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| Dr. M.A. Schutz |
I was surprised to come across an urban
legend in writing this blog. According
to a 2002 Mayfair High graduate, the story about orphans helping autos
climb Signal Hill was already well established by the time she entered
school. She told me she heard that your
climb up the Hill will be easier if you put baby powder on your tires. It seems the abused orphans from the Signal
Hill home will help with the ascent---the proof being the tiny footprints left
behind in the baby powder! The story she heard was that they had been abused, and they felt helping a car up the steep incline would speed up their rescue.
It is intriguing to trace down legends, most
of which have some base in fact. Here’s
what I found.
SIGNAL HILL’S ORPHANS’ HOME
In 1904 segregation was the norm, but a dream of universal brotherhood could be found in a home atop Signal Hill. It was hoped it would be a place where all could live in peace
regardless of nationality or religion.
For years
Dr. Michael Alexander Schutz and his wife had the dream of creating an
orphanage for children of all nationalities.
In 1904 the couple purchased four acres on the area of Signal Hill known
as Crescent Heights to build their visionary home for orphans and
castaways. The doctor’s idea was to give
them not only a home but an education to prepare them to someday enter the
working world and be self-supporting.
The July 24, 1904 Los Angeles Herald described their vision in which they would rear
children of all nationalities in an atmosphere of love. The children would be
taught trades, and when they reached the age of 14 they would be given the
option of going out into the world or staying with the family.
This is
a labor of love, declared Dr. Schutz. Life wouldn't be worth living to me if I
couldn't do something tangible and practicable for the world. If we could make
it so that all could live in peace with one another, and each should help his
neighbor, life would be far happier than it is today. The world today is
man-made. God made no distinctions between his children. We were meant to dwell
together, and that will be the purpose of the institution which we are
founding. We shall teach no religion other than the fatherhood of God and the
brotherhood of men. Adults are not prepared for such a step. Humanity has been
struggling, from the beginning and each man is looking after his own wants and
forgetting those of his neighbor. With babies it is different. We will take
them when they are far too young and tender to have formed any ideas, and it
will be an easy matter to instill into their lives feelings of love and
fellowship. They will be taught that they are all the children of one God, and
there will be no distinctions made between black, white and yellow.
The Russian born Schutz,
received his medical training in Bellevue Hospital, New York, and was for four
years connected with the Dansville, New York, sanitarium. He and his first wife, Hulda (1857-1900)
moved to Long Beach in 1894 and started their own sanitarium and a hotel they
called the Riviera. Now with his second
wife, Pearl, (who had spent 5 years working for the Salvation Army in New
York), he planned on building a two-story house on Signal Hill large enough to
accommodate a dozen children as well as their own two children, Helene Emeth and
Murray Ahura.
Their income would be
largely supported by Schutz running the Schutz Sanitarium, and the Riviera
Hotel, at 325-327 W. Second Street in downtown Long Beach. Schutz hoped that by planting mulberry trees
on his Signal Hill property he would have a second source of income, supported
in part by silk worm and silk manufacturing.
In
October 1904, the couple secured their first baby for their International Home
for Children, a one-year-old Korean boy, Asha.
The boy’s father, who came to America to study law and medicine, could
not care for the infant when his wife became sick. He thought the Schutz’s home
the best solution to his dilemma.
In July 1908, Schutz visited
a Los Angeles organization which dealt in finding homes for young infants. Schutz wanted to take custody of two 5-month
old babies, one black, one white, but was turned down on the grounds that since
his “establishment” was not a church institution the children could not be
placed there. Dr. Schutz was upset. He not been given a face-to-face interview
with the organization, the decision was based on hearsay. If he had been
granted a hearing he would have explained his principles of universal brotherhood
and how in his orphanage there was a Korean, a Filipino and American children.
They ate at one table, slept in the same room and received their schooling at
home from a private teacher.
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| Riviera Hotel |
In April 1909, the Schutzes adopted a 5 month
old Yaqui Indian baby boy, Raymond Eawahta Polomares, who was found by
missionaries in an Indian battlefield in Mexico where the child’s father had
been killed. The child’s mother Mabyla,
only 15, was also adopted by the Schutzes.
By October of that same year the Schutzes had Japanese, Korean, Indian,
Mexican, Portuguese, Australian, Fiji islanders and Americans as part of their
international family. Schutz had turned over the running of the sanitarium and Riviera
Hotel to Doctor Edward Bailey so Schutz could devote his time to his orphanage. But
the sanitarium, along with its hotel, apartments and treatment rooms ran into
financial difficulties, partially due to Long Beach’s anti-alcohol stance. By
1911 Schutz was back to being both proprietor and physician at the Riviera
Apartments, Riviera Hotel and what was now called the Riviera Treatment Rooms.
