Society : Civic Celebration Is a Snappy Salute for the Salvation Army

The Salvation Army, proud of its long, hopeful march through the slums of the world’s major cities, momentarily paused in mid-step last week to glance back at its first 100 years in San Diego, and then turned eyes-front to step boldly into the future.

The group’s Civic Celebration Dinner marked the centennial of its first meeting here, but seemed much more concerned with the present than the past, as did the 400 guests who crowded into the San Diego Marriott’s Tower Ballroom for an evening that was long on entertainment and replete with ceremony.

Fully one-third of the guests were Salvation Army members, and the situation was for many of them a novelty, since it was the first time that the local organization had sponsored a black-tie benefit. Still, for a group whose fierce-sounding motto is “Blood and Fire,” the members seemed to take quite easily to the niceties of social hour chit-chat and the other conventions of a formal event.

The novelty extended well beyond formality right into a corner of the ballroom’s foyer, where a no-host bar had been discreetly tucked away. Planning committee chairman Elsie Weston (president of the women’s auxiliary of the Salvation Army’s Door of Hope) said that this was the first time the group had allowed liquor to be served at one of its functions, since it is strictly pro-Temperance and is prohibited by its charter from spending one cent of its resources on alcohol. Weston added that wine would not be poured in the ballroom, and, as events developed, the majority of the guests contented themselves with the “raspberry surprise” punch offered at an elaborate display table in the foyer.

It may be that music is the wine of life for the Salvation Army, since the group is known for enlivening the Christmas season with the tinkling bells that encourage donations in shopping districts, and the brass bands that provide sidewalk serenades in big city downtowns. Music surged and retreated throughout the evening, offered first by the 60 members of the Salvation Army’s famed Hendon Corps Band from London, England, and then by the scores of voices of the San Diego Master Chorale.

The resplendent scarlet uniform jackets of the Hendon Corps Band and the flowing black gowns of the chorale added notes to an event that, in the sartorial sense, was vastly unlike those that typically occupy the city’s ballrooms. Everywhere one looked, there was a sea of uniforms--the Salvation Army members in their crisp, blue and red outfits, the Marine Corps Recruit Depot Color Guard similarly in neat blue and red, the band members in scarlet, the chorale in black, and the civilians (for want of a better term for the civic leaders and socialites who lent their moral and financial support to the event) in their own peculiar uniform of black tie and ball gown. The assorted ranks made for a most interesting and unusual tableau, to say the least.

The program also was variegated and interesting, beginning with the formal presentation of the colors, the singing of the national anthem, and the Hendon band’s rendition of “Bright as Brass,” all of which preceded the beef tenderloin and baked Alaska dinner. The Master Chorale turned to Latin for its inspiration and offered Haydn’s “Credo In Unum Deum,” after which Lt. Col. David P. Riley, Salvation Army Divisional Commander for Southern California, installed long-time supporters Edward Streicher and Marge O’Donnell as life members of the Salvation Army Central Advisory Board.

Master of ceremonies and event honorary chairman Kim Fletcher brought the evening into its sharpest focus with the introduction of keynote speaker Art Linkletter, a native San Diegan and long-time friend of Fletcher’s. Linkletter amused the crowd by admitting a fellow-feeling for Salvation Army members; he said that as the 5-year-old son of a Baptist preacher, he had sometimes played the triangle at street-corner fund-raisers. Linkletter also outlined the many efforts of the Salvation Army, ranging from its mission of feeding and housing the hungry and homeless, to providing shelter for unwed mothers at its Door of Hope.

The evening concluded with thanks from Major Richard Love, local Salvation Army director, and a benediction offered by his wife, Major Betty Love.

The guest list included Walter and Betty Zable, Paul and Jackie Richey, state Sen. Wadie Deddeh, Bill and Lollie Nelson, Raymond and Jan Dittamore, Arthur and Pat Stillwell, Robert and Linda Jensen, Paul and Kathleen Bremner, Don and Barbara Hunsaker, Walter and Mary DeBrunner, Dean and Marie Dunphy, David and Kay Porter, Altha Williams, Bill and Beverly Muchnic, John and Betty Mabee and Jack and Virginia Monday.

Top pop singer Frankie Laine did double duty at a 75th birthday celebration-cum-fund-raiser that threatened to turn into double trouble for event organizer Evelyn Truitt.

Truitt had planned the evening of wine, hors d’oeuvres and song to take place in a spacious artist’s loft in a former industrial building on the edge of the Gaslamp Quarter. However, her plans turned topsy-turvy when the loft’s tenant failed to obtain an occupancy permit for 250 guests. Last minute scrambling gained the permission to use the Gaslamp Quarter Theatre Company’s nearby Hahn Cosmopolitan Theatre, despite the fact that the company had scheduled a dress rehearsal for its presentation of “The Little Foxes.” The neighboring Horton Grand Hotel similarly granted permission for the caterers to invade its kitchens, and the transplanted guests soon found themselves nibbling skewered tortellini and tiny quiches in the alley that separates the two structures.

Laine--and his birthday--served as the draw for the benefit, given by the combined San Diego performing arts community for the proposed Southern California Composers Festival. The festival is scheduled to be given here in October, 1989, and has the stated goal of discovering, encouraging and rewarding composers who live and work in Southern California.

Faces long familiar as major patrons of the symphony, the opera and the bulk of the city’s theater companies made the cocktail hour almost seem like a family gathering, but interspersed among them, and looking absolutely delighted to be there, was a large group that by its dress and manner seemed distinctly not from San Diego. This group proved to be composed of 79 cheerful members of Laine’s English fan club, here on a fortnight’s holiday to see their musical idol and soak up some rays.

Like many of the American guests, the British were eager to reminisce about the first time they saw and/or heard Laine. Peter Rear, of Litchfield, said that most of the group had been fans since the early 1950s, “When Frankie was as big as the Beatles would be later.”

Rear said that he was present in 1952 at London’s Heathrow Airport when an amusing incident took place involving the arch-conservative John Foster Dulles. “Dulles was first to step off a plane that also carried Laine, and he thought the huge crowd had gathered to greet him,” said Rear. “But of course, it was there for Frankie, and was so large that he had to be stolen away in a dust-bin.” (Translated into American, a dust-bin may be understood to be a trash-hauler.)

Laine and his wife, actress Nan Gray, were the last to enter the standing-room-only theater. A standing chorus of “Happy Birthday” greeted the singer, who responded by telling the crowd, “I’ve never been lucky enough to be nominated for Grammy or an Oscar, or a Tony or an Obie, or any of those awards. But after tonight, I don’t care.”

The singer then rewarded his fans with an hourlong concert that took them through some of the high spots of his 50-year career. No one left early.

Among the guests were Craig Noel, Kit Goldman, Bob McGlade, Dolly and Jim Poet, Merle and Phil Wahl, Danah Fayman, Helen Edison, Det and Crystal Merryman, JoAnn and Lee Knutson, Betty and Wally Porter, Jane Stillman, Barbara and Neil Kjos, Eleanor and Al Mikkelsen, Bea and Bob Epsten and Betty and Dan Hoffman.