Urban legends and orphans: A tale of Dr. Michael Schutz

I was surprised to come across an urban legend in writing this column. According to a 2002 Mayfair High graduate, the story about orphans helping automobiles climb Signal Hill was already well established by the time she entered school. She told me she heard that a climb up the Hill would be easier if you put baby powder on the car tires. It seems the abused orphans from the Signal Hill home will help with the ascent– the proof being the tiny footprints left behind in the baby powder! The story she heard was that they had been abused, and they felt helping a car up the steep incline would speed up their rescue.
It is intriguing to trace down legends, most of which have some base in fact. Here’s what I found.
Orphans
In 1904, segregation was the norm. But a dream of universal brotherhood could be found in a home atop Signal Hill. It was hoped it would be a place where all could live in peace, regardless of nationality or religion.
For years, Dr. Michael Alexander Schutz and his wife had the dream of creating an orphanage for children of all nationalities. In 1904, the couple purchased four acres on the area of Signal Hill known as Crescent Heights to build their visionary home for orphans and castaways. The doctor’s idea was to give them not only a home but an education to prepare them to someday enter the working world and be self-supporting.
The July 24, 1904 Los Angeles Herald described the couple’s vision, in which they would rear children of all nationalities in an atmosphere of love. The children would be taught trades, and when they reached the age of 14, they would be given the option of going out into the world or staying with the family.

“This is a labor of love,” declared Dr. Schutz. “Life wouldn’t be worth living to me if I couldn’t do something tangible and practicable for the world. If we could make it so that all could live in peace with one another, and each should help his neighbor, life would be far happier than it is today. The world today is man-made. God made no distinctions between his children. We were meant to dwell together, and that will be the purpose of the institution [that] we are founding. We shall teach no religion other than the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men. Adults are not prepared for such a step. Humanity has been struggling, from the beginning, and each man is looking after his own wants and forgetting those of his neighbor. With babies it is different. We will take them when they are far too young and tender to have formed any ideas, and it will be an easy matter to instill into their lives feelings of love and fellowship. They will be taught that they are all the children of one God, and there will be no distinctions made between black, white and yellow.”
The Russian-born Schutz received his medical training in Bellevue Hospital, New York, and was for four years connected with the Dansville, New York, sanitarium. He and his first wife, Hulda (1857-1900), moved to Long Beach in 1894 and started their own sanitarium and a hotel they called the Riviera. With his second wife, Pearl (who had spent five years working for the Salvation Army in New York), he planned on building a two-story house on Signal Hill large enough to accommodate a dozen children, as well as their own two children, Helene Emeth and Murray Ahura.
Their income would be largely supported by Schutz running the Schutz Sanitarium and the Riviera Hotel, at 325-327 W. 2nd St. in downtown Long Beach. Schutz hoped that by planting mulberry trees on his Signal Hill property, he would have a second source of income, supported in part by silk worm and silk manufacturing.
In October 1904, the couple secured their first baby for their International Home for Children, a 1-year-old Korean boy, Asha. The boy’s father, who came to America to study law and medicine, could not care for the infant when his wife became sick. He thought the Schutz’s home was the best solution to his dilemma.
In April 1909, the Schutzes adopted a 5-month-old Yaqui Indian baby boy, Raymond Eawahta Polomares, who was found by missionaries in an Indian battlefield in Mexico, where the child’s father had been killed. The child’s mother, Mabyla, only 15, was also adopted by the Schutzes. By October of that same year, the Schutzes had Japanese, Korean, Indian, Mexican, Portuguese, Australian, Fiji islanders and Americans as part of their international family.
What did Schutz believe in other than universal brotherhood? Besides stressing a vegetarian diet, and hoping some of his charges would intermarry and create a new race of unbiased racially-diverse people, it seemed he had an interest in spiritualism. Spiritualism was in vogue during the early part of the 20th century, and in August, 1910, Schutz became the moving force behind creating a spiritualist temple in Long Beach.
The urban legend
What of the urban legend claim that Schutz abused his orphans? The only proof I’ve been able to come up with appeared in the Oct. 16, 1913, Los Angeles Times, who reported that Schutz made a formal complaint against Elsinore City Marshal Haworth, charging him with conduct unbecoming an officer.
Schutz accused Haworth of circulating slanderous stories about him and interfering with how he raised his children. Haworth claimed that Schutz had no right to punish them. Several Long Beach people, including the chief of police and a police detective, were present at the hearing and testified as to the good reputation of Dr. Schutz in Long Beach. The matter was finally settled when Haworth publicly apologized to Dr. Schutz before the Elsinore Board of Trustees and a highly interested audience.
So what about the urban legend? Perhaps this 1913 article relating to corporal punishment of the orphans, plus Schutz’s belief in spiritualism, led to the story of the ghostly children reaching out from beyond the grave to help drivers in their climb up the Hill– and the driver perhaps rescuing the orphans from Dr. Schutz and his abusive ways. Or perhaps the orphans were just practicing kindness and “universal brotherhood,” principles they had learned from Schutz, in helping drivers in the steep assent up Hill Street.
Perhaps some readers will remember the orphans and what became of them. Or maybe there’s more to add to the urban myth? If so, please share.
Burnett is a former Long Beach librarian who, during her 25 years of researching local history, has uncovered many forgotten stories about Southern California that she has published in nine books. She has degrees from UC Irvine, UCLA and Cal State Long Beach. For more information, visit claudineburnettbooks.com.