by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A donation made nearly two decades ago to the Homestead by Jeannine Raymond, whose father was the second husband of Gabriela Quiroz, widow of Thomas W. Temple II, continues to pay dividends, as her gift of hundreds of Temple family documents goes a long way towards helping the Museum better interpret them and their history.
Among the most helpful of the items in the cache of documents are financial reports outlining the income and expenses of Walter P. Temple during the first portion of the 1920s and which contain useful information on his business and personal economic conditions. We’ve offered reviews of these under the “Making a Statement” banner in this blog and this latest entry in the series looks at the report prepared for the period from 20 May to 19 June 1922.
This was not quite a half-decade after the first well was brought in on the Temple ranch near Montebello that, thanks to the astounding discovery made in spring 1914 by Thomas, who was just nine years old, catapulted the family to levels of wealth that, for a time, only a very few Americans enjoyed. It is hardly surprising that, with the huge windfall, the Temples enjoyed a lavish lifestyle, which is certainly reflected in these documents.
Walter, though, also utilized his income to invest both in independent oil ventures and in real estate, including the purchase of existing or construction of new commercial structures, and which was intended to provide him another means of financial benefit. When he began buying property in 1919, the post-World War I economic environment became turbulent and led to a recession lasting from the start of 1920 until the summer of 1921.
It was at the end of that downturn that Walter embarked on his first commercial building project, the Temple Theatre, located in downtown Alhambra, a short distance west of the family residence. A massive population and economic boom then ensued and Walter’s investments correspondingly increased in that city and elsewhere in the western San Gabriel Valley as well as in downtown Los Angeles, as has been oft-discussed here.
The income for that period was nearly $106,000 and to put this into some perspective, the Internal Revenue Service reported that, for 1922, only 165 persons in the United States submitting tax returns made $300,000 or more, though a distinction has to be made between those with income as opposed to capital gains from asset sales. The University of Missouri Libraries observed that the average annual salary for full-time non-agricultural or non-governmental workers was $1,343. Lastly, an online inflation calculator denotes that $106,000 in 1921 is not far below $2 million now—so, by any metric, Walter Temple was in rarefied financial air indeed!
His principal source of income, naturally, was the 1/8 royalty received from Standard Oil Company from the crude petroleum and natural gas extracted from about a dozen wells at the Temple lease. The key element, however, was that production was declining after just five years because the Montebello field was considered a shallow one (and this was before improvements in drilling technology allowed for tapping lower-located pools.) So, while the total for the month was just north of $21,000, a huge sum for almost all Americans, the income was dropping.
A modest sum of under $260 comprised dividends from the Tex-Mex Oil Company, which, as the name indicates, operated in Texas, while there was $183 in royalties from the oil lease of the late Julia Davis Cruz, who helped raise Walter and who died in 1917 just before a well was brought in on a property purchased in the 1870s by her mother, Venancia Peña Davis, from Walter’s father, F.P.F. This money, though, was distributed to her heirs with Temple keeping a share from being a trustee, or custodian, of the funds.
What made this month’s earnings artificially inflated, though, was the realization of sales on the redemption of Liberty and Victory bonds, financial instruments established by the Department of the Treasury to finance much of the costs of the world war. Purchases were simultaneously patriotic and profitable, thanks to the interest offered on the issue of the bonds, so that, with a pair of sales, Temple received north of $50,000 on the first and $30,000 on the second, including further accrued interest recorded separately.
Otherwise, there were nearly 40 entries in the receipts section, but all were relative incidental and none was higher than $850. Sixteen of the transactions concerned interest received from loans to relatives and friends, including his sister Lucinda Zuñiga’s step-daughter Leonor Hartnell, his wife’s brother-in-law John Vigare and a business partner, Thomas B. Talbert, who owned a Huntington Beach oil company in which Temple was invested and was a current and long-time member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors.
The other area of income in terms of frequency of transactions were rentals, 15 of them, of spaces in the commercial buildings that Temple owned. The latest amount, of $360, was from Otto H. Schleusener, the proprietor of the Temple Theatre, with a half-dozen coming from the Berry Building in Monterey Park (where Temple planned to build a separate structure, but decided to sell out of the town entirely when he engaged in something of a property swap involving a transaction at Alhambra) and totaling $230. There were also eight transactions from property in San Gabriel, amounting to near $200, including one for $10 from “Hamburger Slim.”
The other two pages of the report concerned the disbursements involving nearly $66,000, with the second largest being Temple’s tax bill of a little over $7,500 (it bears noting that the average tax on returns from an average net income of not quite $3,150, was just shy of $127, with the average in California being $104). There could only have been a small cadre of Americans paying this amount.
Other large amounts included an $8,000 loan to Thomas J. Matthews, who was rancher in the Misión Vieja, or Old Mission, community where Temple was born and raised and who, in 1922, lived and worked in Whittier. Dr. Henry F. Bishop, who was the Temple family’s physician, borrowed $6,000, while the Puente realty firm of Lower and Taylor loaned $5,000 from Temple, who deposited the funds in the First National Bank in the town near the Homestead.
From the business side, Temple’s involvement with the Berry Building concerned his ties with realtor and developer Thomas Berry at Ramona Acres, the original name for Monterey Park, the city south of Alhambra where the Temples resided briefly after their oil revenue came in and prior to their buying their current house in Alhambra. The structure stood at the critical corner of Garvey and Garfield avenues and building contractor Joseph L. Worthington was paid a $1,000 advance and just over $4,500 for his work on renovations there. Other Berry Building expenses included awnings and shades of some $250, surveying at $15 and the architectural fee for Albert Walker and Percy Eisen, who worked on most of Temple’s commercial buildings and the first drawings for La Casa Nueva of not too far under $600. A payment of $816 to an Alhambra paint and wallpaper company may have been for the structure, as well.
