I have spent the last few years researching the history of MacLaren Hall in archives and this is some of what I have found thus far...This article took 6 months to research and write, and it took many more hours to format it for the internet. My work here includes a clear profile of who the children were that were thrown together in this Dark Ages warehouse in Los Angeles County. I would like to thank the Historical Society of Southern CA and California State University at Northridge for their support and assistance in my research of MacLaren Hall.
MacLaren Hall in Los Angeles Times Archives from the 1940's to 1970
The punishment of children for their parents' crimes has been a constant throughout American history. With the Elizabethan Poor Laws of the 1600's, came a legal distinction between the "worthy poor" and the "unworthy poor," and the children of the "unworthy poor" often became collateral for their parents. Many children from backgrounds of poverty were shipped from England to America in its early days of settlement as "indentured servants," which by all accounts surmounted to the children being sold into slavery by their parents to pay off familial debts. Orphaned and abandoned children placed in institutions during the Industrial Revolution became cheap labor for the profits of adults around them, as well. Even after child labor laws prevented such activities, children who suffer from abandonment, neglect, abuse, and/or are orphaned under unfortunate circumstances, face a societal battle trying to fight off stigma, poverty, and more abuse as children in state protective custody and foster homes.
In 1960, Carolyn Page, then aged 4, survived her mother trying to kill her, as well as her two younger siblings. The children were taken to a state protective custody institution named "MacLaren Hall."[1] They were then placed in a foster home, and by 1961, at age 5, Carolyn was dead from strangulation while being tied up for 6 hours and left alone in a shower by her foster parents as "punishment."[2] She was failed by three sets of adults: her parents, MacLaren Hall, and her foster parents. This is the story of MacLaren Hall. It is an institutional history that embodies the progress and mistakes of child protection in modern-day terms. In reviewing the history of MacLaren Hall, my desire is to inspire a more civilized treatment of innocent children who end up near prey for bad adult behavior, by humanizing one story of abuse and horror as it occurred in the middle of the 20th century, hidden in the heart of one of America's largest cities, Los Angeles, CA.
To understand the history of MacLaren Hall, a study into the history of child institutions, and institutions, in general, is helpful. Researching the treatment of poor children, and the poor, in general, throughout history, also serves our purposes here. As I have stated, in the 1600's, the Elizabethan Poor Laws distinguished between the "worthy poor" and the "unworthy poor." In Robert L. Geiser's book, The Illusion of Caring, (1973: Beacon Press, Boston), he writes about this societal distinction, "…for the unemployed but willing to work, there was the workhouse…Finally, those who would not work (the unworthy poor, the able-bodied poor, sturdy beggars, or the valiant rogues, as they were also called), there was the House of Corrections. This was really more of a jail for misdemeanors where the inmates were forced to work."[3] Our current "Department of Corrections," aka the jail/prison system, has origins in workhouses and the House of Corrections model.
It is interesting to note that MacLaren Hall was run by the Department of Probation, not state social services agencies. This was due to the criminality of MacLaren Hall children's parents, primarily. Their parents were often in custody of the jail system, and thus the children taken into custody were also routed through the jail system's Department of Probation. This also explains why MacLaren Hall was run like a jail, having been staffed and administrated by people who ran jails, not children's centers.
Additionally, children fell under the "unworthy poor" category with their parents, thrown into workhouses or poor houses alongside adults in the 1600's, up until the mid- 1800's, as children were deemed ready for employment at ages we now consider inappropriately young. Michel Foucault, in his classic book, "Madness and Civilization," (1965: Random House, New York), says, "in 1657, an official edict was sent down prohibiting and forbidding "all persons of either sex, of any locality and of any age…in whatever condition they may be, able-bodied or invalid…curable or incurable…to beg in the city and suburbs of Paris, neither in the churches, nor at the doors…nor anywhere else in public or in secret by day or night…under pain of being whipped for the first offense, and for the second condemned to the galleys if men and boys, banished if women and girls.""[4] Foucault then goes on to say that in April 1684, after begging became illegal, the administrators of the General Hospital in Paris began "hunting down" beggars on the streets and "herding them" into different buildings at the General Hospital. There, the girls and boys under 25 years of age were ordered to work for "the greater part of the day," and they were also to spend time on "the reading of pious books," to reform their sinful ways that made them poor.[5]
In the 1600's, children were not only criminalized for begging, but were also sentenced to work in institutions as punishment alongside adults, without differentiation, for their poverty. This is important as this sets the tone for the treatment of children caught in poverty in modern times. Alike the situation in Paris, during the 1600's, children who were caught begging on streets or were found in almshouses in Britain were being sold by British companies to American businessmen as cheap labor. R. Geiser writes that "in 1619-1620, the Virginia Company of London recruited in the almshouses and among the poor of London children to strengthen and increase its settlement in the New World. A hundred children over 12 years of age were sent the first year, but a number of them died on that long and difficult trip." He writes that in 1627, ships again left England with 1,500 children bound for labor in Virginia, noting that this not only was a source of cheap labor but also England saw this as "a way of ridding itself of dependents who otherwise would be a burden on the local parishes."[6] Geiser also says that in 1654, the Dutch East Indian Company "sought to increase the population of New Amsterdam (New York City) by sending several hundred children to the colony from the almshouses of Dutch cities."[7] This attitude that abandoned, neglected, and abused children, living in poverty, are either a cheap work force worthy of exploitation or a burden communities want to pass onto someone else, like a hot potato, has remained constant for over 300 years in European and American society.
R. Geiser writes, "Once the colonies were established, indenture became a method of dealing with the children of colonists who had been orphaned, neglected, or who were illegitimate or ill-stricken. Shortly after the founding of the colony in Massachusetts, for example, the first child was placed out by public authority. The year was 1636 and the child's name was Benjamin Eaton." Benjamin Eaton was "probably 7 years old" when he was "placed out." Geiser continues, "In New York City, in 1725, there are records of an 18 month old being bound out as an indentured servant, and in 1726, New York City records show the indentured servitude of a four year old."[8] Geiser writes that in 1750, the newspapers in New York City were advertising "that the almshouse had two children, boys eight and ten, waiting for suitable apprenticeships. In 1794, a total of 94 children were bound out from the New York Almshouse."[9] All of this is relevant to MacLaren Hall's history as it shows how we have dealt with the same population of children who landed in MacLaren Hall, in centuries past, and it is a roadmap that leads to today's situation with the same population of children in America. The profile of these children remains the same across the centuries and countries; the ways societies interact with them changes with time.
