LOS ALAMITOS : Historian Has Own Unique Past

Margrit Kendrick finds it mildly amusing that she is considered the local historian. After all, she was not born in the United States, and her German-Swiss heritage is readily apparent when she speaks.

But when something must be written about the history of Los Alamitos, Kendrick, 64, often gets the assignment.

And she loves it.

“I’ve always been fascinated with culture and people,” said Kendrick, a resident of Rossmoor for 34 years, former director of the Los Alamitos Chamber of Commerce, and for 12 years a trustee of the Los Alamitos school district. “And where can you find more diversity than in California?”

Her latest work is a 32-page booklet intended for local elementary school children, which chronicles life in what is now Los Alamitos during the 1800s. The research took about a year, but “A History of Early Los Alamitos,” which came off the press Dec. 10, is a labor of love, Kendrick said.

“There’s a need to pass down tradition,” she said. “People should know where they came from and where they are going. Especially in this country, people should appreciate the contributions from other cultures.”

She said the book may be used as a textbook in local elementary schools.

Councilwoman Alice Jempsa, an adviser of the Los Alamitos Museum Assn., which published 1,000 copies of the book, said, “Local history is virtually nonexistent in our schools.”

The book, selling for $5 at the museum, contains sections about the Spanish land grants, the sugar factory that opened in 1897, the early schools, churches and religious services, and how children lived in the 19th Century.

Kendrick’s interest in local history began in 1984 when she helped organize a festival that focused on the history of Los Alamitos.

In 1988, she was asked to write a section on Los Alamitos in “A Hundred Years of Yesterdays,” a book published as part of Orange County’s centennial celebration.

Kendrick’s own roots are in Stein, Switzerland, a tiny village near the German border. Her father, Oscar Jegge, owned several grocery stores, including one in Germany that the Nazis confiscated, Kendrick said.

In 1955, while working in a post office in Bern, Switzerland, she met an American medical student, Earl Kendrick, and later married him. They came to America, settling in the newly developed subdivision of Rossmoor, and had three children.

“I’ve never considered myself an immigrant,” said Kendrick, now the president of the board of the Rossmoor Community Services District. “But I’ve always been fascinated by the work of immigrants.”