Meanwhile, Temple purchased another corner of the intersection, expending not far below $4,500 toward the acquisition in a payment to the First National Bank of Alhambra. As noted above, though, he abandoned those plans. Another property that was bought during this period involved $5,000 remitted to the Farmers’ and Merchants’ National Bank, established just over a half-century prior by Isaias W. Hellman, former partner of Walter’s father, F.P.F., and grandfather William Workman in Hellman, Temple and Company, Los Angeles’ second bank, for a “Bradbury Land Payment.” This was presumably part of the Lewis L. Bradbury ranch, which includes the exclusive foothill city of that name and was likely near Monrovia and Duarte.
Then there was over $3,100 shelled out to building contractors Frank H. Whyte and F.R. Taylor for inaugural payment toward their efforts on a post office structure being constructed at San Gabriel. The edifice, at the southeast corner of Mission Road and Santa Anita Avenue, still stands, with an insurance company as the occupant, and has been memorialized at La Casa Nueva in a stained glass window in the Living Room depicting Thomas Temple in a charro suit for a Mission San Gabriel fiesta as he stood next to one of the building’s arched windows. In El Monte, Temple acquired a lot on Main Street in the downtown from the Meeker family on which he soon built a post office and the Rialto Theatre—the greatly remodeled edifice still stands.
A not-uncommon occurrence in these statements is a catch-all of “Sundry Persons & Concerns,” which is striking given how many individual items are accounted for in small amounts. There are three such examples here, with one being for more than $2,500 and comprising “checks drawn outside of Office by Laura G. & Walter P. Temple.” That is, these were personal payments made by the couple and not handled by his business office. Four were itemized, including a $500 donation to the University of Santa Clara, where their son Thomas was completing studies at the preparatory high school, with other amounts for undefined interest, a shot company and $50 for historians J. Perry Worden and Luther Ingersoll for a proposed Workman and Temple family history that went uncompleted by Worden despite his being on the payroll for the rest of the decade. More than $1,700, though was simply recorded as “Expense Personal.”
Another listing with a similar explanation was for not far below $2,400, with under $1,800 in the “Expense Personal” category, Worden and Ingersoll receiving $250 and $350 identified simply as for the “Workman Homestead,” the 92-acre ranch acquired by the Temples when they bought their Alhambra house and which, with the Workman House, El Campo Santo Cemetery, former mid-19th century wineries converted into an auditorium, dining hall and garage, and other outbuildings, was used by the family as a weekend ranch. In summer 1922, the Temples took their four children on a several weeks’ trip to México to expose them to part of their heritage and were so inspired by the excursion that they soon undertook the design and construction of La Casa Nueva.
With regard to the Homestead, a smaller “Sundry Persons & Concerns” record including $50 for the ranch, $250 for chauffeur Edward G. Seely, who also drew a weekly $35.00 salary along with another driver, Stanley Benson, while Ann Raisbeck was paid $25, likely as an office assistant/secretary/stenographer, and $39.15 as “Expense Personal.” Other ranch-related expenditures included two payments of $500 was credited to the First National Bank of Puente, likely part of regular remittals for the purchase of the ranch. At the end of the section are a half-dozen more Homestead-related payments to a garage and packing company at Puente, the latter probably for handling some produce grown at the ranch, as well as to a plumber and a lumber company. The largest amount of $186 was to El Monte lumber dealer Frank P. Sappington.
As has been oft-mentioned in the blog, Milton Kauffman, as business manager for Temple’s endeavors, frequently had expenses covered by Temple, apparently in lieu of a salary as none of the statements show anything of this nature being expended to him. This report shows cash transfers, stock assessments for Southern California Edison (Temple’s five shares cost him $515), payments for an electrical contractor, federal taxes, insurance premiums, Talbert Oil stock, Barker Brothers furniture store, Bullock’s department store, and more, to the tune of nearly $2,600.
Other expenses that stand out from the more mundane ones include a $45 payment for a dictionary, which is not an insubstantial amount; $100 paid to Temple’s attorney George H. Woodruff for a “Geological Expense,” which might have to do with the oil business; $300 for a box at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, which was completed that October; a $10 donation to the San Gabriel Settlement Association, which worked with recent immigrants, likely mostly Latinos; a $309 “Pay’t on Business Cadillac” and another $104 to dealer Don Lee; and $250 for acquiring stock in the San Gabriel Sun newspaper.
Otherwise, more expected expenditures included over $40 in cash sent to Thomas at Santa Clara; purchases of general merchandise; utility payments; other car expenses; dues to the San Gabriel Country Club; fertilizer for the Homestead; office stationery; state taxes; insurance premiums; and more. Walter also gave monthly payments to Mrs. Johnstone Jones, widow of an attorney who was first hired to write that family history book, and his sister-in-law, Nettie Friend Temple.
It may be that Temple anticipated the windfall from the bond redemptions and moved to spend money at much higher levels than seen in other financial statements of the time, including on his growing real estate and construction projects. Otherwise, putting aside those bond receipts, his “regular” income of $25,000 was greatly dwarfed by the expenses of some $65,000. It is also important to note the cash balance held “in all banks” of close to $44,000, because that’s a fairly healthy liquid reserve, though later reports found him strikingly low on cash as his financial picture darkened within a few years.
There will be other “Making a Statement” posts sharing other examples of these reports, so be on the lookout for them as we continue exploring the Temple family’s economic situation during the Roaring Twenties as part of the remarkable rise and fateful fall reflecting a common condition for Americans during that era and leading up to the Great Depression.