by Paul R. Spitzzeri
Drivers on Cloverfield Boulevard in Santa Monica or those enjoying Clover Park a short distance from where the thoroughfare’s southern terminus is at Ocean Park Boulevard might understandably think, if it comes up at all, that the name comes from a field of the common herbaceous plant, but there is another origin for both and it has to do with another important part of town, Santa Monica Airport, and its founding in 1923 as Clover Field.
A prior post here covered some of the history of journalist (and much else) Samuel Travers Clover, who had a long career in greater Los Angeles, starting at the beginning of the 20th century and continuing for most of more than three decades. Clover, his wife Mabel and their children settled in the Angel City where he briefly worked for the Los Angeles Times and then became editor of the rival Los Angeles Express before opening his own short-lived Los Angeles News before taking the reins of the Los Angeles Graphic.
In 1912, Clover took over the Pasadena News, soon the Star-News, and the family relocated to the Crown City. It was there that son Greayer (that was Mabel’s mother’s maiden name) began to earn local and regional renown as an athlete, including as a swimmer, but mainly for his superior skills on the tennis court, starting in doubles with a partner so that they were dubbed the “Tennis Twins.”
The young man, known as Grub, competed for Pasadena High School, also serving as an underclass president and writing for the Star-News covering his school’s sports teams before his father returned to Los Angeles, so Greayer spent his final two years at Los Angeles High, graduating in 1916.
In fact, in 1915, he earned a spot in the final match of the high school interscholastic tennis championship and faced off against a former Pasadena High teammate, losing to Kenneth Hawks, whose family settled in the Crown City because of his mother’s health. Hawks went to become a film director, though not as famous as his brother, Howard. In 1916, though, Grub captured the crown as a junior singles champ at a Southern California tournament held in Long Beach.
After a short stint at Stanford University, he headed east, as his father bought a newspaper in Richmond, Virginia, and enrolled at Yale University. Grub developed an interest in journalism, as well, and began writing reports on Eastern tennis news as a special correspondent for the Times. With America’s entry in World War I, however, as did two brothers, Philip and Paul, Grub enlisted with the American Expeditionary Force and was initially assigned in May 1917 to an ambulance corps.
An avid aviation interest, however, led Clover to join the Army Air Corps, the precursor to the Air Force and earned a lieutenant’s commission in May 1918. On 30 August, at Issoudun, a litte more than 250 kilometers south of Paris, he was practicing and “as he was circling over the aviation field he did not ‘bank’ quite enough” so that “his plane skidded and came down nose first and [he] crashed head first to the ground.” Clover was buried at a cemetery in that French town and his father issued a statement:
The war is relentless. But, hard as it is to give up Greayer, the editor of the [Richmond] Evening Journal dedicates his baby boy to the cause America has so much at heart. May he not have died in vain, is his fervent wish.
Sam Clover added that readers of his paper “who have seen his delightful letters in these columns can testify to the lad’s sweet mind and ability.” Adding that his son hoped to became a newspaper figure, his father continued that “his last contribution, printed in the Evening Journal last Saturday, was entitled ‘A Stop at Suzanne’s'” and that was “the best story he had written, and giving indutiable [sic] evidence of a brilliant future for him as a writer.” The elder Clover added that trophies sent from France were displayed in his newspaper’s office window and he lauded his son as “brave, high-spirited, kindly and sunny-tempered” and “the idol of the home.”
In summer 1919, Sam arranged for the publication of A Stop at Suzanne’s, published by George H. Doran of New York. Harry Carr, whose popular column, “The Lancer,” appeared for many years in the Times lauded the work, which began as those letters to Clover’s father, calling it “easily the best book I have read on the war” because of its “gayety and charm and sympathy” as well as “spontaneity and enthusiasm” along with “a delicacy and charm of style that promised a splendid literary career.”
The titular character lost her lover in the fighting to defend France and this part of the book “is a story of indescribable charm” and “as clean and fresh and delicate as an apple orchard in bloom.” Other tales relating to Clover’s service were deemed “of a high order of merit.” Carr concluded by telling his readers,
This book will stand to the memory of a clean, fine boy who might have been a literary man of the highest rank but whose life was cut off by an aviation accident almost sardonic in its triviality.
