Adelaide Tichenor: The life and times of a trailblazer

Editor’s note: Starting today, the Press-Telegram volition tally excerpts from the forthcoming book, “Adelaide’s Legacy: Tichenor Orthopedic Clinic for Children.” Today’s excerpt — “Who was Adelaide Tichenor?” — deals with the beingness and times of a trailblazing pistillate successful Long Beach during the aboriginal 20th century. 

By Karen Robes Meeks,

Contributing writer

History champion remembers Adelaide Alexander Tichenor arsenic the “Mother of Long Beach Clubs” and the laminitis of Tichenor Clinic, but her travel to the seaside metropolis mightiness person ne'er happened had destiny not altered its course.

Had destiny not intervened, immoderate of Long Beach’s astir important organizations would not person existed oregon survived, including the Ebell Club, the Long Beach Public Library, the Long Beach Day Nursery and, especially, the astir 100-year-old Tichenor Clinic.

Without Adelaide, Tichenor Clinic would person ne'er go the iconic instauration it is today, helping children with disabilities specified arsenic cerebral palsy oregon congenital clubfoot, a information Adelaide had since birth.

Adelaide could person stayed successful Ravenna, Ohio, wherever she was calved connected Oct. 9, 1845. Her father, John, was a businessman successful the tiny midwestern city, 15 miles northeast of Akron. She loved speechmaking and the arts and voraciously sought education. She studied astatine Oberlin College (one of the archetypal colleges successful the state to admit women and African Americans), arsenic good arsenic St. Louis Normal College successful Missouri and the Massachusetts Normal Art School (now Massachusetts College of Art and Design) successful Boston, nether famed creation pedagogue and writer Walter Smith.

Adelaide became a teacher and worked successful nationalist schools successful St. Louis and Boston. She excelled successful her profession, compelling William T. Harris, past superintendent of schools of St. Louis, to state Adelaide “the champion teacher helium had ever known.”

A teaching accidental drew Adelaide westbound to California successful 1884. She hadn’t planned to wed astatine the time. In fact, she was preparing for a travel astir the satellite – a lifelong imagination of hers – erstwhile destiny interceded.

She fell successful emotion with Lester Schuyler Tichenor, a well-to-do businessman and erstwhile manager of Russ Lumber Co.

Lester, who was calved successful Newark, New Jersey, came from a agelong enactment of East Coast ancestors and was related to 1 of the oldest families successful New Jersey. He worked successful lumber successful Hawaii, past successful San Bernardino, wherever helium became 1 of its pioneering residents.

About a twelvemonth aft they met, they married, connected Aug. 13, 1885, successful San Bernardino. He was 32 and she was 39.

She could person stayed successful San Bernardino, wherever she made a location with her husband, but their union, though happy, was short-lived. Lester died of pneumonia connected Jan. 9, 1892. He was lone 38 years old. They had nary children.

They would person celebrated their seventh wedding day that summer.

Some would person crumbled nether the value of that grief, but Adelaide came from beardown New England roots. She was the surviving kid to parents John and Courance (Hamlin) Alexander, whose families were among the East Coast’s archetypal settlers. She counted John Alexander, a skipper successful the Revolutionary War, and Giles Hamlin, a lawman of the General Court from Middletown, Connecticut, among her ancestors.

After her hubby died, Adelaide sold his 100-acre ranch and moved guardant without him.

Adelaide arrives successful Long Beach

Two years aboriginal and aft a spot of traveling, she came to Long Beach to negociate her spot interests.

Adelaide saw a metropolis brimming with potential.

She arrived astatine a clip erstwhile Long Beach itself was getting started. The fledgling municipality – formerly Willmore City and recently named Long Beach – had incorporated six years earlier. The metropolis hardly numbered 3,000 residents by the crook of the 20th century, but it was bursting and unfolding on the Pacific Ocean.

Competing railroads drew tourists and those who dreamed of surviving adjacent the waterfront.

A unpaid radical that would yet go the city’s occurrence section was forming to conscionable the influx of residents.

Long Beach, a waterfront assemblage aspiring for much than seaside amusements, was a metropolis Adelaide could assistance signifier into thing more.

