Chapter 10: Enduring traditions

Lakewood's parks and community facilities remember some of Lakewood's best known residents. Among them is softball champion Lisa Fernandez, a three-time Olympic gold medalist. In 2001, the Mayfair Park baseball diamond, on which her victories for St. Joseph High School were won, was renamed Lisa Fernandez Field in her honor.

Decades earlier, another woman athlete of astonishing skill had been honored by the city council. Pat McCormick Pool at Bolivar Park, dedicated in September 1958, recognizes a remarkable sports achievement: four Olympic gold medals. McCormick won the platform and springboard diving events in two consecutive Olympics in 1952 and 1956.

Lakewood "legends" - Jacqueline Rynerson and John S. Todd

Lakewood's other Olympians include Susie Atwood, Steve Genter, and Ann Simmons (swimming) and Kim Attlesey, Sandy Goldsberry, and Martha Watson (track and field).

Professional athletes who have called Lakewood their home include major league baseball players Tony Muser, Damion Easley, Chris Gomez, Dave Hansen, Mike Fitzgerald, Rod Gaspar, John Flannery, Brian Hunter, Bruce Ellingsen, Floyd Chiffer, Larry Casian, Joel Adamson, Dave Marshall, and Craig Grebeck; NBA basketball players Craig Dykema, Tom Tolbert, Tod Murphy, and Duane Cooper; NFL player Mike Rae; race car driver Robbie Gordon; and wheelchair athlete Jim Knaub.

The late Dave Rodda, while the city's Director of Recreation and Community Services, coached two US Olympic women's track teams: the 1980 Moscow Olympics team (which did not compete because of a U.S. boycott) and the 1988 Seoul Olympics team.

Rynerson Park along the San Gabriel River in eastern Lakewood doesn’t honor a champion athlete, but rather a champion of community building. Jackie Rynerson had been a member of the district recreation board that preceded the incorporation of Lakewood. With her husband Bud, she was one of the leaders in the early efforts to secure Lakewood’s incorporation.

She was a member of the Lakewood Recreation Commission, formed in 1957 with the creation of the city's recreation department. She also was one of the founders of the Project Shepherd assistance program. And all of this was before she was elected to the city council in 1978. When she retired in 1990, after 12 years, a grateful city renamed Rynerson Park in her honor.

Lakewood also knows the terrible costs of World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and all the nation’s conflicts. In Del Valle Park, where annual Memorial Day programs are held, Lakewood remembers its heroes at the Lakewood Veterans Memorial Plaza. (A closer look at Del Valle Park's jet plane)

Commemorative bricks surround the memorial plaza. 

The centerpiece of the memorial – a decommissioned Douglas Aircraft F3D-2 Skyknight jet fighter – began as a giant play structure for youngsters at Del Valle Park, brought there by the efforts of the city's Superintendent of Parks and Recreation Kenneth Pitsenberger.

The jet arrived in April 1959 painted in Marine Corps colors. Dedicated on Armed Forces Day that year, the jet – repainted dark blue to reflect its night fighter role during the Korean War – was immediately swarmed by dozens of youngsters eager to play make believe.

Some youngsters, like the late Dennis Lander, remembered playing on the jet as it lay on the park grounds. But jets aren’t jungle gyms, and the plane began to deteriorate. In response, the city raised a 12-foot high concrete pylon at the edge of the park, bolted on the jet, repainted it in 1960s Marine Corps combat colors, and dedicated it in 1964 as the city’s memorial to US service members killed in the Korean War.

Later, the city began a tradition of recognizing the young men of Lakewood who had fallen in Vietnam at the city's Memorial Day observances.

In 2015, to complete the celebration of the city's 60th year of incorporation, the Skyknight jet was restored and the Lakewood Veterans Memorial Plaza was rededicated. (A gallery of photographs from Memorial Day 2015, highlighting the dedication of the new Lakewood Veterans Memorial Plaza)

The Vista Lodge at Monte Verde Park was built with the aid of the Taper Foundation.

