Los Angeles County
Biographies
ALBERT
M. ASHWORTH
The
owner of the first locally owned grocery in Rosemead, Albert M. Ashworth, is an
old-timer who learned the food business before 1900. Retired since 1948, after operating the
market for fourteen years, Mr. Ashworth sold the store at 9008 Valley
Boulevard, which continues its operation under the name Valley View Market.
Now
well past eighty years of age, Albert M. Ashworth was born in Waco, Texas, on
April 24, 1876. His father, John
Ashworth, was from Fairview, North Carolina; his mother, Melinda (Hammer)
Ashworth, was from Illinois. After
receiving his elementary and high school education in Ben Wheeler, Texas, Mr.
Ashworth studied for a year at Fairview College in North Carolina.
He
came to California in 1924 from Arizona, taking a position in San Diego as a
manager with Heller Markets. Two years
later he became manager of the McDaniels Market in
Rosemead, leaving that store in 1934 to start his own business, Ashworth’s
Market.
Very
active in Rosemead for at least twenty-five years, Mr. Ashworth has been living
in the community for almost four decades.
He is a past president of the Forum Club which was the forerunner of the
Rosemead Kiwanis Club. He is one of the
six local charter members of Kiwanis who met with Temple City and formed their
own Rosemead club. In 1948 he was president
of the Rosemead Chamber of Commerce; as president of the chamber he had the
honor of turning the first shovelful of dirt for Rosemead High School, the
construction of which was a milestone for Rosemead, one of the many milestones
Mr. Ashworth has passed in his residence there.
In 1947 he served as a member of the Los Angeles County Grand Jury.
Albert
Ashworth was married right after the turn of the century, on April 2, 1902, in
Canton, Texas, to Miss Frankie Harr of Kaufmann, also
in the Lone Star state. Mrs. Ashworth is
a past and charter member of the Rosemead Women’s Club. The Ashworth’s are the parents of a son and a
daughter and have four grown grandchildren.
Their daughter, Mrs. Clifford (Albertine) Gard, now widowed, lives in North Hollywood. Her children are Clifford R. Gard, a graduate of North Hollywood High School and Texas A
and M, who lives in Houston, and Mrs. Richard (Sandra Gard)
Kline who lives in Sherman Oaks. Their
son is Albert M. Ashworth, Jr., a graduate of Monrovia High School and Pasadena
Junior College, who lives in Arcadia. He
is married and is the father of a son, Richard, who attends California Polytechnic
College, and a daughter, Sue, who attends Arcadia High School.
The
senior Mr. Ashworth likes to garden and finds amusement I solving jig-saw
puzzles.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Historical Volume & Reference
Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple
City, by Robert P. Studer, Pages 441-442,
Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California.
1962.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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BIOGRAPHIES