La Cañada History: Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy hosted Golden Jubilee for Dominican sister

Ten Years Ago

In a move that apparently caught school officials off guard, La Cañada High School 7/8 Principal Gaylene van Zijll abruptly submitted her resignation and cleared out her desk on a Wednesday evening just seven weeks before the end of the school year. Although they expressed surprise, district officials, citing a personnel matter, did not offer any insight into the principal’s departure.

Twenty Years Ago

Coached by Tom Parker, the La Cañada High School varsity softball team clinched the Rio Hondo League title for the second time in three years.

Thirty Years Ago

When the La Cañada Flintridge Educational Foundation held its 1983 fundraiser at Descanso Gardens, themed “Evening at the Green,” guests enjoy hors d’oeuvres prepared by students in Helen Lievre’s Foods I and II classes at La Cañada High. The classes worked for weeks to develop recipes that could be prepared several days in advance and frozen until the main event.

Forty Years Ago

A Golden Jubilee celebration was held for Sister M. Dolorosa Gutierrez, O.P., then 77, who had served at Flintridge Sacred Heart Academy since 1932. The Dominican Sister entered the order in Tlalpan, Mexico, in 1921. She went to Mission San Jose in California in 1923, where she remained until she came to the new Catholic girls school in Flintridge.

Fifty Years Ago

Having experienced an extremely dry weather season, Los Angeles County was facing an “acute mountain and watershed-brush fire problem,” county Supervisor Warren Dorn said. He cautioned area residents to take care with cigarettes and matches.

Sixty Years Ago

A children’s store, Cozette’s, and Van de Kamp’s Holland Dutch Bakery opened for business in the new Garland Building on the southeast corner of Foothill Boulevard at Beulah Drive. A Tinkertown Carnival, complete with a Ferris wheel, was set up in the stores’ shared parking lot on a Saturday in May 1953, in conjunction with the grand opening.

-- Carol Cormaci, carol.cormaci@latimes.com

Follow @CarolCormaci on Twitter.