Other public facilities named in honor of civic leaders include the William J. Burns Community Center, the John Sanford Todd Community Center, the Angelo M. Iacoboni Library, and the George Nye, Jr. Library. Mae Boyar Park honors the memory of the wife of Lakewood developer Louis Boyar.

Several city buildings honor the contributions of two of the builders of Lakewood whose foundations have given Lakewood a remarkable assemblage of community facilities.

The Weingart Foundation dates from 1951, when thousands of new Lakewood homes were being built by Ben Weingart and his partners S. Mark Taper and Louis Boyar. Weingart’s life had begun in poverty, but when he died in December 1980 his real estate holdings, worth many millions of dollars, funded philanthropies that continue to bebfit Southern California.

Weingart’s long association with the city can be seen in the public facilities made possible with the support of the Weingart Foundation: the Weingart Ballroom in The Centre, the Weingart Senior Center, the Palms Park Community Center, and the Lakewood Family YMCA.

Mark Taper, another pioneering Lakewood developer, is best known for his contributions to the arts in Los Angeles but he was also generous to Lakewood.

Mae Boyar Park is named in honor of the wife of pioneer developer Louis Boyar.

In 1971, the city developed a small park tucked behind the city’s maintenance yard along the San Gabriel River. Monte Verde Park included a 675-square-foot, one-room building with a small meeting area and a modest kitchen facility. When city officials began the renovation of Monte Verde Park in 2000, they intended that the $1.4-million project include replacement of the aging park building.

With a grant from the S. Mark Taper Foundation, that goal was spectacularly realized with the dedication of the S. Mark Taper Foundation Vista Lodge, a 3,000-square-foot interpretation of a classic mountain lodge with exposed beams, a “great room” with a fireplace, and a wall of windows that provides a panoramic view of the park and its landscaped amphitheater and nature trail.

In 2020, in recognition of his 45 years of service to Lakewood, the new tennis courts at Mayfair Park were renamed in honor of the late Howard L. Chambers, formerly the Lakewood's City Manager.

Volunteerism and community participation still drive programs for youth, seniors, and families in need. Lakewood volunteers serve as Neighborhood Watch block captains, park league coaches, Tot Lot monitors, Meals on Wheels drivers, Project Shepherd warehouse workers, hospice volunteers, and in many other roles.

Meals on Wheels volunteers bring more than meals. They bring reassurance and care.

Lakewood’s volunteer spirit is highlighted on Volunteer Day. With the help of the city and the staff of the Recreation and Community Services Department, community groups, religious congregations, and service clubs help neighbors in need with landscaping, yard cleaning, painting, and other small-scale improvements.

Lakewood’s superior quality of life today depends on the dedicated work of thousands of men and women who give their time and energy to dozens of community organizations and causes. (Learn about more volunteer opportunities and some of the civic organizations that benefit Lakewood)

The origin of Lakewood’s oldest community celebration has been told many times – how two neighbors who lived in the Greenmeadow neighborhood of Lakewood Village (now part of Long Beach) chatted over a backyard fence about the opening of a new park across from Mark Twain Elementary School. Recollections of that conversation, reported in the April 21, 1955 edition of the Long Beach Independent, gave 1945 as the year that the two neighbors talked.

But all accounts agree that neighbors Jesse Solter, a member of the Lakewood Lions Club, and Walter Montano, a Bolivian immigrant, agreed that the new park should honor the spirit of pan-American friendship. Closer ties between the United States and the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean were a cornerstone of American diplomacy during World War II. Solter and Montano hoped the pan-American spirit would endure in post-war Lakewood.

When ground was broken in September 1945, the new park was given the name Pan American Park. Latin American consular representatives were on hand to celebrate with Solter, Montano, and other Lakewood Village residents. The park was completed the following year, and in 1947 the first Pan-American Festival was held with Costa Rica as the honored nation. Inez Lehman, a social studies teacher at Lakewood Junior High School (now Bancroft Middle School), organized the first flag exchange. In the following years, the countries honored were Mexico, 1948: Argentina, 1949; Bolivia. 1950; Brazil. 1951; Chile, 1952; Colombia, 1953; Cuba, 1954; and the Dominican Republic, 1955.