In the fall, the Star-News serialized A Stop at Suzanne’s, with the 2 September edition of the paper, with Sam Clover writing of his son’s desire to join the ambulance corps and to “serve the country and the cause.” To his mother, he wrote of wanting to consider the aviation corps, as well, and begged, “for goodness’ sake don’t refuse me!” The elder Clover added, “never went a Crusader to the Holy Land with more zeal to serve than possessed the soul of this splendid youngster of 20.”
Moreover, it was remarked that “his letters from Paris were so naive, so exuberant, the viewpoint so fresh!” Particularly striking to the father were the statements about French women, seeing their sons, brothers, husbands and beaus fighting for their homeland, and that “it is beautiful . . . because it is a suffering of love and patriotism.” Fellow soldiers told the family how Greayer gave his blankets to Belgian refugees and his pay to them, as well, while he also actively engaged with the French people in that area. It was also noted that Mabel had French ancestry, which her son understood and appreciated during his service.
After detailing the manner of his son’s death and reports of the esteem in which he was held, Sam Clover concluded with,
There on that sunkissed hill in the cemetery at Issoudun he lies, as unblemished a soul as can be found in Christendom, and as brave. One day, I hope I may be privileged to stand, with his mother, beside that mound in Southern France where, I believe . . . he is well content to rest. What he gave thousands of others have given in the cause of liberty and although we yielded up our boy as unreservedly as he gave himself, the individual loss is keen. We had to whip the Huns [Germans] but the cost had been bitterly heavy.
An early memorial to Clover took place in March 1919 when the Times reported that “neighbors and friends . . . will plant a tree in his memory . . . in the park at the junction of Marmion Way, Pasadena and Dayton [Figueroa] avenues and Avenue Thirty-seven.” The oak planting was accompanied by “exercises [that] will be simple, in the nature of a neighborhood and community gathering and a tribute by friends.” Today, the site is Greayer’s Oak Mini Park, a City of Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks facility in Highland Park.
In 1920, the Clovers returned from Richmond, with the paper there sold to a rival, and resided at their ranch in Arcadia and the Star-News of 29 September reported that “later Mr. and Mrs. Clover will go to France to visit the grave of their son.” Soon afterward, another memorial to him came, as reported by the Pasadena Post of 25 May 1921:
In the name of Greayer (Grubby) Clover, a Pasadena boy, who made the supreme sacrifice for his country in the world war, a scholarship funds has been created at the Pasadena high school. This fund is to be used to help worthy, industrious, education-seeking boys to secure their high school and college education.
With the approaching Memorial Day, a concert was held to raise funds for the scholarship and the paper editorialized in its issue the last day of the month that, “it served to crystallize the emotion of patriotism into a benignant activity, to pay a fitting tribute to the historic dead” and a very meaningful way to acknowledge the holiday. It concluded that “perhaps as people went forth from the place [the Raymond Theatre], with the lingering harmonies still in their ears, the lesson of devotion was stronger in their hearts.” The scholarship was later expanded to honor 20 alumni who died while in service during the late war.
In early June 1922, an effort was made at Los Angeles High from current students and the alumni association to memorialize those of its students who passed away during the conflict, with the idea to acquire a 94,000 square foot property across Olympic Boulevard from the campus for a park. This, however, morphed into a memorial library, with the parcel deeded to the city for its public library to carry out the project that yielded the Los Angeles High School Memorial Park, in which is the Memorial Branch Library.
In the adult reading room, the well-known Judson Studios created stained glass windows that included the names of Clover and Joseph Kauffman, brother of Milton, the business manager of Homestead owner Walter P. Temple, whose monument to Joseph, dedicated in 1919 at his oil property in Montebello, is now in the park in his Temple City, founded in 1923. Because of concerns over seismic stability following the 1987 Whittier Narrows earthquake, the library underwent a retrofitting and reopened in 1996.
Then, at the end of the year, came the announcement in the Times of 11 December that,
The memory of Lieut. Greayer Clover, Los Angeles World-War hero, who gave “his all” on the battlefields of France, was perpetuated yesterday when Secretary of War [John W.] Weeks directed that the new [Army] airdrome under construction here be named “Santa Monica Airdrome—Clover Field.”
On 16 March 1923, Major General Mason M. Patrick, commander of the Army Air Service, dedicated Clover Field and the Times of the 15th, the day prior to the ceremony, noted that “more than 100 planes, piloted by reserve officers . . . will be in the air during the ceremonies.” In its edition of 26 April, the paper published a full-page feature on the airport, proclaiming that “Santa Monica is destined to become one of the world’s greatest aviation centers” and that “perhaps not ten people among a million” understood the importance of the dedication.
