Roundup: March 13, 2019

An updated book list is included below.

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Michael Holland
His Subject: Treasures of the Los Angeles City Archives

Michael Holland is the city archivist for Los Angeles and manages historical city government records for the Office of the City Clerk, managing government documents dating to the 1820s.  Their holdings of documents, films, photos, videos and ephemera have been included in many texts and media projects.  While the City Archives has records from as early as 1827, the great bulk of its records are from the 20th Century—and 99% of it hasn’t been digitized and only exists here, in this archaic physical form. This is a truly remarkable collection.

The purpose of the City Archives Historical Records Program is to identify, collect, preserve, arrange and describe records of historical significance originated by city government.  These records are made available to City officials and employees, as well as the general public. As an institution, the City Archives serves as the final resting place for records of enduring political, historic, economic, legal and cultural value.  As a rich, diverse collection of historical records from various City agencies, the City Archives represents the most unique and esteemed component of the City’s Records Management Program used by City departments.

Join us for the program to learn the secrets of the City Archives and how to access the treasures hidden away in Piper Technical Center.

Suggestions for future programs are always welcome!  Contact Ann Shea at 562-408-6959 or annwshea@ca.rr.comwith your ideas and program topics.

Posted by Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff

Future Los Angeles Corral Events

April 10, 2019 Roundup
Speaker is Larry Latimer
Biplanes to Space Shuttle: aircraft/aerospace industry in Los Angeles

May 8, 2019 Roundup
Speaker is Michael Eberts
History of Griffith Park

Dinner Fees, Reservations & Meal Choices

The Roundup Dinner Fee is $40 including ample, convenient and free parking. The dinner choices for this Roundup are beef, chicken and vegetarian.  The beef will be grilled prime sirloin with a sweet & spicy sauce. The chicken dish will be delicious chicken teriyaki.  The vegetarian dinner will be the always popular eggplant Parmesan.  The dessert this month is stark naked vanilla Häagen-Dazs.

Please choose your entrée and make out your check for $40 to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral,” or submit your payment online as EARLY AS YOU CAN but no later than one week before the Roundup date.  Just log onto our website (www.lawesterners.org) and go to the Members Only tab.  Click on the Roundup Store option and follow the instructions.  Walk-ins can be served, but entrée choices will be limited to what is on hand.  The “late price” is now $45.00.

If you are paying by check, mail it to Ms. Therese Melbar, Registrar of Marks and Brands at 549 South Aldenville Avenue, Covina, CA 91723-2909. Late reservations or questions may be addressed to Therese via Email: tmelbar@cpp.edu or by telephone: (661) 343-9373.

Travel Assistance to Our Fellow Members

Please keep in mind that some of our members can no longer drive or are uncomfortable driving on the freeways at night.  If such members live in your area, please get in touch to see if they would come with you to the Roundups.  Call Michele Clark, our Sunshine Wrangler, at (626) 822-1522 if you need a ride.

Books and Art Pieces for Sale

Once again, you can buy books, art pieces and other ephemera donated to the Corral. You can order items on the lists below. Contact Brian Dillon via email at briandervindillon@gmail.com.

Art

To view the items included in this year’s art auction, click here.

Books

To view the items included in this year’s book auction, click here.

Contact Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff, at 13613 Barlin Avenue, Downey, CA 90242-5107 at annwshea@ca.rr.com or at (562) 408-6959 with any questions or news.

Dues

It’s that time of year when the Los Angeles Westerners Corral call for Dues is made. The weather may be cold, but the warmth of Western history is comforting. Dues are still only $60 for all Active, Ranger Active, Associate, Institutional and Corresponding members.

To pay & complete your purchase:

1. Click Buy Now below. You will be taken to PayPal. The following steps apply to the PayPal checkout process.

2. If you have a PayPal account: under Choose a way to pay, you can enter your PayPal account information.
If you do not have a PayPal account: under Choose a way to pay, select Pay with debit or credit card, or Bill Me Later link and enter your billing information.

3. After entering your billing or account information on PayPal, click Pay. This will complete your purchase.

Roundup: February 13, 2019

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Mark Hall-Patton
His Subject: One Hump or Two: The Commercial Use of Camels in the Western United States

Mark Hall-Patton, long a member of our Corral, is the Museum Administrator for the Clark County Museum system in Nevada.  He has worked for public and private non-profit museums and has served as a consultant for museums and museum boards.  In addition, he can be seen on the television show Pawn Stars, where he lends his expertise, wisely and amusingly, on artifacts and items of interest.

