Other
Moore, Virginia Reid (audio interview #1 of 1)
INTERVIEW DESCRIPTION - This interview with Virginia Reid Moore was conducted in her home in Belmont Shore. The audio quality of this interview is good. 12/19/1982
- Date
- 2020-12-03
- Resource Type
- Creator
- Campus
- Keywords
- Handle
- Language
- Notes
- SUBJECT BIO - Virginia Reid Moore was a member of a family that owned a prominent local oil company, Hancock Oil. She grew up in Long Beach and observed many changes in the local community. Moore was born and educated in Long Beach before she went to Occidental College for her bachelor's and master's degrees. She also studied library service at UC Berkeley and returned to work at the Long Beach Public Library. When she married, she quit working, but continued volunteering in community organizations. This interview was conducted as part of a project to study the impact of oil on the development of Long Beach. TOPICS - family background; family history; childhood; schooling; college; Los Cerritos area; early work experiences; husband and marriage; 1933 Long Beach earthquake; Ellsworth Hatch and Security Bank; Will J; Reid (fatherHancock Oil Company; father's business interests; family history; Long Beach Oil Development Company; Ducks Unlimited; husband; WWII; Camp Fire Girls; children; downtown Long Beach; Pacific Coast Club; the Pike; an
- *** File: cbvrmoore1.mp3 Audio Segments and Topics: (0:00-4:11)... Brief introduction. There is an interruption in this segment while Moore greets her son. Moore was born in her parents' home in Long Beach. One of her cousins was also born at home, around the corner from her family's house, 9 days earlier. Her cousin's brother, John Hancock, was the oldest family member still active in the Hancock Oil Company at the time of the interview. Her family lived on Miramar during WWI and one of her earliest memories was of the day her uncle, Eugene Hancock, came home after being stationed in China. Her family also lived near the beach in the Argyle Apartments. She enjoyed playing on the beach, digging for clams and ridding the breakers before the breakwater was completed. (4:11-9:39)... Her mother sent her to a private school because the public school was so far away and her mother didn't want her crossing so many streets by herself. On her first day of school, she was supposed to be in kindergarten, but she looked at what the first grade students were doing and told the teacher she could do that, so she was placed in first grade. When her family moved to 2904 East Second Street, she started second grade in Horace Mann elementary school. Then she attended Jefferson Junior High and Wilson High School. When she graduated, she went to Occidental College; she chose it because some of her friends came from families that always sent their children to Occidental. When she was younger, her family decided to move to Los Cerritos about that time and many oil wells were being drilled in the area. (9:39-12:02)... There is an interruption in this segment because of the telephone. There was lots of excitement and many oil well fires around the family's Los Cerritos home. They only lived there 9 months because of the oil well fires and because it was so far away from town, few people came to visit them. Los Cerritos school was small and teachers put Moore ahead of her age group so she would be in a class with other students. That meant that she finished school before other students her age; she was intellectually mature but not not socially ready for the world. (12:02-14:07)... When Moore went to Occidental, she got her bachelor's degree, and then stayed in school to study for a masters. Staying in school seemed like the safest thing to do at the time. After she left Occidental, she enrolled in a one-year library program at the University of California at Berkeley. After she finished that program, she worked for the Long Beach Public Library for a short time and at Camp Elliot, a naval base in San Diego. When she met and married her husband during WWII, she stopped working. (14:07-18:38)... During the 1933 Long Beach earthquake, Moore was living at 100 Temple. She and her mother were waiting her father to come home for dinner. Her father, Will J. Reid, had just filled his car with gasoline when the earthquake struck. He thought there had been an explosion nearby, so he got out of his car and started directing traffic. He didn't think about rushing home because he thought all of the excitement was at the corner near the gasoline station. Moore and her mother went outside when the shaking stopped; their dog had gone outside before they could feel the earthquake begin. Although he had a bad leg, he jumped over a 6 foot high fence and was missing for a couple of days until he was found at Bixby