An enduring stigma is attached to this population of children who are abandoned, neglected, and poor, throughout the centuries, as well. Indeed, as I will show later in this paper, many children taken to MacLaren Hall did come from homes of filth, but that was of no fault of their own. Foucault, in his book "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison" (1977: Random House, NY), says that in the mid-1700's, Jean-Baptiste de la Salle "dreamt of a classroom in which the special distribution might provide a whole series of distinctions at once: according to the pupils' progress, worth, character, application, cleanliness and parents' fortune." Foucault quotes de la Salle as saying the classroom must be arranged in a way that "those whose parents are neglectful and verminous must be separated from those who are careful and clean; that an unruly and frivolous pupil should be placed between two who are well behaved and serious, a libertine either alone, or between two pious pupils."[10] Foucault also says that a little before de la Salle's statements, Batencour said that classrooms should have a bench for the rich and a bench for the poor, "so the vermin will not be passed on."[11] This concept of isolating poor children from other children, and society at large, is one we will see repeatedly. This behavior also surmounts to a discrimination against, and punishment of, children who are victims of child abuse and neglect, while it also serves as a justification for the further abuse of these children, as a societal punishment for their parents' irresponsible behaviors through the punishment of their children.
While indentured servitude and almshouses predominated the landscape for neglected and abused children in America during the 1600's and 1700's, by the 1800's, some changes had begun to take hold. In Timothy A. Hacsi's book, "Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America" (1997: Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MASS.), he writes, "Two factors prompted orphan asylums to shift away from indenturing children to placing them out (into foster homes for care). The first was the growing recognition that childhood was a separate, and distinct, phase of life and that children should not be overworked at an early age. In the late 19th century, middle-class society was increasingly coming to view children as emotionally valuable rather than as economic assets."[12] R. Geiser also states that "up until the latter part of the 19th century, the almshouse was the principal place for care of children in America, as it had also been in England."[13]
Almshouses were not safe or sane places for children, yet children constituted a majority of all almshouse populations. R. Geiser writes, "There was no separation of persons by age, sex, or condition. The old, sick, blinded, crippled, epileptics, idiots, children, unmarried mothers, tramps, criminals, prostitutes, and the insane all intermingled. The last category often comprised ¼ - ½ of the total population."[14] He describes the almshouses as "a human scrap heap," describing the institutional setting as having buildings that were in poor repair, and beds that were piles of straw on the floor. And although children were eventually removed into child-only institutions, or "orphanages" over time, these child-only institutions were still housed in run-down leftover institutional buildings, often left over from leprosy colonies and the like.
This leads into another very interesting coincidence between past centuries, institutions and MacLaren Hall. Foucault says that in the mid-1600's, there was a movement by the "royal authority" for the "control and reorganization of the immense fortune represented by the endowments of the lazar houses"[15] due to the curing of leprosy, and thus there was a move to use the abandoned asylums once used by leprosy victims, who had to be segregated from society, for other groups deemed worthy of segregation in a like manner. Foucault says that insane asylums were literally created as a populace to fill up emptied leprosy institutions. Foucault notes one of the emptied leprosy houses became a "reformatory for young criminals,"[16] and that by July 1695 "the goods of the lazar houses were thenceforth assigned to other hospitals and welfare establishments."[17] This is important as MacLaren Hall came to replace a former polio hospital, in a time when polio was also being eliminated in a similar manner to leprosy in the past. Entire asylums were left empty and populations were created to fill them.
On the heels of indentured servitude and almshouses for abandoned children, the 1800's heralded in child-only institutions with more humanistic goals, albeit these new institutions were often housed in deteriorating buildings of old asylums and funded with miserable budgets. Child institutions began to proliferate in America in the 1800's.
Boston established an asylum for indigent orphan girls in 1800, and New York City opened a child institution in 1807. Hartford, CN opened its child care institution in 1819, Cincinnati in 1832, Chicago in 1849, and the Cleveland Protestant Orphan Asylum opened in 1853."[18] In 1806, the New York City (NYC) Ladies Society for Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children ran an orphanage which used small cottages as opposed to an institutional setting, an experiment tried later in Los Angeles County for its juveniles in custody in the 1960's. According to R. Geiser, in 1819, the Female Beneficient Society from Hartford, CN claimed to help "friendless and indigent little girls" and in 1823, "New York City had 500 children in the Bellevue Almshouse, and 4,000 more were on outdoor public relief or in foster care homes." Geiser says that by 1848, NYC's Bellevue Almshouse held 1000 children and that "up until the 1850's, local and state governments intervened regarding child welfare only in cases of extreme abuse or child delinquency."[19]
By the mid-1800's, as the Industrial Revolution was trying to capitalize on child institutions for cheap labor, or perhaps because of this, America began passing child labor laws. Society had begun to take children out of adult institutions, realizing childhood was not the same as adulthood, and there was also an effort to take the blame for these circumstances off of the child, to stop blaming the victim, and to hold the adults responsible for their own mischief. In the early 1880's, Hacsi writes that the Chicago Orphan Asylum, like others of its kind, had changed its language, from calling its children "destitute," to "deserted by parents." Hasci says, "this may have reflected an increasingly harsh attitude towards poor parents."[20] By the mid-1880's, orphanages were complaining that their main population of children were not orphaned, but rather came from families where "the demon of strong drink has made a victim of father or mother or both," and a few asylums refused to accept children who had such "unworthy" parents.[21] Indeed, the majority of children housed at MacLaren Hall in the 1960's also were not orphaned, but rather "deserted by their parents."
Several orphanages applied age limits to try to slow their rapidly growing populations. Hacsi writes, "In 1880, Brooklyn's Home for Destitute Children, like the Boston Female Asylum 60 years before, would not accept children older than 10…In 1860, the Orphans' Home and Asylum refused children over 9 unless it was given the right to retain them until they were 14 (in the case of half-orphans) or to place them out in homes (if they were full orphans).[22]
In the late 1800's, the Massachusetts State Board of Charities recommended that all children be removed from state almshouses. By this time, there was a societal belief that the state had a right and duty regarding the health and education of children if the parents were neglectful, abusive, etc., thus people began to look for new legal remedies for the plight of neglected children. This is also part of MacLaren Hall history, as this is how the state was able to take MacLaren Hall children into custody against their parents' wishes.
