Harriett Weaver Collection about Residential Development and Fire, Flood, and Landslide Management in the Santa Monica Mountains, 1960-1986
Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Weaver, Harriett
- Abstract:
- Harriett Sherwood Weaver (1913-1988) contributed book reviews and feature articles to the Kansas City star (1936). She married and moved to Los Angeles (ca. 1940). After the 1961 Bel-Air fire, Weaver crusaded for effective management of native brush in the Santa Monica Mountains and brush clearance legislation. She later served on the Los Angeles Countywide Citizens Planning Council (1972-79). The collection consists of writings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards and related materials dealing with residential development in the Santa Monica Mountains and the management of fires, floods, and landslides.
- Extent:
- 47 boxes (23.5 linear ft.) 1 oversize box
- Language:
- English.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Collection consists of writings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards and related materials dealing with residential development in the Santa Monica Mountains and the management of fires, floods, and landslides.
Expanded Scope and Content NoteWritings, clippings, reports, brochures, pamphlets, awards and related materials dealing with residential development in the Santa Monica Mountains and with the management of fires, floods and landslides, 1960-1988.
Cf. Collection no.1244 (Federation of Hillside and Cañon Associations) drawn from the files of Betty Dearing [1917-1977], which were organized by Harriett S. Weaver with the help of Nancy Pohl, who has added some of her Briarcliff Improvement Association material to this collection.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Harriett Sherwood Weaver was born in Haigler, Nebraska, October 29, 1913; graduated Phi Beta Kappa, University of Kansas (1934); contributed book reviews and feature articles to the Kansas City star (1936); married John Downing Weaver (1937); moved to Los Angeles ca. 1940; the 1961 Bel-Air fire prompted her crusade for both effective management of native brush in the Santa Monica Mountains and brush clearance legislation; headed the fire committee of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Associations; served on Los Angeles Countywide Citizens' Planning Council (1972-79); died November 23, 1988.
Biographical NarrativeHarriett Sherwood Weaver was born in Haigler, Nebraska, October 29,1913 and reared by her widowed mother in Kansas City, Missouri, where her Central High School classmates included the screenwriter, John Paxton (Cf. Collection No. 2082). At the University of Kansas she was a member of Phi Beta Kappa in the class of 1934. Two years later, when she began contributing book reviews and feature articles to the Kansas City Star, she caught the eye of a young reporter, John D. Weaver (Cf. Collection No. 1206).
“Liberal Virginian, swell person - drinks & talk & books all evening, “she noted in her diary June 18, 1936, the night a K. U. classmate introduced her to John. They repaired to the roof of his Kansas City apartment building to enjoy the cool evening air and the lights of the Plaza. “Someday,” she said, “I want to live on a mountaintop and look out at the lights of a great city.”
They were married the following year and, as John pointed out in dedicating Los Angeles: The Enormous Village to Harriett, they “crossed the plains in a covered Chevrolet to homestead in the Hollywood Hills” (circa 1940). As the decade ended Harriett was refurbishing a mountaintop house above the Sunset Strip commanding a ISO-degree view of the city.
The devastating Bel-Air fire of 1961 triggered her 25-year crusade for more effective management of native brush in the Santa Monica Mountains. On March 16, 1989, four months after her death, Harriett's friends and fellow-workers in the Federation of Hillside & Cañon Associations joined Fire Department officials and members of the local firefighters' union for the unveiling of a memorial plaque at Station 99 on Mulholland Drive, overlooking the great city she had come to cherish and to serve so well.
“There is an old adage that goes: 'You can't beat City Hall,'” recalled Jerry Fields, a former president of the Board of Fire Commissioners. “That saying is very popular because very few of us can fight City Hall and win. But Harriett Weaver did fight City Hall, and did win, and in doing it she taught us a better and safer way to protect the hillsides of our city. She did it without rancor or bitterness, but with warmth and understanding, as she pleaded and argued with great persistence, until she won her victory on hillside safety and protection.
