Hawthorne
Historical Society Newsletter
Stay informed with our latest news, stories, and updates from the Hawthorne Historical Society and our community.
Recent Newsletters
December Newsletter 2025
The Nightmare After Christmas Lately, I’ve been having this recurring
Feburary
1 Newsletters
Feb 4, 2025 news article
“I feel an article coming on” “What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?” There’s no way to ignore it. Even if you look the other way when you pass the refrigerated case in the supermarket or you eliminate any fast food item from consideration that includes the word – egg prices are going up as fast as the launch vehicles that are being tested for the new era of space travel. There was a time when a callow bachelor, bereft of culinary skills, could run through a drive-thru lane to get an inexpensive, filling breakfast substitute on his daily struggle to clock in at work before the shift started. Will he now have to survive on an “Eggless McMuffin?” Callow bachelors and other humans have had an intimate relationship (unfortunately, predator-prey) with the single species, Gallus gallus, the red junglefowl, which we gradually bred into an egg-laying
March
1 Newsletters
March Newsletter 2024
“Mad as a March Hare” In past issues of your Newsletter, we have revealed some of the endeavors of local parties that may have left Hawthornians scratching their heads in disbelief: sculptor Felix Peano’s monumental masterpiece, “the Door of Life,” whose patroness (it has been said) withdrew her commission for the work because she thought it too “inappropriate” for the church setting it was intended to adorn; the inevitable line of buyers eager to purchase lottery tickets from Bluebird Liquor whenever a jackpot rises to national debt levels; the giant hopes for a rich oil field in Hawthorne in 1929. To these we would now like to add: A Spacex Falcon Heavy rocket carrying Elon Musk’s 2010 Tesla Roadster, “driven” by a “Starman” effigy, into orbit around the Sun in a 2018 demonstration launch . . . After Phase I of a study commissioned by the City
April
2 Newsletters
April 15, 2025
“Old School” Looking out from the tree-shaded Park onto busy Prairie Avenue, the building named to commemorate Jim Thorpe on February 23, 1974, is probably the oldest standing connection to our City’s first school, Hawthorne Grammar School. The town of Hawthorne was granted permission to establish a school district in 1907. Construction of the first purpose-built schoolhouse was begun on the west side of Washington Ave between Ballona Ave (El Segundo Blvd) and Maine Ave (129th St) and the new school was opened to students in 1908. To accommodate a growing population, a new, larger school building, Ballona School, was raised along the south side of Ballona Ave between Hawthorne Ave (>Blvd) and Washington. It was opened in 1917. In the following years, smaller, freestanding auxiliary buildings were constructed on the combined site to fill specific needs. Though the date of construction is not known, the building now
April Newsletter 2024
HAWTHORNE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESERVATION. COLLECTION. RESEARCH. INTERPRETATION. April Change is in the air this month. If you’re an early riser, the Sun is giving you a race. If you’re waiting for the day to end, daylight is reaching farther into the evening hours. Baseball Season, Daylight Savings and major religious holidays have arrived. You’ve filed your tax returns to finish off the business of last year. The weather can’t figure out whether to be warm or cool, wet or dry.In history, great changes – for good and bad – have come in April: the American Revolution, the Civil War and our entry into World War I began in this month. An earthquake devastated San Francisco. George Washington became our first President, the first Modern Olympic Games were held and Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth, all in April. This transitioning time of the year
May
3 Newsletters
May Newsletter 2026
Marilyn Monroe June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962 Marilyn Monroe lived in Hawthorne for the first seven years of her life. She was born Norma Jeane Mortensen on June 1, 1926 in Los Angeles. Her mother, Gladys, was the child of failed marriages and had come to the end of her own second marriage the year before her daughter’s birth. She left Norma Jeane in the care of Albert and Ida Bolender while she lived and worked in Hollywood as a film cutter, visiting her as often as she could. The Bolenders lived on 134th St (then Rhode Island Ave) in Hawthorne, across the street from Norma Jeane’s maternal grandmother, Della. They were a religious couple who gave the child a stable life. Gladys’ connection with her daughter suffered from the effects of her louche lifestyle and tangled relationships. Starting in 1933, Norma Jeane lived with her mother,
May Newsletter 2025