In 1866, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) was founded. A frustrated social worker approached the SPCA, when she found her client, a little abused girl, had no legal rights akin to the animal rights the SPCA founded many of its lawsuits upon. She pleaded for the SPCA to advocate for her client based on its work championing animal rights. After consideration, the SPCA declared humans are animals, thus it could defend the little girl's rights against cruelty. The SPCA won the trial, the abusive parents went to jail for a year and a precedent was set for child welfare rights in a courtroom. In 1875, nine years after the founding of the SPCA, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (SPCC) was formed in New York City. By 1880, there were 33 child protection societies in the U.S. By 1883, NY, PA, and MA had forbidden the placement of children from 2 to 16 years of age in almshouses. Ninety three child protection societies opened between 1800 and 1850. By 1920, there were 57 SPCA organizations and 307 Humane Societies that protected children and animals.[23]
Before the 1900's, nearly all children who were wards of the state in New York were living in institutions. Geiser writes, "In 1910, for example, of the 176,000 children in foster care, 65% of them were in institutions for the neglected, dependent, and emotionally disturbed child. By 1965, with 287,000 children in care, only 28% were in child welfare institutions."[24] Geiser goes on to say that Massachusetts had 49% of its children in institutions in 1910, but by 1965, only 16 percent remained in institutions. Although many had voiced opposition to institutional asylum settings for abandoned and abused children, arguing those settings further traumatized children, a viable protective custody solution was not presented and thus the trend went on, albeit criticized, and continues on today, although less children are warehoused today. "By the 1890's," writes Hacsi, "asylums were being criticized regularly for raising "institutionalized" children unprepared to face independent life as adults. These critics many of whom were child- placing advocates, also attacked asylums for accepting children too readily, thus allowing presumably undeserving parents to escape their responsibilities, and for then keeping children too long. Finally, the regimentation and often harsh discipline within asylums were criticized as being far from the "homelike ideal…"[25] Despite decades, if not centuries, of complaints, institutional warehousing of children continued on into the 1960's.
In 1964, MacLaren Hall, a child protection institution run by the County of Los Angeles' Probation Department, took in approximately 4,000 children annually.[26] In 1967, there were 1,400 residential child welfare institutions in the U.S. One hundred and fifty of them were public, the rest were private. In 1967, these child institutions could house 94,000 children and were at an 83% occupancy rate with 78,400 kids in residence.[27] In 1967, MacLaren Hall was one of the 150 public residential child welfare institutions in operation in America.
The institutional grounds that later became known as MacLaren Hall followed the pattern of Foucault's abandoned leprosy asylums, as it was an abandoned polio asylum. According to her 1967 obituary, Ruth K. Kerr (of the Kerr Glass Manufacturing Co., best known for canning jars), in 1930, "sponsored a campaign to build a hospital, home and school known as the Ruth Home in El Monte for children and young girls suffering from social diseases. Later it was taken over by the Sister Kenny Foundation. In 1959, the county purchased the property to house juvenile wards and named it MacLaren Hall."[28] "MacLaren Hall was built by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930's," according to a 1970 Los Angeles Times article.[29] A 1964 article writes "The building was first used for delinquent teen-age girls but later became the Sister Kenny Foundation home before being used for non-delinquent children."[30] And an article dated 1964 says, "MacLaren Hall, the former Sister Kenny Nursing Home for polio victims near El Monte, was built in 1926."[31] Some of the dates in the L.A. Times' archives are conflicting, but the general time period seems consistent.
A 1960 article reads, "The crutches and wheelchairs are gone from the verdant lawns of the vast Sister Kenny Polio Hospital, and so, too, is one of mankind's most dread cripplers. Discovery of Salk vaccine put a climax to the heroic polio saga of Elizabeth Kenny. But it raised the curtain on MacLaren Hall, a facility which will provide an equally important service to the public." The article speaks of a target date for the completion of MacLaren Hall as February 1961, with a cost of $800,000. "This place began as a home for unwed mothers,"said Bob Disterdick, executive assistant for the probation department. "Later it became a venereal disease hospital, and finally the Kenny therapy center. Those problems are all pretty much taken care of now, so if we come up with a way to eliminate the causes of delinquency, we'll have it made," he added."[32]
The 15 acre Sister Kenny compound, located at 4039 Gilman Road, in El Monte, was taken over by the L.A. County Probation Department in early 1960 and was slated to house 150 children up to age 18. Disterdick's comments above, implying there would be no need for MacLaren Hall if there was an elimination of delinquency, is in direct conflict with a statement he makes directly after that comment, in the same article. He says the youngsters, "who will be transferred here from Juvenile Hall early next year are nondelinquents."[33] The article also quotes him saying "they're merely dependent and neglected children, mostly from broken homes, who must be held in protective custody until their problems can be worked out."[34] The Probation Department was responsible for both delinquent and non-delinquent children, and MacLaren Hall resembled a prison more than a children's home, due to this fact. Additionally, MacLaren Hall was proposed to the public as a safety valve for the overcrowded Juvenile Halls and children filling MacLaren Hall originally came from the Juvenile Hall. Thus it was common for MacLaren Hall children to be marked with the stigma of criminals and delinquents, when they were merely victims of abuse and neglect.
Disterdick continues in this 1960 article to say the new MacLaren Hall "has the space and facilities to create an entirely different kind of atmosphere than that of Juvenile Hall," although he adds that it is far from ideal as a youth shelter. "The county purchased this for the simple reason that there is no other place where the county could get this much bed space at so cheap a price…Most of the buildings were not up to code standards," said Disterdick.[35] This article also speaks about the installation of "perimeter security measures, which include flood lights and a 14 foot chain link fence, topped by five feet of wire mesh (barbed wire)…Among new features will be a small courtroom in one wing which will make it unnecessary for authorities to transport a child to Los Angeles for hearings, and a library." This remodel was made possible due to a $1.5 million bond which passed in 1956.[36]
Although most of the written records speak of MacLaren Hall as opening in 1961, there are articles from the L.A. Times archives that show children were being taken to "MacLaren Hall" in the 1940's. An article dated July 2, 1949, reads: "Earl C. McElwee, a 32 year old father, admitted to starving his 2 month old child to death in the summer of 1949." At that time of the father's arrest, he had 3 other children: Edna, 9, William 7, and Mary, 20 months. After the arrest, "Edna June and Mary Margaret were taken to Juvenile Hall. William was taken to MacLaren Hall, 777 N. Gilman Road, El Monte."[37] This address of 777 N. Gilman Road, is close to the previous address given for the Ruth House and Kenny Hospital at 4039 Gilman Road thus I cannot ascertain whether MacLaren Hall was previously in existence at another location before it moved to the 4039 Gilman location, but such an assumption is plausible.
