On this date in 1975, Brunswick’s Rossmoor Inn advertised the exclusive Wednesday through Saturday engagement of the Wilder Brothers (calling themselves the Sounds of Sunshine).
There have been more than a couple Wilder Brothers in pop music, but this group consisted of three real brothers, Warner, Walter, and George. They came from a musically inclined family, and they first performed polka music as the Weidler Brothers and then switched to easy-listening and doo-wop novelty records as the Wilder Brothers. (Honestly, how could you get wilder than polka music?). They later opened their own recording studio and produce jazz and pop records.
Three highlights of the Wilder Brothers career was George’s being the second husband of Doris Day, releasing an easy-listening hit, Love Means (You Never Have To Say You’re Sorry) under the Sounds of Sunshine moniker, and, finally, performing in Rossmoor.
For a sample of the Sounds of Sunshine, er, sound, we’ve embedded the video link below. Close your eyes and pretend you’re about to get your teeth cleaned in a 1970s dental office.
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On this date in 1976, the Long Independent Press-Telegram ran the following ad for the Tiny Naylors restaurant in the Seal Beach Shopping Center, featuring a STEAK BONANZA” of daily steak specials.
The Tiny Naylors (also once known as the Wooden Shoe) building was demolished a few years ago, so you’ll have to look elsewhere for “”A Mighty Meat at a Mini Price.”
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1948, a Oregon newspaper, the Corvallis Gazette-Times, ran the following ad for Dow Chemical.
It doesn’t really grant much opportunity for nostalgia, but Dow Chemical had a plant along the San Gabriel River from 1940 well into the 1960s. There are no postcards or historical markers, but for about a fourth of the 20th Century, Seal Beach was known to some of the country only as one of the branches of the Great Western Division of The Dow Chemical Company.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1857, the Los Angeles Vineyard Society was formed and held its first recorded meeting in San Francisco. The society was comprised of German immigrants from a variety of professions interested in establishing a grape-growing cooperative in Southern California to serve the lucrative and expanding market for California wines.
Seven months later the society purchased land twenty-seven miles southeast of Los Angeles and called their colony Anaheim. In October 1864, Anaheim set up its own port twelve miles away in Alamitos Bay and named it Anaheim Landing. The landing was moved to its present location in what is now known as Anaheim Bay after silt from a massive flood made the original location impractical.
Anaheim Landing was a successful port for years before the railroad provided faster and more efficient shipping. Before Anaheim Landing’s glory days as a busy port faded, thousands of local people had experienced the pleasures of its beachside location — especially as an alternative to spending hot summers inland. This lead to Anaheim Landing’s second life as a vacation spot, the establishment of Bay City in land adjacent to Anaheim Bay, and ultimately the entire area becoming Seal Beach.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1938, two Seal Beach women were saved from gas asphyxiation by their friend, Mary Eckberg. Elizabeth White, 79, and her cousin, Mary Hide, were overcome by gas fumes at Mrs. White’s house at 225 17th Street. Mrs. Eckberg has observed the two women earlier apparently taking a nap and choose not to disturb them. Luckily, she returned later and, observing her friends in exactly the same positions as earlier, Mrs. Eckberg contacted the police. Mrs. Hide was well enough to recover at home, but Mrs. White stayed overnight at Community Hospital.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1969, the Long Beach Independent Press-Telegram carried an ad that boldly announced the grand opening of a new model in the College Park tract.
The ad copy pointed out all the expensive luxury features of the new model and then shared that “the price remains remarkably low.” Nearly five decades later, $31,290 as a starting price is now impossibly low for a home in Seal Beach, but the price of feeling nostalgic over vintage Seal Beach real estate ads always remains remarkably… free.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1964, Seal Beach Police issued a warrant charging 33-year old Frank Silone with two counts of grand theft-felony.
Silone and his 25-year old wife, Joan, managed Larsen Hall, a Long Beach State College approved off-campus coed dormitory located in a Seal Beach apartment building located at 1310 Electric Avenue. Thirteen students had registered there for the spring 1964 semester.
Unfortunately, no background check had been required for Silone, and he was approved as dorm manager after a personal interview and being vouched for by the previous owners of Larsen Hall and Silone’s father-in-law, a USC professor (Go Trojans!). This is sad for the thirteen students, since Silone had served a prison sentence from 1960 to 1963 and had even escaped from Chino Minimum Security Prison before being recaptured and sent o San Quentin. Perhaps not the best candidate for a coed dormitory manager.
Silone was charged with “misapplying in excess of $200” in funds received from two girls for room rent. He and his wife had skipped town shortly after February 17, the electricity had been turned off by the Edison Co., and the student manager of the hall had to convince the bank to cash a check so food could be bought for the hall.
Frank Bowman, the Long Beach State College housing coordinator, quickly removed Larsen Hall from the list of approved housing and wrote a letter to the parents of the Larsen Hall coeds informing them that their offspring would need to move to approved housing. The college would aid students without rent money, Bowman assured.
