by Paul R. Spitzzeri
There’s no better way to close out the year than with a New Year’s Eve post on Workman family history, so, as we head into 2026, here’s our last offering of 2025 related to new objects welcomed into our collections and adding to our growing storehouse of knowledge about the clan and its long and fascinating presence in greater Los Angeles going back almost two centuries.
Throughout the Homestead’s more than 40-year history, we’ve been fortunate to receive donations of Workman and Temple family artifacts from descendants on several branches of the family tree. Photos, letters, business documents and much else help immensely in our understanding of how the family, personally and professionally, lived and worked during our interpretive period of 1830 to 1930.
The most recent gift to the Museum’s collections comes from Vincent Hurteau and his family, who are descendants of what we often call the “Los Angeles branch” of the Workman family. Homestead founder William Workman’s brother lived for about 35 years in central Missouri, raising a family with second wife, Nancy Hook, including three sons, Thomas, Elijah and William Henry, while, for a short time, William’s son Joseph lived in the household, as well.
David was busy as a merchant and trader plying routes from his home in Franklin, then Boonville, in the center of the Show-Me State, to New Mexico, where William lived for more than 15 years during the Mexican era before migrating to this area and settling on the Rancho La Puente, and, especially, into México proper, specifically such important cities as Chihuahua. With the explosion of the California Gold Rush, David crossed the plains and mountains of the expansive American West and set up a store in Sacramento, before it became the Golden State’s capital city.
On 2 November 1852, however, that bane of cities mostly constructed of wood reared its ugly head in what was called the “Great Conflagration,” as some 80% of Sacramento was burned to ashes. Among the casualties was David’s store and, dejected as well as financially affected, he headed south to visit William and determine his next steps. The younger Workman then invited David to return to Missouri, close out his affairs, and come to live and work with him at La Puente.
David, Nancy, their sons and Joseph Workman, did just that, heading west through the same northern route David used previously, and arrived in northern California in October 1854—that journey has been covered in a previous post here. The group traveled by steamer south to San Pedro, where William awaited to convey them to La Puente. The reunion, however, was short-lived as David, while driving livestock to the southern gold fields in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, was killed in an accident in summer 1855 and was laid to rest in El Campo Santo Cemetery, which remains at the Homestead. One of the items donated by Vincent and his family is an original daguerreotype of David taken before the 1854 migration and shown here.
After a short period, Nancy and her sons relocated to Los Angeles and, over the course of the next few decades, the family rose to be among the Angel City’s most prominent. Thomas, who was chief clerk for “Port Admiral” Phineas Banning at Wilmington, died in a steamer explosion there in 1863 (something we’ll look to cover in a post here next April). William Henry went to work as a printer for Los Angeles newspapers and then joined brother Elijah, who’d set up in the trade his father (and, presumably, uncle) learned in England, the saddle and harness business.
The Workman Brothers prospered and, in 1867, William Henry married Maria (pronounced Mar-aye-uh) Boyle, whose father owned a substantial tract in Paredon Blanco, east of the Los Angeles River within town limits. After his death not quite four years later, the couple inherited the estate, on which, in spring 1875, as greater Los Angeles’ first boom, modest compared to those that followed, was established the subdivision of Boyle Heights—we’ve marked its 150th anniversary this year with events and blog posts, so this can be considered one, too!
The prior year, on 21 March 1874, William H. and Maria welcomed their fourth of seven children (following Andrew Boyle, Mary Julia, and Elizabeth), this being William Henry, Jr. He was born and raised for his first several years in the Boyle residence, constructed in the early 1860s on the bluff (the paredon, the color of which was blanco, or white) overlooking the Angel City. In 1878, the Workmans built a two-story residence very close by, though they moved a portion of the Boyle House to their new dwelling.
William, Jr. attended the Roman Catholic school, St. Vincent’s College, which opened in 1865 and educated boys from elementary through college ages—among the students at or a little before his time there were his brother Boyle and cousins Walter and Charles Temple. In June 1890, William, Jr. was one of a half-dozen graduates of the commercial course, essentially completing his high-school education (others matriculating bore well-known local surnames like Ganahl, López [the original settlers of Paredon Blanco] and Rimpau.)
