A couple of weeks ago, the 1940 Federal Census was made publicly available by the National Archives. Censuses are released for general use 72 years after they were taken, so this latest enumeration allows us to see what was happening in our country at the tail end of the Great Depression and just before the United States entered World War II.
There were some notable changes to this census compared to previous ones. For example, the educational levels of citizens were recorded. Another addition is that residents were asked if they were living in the same household or, if not, where they had lived five years prior, in 1935. The census also asked for more specifics about employment, including number of weeks worked and earned income for the year 1939. With both the living arrangements since 1935 and the employment questions, the Census Bureau clearly wanted to see the effects of the Depression on Americans.
At Old Mission, changes continued to occur as the use of land in the area changed. On 13 April, census taker Robert West traveled down Rosemead Boulevard from Loma Avenue in what is now South El Monte and began his count within the area that is generally Misión Vieja. Notably, most of those persons counted remained in the same household they had been in during 1935. Of the thirty households that he found, only five, however, owned their houses, the rest being renters. Some of this was attributable to employees of oil and gas companies that had leases or, perhaps, owned the land they were prospecting. In some cases, residents might have been tenants of absentee landlords.
The first family was a rare one of propertyowners, this being Lorenzo Garcia, a 40-year old widower from Mexico, who lived with his four daughters and one son, all born in California. The Garcias had been in the same house in 1935, but, while Lorenzo was out of work, he had two daughters, Conchita and Isabelle, who were working as private family servants. As to education, Lorenzo studied up to the fourth grade, while his wife and two oldest daughters had some high school education.
Next to the Garcias was Severo and Micaela Ramirez, both 40, and their three sons and one daughter. While the parents were born in Mexico, their children were natives of California. This family had also resided in the same house five years prior and Severo worked as a road construction laborer, while one of his daughters was a student employee. Severo had a fourth-grade education, but his wife never went to school. The two youngest children were still in school, but the oldest, 19 and 18, left after the eighth grade.
Following were 88-year old Filomeno Alvarez, who lived with his 75-year old wife Virginia. Both were Mexican natives, had lived in the same house in 1935 and neither had ever attended school. At their age, of course, it is not surprising the neither had a listed occupation.
Then, there were the remaining members of the Alvitre family still living at Old Mission, where members of the family had resided for over 100 years. The patriarch was Pedro Alvitre, 75, who owned a modest home self-valued at $300. Pedro was listed as a farmer and had never been to school. He lived his 31-year old son, Angelo, and the young man's wife, Anita, age 26. Both of them had been to school through the sixth grade and Angelo was employed as a nurseryman. Living in a separate dwelling was Albert Alvitre, Pedro's son, who was residing with his wife Stella, 23, and their four young children, ranging from 2 months to 5 years old. Albert, who had been through two years of high school, was listed as head of a farm, perhaps superintending his father's spread, passed down for nearly a century on the old Rancho Potrero Chico, close to the original location of Mission San Gabriel, from its 1771 founding to about three years later when it moved to its current site. Finally, there was another son, Richard Alvitre, aged 30, his 20-year old wife Rebecca and their year-old son Rudolph. Richard had also completed two years of high school and, like his brother Angelo, worked in a nursery.
After a farming family was counted, named Varza by the census taker, but possibly named Garza, and headed by a 47-year old native of Mexico named Daniel and his wife Mary, who had three girls from 7 to 13 years old, the enumeration movdd to the other remaining "old timer" left from the early days of the Old Mission community. This was Pedro Alvitre's cousin, Timoteo Repetto. Aged 75, Repetto lived alone on some acreage that had been left to him through his mother, who was an Alvitre. He had a much nicer home than his cousin, however, judging from the $3000 value assigned to it. Shown also as a farmer, Timoteo was unusual with respect to his education, since he was shown as having attended two years of college, a rarity in the neighborhood.
The next household was that of Marcino and Isabella Serrano, natives of Mexico, who had three sons, a daughter and Mrs. Serrano's father, with them. Marcino, who did not receive any schooling, was a building construction laborer. Adjacent to them was another highly educated person, Mexican-born Juan Robles, age 45, who was a college graduate or at least had attended four years of higher education. Also different was his occupation: Robles was listed as "proprietor, fish pond." Evidently, he operated either a fish farm or, more likely a place where people could do a little fishing. In this general area is Legg Lake and maybe this was a predecessor of sorts. After Robles was the household of Pablo and Julia Amaro and Pablo's father, Amado, who was listed as 95 years old and would have been the oldest Old Mission resident. Pablo worked as a farmer and he and his wife had completed the eighth grade while Amado went only as far as the second. All of the people mentioned above had been residents of their households in 1935, except for Robles who had been living then in Los Angeles.
The next stop was the residence of Alva Andrus, a resident of the community since 1926, and a 49-year old native of Nebraska with an eighth-grade education. Andrus, living with his Indiana-born wife, Gayle, who only went to school through the fourth-grade, and their 14-year old son who was in eighth grade, did not have a job, though he'd been a laborer ten years before.
