Join us for a series of evening lectures by prominent speakers from the world of art, horticulture and history.
Member Appreciation: Evening Lecture – William E. Smythe and the Little Landers Movement
February 11, 2025 | 7 PM
Speaker Bill MacGowan grew up in Newport Beach, but lives in Boulder, Colorado and is retired after a 40+ year career in corporate human resources with companies such as Sun Microsystems, Northrop Grumman, Allergan, and Newmont. As a direct descendant of William E. Smythe, he has spent many years studying the fascinating life of Smythe.
Evening Lecture: Sue Hodson – I Promise You I’ll be Home: Korean Letters of a U.S. Marine
February 18, 2025 | 7 PM
Before becoming a professional journalist and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Al Martinez (1929-2015) served in the Korean War at the age of 21 with the U.S. Marines. From 1951 to 1952, he served first on the battlefront and then as a war correspondent. He dispatched letters almost daily to his young bride Joanne. Recently, McFarland and Co. has published a volume of Martinez’ war letters, sharing the unique perspective of an obviously gifted writer at the beginning of his career. His letters home captured his experiences eloquently and with depth of understanding as they express the dangers, hardships, fear, friendships, and even humor of life at the front.
Evening Lecture: Paul Spitzzeri – A. Otis Birch: The Strange Saga of Santa Ana’s Oil Tycoon
March 18, 2025 | 7 PM
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.
Evening Lecture: Paul Haddad – Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles
April 15, 2025 | 7 PM
This talk traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city’s growth: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler, William Mulholland, and Moses Sherman. Through his discussion, Haddad shows reveals that Los Angeles is not a paradise found, but a paradise that was willed into existence.