Shape the metropolis she did.

For the adjacent 3 decades, Adelaide made Long Beach her home. After leaving the satellite of teaching, Adelaide developed an acumen for concern and made a 2nd vocation of managing her husband’s assets.

Before she died, she would ain a fig of fiscal interests and service arsenic manager of assorted companies and corporations. She built homes for merchantability successful Topeka and Long Beach.

A 1903 advertisement featured the “Tichenor Tract,” wherever 50-foot tons “in afloat presumption of the ocean” betwixt contiguous time Third Street and the Pacific Electric Railway were selling betwixt $300 and $400, astir $9,000 successful today’s dollars. She would besides service arsenic a subordinate of the Dock & Terminal Company and the Long Beach Chamber of Commerce and beryllium progressive successful astir 40 organizations successful Long Beach.

She besides applied that decisiveness to gathering her home.

Adelaide, who had traveled to Asia 2 years previously, recovered herself enamored by the Japanese Imperial Gardens astatine the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair Louisiana Purchase Exposition. Writing from St. Louis, she implored famed designer Charles Greene to trek to the World’s Fair to spot the designs for himself.

Adelaide had commissioned the steadfast Greene and Greene to physique her location connected Ocean Avenue. Up until that point, Greene and his member Henry had been established Pasadena architects who were amended known for their American Arts and Crafts aesthetic. Japanese architecture was caller to them.

The effect was a show to behold and wide featured successful publications erstwhile it was completed. The property, astatine 852 E. Ocean Ave., which sat connected a bluff overlooking the ocean, included an Asian-inspired roof, exposed beams, stained solid windows, built-in bookshelves, French doors that opened onto a patio, a Japanese span that stretched implicit a lily pond, a beverage location and lush landscaping.

The greenish abstraction allowed Adelaide to turn bananas astatine her home, which the Long Beach Press successful 1908 declared the “first palmy attempt” successful the state. The furnishings – from table chairs and tables to partition sconces and lamps – was custom-made to lucifer the location and Adelaide’s imaginativeness of a good location for entertaining the astir influential successful Long Beach.

The parent of Long Beach clubs

Adelaide shared her wealthiness and her power to marque Long Beach a amended place, prompting admirers to telephone her the “Mother of Long Beach Clubs.”

She was pivotal to the constitution of the Long Beach Day Nursery, founded by her person Florence Bixby, offering onshore astatine 805 Alamitos Ave. and an Edwardian location connected Locust Avenue successful 1916 that ended up astatine the caller location.

Her generosity allowed the nursery to service 50 children.

Adelaide initially donated the onshore anonymously, but determination was truthful overmuch buzz astir the donation that she revealed her relation arsenic the gifter to Day Nursery leaders.

She didn’t donate the onshore for publicity oregon praise, Adelaide told them.

“I simply looked upon the accidental to springiness a suitable batch and gathering arsenic an accidental – a existent privilege arsenic it were – to bash a small bully for an instauration which has been doing genuinely splendid enactment successful our city,“ she said.

Adelaide besides formed 1 of the biggest women’s societal institutions of the time locally with the Ebell Club, which began successful her location with 17 different charter members successful 1896.

The nine hosted question and taste events and supported civic matters, including the metropolis street-sparkling fund. The Ebell Club partnered with the Woman’s City Club to decorate and money Long Beach’s archetypal interval successful the Rose Parade. Ebell’s archetypal fundraiser was a tract enactment to rise wealth for books for the caller metropolis library, 1 of Adelaide’s large passions.

Under Adelaide, the Ebell Club besides was vocal connected metropolis matters. In 1921, for example, she and different nine members stormed a metropolis gathering to reason eliminating the city’s Spanish thoroughfare names.

It was atrocious capable erstwhile the metropolis changed the thoroughfare sanction of Independencia to Cherry Avenue, Adelaide bristled, and present metropolis planners were coming for the remainder of the thoroughfare names.

“Every 1 of those Spanish names is beautiful,” she argued. “Yes, adjacent Ximeno, and it is conscionable arsenic casual to spell arsenic ‘anemone.’ Why should we instrumentality the colony customized of naming our streets (after) daisies and roses?”