His talk will focus on the subject of camels and why camels were used in the Western United States commercially after the military found them less than satisfactory.  The idea that camels, used as pack animals in some parts of the world, might solve the problems relating to shipping goods in the vast arid distances of the American West interested several entrepreneurs in the shipping industry.  Mark will discuss what happened to the camels brought to the area and why they are not found in the desert today.  Since they could eat almost anything, the story of their eventual demise is part of this story of the Western United States.

Join us for the program’s story of how our distinguished speaker became interested in these always-thirsty, curmudgeonly camels — one hump or two.

Future Los Angeles Corral Events

March 13, 2019 Roundup
Speaker is Larry Latimer
Biplanes to Space Shuttle: the aircraft/aerospace industry in Los Angeles County

April 10, 2019 Roundup
Speaker is Michael Holland
Treasures of the Los Angeles City Archives

Posted by Jim Macklin, Sheriff, Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff, and Therese Melbar, Registrar

Dinner Fees, Reservations & Meal Choices

The Roundup Dinner Fee is $40 including ample, convenient and free parking. The dinner choices for this Roundup are beef, fish and vegetarian.  The beef will be slow-roasted prime sirloin with a wild mushroom sauce. The fish dish will be baked Atlantic salmon with toasted almonds in a cream sauce.  The vegetarian dinner will be penne pasta in a tomato basil sauce (again, no mention of cheese)  with the usual boring but healthy fresh carrots, peppers, zucchini, mushrooms and green beans.  After the December Roundup dessert of Cherries Jubilee Flambé served a month late in January, the chef will attempt to win you back with Chocolate Royale, which is similar to a baked chocolate souffle!

Please choose your entrée and make out your check for $40 to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral,” or submit your payment online as EARLY AS YOU CAN but no later than one week before the Roundup date.  Just log onto our website (www.lawesterners.org) and go to the Members Only tab.  Click on the Roundup Store option and follow the instructions. Walk-ins can be served, but entrée choices will be limited to what is on hand.  The “late price” is now $45.00.

If you are paying by check, mail it to Ms. Therese Melbar, Registrar of Marks and Brands at 549 South Aldenville Avenue, Covina, CA 91723-2909. Late reservations or questions may be addressed to Therese via Email: tmelbar@cpp.edu or by telephone: (661) 343-9373.

Travel Assistance to Our Fellow Members

Please keep in mind that some of our members can no longer drive or are uncomfortable driving on the freeways at night.  If such members live in your area, please get in touch to see if they would come with you to the Roundups.  Call Michele Clark, our Sunshine Wrangler, at (626) 822-1522 if you need a ride.

Books and Art Pieces for Sale

Once again, you can buy books, art pieces and other ephemera donated to the Corral. You can order items on the lists below. Contact Brian Dillon via email at briandervindillon@gmail.com.

Art

To view the items included in this year’s art auction, click here.

Books

To view the items included in this year’s book auction, click here.

Contact Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff, at 13613 Barlin Avenue, Downey, CA 90242-5107 at annwshea@ca.rr.com or at (562) 408-6959 with any questions or news

Roundup: January 9, 2019

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Brian Dervin Dillon, Ph.D.
His Subject: Exiles and Saints at Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii

In the 19th Century, epidemiology was in its infancy, and “germ theory” was by no means commonly accepted, even by surgeons and physicians.  The causes of, and cures for, many of the most dreaded diseases were unknown, and few cities, even in America, had hospitals as we know them today. Isolation and quarantine were the most common responses to the threat of communicable diseases, real or imagined, around the world.

In 1866 a quarantine facility was begun at Kalaupapa, on the most isolated portion of Molokai in the Hawaiian Islands.  Over the next century, more than 8,000 people suspected of leprosy were sent there, not to be cured, but to be isolated in exile.  All but a few died there. Portrayed as hell on earth by sensationalistic writers like Jack London and James Michener, more thoughtful visitors to Kalaupapa like Robert Louis Stevenson believed it instead to be a holy place, a breeding ground for saints. Indeed, no part of what is now the United States has produced more Saints (one per square mile) than has Kalaupapa, and no part of America has such an unusual, tragic, yet at the same time uplifting, history.