MacLaren Hall is referenced again in a July 10, 1949 L.A. Times article; "This is the first time the annual report has shown the use of MacLaren Hall, a county facility in El Monte which has been taken over by the committee for the use of county wards. This has considerably relieved the congestion at the hall. It also makes it possible for the children of one family to remain together during detention, not possible with older children at the hall."[38] And in another article dated October 1951, a 3 year old boy is found abandoned and he is reportedly taken to "MacLaren Hall at 4001 N. Gilman Road, El Monte."[39] Was the old MacLaren Hall at 4001 and/or 777 N. Gilman Road, and then it moved to the old Sister Kenny Hospital at 4039 Gilman Road? The records I have been able to find do not make this clear.
On January 15, 1961, an ad for workers to staff the "new" MacLaren Hall was run in the L.A. Times. The ad read: "An appeal for graduate nurses and women probation attendants for MacLaren Hall, the county's new branch juvenile hall here for dependent and neglected children, has gone out from Karl Holton, chief probation officer…Hiring has already been done for women to care for the nondelinquent children, formerly kept in the Lathrop building at the main Juvenile Hall in Los Angeles…Applicants for the attendants position are required to have two years of college."[40]
On March 26, 1961, the L.A. Times ran an announcement for the "ribbon-cutting ceremonies" at new MacLaren Hall complex.[41] On March 28, 1961, the L.A. Times ran an article about the "dedication" of MacLaren Hall as "a new facility of the Los Angeles County Probation Department designed to separate abandoned and neglected children from delinquent juveniles." The article said "Supervisor Frank Bonelli, who officiated at the dedicatory ceremonies at the hall, 4039 Gilman Road, El Monte, hailed the center as a milestone in juvenile county work. The facility is named after William G. MacLaren, founder and leader of the Pacific Protective Society until his death in 1946…The grounds contain nine additional acres for future expansion."[42]
On April 10, 2009, I interviewed a MacLaren Hall survivor named Ron Benoit, now an adult, who was a child at the opening ceremonies for MacLaren Hall in 1961. When asked about the mood of the opening day, he said there was "lots of excitement, a party atmosphere. Everything looked new, fresh paint, colorful dorms." He said there was a "festive dining room," with "big tables full of party foods, shrimp cocktail, ice sculptures. There were women in mink coats, well-dressed men. The kids went on a tour and walked through the buildings and were shown our dorm rooms." He also said that "all of the kids were from Lathrop Hall (Biggy Hall). There were something like 15 boys and girls, and the smaller kids, maybe 20 "little" boys and girls." He recalls that he never came in contact with the little kids, thinking they must have had their own section. He said, "There were new supervisors (in training) being taken advantage of by the bigger kids. These "new" people, after a time, toughened up and were not as friendly as they were at first." He also said that the dorms became less colorful, as different colored sofas were removed and their matching blankets taken away. He went on to say "there was no air conditioning in the dorms, maybe none in the entire complex. It could get uncomfortable on hot nights."
Regarding the eating arrangements, he said he remembers "helping in the kitchen, mopping the floors, and getting ice cream after the work was done." As to the clothing children wore inside MacLaren Hall at its opening, he said "the clothing that was given to us for Christmas at Lathrop Hall was now used as our everyday clothing. Our clothes were clean and pressed. We were never dirty." He also comments that they kept the shoes they came in, and that "sometimes they were pretty scuffed and old."
He said that he "loved the school" and that it was in a different building with murals on the walls. He said they had a "male teacher who was very nice" and "didn't want any problems from the older boys, as they could make things really hard for everyone, so he let us work on our favorite subjects. Mine was art. I was into Egyptology and he let me do all kinds of paintings and drawings that I copied from books." He comments that he thinks the teacher took his art home with him after he was transferred out as he was a big fan of his art.
As MacLaren Hall continued on past its grand opening, children were brought in at all hours of the day and night, in all sorts of physical and psychological conditions. The indiscriminate warehousing of such a wide swath of conditions led to a chaotic environment inside MacLaren Hall. The varied stories of the children who came to MacLaren Hall primarily fit into several categories: the abused, the neglected, the abandoned, and those caught up in strange marital and custody battles. Orphans were nowhere near as common in MacLaren Hall as abused and abandoned children with living parents, following earlier patterns of child custody institutions. And although society had learned to separate adults from children in institutions, they still had not figured out that different types of trauma produce different types of children and to warehouse them indiscriminately, irregardless of their mental and physical conditions was traumatizing not only for the child being brought into MacLaren Hall, but also for the other children witnessing the fruits of so much child abuse concentrated in one place, bearing silent witness to a cruel world.
