Verdugo Views: Irish Sweepstakes money didn’t bring happiness

A lot of people used to live in Glendale. Or their parents or grandparents did.

And sometimes, when they want to find their family history, they contact the Glendale Historical Society.

Sean Bersell, executive director of the society, usually suggests they contact Mike Shea and the Special Collections team at the Glendale Public Library.

“We don’t have the resources to handle these,” he said.

NEWSLETTER: Stay up to date with what’s going on in the 818 >>

But a recent query from Penny Rosenfield regarding her in-laws, Harry and Sarah Vallen, who lived on North Pacific Avenue in the late 1930s, caught his fancy.

Bersell started digging. He discovered that they married around 1926, had two children and lived in Cincinnati, where Vallen was a cigar store merchant.

Sometime before 1938, they came to Glendale and purchased a liquor store at 1111 Western Ave. They lived on East Stocker Street.

Now, here’s what caught Bersell’s eye and why he contacted me via email. In 1938, Vallen purchased a ticket for the Grand National, a hugely popular horse race held annually in Liverpool, England.

First run in 1839, the more-than-four-mile handicap steeplechase (broadcast over radio since 1927) attracts many who don’t normally pay the sport much attention. Bersell explained in a follow up email that buying a sweepstakes ticket for the race is similar to joining an office pool for the Super Bowl.

Vallen’s horse placed, generating a $75,000 prize, “however, Harry had sold half of his ticket to a syndicate, so he received $37,500, before Uncle Sam took his piece.”

Vallen told the Los Angeles Times that he planned to sell the liquor store, visit relatives “back East,” and then buy a house here in Glendale.

“It sounds like a happy ending, but things soon turned sour,” Bersell wrote.

Wife Sarah suffered from gall bladder problems, so they used part of their winnings to have it removed. Unfortunately, she died on the operating table in 1941.

Vallen eventually went back to work, first as an office manager for a local gold-refining company, then at Myrtle E. Davy Real Estate in Kenneth Village.

After he sent the Rosenfields his findings, Bersell put me in email touch with the San Clemente couple.

“There had always been rumors in his family about Harry winning the Irish Sweepstakes,’’ Penny Rosenfield wrote me, “but I had my doubts and thought it was just a tall tale circulating in his family.’’

When her husband Paul found his mother’s student records from UCLA listing her address on Pacific, they began searching for more information and eventually drove up to Glendale to see the house for themselves.

“Harry lived with his daughter until his death, I believe. It’s my understanding that all the money was eventually used by Harry and Ruth.’’ Vallen died in 1961.

Daughter Ruth died in her late thirties of complications resulting from an automobile accident several years earlier, leaving two children, Paul and Sue.

Son Allen passed away from diabetes at 27, leaving one child, Stephanie.

“It’s a really strange but rather tragic tale,’’ Penny Rosenfield concluded.

“All this has taken some interesting and unexpected turns,” Paul Rosenfield added. “My mother’s gravestone “pretty much sums up the whole situation.”

To the Readers:

Two emails came in response to Don Meyers’ Nov. 5 request for memories of “the tent lady:”

From Trent Sanders of La Cañada Flintridge: “She lived in a large cobbled-together tent on the corner, under an oak tree. It was right after the war. The story I heard was that her house had burned down and she didn’t have the money to rebuild. We would pass her on the way to Indian Springs.

Jeannine Cinelli Marvin of La Crescenta, read “with interest about the woman who sat on a vacant corner on Canada Blvd. As a child my father took us for drives on Sundays, often to figure jobs for his tile business. My mother, sister and I eagerly awaited that corner to look for that woman.

“I remember the corner being either Wabasso or Opeechee. She was always out sitting under a stand of oak trees, as Mr Meyers said, watching the cars go by. She never seemed to move, but we were hoping she would be out when we passed by.

“We understood she was of Indian decent, but it was hard to prove for us as daddy never slowed down enough for us to get a good look at her. Every time I pass by that corner all these years later I think of that woman. So glad Mr. Meyers thought to write about it. Memories of Glendale past.”

Just in case you are interested, the 2016 Grand National will be run on April 9.

--

KATHERINE YAMADA can be reached at katherineyamada@gmail.com. or by mail at Verdugo Views, c/o Glendale News-Press, 202 W. First St., second floor, Los Angeles, CA 90012. Please include your name, address and phone number.