Lakewood’s tradition of international friendship was recognized by the United States Information Agency in 1956 with a Certificate of Merit “for outstanding service to world understanding” through Pan American Festival events. Today, the Pan-American Festival is credited as being the oldest community-based appreciation of pan-American cultures and peoples in the United States. 

The early festivals included a parade, a flag presentation that highlighted the honored county, a band concert, and a dinner dance.

Students at Hoover Middle School once conducted a flag exchange to open the Pan American Festival.

The festival soon became a two-day event, with folklorico dancing and awards to student essay contest winners on Friday and the Saludos Amigos parade and flag exchange on Saturday afternoon followed by a reception for consular officials at the Lakewood Golf Course clubhouse and a community dance at Pan-American Park in Lakewood Village.

In 1960, all parade and festival events moved to Lakewood locations.

By 1962, the Pan-American Festival filled an entire week, beginning with the El Comienzo luncheon on Monday, the announcement of a new Pan-American Hostess, and student presentations in both English and Spanish. The festival concluded with a parade that ended at the Lakewood Civic Center.

Notable guests participated, including film and television actors Peter Graves, Fernando Lamas and Leo Carrillo, as well as champion athletes Pat McCormick and Susan Atwood, along with dignitaries from South and Central American nations. In recognition of Lakewood’s contract plan for law enforcement, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz and Sheriff Peter Pitchess both served as parade Grand Marshals.

In the years after 1978 (when floats and marching bands no longer paraded), festival events began with a pancake breakfast at Mayfair Park and a display of historical photographs and programs telling the history of the Pan American Festival Association. The traditional trouping of flags opened the weekend’s dance and music performances that ended on Sunday evening.

Today, food booths have been joined by craft vendors selling their wares. Civic organizations offer information about health, public safety, environmental conservation, and neighborhood improvement. Cultural awareness activities enlighten young minds. The bright lights, laughs, and thrills of a carnival remain part of the fun.

The Lakewood Golf Course clubhouse – called La Casa de Buenos Amigos (The House of Good Friends), designed by architect Hugh R. Davies – was the social center of the Lakewood community in the 1930s through the 1980s. The campaign to incorporate Lakewood gained strength in 1953 during meetings at the clubhouse. And long before Lakewood had any banquet facilities nearby, residents gathered at the clubhouse for weddings, club meetings, and award dinners.

In 1977, the county launched a $1.9 million renovation of the golf course and closed the clubhouse. But when the course upgrade was completed in 1979, the clubhouse remained closed. In the years that followed, vandals broke through its skylights. Pieces of its ceiling collapsed. Rain damaged the floors and wallboard. In 1980, the county called the clubhouse a “total loss.”

Restoration of the golf course clubhouse in 1981 united the community in support of a venerable Lakewood landmark.

Without the clubhouse, use of the golf course began to decline and course revenues dropped off. Continuing revenue losses led County Supervisor James Hayes to propose demolishing the clubhouse, selling the land on the south side of Carson Street for business development, and shrinking the course from tournament-length to just nine holes. Residents and Lakewood city officials decried Hayes’ plan to dismember the course.

In an effort to save the clubhouse and golf course, the city commissioned an independent analysis which concluded that, far from being a total loss, the clubhouse could be restored. Armed with a realistic cost estimate and projections of future revenue if the clubhouse reopened, Lakewood countered Hayes’ proposal with a dramatically different plan. The city would begin renovation of the clubhouse through an innovative lease-back agreement.

Under the agreement, the city loaned the county $400,000. The county provided $150,000 in direct costs. The county agreed to repay the loan in eight years using revenues generated by the renovated clubhouse. Community groups pitched in to raise another $49,000 to provide new furnishings.

Rebuilding the clubhouse was no small task. But with strong community support, the renovated clubhouse reopened in 1981.