“As she relentlessly fought on one front, she battled a treacherous and fatal disease on another front. She never retreated. She never gave up. And she never complained. One major battle is usually more than enough for most of us, but this very special woman had an inordinate amount of courage, fortitude and just plain guts.”
“Her long ordeal ended gently,” John wrote friends back east when Harriett died November 23,1988. “She was asleep in a Burbank hospital room, where her heart was being monitored, and I was sitting beside her, reading a book. Suddenly a dozen nurses descended on us. She had finally been granted her wish to go to sleep and not wake up. I dismissed the nurses and kissed her good-bye. In her last conscious moment, when I bathed her forehead and held a glass of water to her lips, there was no indication of pain or fear in her eyes, only an unspeakable weariness. It was the eve of Thanksgiving.”
“She made a difference in this city,” John told Jack Jones when he was preparing Harriett's obituary for the Los Angeles Times. “In a huge megalopolis it's hard for one person to make an impact. She did.”
The text of the bronze plaque at Station 99 reads:
“EVERY ONE WHO EVER LIVES IN THE SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS WILL BE SAFER IN THEIR HOMES BECAUSE OF HARRIETT'S SUPPORT AND COMMITMENT TO BRUSH CLEARANCE LEGISLATION.”
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Harriett S. Weaver, 1986.
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged alphabetically.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact the UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections Reference Desk for paging information.
Indexed terms
- Subjects:
- Flood control--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.).
Fire prevention--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.).
Landslides--Santa Monica Mountains (Calif.). - Indexes:
-
[Index]
Aerial Firefighting Boxes 16-17 AIDS Box 11 Allen, Mort Box 17 Alomar Development Box 17 Ambulances Box 12 Anaheim Fire [1982] Box 5 Anaheim Fire [1983] Box 11 Aerial Firefighting Boxes 16-17 Architects' Study, 1963-64 Box 17 Arson Box 1 Baldwin Hills Fire [1985] Box 6 Bel Air-Beverly Crest Plan Box 17 Bel Air Fire [1961] Boxes 1,21,33 Benedict Canyon Boxes 17,27,31 Beverly Drive-Beverly Ridge Box 18 Board & Care Legislation Box 18 Big Tujunga Fire Box 2 Blinderman, Barbara Boxes 20,23,25 Bodine, Albert G. Box 18 Box Canyon Fire [1985] Box 6 Briarcliff Improvement Assn. [Pohl] Boxes 18,23-25 Bradley, David Box 19 Bradley, Tom Boxes 3-4,11,19, 48 Briarcliff File, 1958-59 Box 23 Brush Boxes 1-6,33,41 Brush Clearance Boxes 4,6-8,41 Brush Clearance Ordinance Boxes 1-2, 4-8, 32 Bunker Hill Towers Fire, 1980, 1983 Box 16 Caesar's Palace Fire, Las Vegas, 1981 Box 16 Canyon Crier Box 18 Cedars-Sinai Fires [1983] Box 1 Cerritos Plane Crash Box 11 Chemicals Box 6 Chatsworth Fire [1970] Box 2 Chiefs, Fire Box 10 Community Patrol Box 6 Conflict of Interest Box 19 Conrad, Paul Boxes 47-48 Controlled Burns Box 6 County Fire Services Commission Boxes 29-31 Crescent-Heights Box 19 Daniel, Jerome Box 19 Death, HSW Boxes 44-46 Dearing, Betty Box 18 Developments, Hillside