JERRY PERSON -- A Look Back
This week we are going to look at the life of yet another past
president of our local Lions Club and Huntington Beach Chamber of
Commerce, Bill Schryer.
It was in the snow-covered town of Menominee in the northern part of
Michigan that our man Wilfred L. ‘Bill’ Schryer first saw the light of
day on Dec. 30, 1898.
Schryer once described this hometown of Menominee as a “good place to
come from, but a darn poor place to go back to.”
His family moved to California and settled in the little town of
Olive, near Anaheim in October 1906, when Bill was 8.
He received his formal education in the Olive-Olinda area before
joining the navy in 1918. After the World War I ended, Schryer was
discharged from the Navy with the rank of Quartermaster 1st Class in
October 1919.
By January 1920, Schryer secured employment as a roustabout for
Tidewater Oil Co. in the Los Angeles area, doing the dirty job of
drilling for oil.
While working for Tidewater, he met Julie Muzzall, whose father worked
at Tidewater. The two were married in 1924. Schryer continued working for
Tidewater and when World War II came, he served in the Civil Defense as a
watch commander. When Fred Grable left Tidewater Oil, the company made
Schryer production foreman for the Huntington Beach-Seal Beach oil
fields.
The family- Bill, Julie and son Ronald moved to Huntington Beach in
1947.
Schryer joined the Huntington Beach Lions Club in 1948 later the
chamber of commerce and for many years served on the July Fourth parade
committee.
He served as industrial chairman of the Red Cross in 1948 and 1949.
In 1952, Schyrer became a member of the county’s highway safety
committee and in 1953 became president of the Huntington Beach Men’s Golf
Club. He loved to play golf and even edited a golf newsletter called the
Golf Guff.
In 1956, Tidewater took over the operations of the Pacific Western Oil
Co. and Tidewater put Schryer in charge of the Huntington Beach, Seal
Beach, Long Beach, Signal Hill, Wilmington and West Newport Beach oil
field operations with an office in Seal Beach.
Schryer became president of the Lions Club in 1960. He was a member of
Jack Robertson’s bowling league and was on local baseball and softball
leagues. On Dec. 31, 1963, Schryer retired from Tidewater Oil after 44
years.
In 1964, he threw his hat into local politics and ran for a City
Council seat in the April 1964 election. But it was not to be, he placed
in the middle of the election with just over 1,200 votes.
Bill and Julie lived in their home at 304 Springfield for many years.
His son Ron had become head of the math department at Westminster High
School.
Bill and Julie remained active in many of our civic projects and is
today remembered through the golden pages of Huntington Beach’s timeless
history book.
*JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach
resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box
7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.
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