“Orange Empire” While Orange, CA got there about about 32 years before Hawthorne had a chance of being associated with the iconic fruit of Southern California (second place, Los Angeles: “the Big Orange”), the world’s most popular citrus variety is right at home in our city and oranges picked off the tree here will always put those pale, watery carpetbaggers from Florida or South America to shame. Some say oranges were cultivated on Don Antonio’s Rancho Sausal Redondo – of which future Hawthorne was a piece – and they are known to have been planted extensively on the lands when the 22,000+ acres came into the hands of Daniel Freeman in 1873. The trees thrived in our seldom-frosty climate. By then, the bright, tart, sweet and refreshing fruit were a cherished and costly find in the Christmas stockings of Victorian children. They had come a long way to be a
May Newsletter 2024
Hidden behind those deceptively overcast skies, May has its way of forcing the year into the full bloom of summer. By the time we’ve had Cinco de Mayo and Mothers’ Day, everyone is ready to accept the long Memorial Day weekend as the unofficial gateway into the season we’ve all been waiting for – warmth, leisure, activity, fun, good eats, good company, no worries. What’s the point of waiting three more weeks until the Solstice totters by on the astronomical orbit? We’ll call it “summer” now, dig out the sunglasses and the SPF 70, wear the white clothes and generally misbehave.Summer comes but once a year — movie studios, the fast-food chains, the amusement parks and so many more know it. It’s time to surrender to the Force. They’re dancin’,Dancing in the streetIt’s annexation across the nation,A chance for folks to meetThere’ll be laughing, singing and music swinging,Dancing in the street
June
3 Newsletters
June Newsletter 2026
Stormy Weather – the Great Flood of 1938 The rumblings about an El Niño across climate forecast circles were confirmed by a NOAA announcement on June 11th [2026], stating that the phenomenon has developed in the eastern tropical Pacific and will determine the pattern of weather for the remainder of this year and beyond. People are suggesting that this year, a “Super El Niño” – a set of extraordinary conditions – might multiply the effects of our weather in the seasons to come. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation, “ENSO,” is a vast pool of warmer water formed at the surface of the central and eastern equitorial Pacific Ocean that affects currents in the atmosphere above and well beyond its spread. Rotating air currents push ocean moisture toward the western coasts of the Americas. In Southern California, a Super El Niño could “supercharge” the usual summer high temperatures and in winter, the
June Newsletter 2024
Mid- . . . . Year Summer arrives with the fourth week of June and the longest time between sunrise and sunset in the Northern Hemisphere. It was cause for celebration for our ancestors everywhere, particularly for those in daylight-starved northerly European latitudes. To deceive and cheer themselves, they called it “mid-“ summer. They feasted, danced, imbibed, partied, pulled practical jokes and almost universally, made a big bonfire. (Sounds familiar, right?) Early fathers of the Christian church co-opted the celebration to honor the birth of John the Baptist, determined by means of Julius Caesar’s calendar and a biblical reference to have occurred on June 24th. A days-long period of celebration resulted. We have work to do if we’re going to honor the traditions we have inherited from our forefathers – and we have all summer! Watching Summer School’s out. The sun is coming up in clear skies. The garden’s growing.
June Newsletter 2023
HAWTHORNE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESERVATION. COLLECTION. RESEARCH. INTERPRETATION. Summer changes the whole picture. It alters every human activity to fit its contours: what we wear, what we eat, what we do, where we go. Summer arrives when the solstice wraps the risen sun around the Northern Hemisphere in the longest stretch of daylight – this year, on Wednesday, June 21st – an interval about four and a half hours longer than that blink of light we experienced back in December, a few days before Christmas. It’s not just humans that summer affects. Polar ice sheets crack. Plants reach skyward. Peak-top water falls toward the oceans. Everything born in spring rushes to maturity. The atmosphere caresses, then soothes, then bakes. The tempo of our lives changes and special moments are born. Will there be that one song this year that becomes the Theme Song of This Summer, like “A Summer Place,”
July
2 Newsletters
July Newsletter 2025
This month we observed the anniversary of the birth of our nation. The day we have chosen is not the anniversary of the actual establishment of the nation, but the day when the dream of that nation was put to paper. It took our predecessors nearly twelve more years to agree to the final terms – our Constitution – that would bind the people living in the freed British Colonies, and us, in one new kind of society, one people. Since then, we have often debated and even fought over the meaning and application of those terms and the subsidiary laws they engendered. There was a terrible time when the United States of America were divided states. In a small country town in Pennsylvania on this anniversary in 1863, over 7,000 young Americans lay dead on a battlefield and 42,000 more were casualties or lost, in a fight over
July Newsletter 2024
