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.