Brian Dervin Dillon is uniquely qualified to speak about Kalaupapa.  He first became familiar with our 50th State as an eight-year-old while his father was teaching history at the University of Hawaii.  Some years later he became an honorary Islander by marrying into a long-established Chinese family with roots on both Kauai and the Big Island, gaining Native Hawaiian calabash cousins into the bargain. For more than 40 years he has been the “token Haole” of his large, diverse, multi-racial, multi-ethnic family. Four of his relatives by marriage, both Chinese and Hawaiian, were exiled to Kalaupapa in the 19th and 20th centuries.  All of them died there, and all four are still buried there.

Posted by Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff

Dinner Fees, Reservations & Meal Choices

The Roundup Dinner Fee is $40 including ample, convenient and free parking. The dinner choices for this Roundup are beef, chicken and vegetarian.  The beef will be grilled prime sirloin with a sweet & spicy sauce. The chicken dish will be baked garlic chicken with parmesan cheese.  The vegetarian dinner will be stuffed zucchini instead of the usual boring but healthy fresh vegetables such as broccoli, tomato, carrots, cauliflower, peppers, potato or the ever-popular jicama, kale and brussels sprouts.  We have hopefully talked the chef into fulfilling his contractual obligations from the December Roundup dessert fiasco by serving our traditional holiday Cherries Jubilee Flambé a month late in January.

Please choose your entrée and make out your check for $40 to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral,” or submit your payment online as EARLY AS YOU CAN but no later than one week before the Roundup date.  Just log onto our website (www.lawesterners.org) and go to the Members Only tab.  Click on the Roundup Store option and follow the instructions. Walk-ins can be served, but entrée choices will be limited to what is on hand.  The “late price” is now $45.00.

If you are paying by check, mail it to Ms. Therese Melbar, Registrar of Marks and Brands at 549 South Aldenville Avenue, Covina, CA 91723-2909. Late reservations or questions may be addressed to Therese via Email: tmelbar@cpp.edu or by telephone: (661) 343-9373.

Future Los Angeles Corral Events

February 13, 2019 Roundup
Mark Hall-Patton on One Hump or Two?: The Commercial Use of Camels in the West

March 13, 2019 Roundup
Speaker To Be Determined

Travel Assistance to Our Fellow Members 

Please keep in mind that some of our members can no longer drive or are uncomfortable about driving on the freeways at night.  If there are such members living in your area, please get in touch to see if they would come with you to the Roundups.  Call Michele Clark, our Sunshine Wrangler, at (626) 822-1522 if you need a ride.

Books and Art Pieces for Sale

Once again, you can buy books, art pieces and other ephemera donated to the Corral.  You can order items on the lists at the bottom of the online Roundup announcement at www.lawesterners.org. Contact Brian Dillon via email at briandervindillon@gmail.com.

Art

To view the items included in this year’s art auction, click here.

Books

To view the items included in this year’s book auction, click here.

Contact Ann Shea, Deputy Sheriff, at 13613 Barlin Avenue, Downey, CA 90242-5107 at annwshea@ca.rr.com or at (626) 446-6411 with any questions or news 

Annual Holiday Celebration: December 12, 2018

 Annual Holiday Celebration

Almansor Court – 700 S. Almansor, Alhambra, CA.
Social Hour: 5:00 PM
Dinner: 6:00 PM

Our Speaker: Phil Brigandi
His Subject: Reservations, Removal & Reform: The Indian Agents of Southern California

Phil Brigandi is familiar to us as one of the Corral’s stalwart leaders in writing history and overseeing the Corral’s publications.  He will discuss the role and impact of the Indian agents of Southern California. This subject is familiar to him since Valerie Sherer Mathes and he published a book, Reservations, Removal & Reform: The Indian Agents of Southern California, in 2018.  Inseparable from the history of the Indians of Southern California is the role of the Indian agent–a government functionary whose chief duty was, according to the Office of Indian Affairs, to “induce his Indian to labor in civilized pursuits.” Offering a portrait of the Mission Indian agents of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Phil will reveal how individual agents interpreted this charge and how their actions and attitudes affected the lives of the Mission Indians of Southern California. Phil will tell the story of these agents who served the Mission Indians from 1850 to 1903, with an emphasis on seven regular agents who served from 1878 to 1903. Relying on the agents’ reports and correspondence as well as newspaper articles and court records, he will create a vivid picture of how each man engaged with the issues and the events confronting the Mission Indians including land tenure, water rights, education, law enforcement and health care.

