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Smith, Jr., Arthur Maxon (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This interview was conducted at Smith's Los Angeles office as part of a project to study Long Beach history. 5/8/1994
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- 2020-10-06
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- SUBJECT BIO - Arthur Maxon Smith, Jr. served on the board of the Bixby Land Company and participated in establishing policies for it and other Bixby family enterprises in Long Beach and other parts of southern California. He was an attorney and the son of Sarah Bixby Smith, the author of Adobe Days. Smith was born while his parents lived in Michigan. When they divorced, he lived and went to school in Berkeley and Massachusetts. He entered Dartmouth College and took a break to go to sea before he returned to school and graduated. Then he went to Harvard Law School. When he graduated from that school, he went took a position at the firm headed by Henry O'Melveny in Los Angeles. Later, he decided to open his own law office and worked as a sole practitioner until he retired. Along with his cousins Llewellyn Bixby and Ted Chamberlin, he served on the boards of directors of family companies that owned and managed land and other enterprises primarily in southern California. He was retired at the time of the interview. TOPICS - Topics on this side of tape include: father's background and different jobs; Smith's early education; college and law school; first job in Los Angeles; and connection to Bixby family;Topics on this side of tape include: Smith's mother; connection to the Hathaway-Bixby family; early memories of the Bixby family; and memories of Fred Bixby;Topics on this side of tape include: Fred Bixby and his family; the Bixby Land Company and the Alamitos Land Company; memories of Theodore Chamberlin Jr; and relationship with Smith; and inspiration for going to law school;Topics on this side of tape include: law school at Harvard; working for O'Melveny; private practice; marriage; and Long Beach as an early beach city;
- *** File: cbamsmith1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-10:49)... Smith was born in Michigan in 1887; his father was a minister and met his wife at Pomona College. They married after graduation and they lived in Hawaii for a while. The family moved back to California after about a year and his father got a job teaching Philosophy at Pomona College. Soon his father left that job for another as minister of the Unitarian Church in Berkeley. At that time Smith's mother and father were divorced. Smith's mother married a substitute minister at the same church and his father remarried a woman who had been one of his students. Later Smith's father started a uranium mine outside of Bakersfield during the war and uranium was considered a necessary material at that time. (10:49-14:40)... Smith's father's uranium mine did not make any money so he worked on an automobile called the white steamer which made steam into electricity; when that project failed, he moved to Detroit. Smith tried to promote one of his father's inventions, which was a sort of modern toilet seat cover, but the idea failed. Then Smith's father found a job writing for the Detroit news which sent him on special assignments all over the world including South America, California, and the far north. Smith's father told him he was pleased with his assignments. (14:40-16:56)... After leaving his position as a newspaper writer, Smith's father staked a mining claim in Arizona. He and his wife lived there for several years until he got into an argument with his brother and he moved in Michigan. There Smith's father was supported by one of his brothers and died at the age of 91. (16:56-23:27)... Smith's father was a member of the first class that graduated from Pomona College and he went to his class reunion before he died. Smith first attended elementary school in Massachusetts and later in Claremont. He started high school in Claremont, then went to Berkeley High School for a year before he was taken back to Massachusetts. Finally he graduated from high school in Berkeley. In 1915, Smith enrolled in Dartmouth college and graduated in 1924. Then he entered Harvard Law School n 1925 and graduated in 1929. After graduation, he returned to Los Angeles and took a position at a law firm where he stayed until 1931. Then he became a sole practitioner until he retired in 1981. (23:27-30:37)... At the time of the interview, Smith no longer practiced law. Henry O'Melveny was one of the finest men Smith ever knew and was one of the partners at the law firm that Smith worked for after his graduation from law school. O'Melveny sat on the Board of Directors of some of the Bixby companies and at times was the family lawyer. When Bixby Land Company was formed in 1896, O'Melveny was a young attorney and Smith is sure there is a connection there of some sort. End of tape *** File: cbamsmith2.mp3 (0:00-7:29)... Smith's mother was very active in the Scripps College alumni association and she was president of the Friday Morning Club in Los Angeles where she was a very controversial figure. At the time of WWI, she was married to Paul Jordan Smith and he was considered a rebel by the standards of the day. Paul Jordan Smith was a strong public speaker and was involved in the peace movement. When Smith's mother married him, she absorbed and adopted some of his ideas. That's when she decided to join the Friday Morning Club to promote those ideas. Later she caught trichinosis and died at 61 or 62 years old. (7:29-10:52)... Another Bixby family member, Fanny Bixby Spencer, was also very involved in the peace movement before WWI and both she and Smith's mother were both very individualistic. Smith considers himself the same way as long as he does not kick other people in the shins. Fanny Bixby Spencer was very nice and a good woman who used her family money to help some people and ruin others. (10:52-16:11)... The Bixby family members that Smith knew best were members of the Hathaway-Bixby branch. When Smith's mother