The life of Ben Klassen

Once we had looked into each other’s eyes across the counter of the teller’s cage, we lost no time getting together. Even before I went back to pick up my money I had already asked her for a luncheon date and she agreed. It was a Saturday, and the bank closed at 12:00 noon. She said I could pick her up at 2:00 P.M. when they would be through with balancing the books.
We went to the Tarn O’Shanter Restaurant in Glendale. The lunch lasted for two hours. We even had a few highballs along with much conversation, in which we each reviewed our life history in brief. Things went so well we decided to get together again that same evening and go horseback riding. I picked her up at her apartment at 7:30 that evening. She was living with her mother at 231 “A” North Kenwood Street in Glendale. After introducing me to her mother and further conversation we drove to the stables at Griffith Park and rented some horses. After riding the trails for about an hour we rode to the top of the mountain and sat down under a large tree to view the lights of Los Angeles, to spoon, and to plan the future. It seemed that we were already thinking of marriage, and we had met only that afternoon! We talked of traveling all over the world, to Europe and I even promised that some day I would take her to Rio de Janeiro. Well, I did take her to Europe and many parts of the world, but never to Rio de Janeiro, not that I couldn’t have, but it did not later seem to be as choice a place to visit as it did at that particular moment in time. Anyway, we became so engrossed in our plans sitting there at the top of the mountain that time passed quickly, and by 10:30 P.M. the stables thought we had either gotten lost or rode off into the sunset with their horses. They sent out a wrangler to look for us.
Henrie Etta McWilliams was the daughter of William and Eleanor McWilliams. She was born in Craig, Colorado, where her dad owned a sheep ranch, and her mother taught school. Henrie Etta had attended Colorado Woman’s College in Denver and had worked as a secretary in a bank at Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1938 the family sold the ranch and moved to California, largely due to a crisis in her dad’s health. To me, she seemed the epitome of the blonde blue-eyed “maedel” I had earlier dreamed of marrying in Germany some day. However, she was not German. She was Scotch, Irish, English and Swedish, to trace her national ancestry. But no matter. We were now in America, in fact, we were now Californians, more to the point. Her Anglo Saxon ancestry suited me just fine, as did just about everything else about her. After that first hectic Saturday in August of 1946, our romance progressed rapidly, and we saw each other almost daily. The next weekend we took a trip to Lake Arrowhead, about 80 miles east of Glendale. This too resulted in an unusual encounter in which I again had problems hanging on to my money.
It was a Sunday and we started early, having breakfast out at a restaurant. While there I had to make a phone call, and left my wallet on the checkout counter of the restaurant. Somewhere about 50 miles down the road at San Bernardino I realized I had left my wallet at the previous restaurant. What to do? Turn back and spoil the day? No. We stopped at another restaurant and sweet-talked the owner (she was a lady) into loaning us $5.00 to carry us through the day. Reluctantly she complied, saying that if a nice couple like us let her down she would never trust anybody again in her lifetime. In the meantime we called Henrie’s mother and had her pick up the wallet and went on to Lake Arrowhead. We had a marvelous day. Five dollars would go a long way in those days. We had many good times during our courtship. We went to Earl Can-oil’s nightclub in Hollywood, we went to the Seven Seas. We went to the beach and we took an excursion one other Sunday to San Capistrano Mission about sixty miles to the south, this time in a foursome with some friends of mine from Montreal, Canada. They were a young married couple by the name of George and Dorothy Joel. We visited frequently with Jim and Marj Dodd. In fact, Marj couldn’t be happier and fully approved of my choice. “Finally you’re showing good sense”, she told me. After a whirlwind courtship of about a month, we were picnicking in Griffith Park one fine Sunday afternoon when I asked her to marry me. She consented and we made plans. We set the date for November 22, 1946.
We were duly married at 7:30 P.M. at the picturesque little Wedding Chapel called the Wee Kirk o’the Heather on the beautiful grounds of Forest Lawn Memorial Park. This elegant little chapel is supposed to be an exact replica of the one built in honor of Annie Laurie back in Scotland. Henrie’s father, William McWilliams had come back from Craig, Colorado, about a week earlier to attend the wedding. Hugh and Jackie McWilliams, Henrie’s brother and sister-in-law came from San Jose, and Jackie was Henrie’s maid of honor. Jim and Marj Dodd were there, and Jim stood up for me as best man. Henrie’s Aunt Lenora and her grandmother were there. Altogether there was a nice group of about 30 people in attendance. Reverend E.E. Ellis, a Methodist Minister, performed the ceremony and when it was consummated a shower of orange petals floated down upon us from above. It was all very inspiring and we were off to an auspicious start.
