Begonia King ‘Scotty’ Hudson

A LOOK BACK

Before we begin with this week’s column I would like to advise you of

the passing of long time resident, Merritt Nevins, 99. Merritt and

his late wife Mona were a familiar sight at local civic events in the

1940s and 1950s including our city’s country fairs, which I wrote

about recently.

Merritt was a friend and was the first AAA representative in

Huntington Beach in the mid-1940s, he told me one time several years

ago.

In the 1970s and 1980s it was not uncommon to see Merritt each

morning walking along Main Street with his friend Dr. Bernard Mason

as they headed toward Mason’s office on 3rd Street and Walnut Avenue.

During those country fair years, when the Nevins worked the fair,

there was another gentleman who presided over it and his name was

“Scotty” Hudson and this week we are going to get to know who held

the title of the Southern California Begonia King.

It was on the far side of the world in Sydney, Australia that

Reginald Granville Hudson was born on March 19, 1893.

His father had come there from London and married a local

Australian girl. The senior Hudson owned a large engineering factory

in Granville, near Sydney, hence the Granville in Scotty’s name.

Scotty came from a large family of 13 children and in his younger

days he was known not as Scotty but as “Chick” to his friends.

His father saw to it that Scotty received a quality education, not

only in Sydney but also in Kobe, Japan, Hong Kong and in Cape Town,

South Africa.

While he was in Cape Town, Scotty attended King’s College and

played his favorite sport of rugby football for several

internationally known teams.

After graduation Scotty played left half-back on a team from New

Zealand that toured America in 1905. His great love of the game

showed when his New Zealand team played a great Welsh team and its

best player, Gwyn Nicholls, in 1905.

He returned to his native Australia to play on the Australian

Wallabies before traveling to San Francisco to live. He was just in

time to experience the great San Francisco earthquake on April 18,

1906.

While in San Francisco, Scotty continued to play rugby with a

fellow Australian on a team from the Barbarian Club. He also loved to

swim and won several medals doing that.

Scotty came to Huntington Beach to work in our oil fields as a

driller in 1921, but left for the oil fields of Coalinga to work

there for the next three years.

It was while he was working as a driller in Coalinga that he

became known as Scotty. His boss there could not remember Reginald

Granville and began calling him “Scotty” and that name followed him

from then on.

He returned to Huntington Beach in 1924 and would remain here for

the rest of his life.

It was about this time that he met the two great loves in his

life. His first was when he met and married Hazel Dell Donson on June

1, 1934. His second love was cultivating beautiful begonias in his

garden.

In the 1940s Hazel and Scotty sold these beautiful plants from

their garden located at 222 13th St. for six seedlings to a pot for

$1.25 and eight flowering bulbs for $3.50.

Scotty was president of the Huntington Beach Garden Club in 1944

and served as general chairman of the city’s country fair that year.

He was regarded in our city as the Begonia King of Southern

California because of these fairs.

Scotty belonged to several chapters of the Begonia Society of

America.

He served as a director of our chamber of commerce and was an

active member of our Huntington Beach lions Club.

Scotty was a past patron of the Eastern Star organization and a

leader in civic projects in our city.

He worked for the O.D. Oil Company as their superintendent.

After Scotty left us, his wife Hazel continued to live in their

begonia covered home on 13th Street for many more years.

* 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.