In 1913 he moved the sanitarium to Elsinore, but still managed the Riviera
Hotel and Apartments until 1918 when he sold them to A.T. Tibbits.
What did Schutz believe in other than
universal brotherhood? Besides stressing a vegetarian diet, and hoping some of
his charges would intermarry and create a new race of unbiased racially diverse
people, it seemed he had an interest in spiritualism. Spiritualism was in vogue during the early
part of the 20th century, and in August 1910, Schutz became the moving force
behind creating a Spiritualist temple in Long Beach. The plans showed an
elaborate structure resembling an Egyptian temple which would cost about
$20,000. A location tentatively considered was a lot just east of the Riviera Hotel
at Second Street and Chestnut Avenue. Schutz didn’t get a church built where he
wanted it but in 1912 a much less costly and not so elaborate Spiritualist
abode, the First Spiritualist Temple, opened at 327 W. Second. It moved to 415
Linden in 1913, later changing its name to Universal Temple.
LONG BEACH’S FIRST SANITARIUM
Many came to
Long Beach for their health, many suffering from “consumption” better known
today as tuberculosis. Physicians discovered that patients with tuberculosis
improved if they moved to a dry climate.
Sea air and a regulated diet were also considered valuable in combating
the disease. Long Beach had the sea air
and a relatively mild climate year round.
It was the perfect place to build a sanitarium (also spelled sanatorium,
or sanitorium), which Dr. Schutz did in 1894. An article in the July 7, 1894 Los Angeles Herald describes Schutz’s sanitarium in Long Beach:
The
medical sanitarium of Long Beach, Cal., established for the successful
treatment of chronic, nervous and female diseases. The most modern and best
equipped sanitarium in Southern California. Highest of references. For any
further information address Dr. or Mrs. M.A. Schutz, proprietors sanitarium,
Long Beach, Cal.”
The sanitarium was successful, and in
March 1896 the idea of building a larger sanitarium was contemplated. The March 1, 1896 Los Angeles Herald reported:
The
proposition of building a large sanitarium by a syndicate, urged by the
proprietor of the one in present use, Dr. M.A. Schutz, has met with
considerable favor among some of our most enterprising local capitalists, who
are quick to see the advantages of the enterprise as a means of investment and
will gladly put their money in it. There is no doubt whatever that if a large,
well-appointed sanitarium building were now here it would be the best means of
advertising the innumerable advantages Long Beach possess over all the other seaside
cities as a health resort. As it is, the fame of the sanitarium now presided
over by Dr. and Mrs. Schutz has reached very far with five Wisconsin women
coming Tuesday for treatment.
In July 1896 articles of
incorporation were filed by Dr. Schutz for the Long Beach Sanitarium Company.
The purposes of the corporation were to carry on a medical and surgical sanitarium,
establish a school of hygiene for nurses, issuing diplomas to graduates. It
seemed Schutz needed additional capital to achieve these goals. The capital
stock of the corporation was fixed at $20,000, divided into 400 shares.
Directors were: Dr. M.A. Schutz, Hulda A.V. Schutz, Dr. O.C. Welbourn, P.E.
Hatch and F.E. Ingham, all of Long Beach.
In March 1897, Schutz opened the
sanitarium doors to celebrate the forty-ninth anniversary of modern
Spiritualism. In the afternoon a baptism was held for infant Bryan Snow. The Los Angeles Herald (3/31/1897) reported the
platform was surrounded by lovely decorations of vines and flowers, but the
ceremony was different from that in vogue in more orthodox churches. The child,
instead of being sprinkled with water, was strewed over with flowers. White
symbolized purity; red, life and energy, and yellow, the intellect.
In 1900 Schutz decided to add a
hotel to his Long Beach holdings, but he needed investors. The Long Beach Hotel
and Sanitarium Company was incorporated in April 1900, with a capital stock of
$25,000, divided into 500 shares, of which amount $9,350 was subscribed. The
directors were: M. A. Schutz, M.D.; H. G. Brainerd. M. D.; J. W. Wood, M.D.;
F. L. Spaulding, Will H. Townsend, Harry Barndollar, P. E. Hatch, R.R. Dunbar,
H.F. Starbrick, all residents of Los Angeles or Long Beach. In February 1905 Dr.
Schutz bought out the other investors. He planned to make extensive
improvements to the hotel and put in an elevator and convert the basement into offices.
In February 1910
Schutz was offered $50,000 for the Riviera Hotel property. He refused to
consider the deal, believing the property would only increase in value (Los Angeles Herald 2/20/1910). Long Beach was growing. On Saturday, June 24,
1911, the Port of Long Beach opened for business. Lumber yards and a mill had already been
established near the harbor to prepare for the big business expected to come. Schutz
and many others believed this and other signs of progress meant tremendous
growth and progress for Long Beach.
