The presentation will discuss Albert Otis Birch, an early Santa Ana resident, who became an oil tycoon in the early 20th century in Brea Canyon. He owned a furniture company and was an insurance executive. In the mid-1960s, Birch and his wife Estelle fell into the clutches of Pearl Choate, a nurse with a criminal past, who took them to Texas where they both died shortly after. 

 

Paul R. Spitzzeri is Museum Director at the Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum in the City of Industry, was raised in Orange County, and lives in Carbon Canyon, a stone’s throw from the county line in Chino Hills. He has written on the history of  Los Angeles through articles, a national award-winning book on the Workman and Temple families, and blog posts and has spoken several times to the OCHS.