Three years later, he finished his bachelor’s degree at St. Vincent’s, being one of a trio of college graduates, along with Richard J. Dillon, who became a well-known lawyer and civic figure, and John A. McGarry, who went to be a physician and surgeon. William, Jr., along with his classmates, gave an oration at the commencement ceremony on inventors, in which he noted that these valued figures were generally thought of as belonging to the class of mechanics and tradesmen, but not among professionals.
He, however, assigned to “the inventor a place in society as exalted as that of the society man” and added, as paraphrased by the Los Angeles Herald of the 23rd,
The object of his profession is to contrive new instruments and machines by which labor may be lessened. His good influence also extends to the intellectual and moral, for by appealing to the minds of the masses it causes a corresponding advancement upon their part . . . [citing the wonders of recent advances in electricity] The inventor has made these innovations and made these transformations, and he stands almost the sole progress of this wonderful age.
William, Jr. continued his studies at the school and earned his master’s degree in 1895, where he and McGarry, who also completed his graduate studies, delivered speeches, with Workman’s devoted to the Renaissance. From there, he headed north to the Bay Area and two further years of study in electrical engineering, this obviously being a field of strong interest given his oration above and he finished a four-year course in half that time, at Stanford University, which became the preferred university for many of the Workman family in subsequent years and generations.
On returning to Los Angeles, Workman was hired by the Southern California Edison company and became its assistant superintendent, remaining with the firm for about a half-dozen years. In 1903, he quit and went on a world tour with a Los Angeles friend, Donald McGilvray, and while in Beijing, China, visited Tom Haskins, a brother of a friend of his from Los Angeles. He saw a photo of Haskins’ fiancee, Elizabeth McGowan, a native of San Francisco, and joked that if saw her in person he’d steal her away from Haskins, who was working as a consular office staffer and became United States Consul.
Tom and Elizabeth married in 1904, but, four years later, he died rather suddenly of meningitis and his devastated widow returned home. Workman, on returning from his tour, took a job with a power company in Washington State, worked with electrical properties for the Chicago banking and investment firm of N.W. Harris Company, and then, in 1909, joined the Union Oil Company, where he became manager of the manufacturing department.
While living in San Francisco for his job, Workman began visiting the McGowan house and sought Elizabeth Haskins’ hand with great persistence, though she resisted, telling daughter Anne sixty years later, “I fought him off as long as I could, and I had to marry him to get rid of him.” At the start of September 1909, the couple were married in San Francisco, but soon relocated to his hometown and settled into a rented home near Western Avenue and Olympic Boulevard.
William, however, had a strong desire to live in the house where he was born so he embarked on a radical renovation of the Boyle House. The Los Angeles Times of 28 August 1910 reported that,
A permit has been issued to W.H. Workman, jr., to reconstruct an old residence on the Workman homestead on Boyle avenue. Robert Farquhar, the architect, has furnished a very pleasing design for the new building, which will be of the Italian villa type.
The building will be two stories, with cellar, all of brick construction and with red tile roof and terrace back and front. [After noting details such as exterior white plaster, polished oak floors, ivory white trim and that it would have eight rooms, including three bathrooms, a hall, pantry, sleeping porch and more] . . .
An interesting feature of this reconstruction is that the house which is being improved was originally built in 1860, and subsequently served as the residence of Mr. Workman’s grandfather, the late Andrew A. Boyle, for whom Boyle Heights was named. It was the first building of material other than adobe east of the Los Angeles river, and is probably the oldest brick building in Los Angeles today.
The piece observed that Workman’s parents were married in the dwelling and resided there for some time, including when William, Jr. was born. Also mentioned was that the edifice was perched on the bluff and “is surrounded by a grove of ancient pepper trees planted by the original owner” and “is a charming situation for terraced gardening, and that scheme will be followed in the layout of the grounds.” Lastly, the Times stated that the renovation cost would run about $10,000, which sounds like nothing today—today that sum would be around $350,000.