Phil has been researching and writing local history for more than 40 years, specializing in the history of Orange, Riverside, and San Diego counties. He is the author of more than two dozen books and hundreds of articles, including histories of Orange, Temecula, and Borrego Springs. He is the former historian for the Ramona Pageant and former archivist for the County of Orange. He has been a member of The Westerners since 2005 and served as our Branding Iron editor from 2008 to 2010.  His most recent publications include scholarly works on Helen Hunt Jackson, the book with Mathes and the Corral’s Keepsake #45, A Five-Foot Shelf of Westerners, Prominent Historians of the Los Angeles Corral.

NOTE:  This Roundup is our annual holiday celebration. Also, it’s the time of the year that we pass the gold-panning pans for donations to our servers at the Almansor Court to express our appreciation for their diligent and patient care of us all year.  Remember to bring a generous amount of cash!

Posted by Jim Macklin, Deputy Sheriff

Dinner Fees, Reservations & Meal Choices

The Roundup Dinner Fee is $40 including ample, convenient and free parking. The dinner choices for this Roundup are beef, chicken and vegetarian.  The beef will be grilled sliced top sirloin with a wild mushroom sauce. The chicken dish will be a breast of chicken baked in  traditional, slightly-spicy Mexican adobo sauce.  The vegetarian dinner will be a Bouquet of Vegetables, the chef’s euphemism for boring but probably healthy fresh vegetables including broccoli, broiled tomato, carrots, cauliflower, grilled zucchini, peppers and potato. The poor souls who choose vegetarian may ask for double desserts to ease their holiday disappointment. The dessert for all will be our traditional holiday Cherries Jubilee Flambé.

Please choose your entrée and make out your check for $40 to “Westerners, Los Angeles Corral,” or submit your payment onlineas EARLY AS YOU CAN but no later than one week before the Roundup date.  Just log onto our website and go to the Members Only tab.  Click on the Roundup Store option and follow the instructions.  Walk-ins can be served, but entrée choices will be limited to what is on hand.  The “late price” is now $45.00.

If you are paying by check, mail it to Ms. Therese Melbar, Registrar of Marks and Brands at 549 South Aldenville Avenue, Covina, CA 91723-2909. Late reservations or questions may be addressed to Therese via Email: tmelbar@cpp.edu or by telephone: (661) 343-9373.

Future Los Angeles Corral Events

January 9, 2019 Roundup
Brian Dervin Dillon on Exiles and Saints at Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii

February 13, 2019 Roundup
Mark Hall-Patton on One Hump or Two?: The Commercial Use of Camels in the West

Travel Assistance to Our Fellow Members 

Please keep in mind that some of our members can no longer drive or are uncomfortable about driving on the freeways at night.  If there are such members living in your area, please get in touch to see if they would come with you to the Roundups.  Call Michele Clark, our Sunshine Wrangler, at (626) 822-1522 if you need a ride.

Books and Art Pieces for Sale

Since we did not sell all the books, art pieces and other ephemera at the October 20^th Rendezvous, you can order items still on the lists below. Contact Brian Dillon via email at briandervindillon@gmail.com.

Art

To view the items remaining from this year’s art auction, click here.

Updated Book List

To view the items remaining from this year’s book auction, click here.

75th Los Angeles Corral Anniversary Event and Simultaneous 2021 Westerners International Gather

The Trail Bosses have agreed with the Westerners International organization in Canyon, Texas to host the international meeting, called The Gather, in Fall, 2021 in conjunction with our celebration of the Corral’s 75^thAnniversary.  Past Sheriff Gary Turner will chair the event.  If you would like to assist him on the committee, please let him know at (747) 202-3888 or at drdirt_t@hotmail.com.

Contact Jim Macklin, Deputy Sheriff, at 1221 Greenfield Avenue, Arcadia, CA 91006-4148, at  jhmcpa@earthlink.net or (626) 446-6411 with any questions or news items.