In October 1966, a 19 year old mother tried to drown her 2 year old daughter at Will Rogers State Beach. Witnesses intervened and when police asked the mother about the incident, she "gave no reason for her actions," and was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and her 2 year old daughter was taken to MacLaren Hall.[43] Also in October 1966, a mother and boyfriend were charged with the murder of a missing 4 year old girl. A probation officer was investigating a 29 year old mother on "misdemeanor childbeating" charges, when it became apparent her daughter, Suzanne, could not be located. After many strange, and proven fictitious stories about where her daughter was, the mother and her boyfriend were charged with Suzanne's murder. Investigators said they found relatives that had seen Suzanne on her 4th birthday, on July 13, 1965, and she had black eyes and bruises, "which supposedly had come from running into a door or a car." The article reported that detectives eventually questioned Suzanne's siblings, aged 9, 8, and 5. The siblings last recalled seeing Suzanne in the summer of 1965 when all the kids were "taken for a night automobile ride past beaches, mountains and desert. Suzanne was wrapped in a blanket, detectives were told." The siblings supposedly fell asleep on the trip and when they got home, Suzanne was gone. One of Suzanne's siblings, George, age 9, was sent to MacLaren Hall after Suzanne's mother was charged with her murder.[44]
In June, 1961, two boys, aged 12 and 4, arrived in Los Angeles with $5, after being placed on the bus by their mother in Dallas, TX. They were taken to MacLaren Hall.[45] In March 1963, a 22 month old boy named Richard was found walking the streets of Santa Monica all alone. Detectives did not know Richard's last name when they took him to MacLaren Hall. Once at MacLaren Hall, "a young girl living in MacLaren Hall saw the boy and told officials, "That's Richard. We lived in the same foster home."" Mrs. Mary Gorham, who ran the foster home in Sun Valley, agreed, "that's Richard." Mrs. Gorham said "the mother had taken Richard to the foster home shortly after he was borne in General Hospital. But two weeks ago, the mother returned and took him away."[46] In July 1963, police took a 3 year old child left alone in a hotel room to MacLaren Hall. All the police and MacLaren Hall staff could learn was her first name, "Debbie." An article written about "Debbie" on her first day in MacLaren Hall, said, "Debbie didn't know what to make of it all. She sat in a corner, her eyes brimming with tears."[47]
The predominance of articles in the L.A. Times about children brought to MacLaren Hall from 1960 - 1970 seem to be about abandoned children. In August 1964, an article tells the story of a 2 week old girl abandoned in a car in a church parking lot. The baby was taken to MacLaren Hall.[48] In December, 1964, a 26 year old woman was charged with "willful cruelty to a child" when her 5 month old infant was found lying in a gutter, crying, 3 blocks from her home at 3 a.m. in the morning. Neighbors called the police. The baby, and his 3 year old brother John, were taken to MacLaren Hall.[49] In March 1965, a couple was charged with selling their 6 month old son for a 1954 automobile and a .22 caliber rifle. The couple was charged with suspected child abuse and "selling of a person." The child and his older, 18 month old brother, were taken to MacLaren Hall.[50]
In June 1965, the Times reported a teen-age mother left her 16 month old daughter at Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church in Sepulveda, with a suitcase with the child's birth certificate and a baby book full of writings about how much they waited for her birth and how happy they were to have her. Apparently, the story took a bad turn, and the little girl was abandoned and then taken to MacLaren Hall.[51]
In July, 1967, a mother was charged with "endangering the lives and welfare of her children" when her 8 children were found suffering from malnutrition in a Highland Park house. The children, ranging in age from 6 months to 9 years, were taken to MacLaren Hall.[52] The stories of abandonment and abuse that kids, and their siblings, endured prior to going to MacLaren Hall are too numerous to list here, but as you can imagine, children were often in shock and trauma when they arrived at MacLaren Hall and the combined trauma of that many children in one place, led to chaos. MacLaren Hall survivors often speak about how the other children were the most dangerous part of the MacLaren Hall experience.[53]
Hollywood is within the jurisdiction of Los Angeles County, thus there were some celebrity cases associated with MacLaren Hall as well. One of the strangest cases I have stumbled upon was the 1963 case of a 32 year old mother, who broke into Rock Hudson's house in Beverly Hills, spent the night there with her 5 year old daughter, and then the maid called the police. By the time the police arrived, the woman had left, but police found several "souvenirs" in her car, including "Hudson's passport, two photographs of him, an Ohio sheriff's badge, a Wells-Fargo special agent badge, four books, a couple of address books and a number of photo slides." The woman was arrested for suspected burglary, and her child, Deborah, was taken to MacLaren Hall. The police said the woman had gained entry to Hudson's home by "crawling under a gate and taking the keys from the actor's car which was parked in the driveway."[54]
On June 18, 1967, actress Jayne Mansfield's 16 year old daughter, Jayne Marie, ran away from her "Sunset Blvd. home" and went to the West Los Angeles police station. She threatened to run away again if police took her home and was "booked as a dependent in need of protective custody and taken to MacLaren Hall." The police said a juvenile court judge would decide if she should be sent home.[55] One thing to note is the language applied to children in the MacLaren Hall system was very jail-like. "Booking" is usually associated with criminal processing, for example.
Leona Gage was "Miss U.S.A." for a day in 1957, until judges found out she wasmarried, to her fourth husband, at the time. She had four children, when she was contacted by police in 1964 for the abandonment of her daughter Cynthia at a babysitter's home for a month. An L.A. Times article says the daughter was "placed in juvenile hall Tuesday," yet further on in the same article, it says, "the little girl, smiling, laughing and apparently unworried, was transported to MacLaren Hall in El Monte as police tried to locate her mother."[56]
While being touted as a home for "nondelinquent children," there were some confusing stories about who went into MacLaren Hall. Children who were accused of being criminals *were* taken to MacLaren Hall. In an October 11, 1968 Los Angeles Times article, a story reminiscent of "Spanky and Our Gang" was run, with the headline, "Little Red Wagon Gang Captured." The storyline said "The Valley's littlest suspected burglary ring is in MacLaren Hall today." Four boys and girls, 8 years of age and younger, were arrested after being accused of filling their wagon with toys, a portable TV, a record player, and other things. Their mother was arrested on suspicion of receiving stolen goods. The police quoted the mother as saying, "they told me they found the stuff in the middle of the street."[57] I assume the reason the "Red Wagon Gang" was taken to MacLaren Hall is it was assumed the children were being forced to steal by the mother who was charged, but this overlap of criminal children thrown into the mix with traumatized, beaten, and abused children at MacLaren Hall certainly did confuse its population's societal standing.
Due to the asylum look of the buildings at MacLaren Hall, and its constant use as an "isolating" type asylum, and its being run by the Department of Probation, many people, including the confined children, thought MacLaren Hall was a jail for criminals. Part of this perception was due to the fact that MacLaren Hall children never left the premises. Hacsi discusses three types of child asylums: isolating, protective, and integrative, and says there can be overlap within these types, as well. "Children inside isolating institutions were thoroughly closed off from all society and their daily routines were closely regulated; their contact with their parents was severely limited...Protective asylums also effectively removed their children from the outside world but kept the children within their own cultural background," writes Hacsi. He also notes that prisons and mental hospitals aimed to reform their inmates, and poorhouses shut the old and sick away from their friends and relatives "to deter the working class from seeking poor relief." He also says that orphan asylums rarely tried to reform children, but rather sought to give relief. Integrative orphan asylums, the last type Hacsi speaks of, tried to integrate the institutionalized children with the outside world. Thus kids in these institutions went to public schools outside the institution, and were allowed more contact with the outside world. "Many asylums retained some protective traits into the 1920's and beyond, especially Catholic asylums, which often continued to educate children within the asylum until they were old enough for high school."[58] These isolating and protective models of orphanages came to resemble prisons, and the orphans looked like prisoners, which I believe has also helped fuel the move away from isolating child institutions.