Boxes 18-19 Disasters Box 11 Dorothy Mae Fire [1982] Box 1 Encino Slides Box 22 FAIR Plan Boxes 20-21 Federation, Hillside & Cañon Boxes 1-3, 6, 16-28 By-laws Box 18 History Boxes 18, 20, 41 Minutes Boxes 23-24, 41 Personalities Boxes 18, 25 Fees, Trash Box 27 Fences, Height of Box 20 Fill, Import-Export of Box 20 Fire Department, Los Angeles Boxes 10-12 Fireworks Boxes 13-16,32 Flak [Cf, Blinderman, Barbara] Box 20 Flood Hazard, City Plan [1980] Box 22 Forest Service, U.S. Box 6 Fossil Area Box 17 Goals Program Box 20 Grading Ordinance, Revision of Boxes 22,27 Greenberg, Joseph Box 23 Groelinger, Herbert Box 18 Helicopter, Bell [Big Lifter] Box 16 Helicopter, Canadian [Superscooper] Boxes 16-17 High-Rise Fires Boxes 16, 41 Hot tubs Box 36 Insurance Boxes 1,20-21 Kollsman Case Box 23 Laguna Slides [1978] Box 23 Landfills Box 21 Landslides & Floods Boxes 21-23, 32 Las Vegas Fires Boxes 7, 16 Laurel Canyon Fire [1979] Box 4 Laurel Canyon Freeway Box 23 Laurelwood Box 23 Laws, Fire Boxes 1, 6, 9, 11, 29 Lot Averaging Box 23 Malibu Fire [1970] Box 2 Malibu Fire [1982] Box 5 Malibu Fire [1985] Box 6 Malibu Slides [1979] Box 22 Mandeville Fire [1978] Box 4 Mandeville Slides [1979] Box 22 Manning, Fire Department Box 11 M-G-M Grand Hotel Fire [1980] Box 7 Melhorn, Charles Box 23 Melograno, Lil Box 25 Michel, Charles Box 25 Minorities Box 12 Moore, Brian Box 24 Moriarty, W. Patrick Boxes 14-16 Mulholland Hotel Plan Box 24 Mulholland Scenic Corridor Box 24 Museums Boxes 38-39 Narvid, Ethel Box 28 New Yorker article (1979) Box 4 Noise Box 19 Ojai Fire (1985) Box 6 Palos Verdes Slides Box 22 Paramedics Box 12 Parks, Mountain Box 25 Pensions Box 12 Peshtigo Fire [1871] Box 34 Planning Box 25 Plants Boxes 8, 9, 20 Pohl, Nancy Boxes 18, 23-24 Pool Pumps Box 7 Pools, Swimming Boxes 36, 37 Power Lines Box 12 Residential Planned Developments Box 25 Roberts, Clete Box 33 Roth Decision Box 8 Safety Tips Box 12 Santa Barbara Fire [1977] Box 3 Schools in the Mountains Box 26 Sepulveda Basin Box 26 Spas Box 36 Sherman Oaks Boxes 22, 26-27 Sidelights Box 12 Single Family Residence Laws Box 28 Slope Density Box 27 Smoke Detectors Box 12 SOHA [Sherman Oaks Homeowers] Box 27 Solar Heat Box 36 Spas Box 36 Stations, Old Fire Box 12 Stevens, Carole Box 23 Stone Canyon Disaster Boxes 12, 22 Studies & Reports Boxes 3, 8-10, 12, 17 Studio City Slides [1984-85] Box 2 Studio City Plan Box 25 Sunset article (1983) Box 5 SuperScooper Boxes 16-17 Taxes Box 27 Topanga Fire [1977] Boxes 3, 6, 17 Trash Fees Box 27 Tree People Box 27 Union Activities Boxes 11-12 Vacation Tips Box 27 Vegetatation, Native Boxes 8-9, 20, 37 Wachs, Joel Box 17 Water Conservation Box 27 Weaver, Harriett S. Civic Activies Boxes 8, 29, 30 Writings Boxes 1, 32, 35-41 Fire Seminars Box 31 Notes Box 8 Miscellaneous Boxes 33, 34 Death (1988) Boxes 44-46 Tributes Boxes 5, 11, 31, 44-48 Westlake Fire [1977] Box 3 Wilacre Estates Box 28 Wildlife Boxes 20, 31-32 Women Box 12 Women For Box 31 Wood Roofs Boxes 6-7, 41 Yorty, Sam Boxes 2, 7, 19 Zoning Boxes 19, 28
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
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A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988