Following were two families who were connected. Archie McCoy, a 47-year old from New York, who'd been the college for a a year, lived his wife, two sons, and her father and McCoy was a oil company pumper. One of his sons, both of whom had some college education, was a car loader for an automobile company. Next to them was Nellie McCoy, presumably a sister-in-law of Archie's, and her son, Leo. The two had been in Anaheim in 1935, while Archie and his family were in the Old Mission community then. Leo was a truck driver for the "CCC," which stands for the California Conservation Corps, a New Deal program that is still around and doing important public works today. Another oil worker lived nearby, toolman Luther Grisham, a 38-year old from Illinois and his wife, two daughters and son--the Grishams had also been in the same house five years earlier.
The last two families listed on Rosemead Boulevard were that of building construction laborer Andrew Nunez, a 29-year old native of Mexico, his wife Ignacia, their two girls and one boy, and Nunez' fater Esteban or Steven and Joseph Lara, a 21-year old farmer and California native, residing with his wife, Mary, and their ten-month old daughter. Both Nunez, whose family had been in Los Angeles in 1935, and Lara, who was in the same house as five years before, had finished the eighth grade.
From here, enmerator West turned east and went up Durfee Avenue. His first family encountered was farm hand Eusebio Pérez, a 44-year old California native, his 23-year old wife, and two sons and a daughter, ranging from ages 12 to 18. Clearly Pérez had been married before and the children came from that first marriage. He had a sixth-grade education and two of his three children were in school, though the oldest, son Manuel, was also a farm worker. The family had been in their residence in 1935.
Two more oil-industry families followed. Truman Goodenough (these names usually pronounced Good-now) was an oil pumper and still working in a dangerous profession at age 69. The Pennsylvania native (this is where the American oil industry began in the late 1850s), who finished eighth grade, lived with his 57-year old wife, Mary. Next to them was an oil field foreman at only age 22, Robert Cain, who was a high school graduate and also from Pennsylvania and living with his 21-year old wife, Ruth, who a rare female worker, she being a typist for an insurance company. Both families had been in their houses in 1935.
Then, there was 48-year old Michigan-born Don Renwick, who migrated from Los Angeles within the last five years. Renwick, who had an eighth-grade education, was a foreman for a road construction crew, and he lived with his wife and namesake son.
The only Japanese family in the community was that of farmer Tokusuki Asato, age 63, and a widower and his three sons and one daughter, all born in California, and two of the sons working for their father. Asato had no education, but his two oldest sons had finished high school and his younger two were still in high school. The family was in the same residence they occupied in 1935.
Next to the Asatos were two additional oil workers, both working as pumpers on wells. These were 52-year old Edward Rush, a Tennessee-native with an eighth grade education and William Bugbee, a Canadian (as was his wife) who was still working at age 72. These men had also lived in their homes five years before.
West then counted families on Siphon Road, which still exists as a non-public roadway and which was historically an extension of San Gabriel Boulevard, being called in earlier days, Temple Road, for the prominent ranching family that once lived in the neighborhood. Here, on Siphon, was another aged worker, 74-year old Jesús Estrada, a native of California, who only went to school through the second grade and who was employed as a farm caretaker. He'd been in the same house the preceding half-decade, as well.
Of the several Italian families who had been in the community for several decades, one was Baptista Ciocca, a 65-year old native of the old country, living with his wife, also from Italy, and their two sons and two daughters. The Ciocca's were among the few homeowners, living in a $7000 residence, and also were distinguished by having three children who had been to college, with the youngest still in high school. Ciocca, as in 1930, had no listed occupation, evidently having enough money to be retired and was in the same house as in 1935.
Bernard Normann, listed as a farmer, but as a walnut grower in 1930, was living in a modest $1000 home that he owned along with his two sons in their early 20s. Normann, born in Illinois and aged 50, had an eighth grade education, but while his older son, a pipe factory worker, finished high school, his youngest was a rare college graduate and was working as a commercial artist. The Normann's obviously had not gone anywhere in the preceding five years.
The remaining five households were all renters. 27-year old California native Donald Farmer was not that, but, instead was a gas company crewman, who went as far as eighth grade in school. His Texan-born 18 year old wife, Thelma, completed two years of high school. Wilber Nutt was a poultry farmer and was a 25-year old California native, living with his wife Sybil, who was from Illinois and was a rare woman with some college education, probably junior college. The couple had a three year old daughter and, as with the Farmers, were living in the same residence as in 1935.
Two others on Siphon Road were 35-year old Jack Fickert, a Modesto, California transplant, who had one year of high school education and was employed as an oil well pumper. Next to him, was a 49-year old Oklahoma-born widow, Lilly Capehart, who had moved from her home state within the last five years and was a restaurant manager, though probably not in the Old Mission neighborhood.
Finally, the last family counted in the census in Misión Vieja was that of John Briano, whose father settled as a winemaker in the community during the 1890s. John, age 41 and a high school graduate, was running a retail liquor store and lived with his wife Freda and their three teenage children, one of whom was in college.
What the 1940 census shows is that the population of Old Mission was continuing to decline with there being just over 100 persons in the community. Many were farmers there, others worked on the remaining oil wells which were part of the Montebello Oil Fields, and some had jobs that took them outside their community. Within the next couple of decades, most of the community would be declared a flood zone by the federal government and the affected residents were forced to leave as the Whittier Narrows Dam was built. The 1950 census won't be available until 2022, so it will be quite a while until the next examination of the community can be made.
Contribution by Paul R. Spitzzeri, Assistant Director, Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum, City of Industry, California.
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