Victorian Morality in Old Crescenta Valley

The hard moral strictures that came from the eastern U.S. dominated the Crescenta Valley before the turn of the century. CV had attracted some of the “upper crust” of society and drinking, card playing and dancing were seen by some as social evils. Strict adherence to parental rule was thought the norm as well. Two incidents to illustrate those social mores, and the problems they caused, are seen in the Los Angeles Herald in 1890 in a column called “Out of Town” that reported doings in the remote areas of Greater Los Angeles.

The first concerns the son of Mr. Fraley who owned the La Crescenta Hotel, a luxurious grand hotel located at the northwest corner of Foothill Boulevard and Rosemont Avenue, where Foster’s Donuts is today. Young Charley Fraley, just 19, had been enjoying the attentions of one of the guests at the hotel, an older woman named Miss Carter. Mr. and Mrs. Fraley thought this highly improper and forbade the romance. They did everything they could to stymie the relationship, even kicking Miss Carter out of the hotel. But she just rented a room in a nearby home so that Charley could sneak out and see her. Worried that the two might get married, Mr. Fraley made the long trip to Los Angeles to register a hold on any marriage license for which the couple might apply as Charley was a minor.

Charley and Miss Carter did as star-crossed lovers have done for centuries: They eloped. Charley sent a telegram from New Mexico asking his parents to send his clothes. He was living with Miss Carter and had taken a job as a miner in a copper mine. The Fraleys were angry and heartbroken, of course. But their anger resulted in tragedy. The next they heard of their son was a year later, when they received a telegram informing them of Charley’s death.

The next tale is lighter (thank goodness!). The one-room schoolhouse on La Crescenta Avenue (exactly where the current school sits) was a social center besides being a place of learning. The young people of the valley planned a dance for Friday night and asked to use the schoolhouse. That was fine with the school’s trustees who oversaw the operation of the schoolhouse. However, the trustees had hired an extremely proper schoolmaster who was very much opposed to dancing on moral grounds.

But no matter; the young people had the permission of the trustees. They made preparations for the dance, hiring musicians and inviting kids from surrounding communities. But when Friday night came, the kids found the school locked up tight. They went to the schoolmaster for the keys but he refused them, registering his moral outrage regarding dancing. The kids next went to the trustees, but they discovered the schoolmaster had the only set of keys. The trustees as well went to the schoolmaster, who again refused to relinquish the keys on moral grounds. But again, no matter; one of the trustees went with the kids to the schoolhouse and picked the lock.

The school seats were moved outside, the floor was swept and waxed and lamps were put up. The young guests arrived and enjoyed an “orderly and refined” evening of dancing, well chaperoned, finally breaking up at midnight. Everyone had a great time while presumably the schoolmaster fumed at home. The next day, the young people returned and put the schoolhouse back in perfect order, cleaning every surface and returning the seats to their proper place.

There was not much the schoolmaster could do as he was in opposition to the majority of the community. His only option was to exact revenge on the community through his students by subjecting them on Monday morning to a very long lecture on the evils of dancing.

We know from history that a similar conflict played out even more dramatically in La Cañada where the schoolhouse was used for dancing on Saturdays and church on Sundays, creating intense conflict between the dancers and the churchgoers. After much drama, the churchgoers built a church and the dancers built a dance-hall, leaving the school for strictly educational purposes.

  mike lawler