1144 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1896 as a spec house on a parcel comprised of the westerly half Lot 146 and the easterly half of Lot 147 of Grider & Dow's Subdivision of the Briswalter Tract by real estate investors Eva and Dedie F. Bement
  • Purchased on November 24, 1896, by real estate investor James Oakley as his own home
  • Sixty-nine-year-old James Oakley and his wife Franc moved into 1144 East Adams with their daughters Susan, who was nine, and Clemmence, not quite two years old, and two of her three children by a previous marriage, 18-year-old Floyd and 16-year-old Josepha. On June 12, 1901, Josepha was married at 1144 to Orange County farmer Harry C. White. Reporting on the wedding, the Los Angeles Times noted that "Among the many gifts was a deed for a beautiful cottage at No. 1136 East Adams, the gift of the bride's father, James Oakley." The house was (and is) two doors west of 1144; Mr. Oakley had been regularly buying and selling properties in the neighborhood and had built 1136 in 1899. He built 1151 East Adams across the street in 1900
  • During 1903 James Oakley organized his own tract, the Oakley Home Tract, between East 36th (today Jefferson Avenue) and East 38th streets and Naomi and Hooper avenues across from the future site of Thomas Jefferson High School. Moving to a house there, he sold 1144 East Adams in August 1903 to Anna E. Marsh; by March 1904, it had been flipped twice, first to Katharine Grothaus and then to 80-year-old widow Frances A. Stevens
  • Mrs. Stevens appears to have lived peacefully at 1144 East Adams until later in the decade, when what appear to have been a mother-and-son pair of grifters, recently arrived in Los Angeles from Denver, talked her out of the house. On June 20, 1912, the Los Angeles Express reported on Fannie Stevens's efforts to recover it:



  • Mrs. Stevens had filed suit on the previous October 7; she was being represented by 23-year-old fledgling attorney Neil S. McCarthy, just out of the University of Michigan law school. The press referred to him as Mrs. Stevens's guardian as well as her lawyer. While Judge Nathaniel P. Conrey ruled on June 20, 1912, that there had been no fraud perpetrated by Mrs. Moore, there appears to have been a settlement of sorts, with Moore retaining title but Fannie Stevens, who had been living nearby at 1160 East Adams, being allowed to move back into 1144 until she died, which, before long, she did. The end came at 1144 East Adams on April 9, 1914. (Neil McCarthy would hone his skills, later becoming a leading entertainment lawyer with clients including Howard Hughes, Cecil B. DeMille, and Louis B. Mayer; he would also become the grandfather of actress Sharon Gless and have a popular salad served in Beverly Hills restaurants named in his honor)
  • As soon as Fannie Stevens's remains were taken to the mortuary, Mary Mason Moore moved back into 1144 East Adams. Also moving back in temporarily was Roy Staley, who was now married. Josephine Staley gave birth to Roy Jr. at 1144 on April 18, 1915
  • Mary Mason Moore remained at 1144 until not long after she married 79-year-old retired carpenter George B. Copelin in July 1923. Copelin lived not far away at 847 East 23rd Street, to which Mary decided to move, putting 1144 East Adams on the market. (Mrs. Copelin would have just a year as a bride; she died on July 24, 1924, at the age of 68)
  • Acquiring 1144 East Adams Street, as the boulevard was then known, from Mary Copelin was attorney Eugene C. Jennings, who immediately set about remodeling the front of the house. On April 15, 1924, he was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings to "...extend [the] front porch about 4 feet and build cement steps across the full length of the porch." Those amphitheater-style steps, painted gray, remain in place today. On August 23, 1927, Jennings pulled a permit to build a new garage, one measuring 18 by 40 feet with galvanized iron sides and back and a wooden front
  • Eugene C. Jennings was part of the civic leadership of South Los Angeles, which included the husband-and-wife dentists John and Vada Somerville and activist Betty Hill, among the founders of the local branch of the NAACP. Mrs. Hill hired Jennings to defend an action against the city's Playground and Recreation Commission in 1929 to force it to desegregate public bathhouses and swimming pools. Four years before, the commission had banned non-Caucasians from using city pools except on Mondays before they were drained for cleaning. After a Superior Court judge ruled in the plaintiffs' favor on February 16, 1931, their backers lobbied the City Council, which was threatening to appeal the judge's decision, until the time for such an appeal ran out
  • Eugene Jennings died in Los Angeles on October 12, 1939, at the age of 70. His wife, Sadie, would remain at 1144 East Adams until her death on August 21, 1962. She was a month shy of her 87th birthday



Illustrations: Private Collection