A woman of political moral convictions

Lolita Harper

She was not your average society matron.

While Fanny Bixby Spencer came from one of the wealthiest families

in Long Beach, she came to Costa Mesa -- then named Harper -- in the

1920s to escape her family’s class position.

Spencer, the daughter of Jotham Bixby, the “father of Long Beach,”

was an artist, poet and playwright who possessed distinct political

moral convictions for a woman in her time. She vehemently opposed war

and was never afraid to spread her political position, despite the

fact she couldn’t even vote.

“She had social position and money on which to indulge her whims,”

the Sunday Press Telegram wrote about her in 1965.

She was born Fanny Weston Bixby in 1879 and grew up on a

27,000-acre ranch that is now the cities of Long Beach, Downey,

Paramount and Lakewood. She followed in the footsteps of her

socialist grandfather and often got herself into trouble with her

radical views.

The outspoken activist wrote a play titled, “The Jazz of

Patriotism,” just after the first world war, which indicted combat.

Because of the tension it caused, she and her equally

politically-minded husband, Carl Spencer, moved to Harper.

The Spencers bought a large ranch in Harper and hired immigrant

families to farm the land. With no offspring of her own, Spencer

adopted a number of disadvantaged children and also opened her home

to the homeless, prostitutes and political and religious refugees.

She did not allow her children to recite the pledge of allegiance

at school.

She survived public taunts from many and remained stubborn to her

beliefs. She died of cancer in 1930 at 51. Spencer left a

$2.5-million estate, most of which went to loyal employees and foster

children.

She also left property for a city park and Costa Mesa library, but

specified that it could not be used for military training, encampment

for veterans groups or the Boy Scouts.

* LOOKING BACK runs Sundays. Do you know of a person, place or

event that deserves a historical Look Back? Let us know. Contact

James Meier by fax at (949) 646-4170; e-mail at

james.meier@latimes.com; or mail her at c/o Daily Pilot, 330 W. Bay

St., Costa Mesa, CA 92627.