Old-Timers Reminisce as Van Nuys Turns 75

All his life, Whitley Van Nuys Huffaker has taken guff over his name.

As a kid, he was always asked if he was named for the community. Now, at age 74, he’s kiddingly asked if the area was named after him.

That question was answered Saturday when Huffaker joined dozens of other old-timers to commemorate Van Nuys’ 75th anniversary.

Van Nuys--the community, that is--came first, but not by much, Huffaker explained.

“I was the first baby born in Van Nuys,” he said. “Oct. 18, 1911. The town was formed on Feb. 22, 1911.”

Mindful of their baby’s place in history, Huffaker’s parents named him in honor of two of the town’s founders, subdivider H. J. Whitley and landowner Isaac Newton Van Nuys. Whitley helped plan the street layout when the town was built on Isaac Van Nuys’ former ranch.

Stories Served Up

Stories of those early days were served up along with cookies and cake to 150 people who jammed the 69-year-old Van Nuys Womans Club to kick off a 75-day “diamond jubilee” celebration.

Officials announced during the ceremonies that the family of pioneer Van Nuys developer William P. Whitsett has established a $500,000 endowment to support the study of California history at California State University, Northridge. Described as the first endowment of its type for the school, it will support a history lecture series at the university.

Van Nuys Chamber of Commerce leaders said they hope the 75-day event will help show that their town is as exciting to live and work in now as it was in the old days--when it was known as one of this country’s first planned communities.

Old-timers said Saturday that will take some doing.

“Those days were the best,” said Harriet Davenport, a member of the Van Nuys High School class of 1934. “We had everything we needed here then. The street cars could take us to Santa Monica. We had dances here at this hall. Kids really had someplace to go.”

Her husband, Herb Davenport, 70, picked out familiar faces from photos displayed in the Womans Club hall. Then he spied a real face across the room that belonged to his old school bus driver, Clair Cornwell.

Former Bus Driver

Cornwell, 76, drove the bus for his father, who ran the local bus line. His family also ran the local swimming pool, Cornwell’s Crystal Plunge on Kester Avenue.

“We used to watch the gals go swimming, hoping their suits would come off,” he recalled. “But they never did.”

Donald Nordvold, 72, said his father had opened the first retail business in town, a combination furniture showroom and undertaker’s office, he said.

“I used to ride my pony through vacant lots in the middle of Van Nuys. We’d fish in the wash for crayfish. It was great fun.”

Al Inbach, 88, said he came to Van Nuys in 1911. He said Saturday that he plowed a 190-acre Victory Boulevard farm that his family rented to grow hay and watermelons.

His brother, Oscar, 84, delivered milk in three-gallon cans hung from his horse’s saddle. “We had two cows that we’d brought with us from Phoenix,” Oscar Inbach said.

“In those days, we kids had nothing. But we had everything. We had the whole world.”

Saturday’s ceremony included a short parade down Sylvan Street led by 50 band members from the community’s three high schools--Van Nuys, Grant and Birmingham--and a series of speeches.

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, a former builder, told of how he sometimes began constructing houses in Van Nuys before bothering to obtain a city building permit.

And television personality John Barbour said he hoped to put Van Nuys on the map by producing a new late-night television series starting March 10 from a Van Nuys Boulevard storefront.

“It will be almost live from Van Nuys” because “Van Nuys is almost live,” Barbour quipped. A video crew taping his speech for use on the new show missed his jokes, however. Their recorder’s battery died halfway through their boss’ remarks.

James W. Cleary, president of California State University, Northridge, caused an even bigger stir, though. He mistakenly announced that the W. P. Whitsett Foundation grant for history studies at his school was a “half-billion-dollar” endowment.

That’s a half- million -dollar endowment, Whitsett family members whispered from the back of the Womans Club hall.