Community center dedicates statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe

Operators of a social services program in Canoga Park dedicated a statue Monday in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Perhaps Catholic Charities, which operates the 60-year-old Guadalupe Community Center, will erect a statue saluting Mary Logan Orcutt next.

Orcutt was the wife of a pioneering San Fernando Valley rancher and the person who, in 1947, bought two acres of peach orchard land and drew up plans for a family services center to help the ranch’s mostly Mexican-immigrant workers.

Three years after the center was up and running, Orcutt, a Presbyterian, turned over its deed to the Los Angeles Catholic Archdiocese.

Last year the center served 22,000 poor and low-income people from the west San Fernando Valley with programs that include a food pantry, English language classes, a children’s learning center and an employment service.

Mary and William Orcutt’s ties to Canoga Park began in 1919 when they built a Spanish hacienda-style home at the 210-acre cattle ranch and citrus orchard they owned at the western end of Roscoe Boulevard.

The pair named the place Rancho Sombra del Roble, or Oak Shade Ranch, because of its canopy of ancient oak trees. Over the years, the ranch was frequented by notables such as President Herbert Hoover and symphony conductor Arturo Toscanini.

William Orcutt made his fortune as one of the oil industry’s first petroleum engineers, mapping the expansive Santa Maria oilfield shortly after being hired in 1899 by Union Oil Co.

In 1901 he discovered fossilized prehistoric animal bones in pools of asphalt at what was then known as the Hancock Ranch. That led to the excavation of the La Brea tar pits and research there that continues to this day.

Later, Orcutt discovered the Santa Fe, Richfield, Montebello and Dominguez oil fields and made major petroleum finds in Alaska, Mexico and South America.

He died in 1942 at the ranch after retiring as a Union Oil vice president. Mary Logan Orcutt continued living there until her death in 1972 at nearly 100 years old.

Mary Orcutt indicated in a 1965 Times interview that she was motivated to create what was initially known as the Guadalupe Youth Center by the growing number of Mexican American youths in Canoga Park after World War II ended.

Many were the children of her ranch’s workers and lacked recreational facilities and organized family services.

Monday’s ceremony marked the unveiling of an Italian-made statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a symbol revered by Mexican Catholics. The statue was donated by one of the center’s volunteers, West Hills resident Jack O’Connell.

At the same time, the 60-year-old center was blessed and rededicated by the Most Rev. Gerald Wilkerson, auxiliary bishop of the diocese’s San Fernando Pastoral Region.

The center at 21600 Hart St. operates on a $250,000 yearly budget, staffed by two full-time and three part-time employees and 130 volunteers.

One of the volunteers, eight-year veteran Katie Latimer, works in the center’s Loaves & Fishes food pantry, which serves 2,000 families a month. She pointed out a painted portrait of Mary Logan Orcutt hanging in the pantry office.

“Lord bless and thank her,” Latimer said. “This place wouldn’t be here without her.”

Near the office door, boxes of grapefruit harvested from Orcutt Ranch sit stacked and ready for distribution to the poor. The ranch, now whittled down to 10 acres, is operated by the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks. It’s designated as city Historic-Cultural Monument No. 31.

Outside, Guadalupe Center Director Margaret Pontius said she doubted a statue of Mary Logan Orcutt would ever be erected. It would be inappropriate to equate her with the iconic symbol of Catholic Mexicans, she said.

“We have an annual Mary Logan Orcutt Award that’s given at a recognition dinner each May,” Pontius said. “There are other ways to remember her.”

bob.pool@latimes.com