The institutional process at MacLaren Hall was daunting for a young child to endure. Having survived MacLaren Hall as an 8 year old in 1969 myself, the intake process there remains one of the most frightening things I have experienced, personally, within my lifetime. Children were brought to MacLaren Hall by police, after some escalating event involving their guardians, so the kids were usually in shock at that point. Quite often the parents were taken from the children's presence screaming at the children they were just beating, or yelling at the children, saying they are betraying their guardians by talking to police, among other things. Or children were brought in by police after being found wandering the streets alone at age 3, or being starved alone in hotel rooms, or after being left with babysitters, where their mom never returns and police are called in. So these children have already been through war zones to get to the doors of MacLaren Hall. But once inside, another level of trauma was achieved.
William Newman, the "director of MacLaren Hall," in a March 1966 L.A. Times article, describes the intake process at MacLaren Hall with incredible accuracy, mirroring what I, personally, experienced there as a child. "MacLaren Hall is a big, impersonal place by the very nature of its operation," said Newman. "Six different people deal with a child brought in to us, all of which involves a great deal of paperwork and examination. The child's clothes are taken away and he is issued MacLaren Hall clothing. He is then put through an immediate medical examination, after a thorough bath, because we must do that for the protection of other children here," Newman explained. "This has been on our minds for years," said Mary M. O'Neill, director of Child Welfare Services for Los Angeles County. "It's too much to put a child through who has already been involved in a personal calamity."[59]
Children being held in protective custody in L.A. County often could not find beds in both the juvenile halls and MacLaren Hall in the 1960's. A 1965 L.A. Times article says, "The facility houses non-delinquent youths, many of whom have been abandoned by their parents, some are badly beaten. These children come frightened and alone to MacLaren Hall and find not even a bed to sleep in."[60] A June 1966 Times article has a photo of the superintendent of the Sylmar Juvenile Hall, which had been open less than a year at that point, kneeling on a row of mattresses on a floor of the recreation room at the juvenile hall due to overcrowding. This 1966 article states that "in all county juvenile facilities, which includes Valley, Central, Los Padrinos, MacLaren Hall in El Monte for non-delinquents, plus the various detention camps, 2,794 children were being detained as of March 21, (Milner) Clary said. He estimated it costs an average of $25 a day per child, or a total daily expenditure of $69,850 to maintain them." Mr. Clary said that parents of delinquent children were required to pay all or part of the cost-per-child if they were financially able. He also noted that "the overcrowding means more than just discomfort for the young people…the result is tensions are building up among the juvenile and between them and their supervisors. It's a geometric progression of problems. The more children we get, the more each problem grows."[61]
There were repeated attempts at bond measures that failed, trying to expand and better fund all L.A. juvenile facilities, including MacLaren Hall, during the 1960's. Part of the controversy surrounding the bond measures was governmental spending and waste. There had just been a remodel, made possible due to a $1.5 million bond, in 1956. In 1962, the Probation Department began asking for more money for MacLaren Hall remodels. MacLaren Hall authorities put out the same plea we would hear for decades to follow: "It is not an exaggeration to say the shortage of space at Juvenile Hall and other detention and placement locations is nearing the crisis stage. At the main Juvenile Hall buildings a daily average of 271 boys and girls have no regular place to sleep. The only solution is to make them sleep on the floor." Authorities continued to warn they would soon be out of floor space. The Probation Department said, "the consequences of this shameful overcrowding go far beyond the discomfort and health hazards experienced by the youngsters."[62]
One "juvenile hall" employee was quoted as saying "the whole institution becomes geared for a single thing - survival. The staff must devote almost all of its time to the bodily maintenance of the children...most of the benefits supposed to come from the detention of the child here are lost."[63] In 1962, a bond was proposed for $2.6 million for 200 beds to be added to MacLaren Hall.[64] In Oct. 1962, the director of the League of Women Voters of L.A. County endorsed the bond, as it had with the 1956 bond, saying "It is shameful to allow children to sleep on the floor in any juvenile facility. Let us not confuse the issue."[65] The bond failed.
In 1964, the county was proposing a "$4.48 million long-range project to more than double the capacity of MacLaren Hall, its detention center for non-delinquent youths." The new facilities would house 400 children as opposed to 148 in the past. A Beverly Hills architect was paid $26,540 to draw up the initial expansion plans, which would utilize the additional 7.5 acres of the site which had come with the Sister Kenny site purchase and were vacant.[66]
In August 1964, the Board of Supervisors voted to "replace inadequate and inefficient facilities at MacLaren Hall at cost of $5,809,600." The goal was to replace the old Sister Kenny buildings with "a modern institution housing 400. Included would be boys' and girls' residences, a school gymnasium, chapel, nursery, infirmary, and air conditioning plant."[67] In another Times article dated August 1964, Renso Enkoji, the assistant director of MacLaren Hall said, "the existing building constructed in 1930, is overcrowded." The existing MacLaren Hall buildings had a capacity for 148 children but as many as 210 children were being accommodated. "Sometimes the children have to sleep on the floor," Enjoki said, "and even when the capacity number of children is here, conditions are crowded…It was not designed for its present purpose and is greatly inadequate…For what we have, we have done well, but I think that many times we have fallen short in providing for these children who are here through no fault of their own." Enjoki said he was very pleased the bond proposal would be placed on the ballot. He said the money would be used to build a new administration building, nursery, dormitory area and school."[68] This bond failed, as did the one proposed in 1963, by a small margin.[69]
Due to continued failures at funding a replacement or expansion for MacLaren Hall, the County Probation Department hired an outside consultation firm to conduct a one year study. The recommendation from the consultants was to try to transfer MacLaren Hall out of the hands of the Probation Department, and into the hands of the Bureau for Public Assistance in the County Charities Department. This attempt at restructuring who had the responsibility for the MacLaren Hall children was a game of hot potato that lasted well into the next decades.[70]
In November, 1965, the County supervisors were "adopting preliminary plans and specifications for the estimated $5.2 million expansion of MacLaren Hall."[71] In August 1966, an article was reporting that two bond issues were going to the November ballot: one was for "$850,000 to build 20 cottages on the ground of General Hospital for 160 non-delinquent juveniles now housed in the aging MacLaren Hall in El Monte…The MacLaren Hall proposal would remove non-delinquent juveniles from the Probation Department jurisdiction and put them under the Bureau of Public Assistance." Renso Enkoji "surmised approval of the issue would mean the end of MacLaren Hall since it is unsuited for detention of delinquents and therefore probably would be abandoned as a Probation Department facility." Enkoji said if the Bureau of Public Assistance would take over MacLaren Hall, it would qualify for federal funds, and could reduce the costs of operation, whereas the facility under the supervision of the Probation Department is not eligible for federal funds.[72] The 1966 proposed bond failed, as did the 1964, and 1963 bond.
