JERRY PERSON -- A LOOK BACK

I met up with Vicki Lane on the steps of the Downtown post office.

While standing on those historic steps, we discussed how Main Street has

changed over the years and of some of the business owners who once had

their businesses there.

This week and the next, we are going to take a short look at a few of

these business people. Our first subject bought out the Terry Huntington

Beach Drug Store at 127 Main St.

Richard Larry Pardee bought the store from the Terrys during the

mid-1960s. Pardee was a native Californian, having been born in Los

Angeles on Sept. 24, 1919. He attended USC where he received his

pharmaceutical degree.

Having this degree was nothing new in the Pardee family -- his father

and his uncle were pharmacists. After graduation, Pardee went to work at

an Owl Rexall drug store in Los Angeles.

He later went to work for the Upjohn Co. after World War II. When

Pardee was 28 year old, he married Dorothy Louise Watts, and from this

union, three girls were born. Pardee left Upjohn and went to work for

Squibb, staying with them for eight years.

He decided to leave there and open his own drug store. He did just

that in Pomona. Business was good at the drug store and he was able to

buy three more drug stores in the Pomona area.

Ten years later, Pardee moved his family to Huntington Beach after

selling his drug stores.

He bought the old Terry Huntington Beach Drug Store in 1965 from the

Terry family and after several owners and name changes, closed in the

1980s.

Our next businessman took over the ownership of Halls Photography

Studio at 207 Main St. in 1965.

Richard T. Ewers came from Fairbury, Neb., where he was born Feb. 13,

1928.

His family moved to Iowa not long after Richard was born. Ewers

received his education at Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs,

Iowa.

He continued his education by traveling to California, where he

attended Santa Barbara junior college in 1944.

After graduation, Richard went into the photography business, first at

Huntington, W.V., and later in Santa Barbara. He served 16 months in the Army from 1946 to 1948, where he was stationed in Korea.

After his hitch in the service, Ewers returned to Santa Barbara and

married Jean. They had two sons.

Richard’s brother, Leonard, lived in Huntington Beach at this time and

while visiting him, Ewers fell in love with our town and brought his

family down here to live.

He bought the old Eddie Halls Studio, which by the way, is still going

strong today.

Next week we’ll continue to look at more of Downtown Main Street’s

business people.

* 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.