Holding On to a Fading Past : Santa Ana Library Houses Collection of County Relics

By THUAN LE

March 9, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SANTA ANA —

The room is full of ghosts.

Unmoving eyes stare out from black-and-white photographs on the walls. Yellowing newspapers chronicle past celebrations and mournings. Leather-bound scrapbooks cradle clippings of hometown boys who served in World War II.

Welcome to the Santa Ana History Room at the Santa Ana Public Library. The special department, which opened in 1977, mostly has records about the city of Santa Ana. But there are also documents from other cities in the county, Orange County as a whole and California in general.

“Many people come in to look for their family history or the history of their house,” said Anne Harder, a historian who has worked in the room since 1979. “It’s the perfect job for me. I like the connection between people and paper. It’s like detective work sometimes.”

The clues are just waiting to be discovered.

One valuable source is the residential directories, which date from 1872, when Orange County was still part of Los Angeles County. Before telephones, these books listed a man’s full name, his wife’s first name, his occupation and address. In the back pages are cross-references arranged by address.

There are drawers of black-and-white photographs, the oldest one from about 1880. The images--kept in acid-free envelopes for protection--range from old homes to weddings to street scenes--”just the run of human life,” Harder said.

Other photographs hang on the walls. The most noticeable shows the city’s Grand Opera House, built in 1890 at Fourth and Bush streets in Santa Ana. Below it, a photograph shows the inside of the theater, its 10 front rows filled with bearded men in dark suits and the back balcony with women in white dresses.

Audiences never actually watched operas because none were shown there, the caption says. The Grand Opera House mainly featured plays, vaudeville acts, amateur boxing matches and yearly high school graduation ceremonies before it was closed in the 1920s.

The life of one of the theater’s regular performers can be researched in the history room. In 1876, Madame Helena Modjeska from Poland moved to what came to be called Modjeska Canyon, just off Santiago Canyon Road, near the Cleveland National Forest. She died on Balboa Island in 1909 at the age of 69. The actress’s autobiography, “Memories and Impressions,” sits beside a book from her personal library, a collection of Voltaire’s complete works, published in French in 1869 with Modjeska’s insignia inside.

Other texts in the history room include “The Cottages and Castles of Laguna Beach: Historical Architecture 1883-1940,” “Villa Park: Then and Now,” “The Village of Garden Grove 1870-1905” and “Chinese in Tustin.”

There is also a cabinet full of aerial and diagram maps, one dating from 1885, and poster advertisements of fairs and openings, including the 1986 ceremony for South Coast Plaza’s Crystal Court.

The Historical Room even has the orange-and-white ribbon used at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the county’s 1989 centennial celebration. Harder said she stealthily grabbed it from the ground when dignitaries at the event turned their backs.

“It was just lying there,” she said, smiling. “Someone would have thrown it away, so I thought I’d save it.”

The usual way the historian adds to the History Room collection, though, is by buying an item.

The Santa Ana Public Library had been collecting documents since 1901, Harder said. Its latest purchase a few months ago was a four-volume collection of oral history titled “The Vietnamese Community in Orange County.” Assembled by the city library’s Newhope Branch, the slim books contain interviews with Vietnamese spokesmen about issues such as religion and refugee assistance.

Once in a while, people donate their private collections; one woman had clipped more than a thousand newspaper briefs about Orange County servicemen during World War II and pasted them into two leather-bound scrapbooks.

“The thing is they’re not alphabetized or anything so if you’re looking for someone, you just have to look through each book,” Harder said. “She (the donor) meant well.”

The librarian also collects all published biographical articles about anyone in Orange County, be they politicians or grade-school students. Clippings already fill five cabinet drawers. Magazine advertisements are also clipped for the benefit of future researchers.

“I think they’re gorgeous and I think they reflect our tastes,” Harder said.

The historical collection used to be housed on the central library’s second floor but was moved to the first floor in 1991 after the building was renovated, she said. A glass wall separates the History Room from the main front portion of the library, and the temperature is set a little chillier than the rest of the building to preserve old documents.

So far, most of the collection is in good shape.

“We’ve been very lucky and our patrons have been careful with the material,” Harder said.

Searching for History

The Santa Ana History Room has everything from old residential directories to books to out-of-print magazines to aid in searching for the past. Other historical items include old bottles, maps and high school yearbooks.

Hours: 2 to 6 p.m.; Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays

Information: (714) 647-5280

Note: Documents in the historical collection may not be checked out, but most can be photocopied.

Do You Know Your Orange County History?

1. What brand of orange juice was produced in Santa Ana?

2. In what year did Orange County become a separate county from Los Angeles?

3. Santa Ana residents Glenn and Eddie Martin were not related, but they both made major contributions to what industry?

4. What was the original name for the city of Seal Beach?

5. In which event did Dr. Sammy Lee of Santa Ana win his Olympic gold medals in 1948 and 1952?

6. What is the city of San Clemente’s motto?

7. Where was the Santa Ana Army Air Base located during World War II?

8. When famous Polish actress Madame Helena Modjeska lived in Orange County in the late 1880s, what did she call her home?