Vernon C. Heil’s Avenue
A LOOK BACK
I am amazed at how many people don’t know that many of our streets
are named for families who lived in Huntington Beach in the early
days -- streets such as Talbert, Bushard, Graham, Edwards, Slater and
Gothard.
This week we will look at Heil, a name most people don’t associate
with a pioneer family of our area.
Our story of the family begins when Lewis Heil loaded up his
covered wagon in Texas in 1890 to begin a new life in California. It
would be a long journey across the dry plains by wagon in those early
days, and when he finally arrived in Southern California he went to
work on a farm near Santa Ana for a year.
In 1892 Lewis and his wife moved to Smeltzer, which was a small
town near Edinger Avenue and Gothard Street, to farm on his own
homestead.
His first project prior to planting a crop was to clear the land
of tulles (bulrushes) that was found growing in much of that area. It
was on that farm in Smeltzer that our look back subject, Vernon
Chester Heil, was born in 1895.
Vernon was one of nine Heil children that included his two
brothers Arman and Mordaunt and his six sisters: Florence, Flora,
Ethel, Beren, Valentine and Viva.
Young Vernon attended Ocean View Elementary School and then
Huntington Beach High School. While at Huntington High he was on the
school’s basketball and tennis teams. He joined the school’s debating
team and was chosen along with several others on the team to debate
the immigration issue with a San Diego.
In 1912, when not in class, Heil worked his father’s farm growing
sugar beets to be processed into sugar at the Holly Sugar factory
here in Huntington Beach.
After his graduation from Huntington High in 1913 Heil attended U.C. Berkeley where he majored in agriculture. But completing his
education at Berkeley was not to be, for in his second year at school
he had to be operated on for appendicitis.
He left school to come home to recuperate from the operation.
After his recovery Heil worked the farm until America entered World
War I in 1918.
He enlisted in the army and was sent to Camp Kearney near San
Diego to be one of the men in the 40th Division and in August of 1918
he was sent to Bordeaux, France just at the time the Armistice was
signed to end the war.
Vernon was sent home in January 1919 and in February was mustered
out of the Army. Returning home to Smeltzer with money in his pocket,
he bought 280 acres at what is now Beach Boulevard and Edinger Avenue
where he planted alfalfa and lima beans. He built his home there at
16002 Beach Blvd.
In 1923 the 28-year-old bachelor met Ruth E. Allen who worked at
the First National Bank in Santa Ana and in no time the two were wed
at the Christian church in Santa Ana in a ceremony performed by the
Rev. Porter.
Heil brought his new bride back to Smeltzer and to the farm. It
wasn’t long before two sons came along -- Robert in 1924 and William in 1927.
Heil had been an active member of our Huntington Beach Rotary Club
and in the American Legion. The family attended the Wintersburg
Methodist church at Gothard Street and Warner Avenue for many years
and served on its board. In 1932 Heil became a member of the Orange
County Farm Bureau and would later become one of its presidents. He
became a director for the Orange County Production Credit Assn. that
supplied financial loans to local farmers during those hard times of
depression years of the 1930s.
He served as a director on the Orange County Water District and
since the area was rich in lima bean growing, it was only natural for
him to serve as a director on the Smeltzer Lima Bean Growers Assn.
board. Heil knew the value of a good education and so he was active
in the Ocean View Elementary School and would later become a director
for the school district.
During World War II, Heil served on the Civilian Defense Council
along with several of his neighbors and was on Huntington Beach’s War
Price Rationing Board, too.
In the late 1950s when they were naming the streets Vernon Heil’s
name came up as a pioneer of the town and Heil Avenue was born.
Vernon passed away several years ago but his family name lives on
to remind people who drive pass Heil Avenue today of the family who
homesteaded this area in those golden times of long ago.
* 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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