The Africa in Huntington Beach

A LOOK BACK

In only a few short months the Huntington Beach City School District

will be celebrating its 100th anniversary.

From the very first of our grammar schools in Pacific City and

Huntington Beach our students were taught that there are seven

continents. The continent of Africa was probably the most remarkable

of the seven and the one whose history was shrouded in mystery and

lore.

This week we are not going to look at that African continent, but

to a man whose last name was Africa.

It was on a small farm on the outskirts of Newark, Ohio that Ida

Africa gave birth to a son on Sept. 25, 1903 and she gave the tiny

infant the name of John Thomas Africa.

John had three brothers -- Charles, Philip and Robert -- and two

sisters,

Helen and Louise. While in Newark, the sons and daughters helped

mom and dad tend the Africa farm.

Young John received his early education in the Newark grammar

school and would later graduate from Newark High School. Now a young

adult, John went on to further his education at Ohio Wesleyan

University.

In 1928 John came to live in Huntington Beach at a time when the

town was booming with people trying to get rich from our black gold

in the ground.

John too, got into the oil madness and he went to work for the

Standard Oil Company.

It was not long after coming to Huntington Beach that John married

Geraldine Crum and these two young people were united in matrimony at

the Wee Kirk of the Heather in Glendale.

Gifted with a good sense of humor John became well respected in

the business community here in town. He also had a little devil in

him too and his practical jokes he played on his fellow oil men were

pure genius.

John became very active in the civic, social and business

activities of our town during the 1930s.

He left Standard Oil to become office manager for the M.M.

McCallen Oil Refining Co. located out on 17th Street in Huntington

Beach and he would spend 12 years at that company.

The game of golf was popularized by Bobby Jones in the 1920s and

continued to be popular form of relaxation for many in the 1930s.

John took up the game and became a very good player at the time,

although he was no Tiger Woods. He was good enough to become the

first golf pro, greens keeper and manager at the Huntington Beach

Country Club. He remained manager at the club until 1933.

John became a founding member of our elite Windsor Club that most

prominent men in Huntington Beach belonged to and he served as the

club’s first president.

Always interested in sports, John wrote a weekly column called

“The Down Town Coach” for our town’s newspaper.

By now he and Geraldine had two children. Cynthia who was born in

1937 and later David who came along in 1943.

In 1940 John managed the Heinz Kaiser Trailer Camp down in Newport

Beach.

In 1941 John left Huntington Beach to take a position of

dispatcher in Tulare.

When America entered World War II John served as director of

operations at J.G. “Tex” Rankin’s flying academy in Tulare that

trained cadets for the military. After the war ended John went to

work as advertising manager for the Tulare Advance-Register

newspaper.

The family left Tulare and moved to Newport Beach to live and was

a familiar sight on Huntington Beach’s Main Street.

Lewie Derigo of Huntington Beach recalls that there was a large

yacht anchored down in Newport Beach named the “Africa” was belonged

to the family.

In 1948 the Africa family returned to Tulare to live and John went

to work in sales promotion and in public relations for a local

hardware company. He joined the Tulare Elks Lodge and the Rotary

Club. He served as secretary for the Tulare Chamber of Commerce.

In 1950 John helped to promote the national decathlon taking place

in Tulare and was a member of the national Olympic decathlon trials

committee in 1952.

He became a big supporter of the town’s Little League, the Boy

Scouts and in the California Amateur Athletic Union.

Having been gifted with a good voice John served as the master of

ceremonies at many of Tulare and Huntington Beach’s events. John was

employed by Turnupseed Electric in Tulare. John and Geraldine were

active members in Tulare’s First Methodist Church.

John was hospitalized for a heart attack in Tulare and while

resting in bed he suffered a second attack on July 12, 1955. He was able to ring for the nurse but before the doctor arrived John Africa

left us.

* 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.