In November 1966, an outraged Kathy Forrest wrote a letter to the editor about the defeat of bonds that would have helped MacLaren Hall. She wrote: "I wonder how many of the county's childish voters of both parties, who defeated the juvenile facilities expansion bond, are aware that these institutions also shelter, temporarily, orphaned, neglected, and abandoned children of all ages, pending more permanent arrangements for their care. In their self-righteous outrage at juvenile crime suspects, how many voters thought of visiting the facilities in question? Surely no parent, on viewing, for instance, the overcrowded fire trap that is MacLaren Hall can avoid determination that no child, least of all his own, be subject to a single night under the facility's existing conditions."[73]
In 1966, an article in the Times spoke about some of the societal backlash regarding tax monies and public assistance going towards the care of negligent, and often criminal parents' kids. Scrutiny of the parents ensued, with open hostility towards some stereotypes of welfare mothers. There was some consternation about women on welfare living "immorally, in sin," when not married to men they cohabitated with. The article said "A mother with 3 children on AFDC would receive $221 monthly, just under $74 per child. But placement in a county institution such as MacLaren Hall comes to $24.31 per youngster per day." The article went on to say the "best solution" would be for the "mother to relinquish the children for adoption." But then the article pointed out it was not that easy, since there was an "oversupply of unwanted children and a shortage of foster parents."[74]
The bond issue of 1966 triggered angry letters to the editor about the high price of sheltering kids in county institutions. One such letter written by Paul Davey, said that the reason he voted against the bond was the county was spending "in excess of $4,000 per child per year at MacLaren Hall," while he was only spending "$2,500 per person per year" in his own home. He felt it should not cost double what it costs him to raise his sons for the state to do the same, with a lesser grade of care, to boot. Davey said, "I think some serious re-evaluating should be done somewhere along the line, before we are asked to kick in more loot for the support of a recognized and certainly much-needed service."[75]
In July 1969, it was again announced that a bond issue to "replace MacLaren Hall" was authorized by the Board of Supervisors to go on the June 1970 ballot. The article referred to MacLaren Hall as a "dilapidated facility" that "houses dependent, neglected youngsters pending investigation and a final Juvenile Court order for their placement in foster homes, institutions or return to their own homes. The county's 6 year capital projects program proposed a 400 bed hall to cost $6,850,000 including $630,000 in equipment."[76] In January 1970, a new organization to fight narcotics nicknamed "DOPE" was formed. It appears an attempt to circumvent the failed bond track with a non-profit corporation associated with DOPE came to fruition. "The drive against narcotics will include…authorized creation of a nonprofit corporation to replace MacLaren Hall, El Monte, with a 200 bed Probation Department facility," a Times article read.[77] In April 1970, the Board of Supervisors "authorized designing of a 200 bed replacement of MacLaren Hall in El Monte to cost $5.5 million."[78] In Sept. 1970 an architect was again hired to prepare the plans for the new 200 bed MacLaren Hall facility.[79]
I have stopped my research here at 1970, but will continue on with this work, to help establish a foundation for research about MacLaren Hall based on survivor accounts in addition to archived media history and administrative reports and documents. This work needs to be done and though I am one of the only, if not the only, person currently doing this work, I move forward in confidence that this needs to be done and I walk in confidence knowing that somehow the people who need to find my work on this topic to take it further will.
(This article was written and copyrighted in 2009 by Kirsten Anderberg, All Rights Reserved. If you would like permission to copy or reproduce any part of this article, please contact kirstena@resist.ca)
Footnotes:
1. Los Angeles Times, Murder Charge to Be Asked in Carolyn Death, (1961, September 20), p. b2. (This and all Los Angeles Times articles referenced in this paper were retrieved from Proquest Archives.)
2. Los Angeles Times, Couple in Carolyn Case Lose Custody of Infant, (1961, September 24), p. g2.
3. Robert L. Geiser, The Illusion of Caring, (1973: Beacon Press, Boston), pp. 150 - 151.
4. Ibid. 48.
5. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization, (1965: Random House, NY), p. 60.
6. Robert L. Geiser, The Illusion of Caring, p. 138.
7. Ibid., p. 146.
8. Ibid., pp. 147-148.
9. Ibid., p. 153.
10. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, (1977: Random House, NY), p. 147.
11. Ibid., pp. 314-315.
12. Timothy A. Hacsi, Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America, (1997: Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MASS), p. 137.
13. Robert L. Geiser. The Illusion of Caring, p. 150.
14. Ibid., pp. 153-154.
15. Ibid., p. 4.
16. Ibid., p. 4.
17. Ibid., p. 4.
18. Ibid., p. 157.
19. Ibid., p. 157.
20. Timothy A. Hacsi., Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America, p. 117.
21. Ibid., p. 109.
22. Ibid., p. 119.
23. Robert L. Geiser, The Illusion of Caring, pp. 161-163.
24. Ibid., p. 167.
25. Timothy A. Hacsi, Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America, p. 148.
26. Los Angeles Times, County's Deprived Children Find a Home Away From Home, (1964, September 16), p. g9.
27. Robert L. Geiser, The Illusion of Caring, p. 167.
28. Los Angeles Times, Rites to Be Wednesday for Mrs. Ruth K. Kerr, (1967, November 7), p. a8.
29. Ray Zeman, Los Angeles Times, Sheriff Patrol Charge to Cities Set at $230,043 for Each Car: Increase From $139,131 Annually for 30 Municipalities Contracting for Services OKd by County Pending Study, (1970, April 8), p. d5.