lived in Claremont, she often took him to visit Jotham and Margaret Bixby in Long Beach. They rode the Santa Fe train to Los Angeles and another train on the old Salt Lake line to Long Beach. Smith's mother picked wild flowers to give gave as Christmas presents instead of buying flowers in a store. The Bixby family had its problems and skeletons in the closet and was no different from any other family. (16:11-21:53)... Smith was very fond of Amelia Bixby, whom he called Cousin Millie. He believed she held her family together as much as she could and Smith and she referred to each other as their favorite cousins. Smith's cousin, Llewellyn Bixby, took on the job of running the family companies during the Depression but the bank wanted him to sell everything off and cash out because of their debts. He did not do that and before Smith's mother died she predicted Smith along with another cousin, Theodore Chamberlin Jr., and Llewewllyn would run the companies. In 1946, Smith took on that job and their plan was to sell as little of the company's real estate as possible and put what they could save to use in secure investments. (21:53-30:31)... Smith used to play with the children of Fred and Florence Bixby; there was plenty of tragedy in that family as well. Smith knew Fred was a rancher and a businessman, and he remembers when Fred struck oil on his Long Beach property. Smith worked as a lawyer for a Col. Kenney who had been involved in leasing the Alamitos property. Smith always found Fred to be a pleasant man to be around; Fred wanted his son to become a rancher and took his son around to the various ranches. But he humiliated him in front of his family and employees and his son was not the kind to take to physical labor. So Fred's son developed an underlying hatred of his father. *** File: cbamsmith3.mp3 (0:00-3:34)... There was litigation among members of Fred Bixby's family after he set up trusts for his children and used some of the money to support political causes he believed were important. Fred's son filed an action against him and won; after that settlement, further actions were filed and Fred's son associated with people who publicly embarrassed his family. (3:34-8:25)... Fred Bixby also had daughters and they were raised very differently than his son. They should have been raised to become ranchers instead of their brother. Later the government took a lot of land the Bixby's land around Huntington Beach. Among the Bixby companies, Bixby Land Company was because most of the oil in the area was discovered under land owned by the Alamitos Land Company. (8:25-13:31)... The land John Bixby lived on when he died was divided into four parts; one part went to the family of Mr. Hellman who helped the Bixbys finance the land's purchase in the early days. The rest was divided among the Alamitos Land Company and descendants of the Bixby family. The owners of the Alamitos and Bixby land companies work well together and there has never been a real division of opinion. The Bixby Land Company is practically all owned by Bixby family members. In business and running the company, Smith believes that if they offer a fair deal and expect a fair deal, it pays off. (13:31-20:47)... When Smith was living in Claremont, he remembers that the family got together for Christmas and Thanksgiving; Fred had an annual Christmas celebration at his ranch and there were large crowds of people; t was sort of a public relations business deal. The gatherings where primarily family members were invited were held at cousin Theodore Chamberlin Jr.'s house. Teddy was a bit younger than Smith and in the winter in Massachusetts, they built igloos in Teddy's yard. They also trapped muskrats in a nearby brook and canoed in the Concord River. Fred Bixby took Teddy under his wing and made him an A-1 farmer out of him. (20:47-25:03)... Teddy acquired about 12,000 acres of land in California by borrowing some money from his parents and his family now owns it. He eventually paid his debt to his family and passed the land on to his children. Teddy was a very busy, active man and Smith liked him very much. (25:03-30:39)... Teddy told Smith it was Smith's Uncle Theodore's desire to have four male children but all he could produce was two boys and seven girls. Smith wanted to become an attorney, so he went to law school. He became successful although it took him from 1915-1929 to get his formal education. Along the way, he was in the Navy. He went to sea for a couple of years and has an able-bodied seaman's certificate. He entered law school when he was 27 years old and living in Claremont. His inspiration for going to law school was Dale Healey, a boy he grew up with in Claremont. *** File: cbamsmith4.mp3 (0:00-4:51)... Smith was inspired to go to law school by a childhood friend. Smith wrote a letter to the Dean of Harvard Law School and was accepted. Smith knew if his friend could succeed in law school, so could he. At the end of the first year 50 percent of the class was cut and Smith stayed in school. (4:51-8:32)... Smith went into practice for himself after five years with O'Melveny's law firm. He became a jack of all trades as a sole practitioner. At O'Melveny's firm, he handled divorces and petty criminal cases before going into his own practice. (8:32-13:26)... Smith met his wife through his brother's wife who was her sister. They married in 1934 and he refers to that as rent day because it was the first day they paid rent in an apartment in Los Angeles. Smith met his wife at a football game while she was attending a girl's school just outside of Boston. They married during the Depression and found it was not really a difficult time to be in practice law. (13:26-16:10)... Smith has seen Long Beach change throughout the years. He remembers playing in the surf when there were no buildings along the beach. He used to visit Aunt Martha who lived in Long Beach and he has seen it change from a beautiful, sparsely populated beach town to what it is now. He was well acquainted with the old Bixby house and Bixby Park. End of tape
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