You can read about Larsen Hall in a happy post from October 1963 here.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1924, The Santa Ana Register announced that work was to begin within two weeks to build a spur line for delivery of materials into the Los Angeles Gas and Electric property where the power plant was being constructed. The spur line connected to the Pacific Electric tracks that ran into Seal Beach from the Long Beach peninsula along Ocean Avenue. These tracks could still be seen at First Street for years after the power plant was demolished in 1967.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1969, Don Kirkland of The Long Beach Independent wrote about a sad letter Navy Maintenance Controlman Daniel Sundquist wrote to his parents. “We had another tragedy a few days ago. A great pilot we will all miss,” Sundquist wrote.
The pilot Sundquist was missing was Lieutenant Junior Grade Paul Swigart Jr., son of Paul Swigart, co-owner of the Glide ‘er Inn. Paul Eugene Swigart, Jr. had died on February 5th when his jet fighter slammed into the deck of the USS Hancock and then crashed into the sea off Vietnam. Swigart was 25, a prep-medical student, married three years to his wife Kathryn, and father to 2-year-old Brant Paul.
Daniel Sundquist’s parents contacted Paul Swigart Sr. at the Glide ‘er Inn. The elder Swigart had received a telegram with news of his son’s death. “Paul loved flying, the Navy, and his country. He didn’t expect to give his life, but we knew if he had to, he would.”
Paul Swigart Jr. joined the Naval Reserve in 1965 and saw plenty of action in Southeast Asia. Once he ran out of fuel while pursuing two MIGs and had to eject into the sea where he was rescued fifteen minutes later.
According to his father, Paul Jr. was looking forward to the end of his tour of duty. His enlistment would have ended five days after the fatal crash. Paul’s body was never recovered, and his name is inscribed on the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial.
Four years later, Paul’s father would passed away at the age of fifty-eight.
– Michael Dobkins
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On this date in 1959, the Long Beach Independent dropped the curtain on the finale of a typical show biz story.
We’ve all heard weepy tales about a young, first-time actress, just bursting with natural talent, getting cast in a play and then outshining the more experienced actors and actresses playing the lead roles. And then it all goes sour, the young actress takes her success for granted, misses performances, and is finally replaced. The actress plunges back into her hum drum everyday life, never to step into spotlight again. It’s happened hundreds of times.
Don’t worry we’ll get to the Seal Beach connection in a moment.
Over the years, many Seal Beachers have probably seen a play or two at the Long Beach Community Playhouse on Anaheim Street in Long Beach. The playhouse hit its sixty-ninth anniversary at that location earlier this month, but The Long Beach Players have performed since 1929, first putting on shows at the Union Pacific’s Long Beach depot and then at the Unitarian Church on Lime Street when the depot was condemned.
Back in September, 1958, the playhouse held try-outs for a production of Gore Vidal’s “Visit to a Small Planet,” a cold war satire about an outer space tourist who visits Earth and ends up staying with a 1950s newscaster and his family in their suburban Virginia home. (Yes, “My Favorite Martian,” “Mork and Mindy,” and “Alf” borrows a lot from this play.) The visitor is a smug and arrogant fellow with telepathic abilities and superpowers, including the ability to converse with the family’s pet cat, Rosemary.
This is when our actress and the Seal Beach connection finally makes an entrance into our tale. Cast as Rosemary was a year-and-a-half old, silky black, half-Siamese cat named Gregarious, owned by Seal Beach police officer Alfred Chafe. Gregarious was trained to meow on cue, had her own dressing room with her name on it, and developed a rapport with actor Salvatore Mungo, playing the alien Kreton. The two wowed playhouse audiences by having “conversations” about hunting mice and the propriety of shooting dogs as punishment for chasing “Rosemary.”
Gregarious as Rosemary with Salvatore Mungo as Kreton
Alas, the tale does not end with Gregarious becoming a star. Between the show’s opening on November 14, 1958 and closing on January 17th, 1959, the Chafe family moved to a different part of Seal Beach, and Gregarious was too fond of her old neighborhood and kept returning to the old house. Towards the end of the show’s run, it became more and more of a challenge to find Gregarious in time for the opening curtain. Ultimately, she couldn’t be found in time, and a white Persian played Rosemary in the last three performance.
According to the Long Beach Independent, Gregarious was still having trouble adjusting to the move a month later and seemed to prefer the life of a small town free range kitty to the glamour of the stage. There are no reports of other Seal Beach pets ever being cast in any other Long Beach Community Playhouse production, but that’s certainly just a coincidence and not their judgement on the reliability of Seal Beach critters created by the flakiness of a diva cat named Gregarious.
– Michael Dobkins
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There have been more than a couple Wilder Brothers in pop music, but this group consisted of three real brothers, Warner, Walter, and George. They came from a musically inclined family, and they first performed polka music as the Weidler Brothers and then switched to easy-listening and doo-wop novelty records as the Wilder Brothers. (Honestly, how could you get wilder than polka music?). They later opened their own recording studio and produce jazz and pop records.
