Verdugo Views: A call to Japan makes history
Fifty years ago this week, a momentous phone call connected Glendale’s Field Elementary with an elementary school in our Japanese Sister City of Hiraoka.
These days, with a cellphone in nearly every hand, it’s hard to imagine that it was once impossible to call overseas, but until 1964, about the only way to talk to someone in Japan was via radio.
Then, that year, a submarine telephone cable was laid from Japan to Hawaii, connecting to cables linking Hawaii with the mainland, as noted on an AT&T website. (A trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1956.)
To spread the word about this epic achievement, Pacific Telephone formed a “Hello Around the World” publicity campaign in conjunction with a “People to People’’ cultural exchange program formed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1956.
The president, who had led the Allied Forces during World War II, sought diplomatic alternatives to the wars he witnessed during his military career and asked 100 top U.S. leaders to form the program, according to Wikipedia.
But back to the trans-Pacific phone call. Here’s where Glendale comes in.
Since we had just become a Sister City with Hiraoka (now Higashiosaka), Glendale was one of the cities selected to help generate publicity through a series of international phone calls.
Sister City chair H.A. Tollefson seems to have spearheaded the local event, sending letters on official stationery from the “Glendale-Hiraoka Sister City Committee, City Hall, Glendale, California,” informing recipients that May 5 was Children’s Day in Japan.
“To help celebrate this occasion in Hiraoka, Pacific Telephone has offered to set up a circuit between Eugene Field and Hiraoka,” he wrote.
Lots of officials participated, of course, but the main focus was on a couple of students from Field. The school was selected, in part, because it was celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Phone company officials came to the school to set up the equipment. Because of the time difference, the call was placed at 7 p.m. on May 4 — noon on May 5 in Hiraoka — and was the highlight of a special meeting led by Mrs. George Walker, president of Field’s Parent-Teacher Assn.
She introduced Tollefson, who, in turn, introduced A. Edward Johnson of Pacific Telephone, who explained the new connection. He stressed that the cable linking the two countries was still two months away from completion and that the ceremonial phone call would still be by radio.
Once those explanations were out of the way and the connection was completed, Mayor Herman Barnes spoke to Hiraoka Mayor Nakata. Then, Tollefson got on the phone and talked about Children’s Day in Japan and how it coincided with Field’s 50th anniversary.
School principal Joe Gannon introduced students Richard Lowe and Marie Musgrave, who spoke to their counterparts in Hiraoka.
A photo and caption in the Glendale Independent on May 6 said Masao Togashi, consul from Japan, and Glendale’s Supt. of Schools Dr. James Williams were also on hand.
Mrs. Council Tucker, who was very instrumental in forming the new sister city committee and was president of the Chevy Chase Canyon Garden Club, also participated. And that’s why we have all this information; she carefully compiled the letters and newspaper clippings in an album kept by the club.
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To the Readers:
In the April 10, 2014 Readers Write, Sean Bersell, executive director of the Glendale Historical Society, wondered what happened to a globe lamp with an eagle on top that stood at the northwest corner of Brand Boulevard and Broadway from 1930 to 1980.
“An April 1980 item in the News-Press indicated that the globe, which capped a ventilation shaft for underground restrooms, was removed as part of the redevelopment of the block, crated and taken to the city yard on Airway for safekeeping,” he wrote.
Bersell said attempts to find the globe had not been successful and asked for this column writer’s help.
Within hours of publication, Bersell heard from Mario Marchman, who retired from the Glendale Police Department in 2008.
“I think the globe and eagle street lamp is on display in the rear courtyard of the police building at 131 N. Isabel,” Marchman said in an email. It was placed at that location soon after the station opened in 2004.”
Thanks, Mario, for your quick response. As Bersell said “Looks like we found it, hiding in plain sight.”
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