Daughter of Pioneer Valley Resident Dies

Louise Weddington Carson, the last surviving child of San Fernando Valley pioneer Guy Weddington, has died at a Studio City convalescent home. She was 88.

A lifelong North Hollywood resident, Mrs. Carson died Sunday of complications of Alzheimer’s disease, said her son, Guy Weddington McCreary.

Louise Weddington was born in the home of her grandfather, Wilson C. Weddington, in 1905. At the time, the family owned much of what was then the community of Lankershim.

In 1991, Mrs. Carson’s recollections of her early childhood in the rural southeast Valley were published in “Universal City--North Hollywood: A Centennial Portrait” by author Tom Link.

“At that time, Lankershim was a one-horse-shay town,” she was quoted as saying. “We lived on a farm, and we had more fun than the people in the cities. . . . Nobody knows that nice, open feeling anymore. I liked that.”

Mrs. Carson’s grandfather served as Lankershim’s first postmaster from 1893 to 1915. Her father, Guy Weddington, operated the community’s general store with his brother Fred for many years, and later served as president of the North Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in the late 1920s.

Her first marriage, to Tom McCreary, ended in divorce. She married her second husband, city engineer Luther B. Carson, in 1950. He died in 1969.

In 1969, the split-level, ranch-style house Carson had designed for the couple became immortalized as the residence of television’s “Brady Bunch.”

Mrs. Carson was also recruited by Valley College in the 1980s to record her early memories of the Valley.

“She’s really the end of an era,” McCreary said Tuesday.

In addition to her son, Mrs. Carson is survived by a grandson.

A graveside service will be held at 2 p.m. Friday at Hollywood Memorial Park, 6000 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood. J.T. Oswald Mortuary in North Hollywood is handling the arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to any charity benefiting Alzheimer’s research, McCreary said.