Park. The chimney of her family's home fell into her father's bathroom and left a hole in the roof. Her father hated workmen around the house, so they rented the old Hatch house on Ocean and Temple while their home was being repaired. Her father eventually bought this home because it was close to the beach. Her father sold their home on Temple for $10,000. (18:38-24:25)... Ellsworth Hatch, whose family had lived in the Hatch house, was a close friend of her father, Will J Reid. Hatch, like his father, was the local manager of the Security bank branch. Moore thinks the bank was helpful to her father in his insurance business. When Security built its office building in downtown Long Beach, Moore's father moved his business into a tenth floor office. Her father got up very early in the morning and ate breakfast by himself while he read the paper and made notes. Sometime he'd go for a walk before he went to his office. Later in the day, he'd go to the Hancock Oil Co. Her uncle Lemuel Hancock, who lived on Bayshore where she was living at the time of the interview, and her father worked for the Long Beach Improvement Company. Her grandfather Hancock and his sons started that company and she thinks her uncle introduced her father to his sister, her mother. (24:25-26:31)... There is an interruption in this segment because of the telephone. Moore's father, Will J. Reid, organized the Inter-Insurance Exchange of Tuna Fishermen in San Diego. The fishermen couldn't get insurance until he father came up with the idea for this Exchange. Her family often visited San Diego. The drive took 4 hours and they stayed at the U. S. Grant Hotel. (26:31-30:59)... She doesn't know exactly how her father, Will J. Reid, got involved with the Hancock Oil Co. After oil was discovered, the Hancocks came to Long Beach and wanted to build an oil refinery. Her father already knew people in Long Beach who could help them raise money. He was a businessmen and became president of the company. She thinks the Hancocks were associated with the Cameron Oil Co. in Oklahoma; one of her aunts married a Cameron. Her uncles Walker Hancock and William T. Hancock were interested in scientific and mechanical things and they set up the company's refinery on Signal Hill. Her uncle Lemuel was more of a promoter as was her father. Later Hancock Oil Co. merged with Signal Oil Co. and Signal still, at the time of the interview, owned the refinery's Hancock office building on Junipero. After her father died, the refinery burned and after that, it was closed. End of tape. *** File: cbvrmoore2.mp3 (0:00-3:47)... Hancock Oil Co. celebrated its 25th anniversary by publishing a booklet dated June 30, 1947. John Walker Hancock, Sr., who was vice-president and general manager from 1922 until 1929 was young when he died. The company only refined oil and sold gasoline. Hancock family members didn't approve of labor unions and believed that they treated their employees so well that when union organizers came around, the employees would chase them away. They gave their employees a bonus once a year, sometime it was in the form of stock. (3:47-5:49)... Her father, Will J. Reid, and Hancock Oil Company were among the founders of Long Beach Oil Development (LBOD) and that company had its office in the Security Building. Her father worked hard and she remembers her family had planned a trip through the Panama Canal and over to Jamaica. At the last minute, however, negotiations about LBOD became crucial. Her father stayed home to negotiate and she and her mother went on the trip without him. Jonah Jones was legal counsel to LBOD. (5:49-7:07)... Moore remembers going to the harbor and seeing an oil well come in, probably on the Craig Shipbuilding Co. property. It was very exciting. When she was growing up, she wasn't much interested in her father's business. (7:07-9:40)... Moore's father, Will J. Reid, was a great conservationist who also enjoyed hunting ducks. He was the president and chair of the board of Ducks Unlimited. Her father's secretary, Clarice Innis, sometimes spent most of her time on her father's conservation work. Her father continued in the insurance business when he was president of Hancock Oil Co. After WWII, he brought in John Clarke to run that business and it became John Clarke Marine Insurance. (9:40-13:19)... Her father, Will J. Reid, was an active supporter of the Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts. He took them to the Pike to test their marksmanship at shooting galleries. She believes he talked Craig family into donating land and a headquarters building to the scouts. Her father donated land for a scout park. It was way out in the middle of nowhere when he donated it. It's big enough for both day and overnight camping. Her father also