The next order of business is how to keep cool. A few hot days? We can take it. There’s air conditioning, of course, but Hawthornians have been relying on their mild climate and Mother Nature’s afternoon sea breeze since the First Peoples climbed the “Ramona” hills. Getting cooler requires water or electricity or other forms of energy – they’re always in high demand during a Southern California summer. There’s a lot more air conditioning around than there was in 1958, when the Blob took the risk of chasing Steve McQueen and other yummy humans in a cooled Phoenixville, PA movie house, but somebody has to make the electricity to run the A/C and somebody has to pay for it. And the air can be stale. Better to use some of the tried-and-true ways to chill: a big tree to sit under, a walk on the Strand, a run
August
2 Newsletters
August 16, Newsletter 2025
August — the middle of summer — that is, the way summer used to be. Kids were out of school (mostly); activities moved outdoors. There were excursions, like a trip to the Natural History Museum or the La Brea Tar Pits, maybe a day at Marineland of the Pacific. There were swimming lessons at the Hawthorne Municipal Swimming Pool. August was the prime month for family vacations – traditionally, the two-week paid absence that the head-of-household received as a benefit from his employer. A lot of things happened outside between sundown and bedtime, especially if the day had been hot. Children played hide-and-seek in the neighborhood until the streetlights left deep shadows that made the hiders too hard for the seeker to find. Taller youngsters might stage an impromptu ping-pong tournament in the garage with the door open. Group picnics (church- or community-) would begin late in the
August Newsletter 2024
Dig In! August is the second serving of Summer, the time to revisit all the enjoyments that make all the work during the rest of the year worthwhile. That might involve recreation or travel or entertainment or food or personal interests – August provides the ideal setting. Clear, sunny days and warm, inviting evenings. Is it any wonder that we look forward to this season and that people have always come to Southern California in search of a larger helping? After Labor Day and three weeks of September, another day of equal light and darkness marks the official end of Summer (though the season takes curtain calls through Autumn in our fortunate spot on the globe). Our activities will shift to a different routine and another summer will become a memory. And memories will keep us warm in the cooler part of the year. 🎵 . . .
September
2 Newsletters
September Newsletter 2024
🎵When Autumn Leaves start to fall . . . As the Earth makes a left turn to get back to the place where the New Year starts, we have a gentler season to immerse ourselves in – a time to harvest, a time to prepare, a time to watch the days shorten. We might also watch out for that showpiece of this time of the year, the fall foliage – the changing of the leaf color on some of the trees in our surroundings. Humans often think of trees as props on the great stage set of their lives, but trees are complex living organisms, too. Trees can grow larger and live longer than any of us twolegged mammals and can perform the life functions we do, without having to move around (you’ll never see a tree waiting to recharge a battery at an EV charging station). Trees
September Newsletter 2023
HAWTHORNE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESERVATION. COLLECTION. RESEARCH. INTERPRETATION. We will have to remember, too, all the things that have to be done to make the holidays right and start the work to accomplish that goal. Your schedule will be growing while your time until the end of the year will be shrinking. But, don’t let it get you down, man. Slide behind the wheel of your low slung, hydraulically-suspended, elegantly-decorated classic car and ride – low and slow – into the coming season. “Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol’ fiddle When the sun’s comin’ up I got cakes on the griddle And life ain’t nothin’ but a funny funny riddle Thank God I’m a country boy!” -Sung by John Denver, Written by John Martin Sommers While you’re parked in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway, or waiting in line at the DMV, or creeping forward in
October
2 Newsletters
October Newsletter 2025
“Dark Stories” When all the light had gone from the sky, our ancestors gathered in the caves or beneath the heavy, overhanging rock, the fires were lit, the meal shared, the families clustered in their spots, the little ones slept at their mothers’ breasts, the old ones struggled to find a comfortable position in the piled grass and leaves and all the others let the weariness begin to enter their limbs and heads. It was then that the Storyteller raised his voice. He started to fashion the long tale that would aid wakefulness through the coming hours of darkness for those who must keep watch for the group. He brought to life again characters who seemed familiar, who resembled members of the clan. He invented dangers and exploits for them and laughable situations to relieve the tension. Skillfully, he held the attention of his listeners as he stretched out the
October Newsletter 2024
