Long Beach’s Los Cerritos chronicles the story of the unique area. Author Geraldine Knatz, a long-time resident of this north Long Beach neighborhood, researched Los Cerritos’s agricultural beginnings and its eventual development into a residential community.
Staff Writer
The independent spirit of the neighborhood of Los Cerritos in north Long Beach is chronicled in author Geraldine Knatz’s new work, Long Beach’s Los Cerritos. The historical work takes readers through the area’s agricultural roots that centered around an adobe settlement, through the days of the discovery of oil and its eventual development into a residential community.
Recently retired as the executive director for the Port of Los Angeles, Knatz is currently a faculty member at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering where she teaches environmental engineering. Knatz’s interest in her own genealogical research eventually led her to an opportunity to research the neighborhood of Los Cerritos for a presentation to a genealogical society.
In a telephone interview this week with the Signal Tribune, Knatz said she still sees evidence of the area’s past. There are oil wells, of course, but she also said there’s an area where people used to catch the Red Cars, the former electric-railway trains that commuters used to ride all over the Los Angeles area before they were eliminated. The stairs remain.
Knatz spent many hours researching and collecting stories about her part of the world. She says she spent a long time in the historical archives and also talked to local residents and the descendants of the original settlers of what would become Los Cerritos. At the 100th birthday of the neighborhood subdivision of Los Cerritos, she set up an area at the historic Rancho Los Cerritos to collect and digitally scan vintage photos from the neighborhood.
Knatz described an exciting moment when she learned that the Vignes family, a pioneer family well known in Los Angeles, has a connection to Long Beach. She said that one of the streets in Los Angeles is named after Don Luis Vignes, who established the first commercial vineyard in that city.
According to the book, his grandnephew, John Louis Vignes and wife, Mary Kent Marcellus, first moved in 1890 to a home on Third Street and Cedar Avenue in what is now downtown Long Beach. They later moved to Dominguez Ranch and eventually in 1910 moved again, becoming one of the first homeowners of the Los Cerritos subdivision. John Louis and Mary Kent Vignes had five daughters. The family went on to become deeply involved in the community. One of the daughters, Marie Vignes, taught all the grades at the North Los Cerritos School, a one-room wood structure located on San Antonio Drive and Pine Avenue.
Collins said she enjoyed finding these people with “a connection back to the neighborhood.”
While the Vignes family no longer lives in Long Beach, they certainly helped to contribute to Knatz’s research. Ellen Collins is the great-granddaughter of Mary Kent and John Louis Vignes and granddaughter of Marguerite Vignes Walp, the eldest of their five daughters. In an email to the Signal Tribune, Collins said that her grandmother lived with her family in their home on Cedar Avenue, and she remembers growing up hearing about the early days in Los Cerritos, Long Beach and Los Angeles.
“Many of the second-, third- and fourth-generation Vignes cousins are in touch,” Collins added, “although we are now much dispersed geographically. We still have Vignes family reunions, with family members coming from around the U.S., and also Canada, New Zealand and Germany.”
Even though she contributed a number of photos to Knatz’s book, Collins says that Knatz also included photos and information in the book that are new to her.
“It’s very special to see some of the familiar pictures and stories actually in print!” Collins said, as she highlighted her great-grandmother Mary Kent Vignes’s service on the school board. She also noted the number of historical photos from the 20th century.
“Also interesting,” Collins added, “to see photos of Amelia Vignes and other local girls as ‘farmerettes’— to realize that World War I touched even the faraway little neighborhood of Los Cerritos.”
There are other prominent families in the book along with pictures of the historical homes, and Knatz’s enthusiasm for her research has helped her draw closer ties to the Los Cerritos extended family. Her book also serves another purpose. Knatz says that all author royalties will support the Rancho Los Cerritos.
Long Beach’s Los Cerritos is available for $21.99 at local retailers, online bookstores and through Arcadia Publishing.
More Information
Arcadia Publishing
Arcadiapublishing.com
(888) 313-2665