belonged to the Cerritos Gun Club which was located where the Lakewood Country was at the time of the interview. When the Gun Club was forced to close, her father had the buildings moved to the scout park. (13:19-17:28)... Her father, Will J. Reid, left money in his will to the Camp Fire Girls. She was a member of Camp Fire Girls for many years and supervised several several groups before she married. One Camp Fire fund raising activity was selling donuts and delivering them fresh to costumers. They were delivering donuts when the heard that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. Her children were active in Blue Birds and Camp Fire Girls and a group of them stayed together all through school. (17:28-20:25)... Moore was active in the Junior League, and her special interest was the Children's Dental Clinic. During WWII, it was called the Junior Charity League. During the war, she wasn't married and people who had families had a harder time. This is when she attended the library program at UC Berkeley. She lived in a fraternity house because the International House where she intended to live was taken over by the military. They had double day light saving time and one morning she was walking to an 8 am class in the dark and almost ran into a line of cadets. Her husband, whom she married after the war, was not accepted into the service because he had flat feet. (20:25-21:31)... After they married, her husband went to work for Hancock Chemical. They had three children. She and her husband split their time between Hawaii and Belmont Shore. (21:31-22:28)... She occasionally attends Historical Society of Long Beach meetings and local events. Eleanor Knox, who at the time of the interview had recently passed away, introduced Moore to the activities of the society. (22:28-25:45)... Moore has seen many changes in Long Beach over the years. At the time of the interview, she'd lived in the same house for 29 years. Her children grew up there and went to Lowell, Rogers and Wilson. When her children were young, she went out and never locked her doors. And she often went downtown. Her hair dresser, for example, was in the Farmers and Merchants Bank building. She shopped at Buffums and did her banking at the Security Bank located on First and Pine; her family was loyal to the bank. She rode the streetcar when she went downtown and learned the names of streets as the conductor called them out. "Downtown" always referred to Long Beach and "the city" referred to Los Angeles. (25:45-29:01)... She has fond memories of the Pike. When her father attended the University of Edmonton, he managed the ice hockey team. Once when the team visited Long Beach, he entertained them by taking them to the Pike. Her whole family went to the Pacific Coast Club and her father often ate lunch there. He was known for parking his car in the red zone but the police only cited him once a year because they knew he wasn't going to stay long. She swam in the pool there and her family stayed for dinner. Ducks Unlimited held meetings there and at a meeting during WWII, there was a blackout. Moore's mother was home alone and one her father's friends decided to walk to their house and make sure she was all right. But it was so dark, he tripped and fell near Bixby Park and and broke his front teeth. (29:01-31:06)... Although Moore doesn't remember much about the Virginia Hotel, she remembers that people came to take pictures of it after the 1933 earthquake thinking that its damage was caused by the quake, but it was int he process of being torn down before the earthquake. Her father was a member of the Virginia Country Club and she occasionally played golf there, but neither of them was every very good at it. She enjoyed going to Catalina Island on the big boat and went every spring vacation. She and her mother rented a bungalow and stayed a week; her father visited for the weekends. End of tape
- Rights Note
- This repository item may be used for classroom presentations, unpublished papers, and other educational, research, or scholarly use. Other uses, especially publication in any form, such as in dissertations, theses, articles, or web pages are not permitted without the express written permission of the individual collection's copyright holder(s). Please contact the CSULB Library Administration should you require permission to publish or distribute any content from this collection or if you need additional information or assistance in using these materials: https://www.csulb.edu/university-library/form/questionssuggestions-the-digital-repository-group
Relationships
- In Collection:
Items
| Thumbnail | File information | Actions |
|---|---|---|
|
7738196568142303-cbvrmoore1.mp3 Public
|
Download |
|
|
5201191053556645-cbvrmoore2.mp3 Public
|
Download |