As the western headquarters of the Army Air Service Reserve Corps, the field was to be the first of four, the others to be in Boston, Kansas City and Pittsburgh, and Clover was considered to be “first in time, first in tactical need, first in advantages of location—climactic conditions and accessibility to the largest number of reserve flying men.” The airport was leased by the City of Santa Monica to the federal government for $1 a year for a half-decade and the municipality also leased hangar space for civilian pilots on the site.
Adding that “Clover Field is the center around which both government and civilian flying activities will concentrate,” the paper went on that Douglas’ company built a half million dollars worth of aircraft in the prior ten months and had a like amount of unfilled orders with good prospects in the next half-year. Moreover, the firm “expects a great amount of civilian airplane and flying boat business to develop as a result of the activities at Clover Field.”
The Times went so far as to suggest that “as automobile business and activity multiplies around Detroit, so airplane activity and business will multiply will build itself up at Santa Monica” as “this is what the Government desires.” Beyond this, it was asserted that aviation development would inspire other business and industry to come to the Bay City and the paper drew another notable simile as it projected that,
All the ideal conditions of land, water, climate and nearness to the great city of Los Angeles will do for flying for defense, transportation, sport and pleasure what these same elements have done for the motion picture business and profession. Santa Monica will be to flying what Hollywood is to moving pictures.
In his dedicatory remarks, Patrick referred to Greayer Clover as “young, vital, full of the ambitions of young American manhood” and one who gladly served his country as he served first in the ambulance corps and then the Air Service. The Major-General informed the audience of his receiving a message about the death of Clover, who “passed into the Great Beyond above the stars toward which he flew.” After honoring all the war dead, Patrick concluded that “this field which we dedicate today will keep his memory alive in our hearts forever.”
In mid-March 1924 came the event during which the highlighted photo from the Museum’s holdings for this post was created and a previous post here covered some of the history of that gathering to send off a octet of aviators embarking on the first circumnavigation of the world by airplane. The 11 March edition of the Times reported that a farewell banquet for the flyers at the Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica included, as additional guests of honor, Donald Douglas, who designed the craft and the Clovers.
On the 16th, stated the Los Angeles Illustrated Daily News of the following day, the Clovers “placed a bronze tablet in the Reserve Officers’ club at Santa Monica” in honor of their son, while “mothers and wives of the flyers” embarking on the world flight and “brought together by a common bond” gathered for “an informal conference on the field near the huge Martin bombers and Douglas world cruisers. The mother of Douglas remarked “I lost one of my boys in the war. Donald is the only one I have left.”
In his “The Lancer” column in the Times of 25 June 1925, Carr headed one portion “War Trophies Scorned,” offering that such relics as were offered by the military to some states were wholly unnecessary and advised that, “the best thing they can do with all these old German cannon and other war junk is to melt them up,” while “the best way to honor the soldiers who fought in the war is to provide for their dependents, as the American Legion,” which later had a Greayer Clover post locally, “is now asking.”
Carr continued that,
The finest memorial to the memory of a soldier of the war that I know of is the oak planted to the memory of Greayer Clover in the little park at Avenue Thirty-nine and Marmion Way.
That oak will be there centuries from now, reminding generations to come of a boy who was loyal and unselfish.
Those darned old rusty, menacing-looking cannon suggest only the pain and the wounds and the suffering of war; not the good that came of it.
In fact, the oak and little Highland Park park have long outlived Clover Field, at least in name. Upset that the media was apt to say that the military airfield was in Los Angeles, Santa Monica officials determined, in summer 1927, to rename it, though that five-year lease ran through a portion of the following year. While “Clover Field” continued in common use into 1929, the new name of “Santa Monica Municipal Airport” was adopted by late March of that year.
There are, of course, Clover Park and Cloverfield Boulevard, while the 2008 film Cloverfield was so named because producer J.J. Abrams had his production office in the area and used the street name as a codename, but kept it for its release. A strange footnote, speaking of movies, was that, on 2 January 1930, Kenneth Hawks, who defeated Grub Clover in that 1915 tennis championship match, was directing an airplane action scene off the coast of Santa Monica as he completed work on Such Men Are Dangerous, when two craft collided and ten men, including Hawks.
UPDATE, 1 April 2026: This is no April’s Fools joke, but Santa Monica Airport is closing in 2028 with plans pursued for a park.