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.