California Dreaming: The Lives of Three Second-Cousins-Twice-Removed
Samuel Gregg: 1865-1888
Wallace Gregg: 1876-1944
Blanche Clementine Gregg: 1881-1975
The Gregg family built on their parents’ legacy of farmland
and real estate in Southern California. I enjoyed learning about them, so will
briefly describe their lives and pursuits. Sometimes extended family have
fascinating personal histories, as these brief summaries of three Gregg siblings show.
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| The Extended Gregg Family circa 1915 |
Samuel Gregg:
Samuel was the oldest of the three sons that were emancipated as minors by their father in 1882. Samuel was 17 at the time, and probably helped to care for his younger brothers. He appears in an L.A. city directory in 1886 as a student at the University of Southern California.
On June 11,
1888, he is listed in the L.A. Herald, along with brothers James and Gus, as a
USC student. This is the last record I can find for Samuel. He apparently died
November 5, 1888, and is buried in the family plot at Rose Hills Memorial Park.
Strangely, there is no mention of his death in the newspapers. He was only
23.
Wallace Gregg:
According to his obituary, Wallace became involved in real estate as a youth, helping the surveyors lay out the city of Whittier. He went on to run a walnut orchard (his grandfather’s property?), becoming manager of the Los Nietos Walnut Growers Association, and also director of the Whittier Citrus Association—appropriate as he was born in the city of Orange during his father’s years running a citrus nursery.
His main business was the Wallace
Gregg agency, which sold both real estate and insurance. The local newspaper,
The Whittier News, was filled with his company’s advertisements for farmland,
homes and building lots. One of the May 10, 1913 ads stated:
“Houses, $1000 to
$20,000. Any price you want, any location you may be looking for. We are
selling them every day. Why? Because we have the goods to deliver. We make a
specialty of houses—good homes in the city of Whittier, that’s why.”
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| Sale ads from single issue of Whittier News, May 10, 1913 |
He invested in a large Whittier furniture company, was
president of the Rotarians, and founded and was president of the Whittier
Building & Loan Association. He had quite the monopoly on real estate in
the Whittier area: he sold it, insured it, and provided the funding and
mortgages for the transactions. He was a very successful businessman.
Wallace married Mabel Smith of Los Angeles in March of 1904.
They had three children, Wallace Jr. in 1908, Margaret in 1914, and Mabel in
1917. Wallace died at age 68 on September 17, 1944.
Blanche Gregg Vaux:
Blanche moved to Los Angeles with her mother around 1904, following her father’s death, where she met a German immigrant by the name of Richard Laux. They married September 9, 1911. According to the write-up of their wedding, Richard was a college graduate who moved to California two years earlier, and worked for a large New York firm in the “importing business.” The couple had an elaborate wedding at the L.A. Masonic Temple, with 300 guests and green and white decorations designed by the members of the Eastern Star, the Masons’ women’s group.
Following the wedding, the couple moved to New York, where their three children, Alice, Katherine and Richard Jr., were born. Sadly, Richard died at age 40 on June 29, 1920. The couple were on an extended visit to Blanche’s brother Gus’s home when Richard suffered a heart attack. The newspaper report stated that, “Mr. Laux has been afflicted with a weak heart for years, but his death came very unexpectedly.” Blanche and her children moved back to Whittier to live near her family. She worked as a bookkeeper, and died September 15, 1975.
Sources:
“Richard Laux is Called by Death”. Whittier News 30 June
1920. https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-whittier-news/22542/
Newspapers.com clippings from Whittier News.
Findagrave.com