At a 1905 Ebell symposium, Adelaide opined connected the club’s power successful Long Beach and recalled her speech with a antheral who said the nine had done much for the metropolis than “any different element.”

“Why, erstwhile the nine archetypal started, the content was that Long Beach was thing but a structure city, and that determination were nary radical determination but those who lived successful tents,” Adelaide said. “After awhile, it was learned that determination was an Ebell Club successful Long Beach and past they decided that determination truly indispensable beryllium a municipality determination with homes and intelligent radical successful them.”

Adelaide advocated heavy for the instauration of a Long Beach Public Library, reportedly persuading Andrew Carnegie to donate $30,000 toward the cause.

In detailing the past of the Long Beach Public Library, section historiographer and writer Claudine Burnett wrote that Adelaide and different section women persuaded Carnegie to springiness much for the room than the archetypal donation of $12,500, based connected a metropolis of 2,000 people.

“The women of Long Beach proved to his restitution that the 1900 U.S. Census was retired of date, that alternatively of being a colony of 2,200 radical Long Beach’s colonisation was nearer 22,000,” Burnett wrote.

For years, Adelaide collected the wealth for the library’s attraction and purchased arsenic galore books successful Los Angeles arsenic she could and brought them location successful her arms.

She aboriginal loaned assorted curios from her satellite travels to show successful the library, including a “dissertation connected the quality body,” written successful Arabic connected strips of talipot thenar she recovered portion vacationing for weeks successful Palestine.

She organized the archetypal room committee and was 1 of the 5 members liable for procuring a gathering for the caller metropolis library.

Adelaide’s room engagement pushed her to go much progressive successful the suffragist movement.

Adelaide and 2 others were replaced by men connected the metropolis Library Board due to the fact that the City Charter lone allowed “qualified electors to clasp office,” which astatine that clip were men only, according to the publication “Suffragists of Early Long Beach,” written by erstwhile Councilwoman Gerrie Schipske.

The imagination of the Tichenor Clinic

But Adelaide’s top accomplishment was establishing a clinic-school for children with peculiar needs, a installation inspired, successful part, by her ain disability.

Adelaide herself had a clubfoot that had affected her walking since commencement and a session similar the 1 she envisioned would person helped her.

Her clinic, for which she filed incorporation papers successful 1920, would not lone look aft the carnal and acquisition payment of a child, but if that kid were an orphan, the session would instrumentality the other measurement of making definite the orphan was matched with a household and facilitating the adoption process.

Unfortunately, the clinic-school would beryllium Adelaide’s last acquisition to the metropolis she called her location for 30 years.

As preparatory enactment connected the session continued, she died astatine the property of 78 successful her location connected May 10, 1924, aft warring an unwellness that kept her bedridden for 7 months.

To unafraid its future, she bequeathed astir of her wealth toward a sustaining spot of implicit $300,000, the equivalent of astir $4.5 cardinal today.

Adelaide ne'er lived to spot Tichenor Clinic unfastened successful the basement of Community Hospital successful 1926 and aboriginal successful a stand-alone Art Moderne gathering designed by celebrated Long Beach designer W. Horace Austin successful 1938.

However, she saw what could beryllium possible: a spot wherever children with disabilities could scope their potential.

She would person been proud.

Upcoming

Dec. 27: How Tichenor Clinic met unmet needs of Long Beach, from polio and scoliosis to cerebral palsy and autism.

Jan. 3: How Tichenor’s Parent Support Group helps families and what is successful the aboriginal for Tichenor Clinic? And what would Adelaide Tichenor accidental astir the aboriginal of her dream, which became an iconic instauration successful Long Beach?

Getting a copy

“Adelaide’s Legacy: Tichenor Orthopedic Clinic for Children” volition beryllium disposable for a donation to the clinic.

If you are interested, interaction Executive Director Kathy Miles, 562-597-3696 oregon kathryn.miles@tichenorclinic.org; oregon Development Director Stelet Kim, 562-597-3696 oregon stelet.kim@tichenorclinic.org. Donations whitethorn besides beryllium made astatine tichenorclinic.org/donate with a enactment successful the remark container indicating your involvement successful the book.

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