Farquhar (1872-1967), a native of Brooklyn, New York (then an independent city) and a Harvard University graduate, earned an architecture degree at M.I.T. and spent five years at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He went to work for the Hunt brothers and then Carrére and Hastings in in New York City until he relocated to Los Angeles in 1905, with the Angel City growing by leaps and bounds.
Farquhar was best known for such major local projects as the Fenyes Mansion (now home of the Pasadena Museum of History), the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, the home of oil heiress Daisy Canfield and actor Antonio Moreno, Beverly Hills High School, and the California Club, while also designing many fine residences throughout greater Los Angeles.
The local papers reported that, as the work was being conducted around Thanksgiving, the Workmans took up residence in the Hotel Darby on Adams Boulevard, this being a newly completed structure with apartments and hotel rooms and which happens to be a subject of a post here on the Black contractor, Charles S. Blodgett. It is not known if the renovation of the Boyle House was completed before the end of the year, but, by the time the Workmans welcomed the first of their four children, Vincent’s grandmother, Mary, in November 1911, they were well settled in the dwelling.
A major element of the Hurteau donation is an album created for young Mary Workman and which mainly comprises photographs of her and the family at the Boyle House, with most images being taken out on the expansive grounds. There are some excellent views of the residence, as well, with a few photos at the end of the next two children in the family, William H. III, born in 1915, and Elizabeth, born two years later—a fourth child, Anne, joined the clan in 1921. Some other Workman family members are included, such as William H. and Maria and their son Thomas, and some of the photos are shared here.
At the end of 1916, Arthur J. Morris, an attorney from Norfolk, Virginia, who observed that working and middle class clients generally had trouble obtaining bank loans and who then developed the “Morris Plan” for that purpose, came to Los Angeles, reported the Times of 15 Decmeber, “as the guest of William H. Workman, Jr., California representative of the Industrial Finance Corporation.” Morris was the latter firm’s vice-president and general counsel, but was “coming to the Coast because of plans for extending the territory the system he represents” and which operated in more than 50 cities to date.
In August 1917, the Los Angeles branch of the Morris Plan Company was organized with Workman chosen to be secretary and general manager and headquarters located in a new structure built by James B. Van Nuys on Spring Street, between Seventh and Eighth, and very close to where, a half-dozen years later, Workman’s cousin, Walter Temple and a syndicate built a pair of commercial structures. Workman remained associated with the Morris Plan until his retirement in 1950, about a half-year before his death.
By the early 1920s, amid a major set of demographic shifts in Boyle Heights, including as industrial development was burgeoning of both sides of the river below and more working-class communities of a variety of ethnicities were settling in the neighborhood, and, after William, Sr.’s death in 1918, the Workman clan migrated to the west side of Los Angeles. William, Jr., Elizabeth and their children relocated to the Jefferson Park section northwest of the University of Southern California and very close to the Farquhar-designed Clark Memorial Library and the family remained at that residence until his death.
As for the Boyle House, the dwelling of William, Sr. and Maria and another house occupied by daughter Charlotte Workman Masson, these were sold in spring 1921 to the officials running the Hebrew Sheltering and Home for the Aged, which found the five-acre tract and structures ideal for expanding its mission of serving the burgeoning Jewish community in Boyle Heights and elsewhere in the Angel City.
The residence that William, Jr., Elizabeth and their children called home for a decade became the administration building and was the last of the Workman family structures to remain, including when, in 1975, the complex became a Japanese retirement home. After the Whittier Narrows earthquake of 1987, however, the remains of the more than 130-year-old structure, and much of the rest of the campus, were removed because of damage. Despite concerns over the site’s future, Sakura Gardens is still in operation at the site.
Many thanks to Vincent and the Hurteau family for the donations and support of the Homestead and we’ll look to share more about this gift, specifically a remarkable family album called “Loose Leaves from the Family Tree,” in a later post. Be sure to keep a look out for that!