elizabeth worked extensively with attorney and judge John D. Bicknell, while she had a business manager to attend to day-to-day details. The second of these was George W. Simonton, while another important figure was Mary S. Wilson as a secretary and companion to Elizabeth for many years.
While Elizabeth devoted much time to the affairs of the estate, she was also very busy with the lush gardens that surrounded the Boyle Heights residence, taking some of these every Saturday to the grave of her late husband at Evergreen Cemetery, located at the eastern edge of the neighborhood and city. Deeply involved in the Presbyterian Church, Hollenbeck donated 20 acres to the new Occidental College and, though it struggled for several years before an 1896 fire destroyed it, she offered another parcel to the school, though it chose to relocate to Highland Park instead.
As mentioned briefly in part one, a significant tribute to John was the establishment of a park near the house on 21 acres, with Young recording that “the larger acreage was the gift of Mr. [William H.] Workman and the first proposition was to name the park Workman-Hollenbeck Park, but Mr. Workman, with real magnanimity, requested that his name be omitted and that it be called Hollenbeck Park, and so it was.”
There were some major challenges in getting the park established, however, including qualms by the City Council over financial commitments and the onset of the nationwide Depression of 1893. Still, after a special appropriation was made, work proceeded enough that a dedication was held in mid-1893, though problems with faulty water pipes required more heavy investment by the city. From about 1896, however, Hollenbeck Park became a beautiful and useful center of the Boyle Heights community.
Young noted that “through these years of thought, conservation of means and turning over of plans, Hollenbeck worked with Bicknell and attorneys John S. Chapman, James A. Gibson and Stephen M. White on devising a deed of trust for her property, which grew dramatically during the Boom of the Eighties and was still very valuable even as the boom went bust, dated 1 December 1890 and recorded the following day.
The next day’s Los Angeles Express reported that the deed was made to place “for charitable purposes the Hollenbeck Hotel property on the corner of second [sic] and Spring streets ad the Hollenbeck residence on the east side of the river with about twelve acres of land adjacent.” The value of these holdings was said to be about three quarters of a million dollars and the paper added that,
The purpose of the endowment is to establish an institution for the care of indigent women and homeless children with the attendent [sic] requisites to meet this end, such as the maintaining of schools and employment of teachers for the education of children sufficient to give them a start in useful life.
Bicknell, Chapman, Gibson, John M. Elliott of First National Bank (later a large landholder in North Whittier [Hacienda] Heights near the Homestead) and Charles Bacheller were the trustees “and their duties are the building and maintaining a charitable institution to be known as the Hollenbeck Home,” which was to be non-sectarian facility. The Boyle Heights home place was to be the location with income derived from the operation of the Hollenbeck Block and hotel property, which was said to be around $25,000 annually.
After reviewing some of the history of the Hollenbecks, the piece concluded that John “was charitably inclined” and that “it is in accordance with his desires as well as in response to her own” that Elizabeth “now makes the princely gift to the city’s charities, which is probably the largest ever made in Los Angeles.” Elsewhere, the paper asserted that,
The gift of Mrs. Elizabeth Hollenbeck of nearly one million dollars for the erection of a home for indigent women and homeless children . . . is by far the most generous gift that has ever been made in Los Angeles, noted as our city is for charitable enterprises.
Hollenbeck was interviewed and told the paper, “I have had this in mind for a number of years, but my property is not in shape, even now, to put into ready money, so it is quite impossible to say when the erection of the Home will begin.” She added that construction could start within a year or several, but noted that “my idea is to found this home as a shelter for old ladies and homeless children,” though she clarified that “any woman who is helpless and homeless will be quite welcome.”
Moreover, she told the Express, “there will be a thorough system of industrial training” for the children so that they could “be fitted for practical work and trained to some trade or occupation” and, when adults, “enter life’s struggle well equipped for the contest.” Looking around at her “La Villa de Paredon Blanco” estate, Hollenbeck reiterated, “it has always been my idea to have this home place used for such a purpose and the home when built will be erected here.”
The paper continued that,
The Hollenbeck residence is a well known landmark to all Los Angeles citizens and there is not a finer location in the city for a public institution of any kind. It comprises several acres and commands an extended view, situated as it is on a slight eminence which overlooks the entire city to the westward. The mansion stands some distance from the street and is surrounded by handsome grounds beautified by trees, shrubs and flowers, many rare specimens of plants being cultivated.
Standing, as it will, in a close proximity to the new orphan asylum, it will form another of the lasting monuments to charity which are now scattered throughout the State and Union.
In its coverage of the creation of the deed of trust, the Los Angeles Times, also of the 3rd, remarked that “it is difficult to foresee or estimate the benefits that will flow from an institution of the character contemplated” while the Hollenbeck Block, being centrally located in downtown, was sure to have an increased flow of income, while, if the trustees carried out the plans as laid out, “there should be in this city from this gift an institution of which every citizen can well be proud.”
After briefly noting John’s importance in the city prior to his death a half-decade prior, the Times observed that, “Mrs. Hollenbeck, his widow, now crowns the efforts of the joint labors of herself and husband by founding an institution that will be a lasting memory to perpetuate the memory of these two truly charitable and good people. All honor to Mrs. Hollenbeck.”
Similarly, the 2 June 1891 edition of the Express lionized her “Practical Benevolence” in commenting that,
Mrs. Elizabeth Hollenbeck of this city has set a splendid example for other people of wealth to follow. Her generous benefactions have endeared her to the hearts of the people of Los Angeles, and must be a source of constant satisfaction to herself. She is one of those sensible philanthropists who believe in accomplishing all the good they can during their lifetime, not waiting for death to unload them of the burden of heavy riches. While it is a good thing to leave large bequests for charitable or public purposes, it is far better for the donor to see the desired work of benevolence accomplished, and thus make sure that the money given is applied to the purpose for which it is bestowed.
Noting the dual gifts of the deed of trust for the Home and the donation of the ten acres for the park, the paper concluded that, “it is the wish and hope of the people of Los Angeles that this generous and noble woman may live many more years, to see much of the beneficial results flowing from her good works.”
There was, however, a major change in the Hollenbeck Home project and that leads us to tomorrow’s third part of this post, so come on back and continue that story with us.
Although this institution, as it evolved over the years, seemed to have focused primarily on elderly care, I was particularly impressed by its initial goal, as noted in this post, of helping homeless children by providing industrial training to better equip them for future challenges. I believe this represents the true meaning of charity – empowering individuals rather than merely sustaining them.
In contrast, most modern social benefit programs provide only basic necessities, with little emphasis on long-term personal development. A striking example is the Project Roomkey shelter program during COVID period, which placed homeless individuals in luxury hotels. Rather than appreciating the expensive arrangements, many abandoned the shelters or complained about restrictions that limited their freedom to use drugs and alcohol. This highlights a fundamental issue: when assistance lacks accountability and personal growth incentives, it often fails to create lasting positive change.