LOOKING BACK

Young Chang

I don’t believe in keeping people waiting.

So for you faithful readers who remember our promise last week -- to

bring you Costa Mesa’s first postmistress whom we found by accident --

her name was Hazel Gill and she made sure you got your letters back in

the 1950s.

But tying up some unfinished business first: reader Jean McMillan

e-mailed us about last week’s column -- the one where we led you on a

walk through some of Newport Beach’s earlier postmasters because we

couldn’t find the very first one.

McMillan probably chuckled reading it -- she had what we so wanted

right under her nose -- but thanks to her, we now know that his name was

John McMillan, he was appointed in 1908 and he was Jean McMillan’s

husband’s grandfather.

He was a Scotland native, learned the sailmaker’s trade, first visited

Newport Beach in 1881 and also ended up as superintendent of the city’s

water department. His son, John McMillan, succeeded him in the latter

job. Most of this information came from a very rare copy of “History of

Orange County” by Samuel Armor lent to us by Jean McMillan.

It’s so rare -- and thick and dusty too, in fact -- that McMillan

followed me back to the Daily Pilot office where we photocopied a page

and made sure she returned home with the opus.

Learning about Hazel Gill was considerably easier, but it took a phone

call to Mary Taylor of Washington to get the dish. Taylor was a classmate

of Gill’s daughter Ethel at Newport Harbor High School, where they both

graduated in 1938.

“She was quite a wonderful woman,” Taylor said. “She was very

efficient, very business-like. She was popular in the community and well

respected and she did a wonderful job as postmistress.”

Yellowed newspaper clippings from the Costa Mesa Historical Society

show that Gill was civic-minded and active. The Costa Mesa Business and

Professional Women’s Club named her “Business Woman of the Year” in 1956.

She helped the needy and threw parties for people who needed them.

“The whole community knew her very, very well,” Taylor said. “And she

was very interested in the promotion of making Costa Mesa into a city.”

* Do you know of a person, place or event that deserves a historical

Look Back? Let us know. Contact Young Chang by fax at (949) 646-4170;

e-mail at young.chang@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W.

Bay St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.