A reception at her parent’s apartment at 231 “A” N. Kenwood followed and lasted about an hour. Then we were off for our reservation at the beautiful and historic old Mission Inn at Riverside, California, about 60 miles away. When we arrived there after midnight, the clerk at the desk told us we had the honeymoon suite available to us, an unexpected surprise, although I suspect Henrie’s mother had something to do with this.
We stayed there a few days. While there we met another newly married couple. He was a middle aged Irishman by the name of O’Brien and she was a Spanish gal by the name of Juanita, an interesting combination. They were friends of Jacqueline Cochran, the famous aviatrix and her wealthy business magnate husband, Floyd Bostwick Odium. The latter owned a lavish ranch in the Coachella Valley near Indio. The O’Briens had the use of the Odium’s guest cottages and invited us to stay in one of them, since they were going to spend the next several days there. We took them up on the offer and stayed there for a day or two, enjoying the brisk clear air and desert scenery. A lot of pictures were taken and Juanita had this funny hang-up of saying “I see two eyes” every time she took a picture. From Indio we went to a motel in Palm Springs where we enjoyed lolling about the pool, soaking up the desert sunshine and sampling some of Palm Springs’ better restaurants. From the desert we changed venue to the seashore and drove north and west up the coast to Santa Barbara, a beautiful city in those days, very much in the Spanish motif. We spent a few days there, much of the time on the beach.
We were driving back to Glendale after a ten-day honeymoon, returning late on a Sunday night when our troubles started. While driving down the long narrow road through Topanga Canyon, the drive shaft of my Olds ‘98 suddenly started banging on the floorboards like crazy. I stopped and checked it out, and found the drive shaft was utterly kaput. We managed to flag a passing motorist to send word to a lowing service to pick us up. (Fortunately, I belonged to the Triple A Auto Club at that time.) After about an hour a tow truck arrived. As the man was hitching our car to his towlines, a drunken driver came hurtling around the curve and slammed into the tow truck. The towing service now had to send word back for another service truck — a real mess.
We finally got back to our apartment at about 3:00 A.M. Henrie’s parents had charitably turned over their nice apartment to us and found themselves a lesser apartment in Glendale. Apartments in the post-war era were not easy to come by, and we were eternally grateful for their selfless and helpful gesture.
So it was now back to work. Henrie resumed her job at the bank. I had the problem of first getting the Olds fixed and then back to W. Bert Knight and company. At that time, I was becoming more aware of the tremendous potentialities of the real estate business. Prices were rapidly escalating, new subdivisions were popping up like spring flowers all over the landscape. Maybe I was in the middle of a bonanza and missing out on an unusual opportunity. I became more and more interested. I decided to take a course in real estate at a school exclusively devoted to that subject in downtown Los Angeles. It was a night course and lasted about six weeks. Furthermore, I had come to the conclusion that you could never get anywhere working for somebody else. If you were worth X number of dollars to your employer, you were worth five times that much to yourself, I reasoned.
Also, my relationship with Bert Knight was deteriorating, after we had had some philosophical exchanges at some of his
parties, and in the presence of some of his guests. I began to wonder if despite his staunchly Anglo-Saxon name whether Bert Knight was really a Jew incognito. One day I broached the subject with Al Rissi, one of the two other salesmen I mentioned earlier. He said, could be, he didn’t know, a defensive nolo contendere. Obviously, he did not want to get involved. Anyway, word got back to Bert that I had raised the question, and he was not pleased. I stayed on another month, to the end of March 1947, and then we parted company. I never did find out for certain whether he was or was not a Jew, but his physiognomy indicated to me that he was, and so did his mannerism. Anyway, I said to hell with him.
Shortly thereafter I had completed my real estate course and taken the California real estate exams to obtain my R.E. Broker’s license. (At that time you could go for the Broker’s license without first having to be a salesman. Although the exams were harder, I opted for the Broker’s license.) I scouted the territory for a suitable company and finally made a meaningful contact with a partnership called Augustine and Pierce, whose office was located in Beverly Hills. Mr. Augustine, the younger of the two, assured me I had entered into the right field of endeavor when I decided to go into real estate, that opportunity was unlimited, and that I would make more money in real estate than I had ever dreamed of. I was eagerly motivated to test his claim, but nevertheless, took it all with a grain of salt.