“It’s The Great Pumpkin!” Why isn’t there any pumpkin in pumpkin spice-everything? Is it lingering European frustration for not getting the treasures that Columbus set out to bring back from the fabled Orient: cinnamon, cloves, ginger and nutmeg? Why reject the hearty, earthy, sweet flavor of baked pumpkin – the American fruit (technically, a “berry”) that lay at his feet when he ran onto unexpected continents on his way to the Far East? <span “>Yes, the fruit and spices make a great combination for a king’s table, a Pilgrim’s banquet or a traditional holiday dessert, but the pumpkin deserves wider recognition in world cuisine – it’s one of the many gifts of the Western Hemisphere to the people of Earth. The plant family Cucurbitaceae, which includes pumpkins, squash, melons and gourds, is native to North- and South America. There are at least two members (unfortunately, inedible) that are native to
October Newsletter 2023
HAWTHORNE HISTORICAL SOCIETY PRESERVATION. COLLECTION. RESEARCH. INTERPRETATION. We will have to remember, too, all the things that have to be done to make the holidays right and start the work to accomplish that goal. Your schedule will be growing while your time until the end of the year will be shrinking. But, don’t let it get you down, man. Slide behind the wheel of your low slung, hydraulically-suspended, elegantly-decorated classic car and ride – low and slow – into the coming season. “Well I got me a fine wife I got me an ol’ fiddle When the sun’s comin’ up I got cakes on the griddle And life ain’t nothin’ but a funny funny riddle Thank God I’m a country boy!” -Sung by John Denver, Written by John Martin Sommers While you’re parked in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway, or waiting in line at the DMV, or creeping forward in
November
2 Newsletters
November 11, 2025
The Twilight Zone Who needs a billionaire’s ride in a dinky little space capsule? We’re on a much larger spacecraft (2.5 million times larger), furnished with every comfort on Earth, a perfectly pressurized atmosphere, its own moon to light the dark phases of the circuit — hurtling away from the Sun at the incredible rate of 66,000 mph. Holding the best safety record in the industry, this ride lasts one entire year, then begins again. With just a few limitations, you can ride as often as you like. No lines to wait in. No Lightning Lane passes necessary. Room for everyone. And, it’s absolutely free! Go outdoors tonight. Look up. Watch the Universe passing by. [Eat your heart out, Jeff Bezos, Bob Iger, Elon Musk!] Vehicles When residents and stakeholders made seventeen-year-old Hawthorne a city, in 1922, she was just another rural population point on the rolling plains of Southern
November Newsletter 2024
Please . . . 🎵 Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow! The full moon of November is commonly called the Snow Moon (though the Farmers’ Almanac likes “the Beaver Moon” — we’re going to “Leave that To Beaver”). We don’t get much snow on the flats of Southern California {see your December 2022 Newsletter, sent to you on 12/13/22}, but it’s vitally important to life here because it gives us some of the water we need. We import more than 50% of the water we use. 24% comes from the State Water Project, one of the largest water management and power generation systems in the world. If your writer got the math right, something like 782 billion gallons annually. It gets pumped over 2,882 feet of Tehachapi mountainside to get to us, setting a world lift record. 30% of the water delivered by
December
2 Newsletters
December Newsletter 2025
The Nightmare After Christmas Lately, I’ve been having this recurring bad dream: after Christmas, everyone starts putting their old plastic trees out at the curb for the trashmen to pick up. Bent, sunbleached, branch-missing, short-circuited “trees” that they don’t want anymore, piled by the sidewalk, up and down the street. What’s going to happen to them? As an environmentally-responsible society, what can we do to somehow recycle them and protect the fragile remnant of our once-beautiful planet? Could we throw them into the ocean to create artificial groves that would serve as nurseries for baby marine creatures? Could we grind them into an inexpensive mulch that people could spread on their yards instead of installing artificial turf or cultivating a water-guzzling lawn? Could they be stuck into fire-ravaged hillsides and flats across our state to give the appearance of vegetation, to deter mudslides when winter storms rake the region and
December Newsletter 2024
We have spoken about Christmas in past Decembers – how could it be otherwise? Christmas is probably the most important holiday in our culture and is for many more nations and peoples around the world. It’s founded on a religious observance, but it has grown to include a great range of other aspects of our daily lives at this time of the year. We have written about Christmas trees and the lots where they were sold, the plays, programs and pageants once produced by Hawthorne schools, the history of Christmas cards, the rare snowfalls in Southern California, the holiday dances for our young people, the turkeys, the many preparations we undertake to make Christmas joyful – and more. Most of the peoples of our world have some kind of holiday or religious observance or ceremony to mark this point in the year, clustered around the astronomical moment in the Northern