223 East Adams Boulevard

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  • Built in 1895 by developers Austin C. and Mary H. Shafer on Lot 19 in the Daman & Millard Tract as a speculative venture; the couple had the bought lot from real estate investor George W. Tubbs the previous May
  • On October 10, 1895, the Los Angeles Herald reported that attorney E. Edgar Galbreth had just purchased from A. C. Shafer "a house and lot on Adams street between Main and Maple" for $3,000
  • Edgar Galbreth, his wife Anna, their three sons Morgan, Edgar, and Clarence moved into 223 East Adams; the Galbreths' eldest child Elva Belle Morrison and her husband David Clark Morrison lived with them at 223 during 1900. David Morrison was clerking for Edgar Galbreth at the time of his marriage to Elva in March 1890; the two attorneys practiced together for several years after that
  • While Morgan Galbreth was civic minded, serving on the board of the Community Chest and as a Municipal Court judge for many years after being appointed in 1926, and Edgar "Red" Galbreth, according to his 1944 obituary, became known as song leader in the Long Beach Men's Bible Class, their brother Clarence was a reprobate. On April 6, 1901, he was arrested on three charges of grand larceny, accused of stealing bicycles downtown, pawning one and disassembling the others to sell the parts. His accomplice, Fred Sevy, the half-Caucasian, half-Chinese adopted son of a blacksmith, was also arrested; unsurprisingly for the times (or for 2020, for that matter), Sevy would be sentenced to a term at the Whittier State Reformatory while Clarence Galbreth, son of an attorney, was found not guilty in a June trial. (Even while out on bond, Clarence managed to be an ass—per the Times of May 11, he was arrested two days before for "throwing confetti and tickling womens' faces with palm branches...not satisfied with this, [he] took burned cork and dabbed its black on complexions that passed.") He later became a bartender in Bakersfield; after an illness of three years, he died in a Boyle Heights hospital on November 3, 1922, at the age of 38 (according to various records) or 40 (according to the draft registration form he filled out and signed himself in September 1918)
  • Anna Galbreth died at the age of 57 on April 17, 1903, at the Colonial Flats apartments at Broadway and Eighth Street, where the Morrisons now lived. The Evening Express reported the same day that she had been ill for two weeks and that her death was not unexpected; California death records describe the cause imprecisely as "abdominopelvic"
  • It seems that Edgar Galbreth had already been planning to sell 223 East Adams, or else made a quick decision to do so after his wife's demise. On May 7, 1903, the Herald reported that Galbreth had just sold the house to real estate operator Joseph Sexton for $3,250. Ten days later the paper reported that Sexton's firm, Sexton Brothers & Company, had sold the property for Edgar Galbreth for $4,000, effectively, it seems, earning Sexton an 18.75 percent commission. The buyer was cigar merchant William G. Leburn
  • Edgar Galbreth married again in December 1904 and yet again in 1917. He died on December 21, 1921, six days before what would have been his 76th birthday
  • Scottish-born William Leburn, his wife Edith, and their two-year-old daughter Gertrude moved into 223 East Adams for a decade's quiet stay until Gertrude died of meningitis at home on October 5, 1913. While the event was also mentioned in the local press, a paid notice in The Scotsman of Edinburgh on October 8 noted that she had died in Los Angeles and was the "only child of W. G. Leburn, late of Gateside, Fife." William and Edith left 223 soon after and moved to Manhattan Beach
  • The Leburns may have retained 223 East Adams as rental property for some years after their move to the beach; on June 16, 1915, W. G. Leburn was issued a permit by the Department of Buildings for unspecified plumbing work. The house, apparently now modified to accommodate more than one family at a time, became rental property into the 1930s, even after being sold in 1921
  • A large display advertisement offering 223 East Adams at auction on February 1, 1921, including the illustration seen here at top, ran in the Los Angeles Times on January 30. On February 26 the Herald reported the sale price as $5,600. On May 3, a classified ad in the Herald offered the house for rent, completely furnished, with fruit trees and a big yard, "fine for children"—and the use of a seven-passenger car. On September 21, another classified ad offered the house for sale: "Beautiful 10-room rooming house, home and income"; it was still being offered at the end of the year. Various individuals were in residence, sometime three unrelated parties at a time, until Joseph Brunstein acquired the property in 1934
  • Russian-born Joseph Brunstein arrived in Los Angeles in the mid 1910s, settling in Boyle Heights, having recently married the widow Bella Friedman. Brunstein soon adopted her daughter Pauline, with the couple's own daughter Frances arriving in 1918. Joseph started out as a peddler; before long he was in the automobile wrecking business and then in the auto parts trade, his early locations being near the intersection of Adams Boulevard and Main Street. Newspaper display advertisements touted "J. Brunstein, The Auto Supply Store." By 1935, despite Brunstein having moved the store up Main Street to a location near Pico, he and Bella moved into 223 East Adams, very near the old store, and would remain until the mid-1940s
  • On August 11, 1936, the Department of Building and Safety issued J. Brunstein a permit to erect a 30-by-32-foot garage to the property
  • Pauline Brunstein worked for her father in his store; fearless at 4-foot-11, she would become the star of the family, graduating from law school in 1932. In November 1935 she married wholesale-candy salesman Harold G. Nightingale. As a workers' compensation attorney and a crusader for women's rights, Pauline became the first female lawyer for the California Labor Commissioner's Office and is credited with being instrumental in establishing maternity leave for women after she had her daughter Sandra in 1946 and was denied pay and benefits. Pauline Nightingale died in 2006 at the age of 96. Per her obituary in the Times, she argued her last case in court when she was 92. According to the California Bar Journal Nightingale was, at 94, California’s oldest and longest-practicing woman attorney
  • Retail grocer Charlie Won Leong, moving from 845 East Adams, was occupying 223 by 1946, along with his wife Geraldine and children Floyd and Joan
  • On February 28, 1947, the Department of Building and Safety issued C. W. Leong a permit to reside 223 East Adams with asphalt roll brick siding; at some point in the future life of the house, this was covered, or replaced, by a layer of stucco 
  • On September 12, 1947, Charlie Won Leong died of a heart attack at 223 East Adams. His obituary in the Times the next day described him as having been born in Bakersfield 45 years before and as a member of the local Chinese-American colony
  • It appears that Geraldine Leong later married Wallace Loo; the Loo family retained possession of 223 East Adams until at least the time of Geraldine's death on January 21, 1973
  • By the mid-1990s, 223 East Adams had been acquired by Carlos and Elinda Ramos
  • On January 20, 1994, the Ramoses were issued a permit for 223 East Adams by the Department of Building and Safety for the addition of a storage room to the garage
  • On September 1, 1999, the Ramoses were issued a permit for 223 East Adams by the Department of Building and Safety to apply new facing—apparently the current brick-like treatment—to the porch area and to replace the front door. The Ramos family appears to still be in possession of the property as of 2018




Among the advertisements appearing in the
press regarding 223 East Adams during 1921 was
this one appearing in the Los Angeles Times on January
30. As seen at top, the house retains its basic 1895 shape,
although its original wooden siding was replaced with
faux-brick asphalt in 1947 and, later, stucco.




Illustrations: Private Collection; LAT