Imperial County
Biographies
DORSEY GEORGE WHITELAW
Among the leading
representatives of the legal profession in Imperial
County is numbered Dorsey George
Whitelaw, United States Commissioner at El
Centro and city attorney. He was born in Delta, Colorado,
on the date of June 28, 1885, a son of George H. and Kate L. (Dorsey) Whitelaw,
the former a native of Arkansas and the latter
of Morgantown, West Virginia. The father, who engaged in mining and in the
raising of cattle, is now deceased. The
mother, who has three children, resides with a daughter in North Hollywood, California.
Dorsey G.
Whitelaw obtained his common school education in his native town and then
attended the University of Colorado at Boulder
for a year. He received the B. L. degree
from the University of California at Berkeley
in 1907 and three years later received an LL. B. degree at the law-school of Harvard University
at Cambridge, Massachusetts. Admitted to the California
bar in 1911, he opened a law office in Los Angeles,
where he practiced alone until he formed a partnership with Kimpton Ellis and
G. R. Dexter for the conduct of a law business in Los
Angeles and Hollywood. He removed to Imperial
Valley in 1916 and is now associated with his brother, R. B.
Whitelaw, in practice with offices at 110
North Sixth Street, El Centro. They have a large library of law books and
devote much time to research and study, never entering the courtroom without
that thorough preparation so essential to success in legal controversy. Formerly chief deputy district attorney,
Dorsey G. Whitelaw is now serving as United States Commissioner at El Centro as well as city
attorney and has met every requirement of these important offices.
In 1911 Mr.
Whitelaw was married to Miss Marguerite M. Steele, of Dorchester,
Massachusetts, and two children were born to
them: Marguerite Louise, now a freshman at the University of California; and Dorsey George, Jr., who died
at the age of one week. Through
strenuous outdoor exercise Mr. Whitelaw maintains his physical well being,
playing tennis in his hours of leisure.
He has conscientiously discharged the duties and obligations of
citizenship, serving on the examining board during the World War, and is now a
member of the high school board at El
Centro. He is a
past master of El Centro Lodge, No. 384, F. & A. M., and has taken the
fourteenth degree in the Consistory of Los Angeles. His interest, however, centers in his
profession and he keeps in close touch with its progress through his membership
in the Imperial County Bar Association, the California Bar Association and the
American Bar Association.
Transcribed by Bill Simpkins.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 267-268, Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 Bill Simpkins.
Golden Nugget Library's Imperial County Biographies
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