30. Los Angeles Times, Board's Bond Action Hailed by MacLaren : $35.2 Million Proposal Includes Funds for Expansion of County Juvenile Home, (1964, August 14), p. sg8.
31. Los Angeles Times, MacLaren Hall Plans Accepted, (1964, August 10), p. b8.
32. Charles Gould, Los Angeles Times, New MacLaren Hall to House Juvenile Wards: Sister Kenny Polio Hospital Being Converted by Probation Department, (1960, November 6), p. sg1.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Los Angeles Times, Accused Father Says Relief Checks 'Invested' in Poker: Starved Baby's Parents Before Court in Death, (1960, November 6), p. 3.
38. Bess M. Wilson, Los Angeles Times, More Than Detention Home: Juvenile Hall Now Has Vital New Role, (1949, July 10), p. C1.
39. Los Angeles Times, Boy, 3, Left Alone by Death, Awaits Mother, (1951, October 20), p. A1.
40. Los Angeles Times, Workers Sought for Hall Jobs, . (1961, January 15), p. sg_a15.
41. Los Angeles Times, Probation Office Will Open Home, . (1961, March 26), p. e4.
42. Los Angeles Times, Dedication of Neglected Child Facility Held, (1961, March 28), p. b3.
43. Los Angeles Times, Metropolitan, . (1966, October 13), p. 2.
44. Ron Einstoss, Los Angeles Times, Mother and Boyfriend Held: Murder Charged in Case of Missing Girl, 4, (1966, October 12), p. 3.
45. Los Angeles Times, Texas Boys Arrive Here by Bus--Alone, Broke: 2 Texas Boys Arrive Here Without Funds (1961, June 7), p. 3.
46. Los Angeles Times, Police Hunting Mother of Boy Found at Beach, (1962, March 23), p. a1.
47. Harry Trimborn, Los Angeles Times, Girl, 3, Left in Hotel; Mother Faces Charge, (1963, July 23), p. 3.
48. Los Angeles Times, Infant Girl Left in Auto in Church Lot, (1964, August 3), p. sg8.
49. Los Angeles Times, Baby Found in Gutter; Mother Faces Charges, (1964, December 10), p. SG1.
50. Los Angeles Times, Pair Accused of Selling Baby for Car, Rifle, . (1965, March 11), p. b15.
51. Charles E. Davis Jr., Los Angeles Times, Mother Abandons Baby Girl at Church, (1965, June 5), p. 3.
52. Los Angeles Times, Mother in Custody: 8 Hungry Children Left Alone at Home, . (1965, July 7), p. 3.
53. Kirsten Anderberg, Interviews with MacLaren Hall Survivors, 2005-2009.
54. Los Angeles Times. Rock Hudson's Home Entered; Woman Held, (1963, August 28), p. 22.
55. Los Angeles Times, Table of Contents 4 - No Title, . (1967, June 18), p. eA.
56. Los Angeles Times, Former Beauty Queen's Baby in Juvenile Hall :Leona Gage, Seeking Work in Arizona, Promises to Come Home, Care for Girl, (1964, June 3), p. a3.
57. Los Angeles Times, Little Red Wagon Gang Captured, (1968, October 11), p. d8.
58. Timothy A. Hacsi., Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America, p. 57.
59. Donna Scheibe, Los Angeles Times, Trauma Is Taken Out of Tragedy: Good Neighbors, (1966, March 20), p. sg_b1.
60. Sue Reilly, Los Angeles Times, County Wrongfully Blamed for Big Tax Bite, Supervisor Says, (1965, March 24), p. sf9.
61. Gordon Grant, Los Angeles Times, New Juvenile Hall Jammed; 30 Children Sleep on Floor: Overcrowding Has Facility 'on the Ropes', (1966, March 24), p. sf1.
62. Los Angeles Times, The Dividends From Prop. A, (1962, October 22), p. a4.
63. Ibid.
64. Ray Zemin, MacLaren Hall Bond Issue Will Be Put on Ballot: Incomplete Source, (1969, July 23), p. sg1.
65. Los Angeles Times, Letters to the Times: Voters Urged to Back Move for More Juvenile Hall Facilities, (1962, October 10).
66. Los Angeles Times, Maclaren Hall Expansion Plan Under Study, (1964, January 12), p. q1.
67. Los Angeles Times, MacLaren Hall Plans Accepted, (1964, August 10), p. b8.
68. Los Angeles Times, Board's Bond Action Hailed by MacLaren: $35.2 Million Proposal Includes Funds for Expansion of County Juvenile Home, (1964, August 14), p. sg8.
69. Los Angeles Times, Bonds OK'd for Youth Facility, Women's Jail: MacLaren Hall, Sybil Brand Institute Propositions to Be on November Ballot, (1966, August 31), p. sg9.
70. Ray Zemin, Los Angeles Times, 100 Changes Urged in Probation Department: Consulting Firm Says County Could Save $1.4 Million a Year by Cutting Red Tape, (1965, April 25), a5.
71. Los Angeles Times, $5.2 Million Plans OK'd for MacLaren Facility, (1965, November 28), p. sg_c3.
72. Los Angeles Times. Bonds OK'd for Youth Facility, Women's Jail: MacLaren Hall, Sybil Brand Institute Propositions to Be on November Ballot. (1966, August 31). Los Angeles Times (1886-Current File), p. sg9.
73. Forrest, Kathy Cruise, Los Angeles Times, Defeat of Bonds, (1966, August 31), p. b4.
74. Matt Weinstock, Los Angeles Times, Unpleasant Facts of Life Faced by County Welfare, (1966, February 16), p. a6.
75. Paul N. Davey, Los Angeles Times, Costs at MacLaren Hall, (1966, November 22), p. a4.
76. Ray Zemin, Los Angeles Times, MacLaren Hall Bond Issue Will Be Put on Ballot: Incomplete Source, (1969, July 23), p. sg1.
77. Ray Zeman, Los Angeles Times, County Orders Crash Program to Fight 'Narcotics Epidemic': DOPE, (1970, January 21), p. a1.
78. Ray Zeman, Ray, Los Angeles Times, Sheriff Patrol Charge to Cities Set at $230,043 for Each Car: Increase From $139,131 Annually for 30 Municipalities Contracting for Services OKd by County Pending Study, (1970, April 8), p. d5.
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