The 61-year-old Schutz died December 29,
1924, at the Convalescent Hospital, 2089 E. Broadway after a week’s
illness. His 74-year-old son Murray was
interviewed by Bob Sanders of the Press
Telegram (10/19/1976) but said nothing about the orphans his family helped
raise. Instead he talked about his
father and the Riviera Hotel, the information somewhat different from that
presented in earlier sources:
My
father started practicing in Pasadena in 1896. It seems he graduated in 1894,
1895 or 1896 from the University of Southern California medical school and went
directly to Pasadena. Around that time
he ran out of patients during the summer months because he was told everybody
goes east in the summer. A German friend
recommended going to Long Beach where there was a Methodist campground that
attracted 7000 people. My father did just that and in 1900 bought a section of
land where, with the help of financing, he built the Riviera Hotel. My father
also bought 4 acres of land on Signal Hill, and I remember picking blackberries
for a penny a box for a farmer nearby.
Murray remembered the hotel advertised “One
Hundred Rooms Elegantly furnished: All Outside rooms, many with Private
Baths.” Regardless of the number of
rooms, the hotel’s days were numbered.
In 1918, according to Murray, five days after the United States entered
World War I, the mortgage on the hotel came due and all financing was
frozen. To meet the payment his father
had to sell the 4 acres of land on Signal Hill in 1919 just two years before
oil was discovered there. If he hadn’t
sold he would have made a fortune.
ORPHANS DISAPPEAR
What happened to the orphans? The 1920 U.S. Census showed M.A. Schutz,
Pearl, Helene and Murray living at Elsinore in Riverside County. What had happened to all the other children? The
1910 census had listed 7 children living with Dr. and Mrs. Schutz: there were
their own children, Murray age 7 and Helene 8; Korean born Asha, age 6; Alp, 7;
Tate, 5; Earwatha, 1; and Mabyla Polomares,
16. Where were the other children in
1920?
What of the urban legend claim that Schutz
abused his orphans? The only proof I’ve
been able to come up with appeared in the October 16, 1913 Los Angeles Times: “After Marshal’s Scalp: Sanatorium manager
charges officer with spreading slanderous stories. Action Deferred.”
By the time the article appeared Schutz had
moved his sanatorium from Long Beach to Elsinore. Elsinore had attracted
visitors since the 1880s because of the mineral springs near the lake. After 1893
the lake’s level sank almost continuously for about 10 years, which is probably
why Schutz chose Long Beach originally for his sanatorium instead of Elsinore.
But by 1903 the lake level began to rise, and by 1913 Schutz became owner and
manager of the Elsinore Sanatorium, but kept the Riviera Hotel in Long Beach.
The Times
reported that Schutz made a formal complaint against Elsinore City Marshal
Haworth, charging him with conduct unbecoming an officer. Schutz accused Haworth
of circulating slanderous stories about him and with interfering with how he
raised his children. Haworth claimed that Schutz had no right to punish them. Several
Long Beach people, including the Chief of Police and a police detective, were
present at the hearing and testified as to the good reputation of Dr. Schutz in
Long Beach. The matter was finally
settled when Haworth publicly apologized to Dr. Schutz before the Elsinore
Board of Trustees and a highly interested audience.
So what about the urban legend? Perhaps this 1913 article relating to
corporal punishment of the orphans, plus Schutz’s belief in Spiritualism, led
to the story of the ghostly children reaching out from beyond the grave to help
drivers in their climb up the Hill---and the driver perhaps rescuing the orphans
from Dr. Schutz and his abusive ways. Or perhaps the orphans were just practicing kindness and "universal brotherhood," principles they had learned from Schutz, in helping drivers in the steep assent up Hill Street.
I’ve been trying to find out what happened to
the orphans. Perhaps they were sent to
another group interested in Schutz’s ideal of universal brotherhood. In 1904
the Los Angeles Times reported that
the Schutzes were assisted by many philanthropic citizens. Chief among them was
the Thimble Club of the Rathbone Sisters, who were not only financially
interested, but expected to take an active part in the care of the little ones
“and in the work so unselfishly undertaken by the doctor and his wife.” (LA Times 6/5/1904). A search through
genealogical data bases revealed nothing about the orphans. According to the
1910 U.S. Census, all shared the surname Schutz, with the exception of Mabyla
Polomares. I did find that daughter Helene became a doctor and died in New York
in 1937, she never married. Son Murray was involved in the stock market in the 1920s;
he died in Berkeley in 1982. Wife Pearl Kelly Schutz died in 1949 and is buried
at Forest Lawn, Glendale.
Perhaps some readers will remember the orphans and
what became of them or have more to add to the urban myth? If so, please share.
