La Cañada History: Assistance League 1957 national meeting draws local delegates

Ten Years Ago

Los Angeles Times sports journalist Bill Plaschke regaled about 20 readers gathered at Flintridge Bookstore with stories of longtime Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda during a book-signing event for Plaschke and Lasorda’s joint effort, “I Live for This: Baseball’s Last True Believer.”

Twenty Years Ago

While Sport Chalet founder Norbert Olberz was trying to gain approvals for what eventually became the Town Center, a press release was issued announcing the “largest, state-of-the-art” Vons grocery store would be constructed there. (When the Town Center plans that included a grocery store didn’t come to fruition, Vons’ parent company, Safeway, purchased Plaza de La Cañada and planned a new Vons store there — today occupied by Gelson’s.)

Thirty Years Ago

La Cañada Flintridge resident Michael Gross, then starring in TV’s “Family Ties,’ joined Verdugo Hills Hospital’s Careful Cat mascot in urging families to begin a smoke-free tradition during the Great American Smokeout of 1987.

Forty Years Ago

After 14 terms and 28 years of public service in Sacramento, state Assemblyman Frank Lanterman of the pioneering La Cañada Lanterman family, announced his retirement. Considered by many political watchers to be “the dean” of the California Assembly, he turned 76 on Nov. 4, 1977.

Fifty Years Ago

A helicopter was used in the installation of a fire escape ladder on an upper floor at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy in November 1967. The project was a gift to the private school by Brisbane Iron Works of Los Angeles.

Sixty Years Ago

Delegates from the Flintridge chapter of National Assistance League attended the annual meeting of the organization, held in the fall of 1957 at the Santa Barbara Biltmore hotel.

Compiled from the Valley Sun archives by Carol Cormaci.