Los Angeles
County
Biographies
LESLIE LEON HEAP
Leslie Leon Heap, a successful young
attorney of Los Angeles, devoting his attention principally to corporation and
probate law, is a member of the firm of Heap p& Butler, with offices in
Suite 906 at 448 South Hill Street. He
was born in San Bernardino, California, July 31, 1897, his parents being Parley
Whittaker Heap, Jr., and Mary Elizabeth (Dempsey) Heap, also natives of this
state. Parley W. Heap, Jr., born in San
Bernardino, California, November 28, 1865, was a son of Parley W. Heap, Sr., a
native of Sheffield, England.
Immigrating to the United States, the latter, when six years of age
(1851), crossed the plains to California in company with his father, stopping
for a brief period in Salt Lake City.
Parley W. Heap, Jr., resided on his farm two miles north of San
Bernardino and engaged in farming, contracting and raising
of livestock and opened a meat market on D Street in 1905. At the present time he is actively engaged in
the conduct of a transfer and storage business that has been in existence for
more than forty years.
Leslie Leon Heap attended the public
schools and was a member of the first class to graduate from the present San
Bernardino high school, the date being June 9, 1916. From the age of nine he earned his livelihood
assisting his father, working on nearby ranches, working as a news carrier and
in various other lines. After finishing
high school he was in the service of the Southern Pacific Railroad in San
Bernardino, Colton and Ventura and next worked for a time on the Evening Index,
a newspaper published in San Bernardino.
In August, 1917, he entered the College of Letters and Science of the
University of California at Berkeley, taking a pre-legal course. When the United States became involved in the
World War he enlisted in the aviation section of the Naval reserve Corps and in
October, 1917, was sent to the government navy yard at Mare Island, where he
spent several months in steel construction work. On the 12th of January, 1918, he
returned to San Bernardino and married Miss Ann Grundell,
a native of San Bernardino and a daughter of Christian and Anna Grundell. Then he
worked at steel and sheet iron work in San Pedro was called into active service
in March, 1918, and was sent to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at
Cambridge, entering the officers’’ training school for the Naval Flying
Corps. He was rated as a chief
quartermaster, was in Company 16 of the Naval Aviation Detachment but in April,
1918, was injured and sent to the hospital, from which he was discharged under
medical survey a few weeks later. Returning
to San Pedro he was made material foreman in the assembly plant of the L. A. S.
& D. D. Company and while thus employed lived in Long Beach. He returned to the University of California
at Berkeley in the fall of 1919 to continue his pre-legal studies, but came
back to Los Angeles in January, 1920, and took a position as general foreman of
the assembling yards in San Pedro. In
May, 1922, he resumed his law studies in the University of California at Los
Angeles and next matriculated in the law department of the University of
Southern California, which conferred upon him the degree of LL. M. on the
completion of a four-year law course in June, 1925. He won a scholarship medal for attaining the
highest average for the full course. Mr.
Heap was elected to Sigma Iota Chi, a legal honorary fraternity, and Phi Alpha
Delta, a national law fraternity, and also became a member of the honorary
Skull and Scales. He was made president
of the senior class in 1925 and elected perpetual president of that class upon
graduation. He sponsored the Masonic Club
movement while in law school, served as president of the Masonic Club and
assisted in obtaining a charter for the entire university for the National
Square & Compass Club, a Masonic organization. In August, 1922, he was admitted to the bar
before Justice Jesse W. Curtis, a native son of San Bernardino, who had known
Mr. Heap as a baby.
The latter opened his own law office in August, 1925, at 448 South Hill
Street, Los Angeles, in association with Warren Lee Pierson. In October, 1927, he became associated with
Walter I. Lyon and at the same time formed the firm of Heap & Butler. Since 1930 he has also maintained a branch
office in Beverly Hills. At this time he
is associated with six other lawyers in a suite of nine rooms on the ninth
floor of the Pershing Square Building in Los Angeles. he has been a
regular instructor in law at Southwestern University School of Law for seven
years and has also presided at the Practice Court of the University of Southern
California Law School. He is a director
of and attorney for several successful corporations in Los Angeles and Beverly
Hills.
Mr. Heap gives his political support
to the Republican Party and was formerly a member of the Los Angeles Junior
Chamber of Commerce, and has been for several years a member of the Los Angeles
Breakfast Club. He also belongs to
Ramona Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West and is part owner and a
member of the Gauso Bravo Rancho Duck and Gun Club of
Los Angeles and Lancaster. He is a
member of the Los Angeles City and County Bar Associations, the State Bar of
California and the American Bar Association.
He also belongs to the general alumni association and the Law Alumni
Association of the University of Southern California. Fraternally he is affiliated with the following
Masonic bodies: Palos Verdes Lodge, No.
389, F. & A. M., of Long Beach, California; San Pedro Chapter, No. 89, R.
A. M., of San Pedro, California; and Long Beach Council, No. 26, R. & S. M. As a member of the San Bernardino high school
debating team he, with Daniel W. Evans, now of San Francisco, won the state
semi-finals in 1916. Mr. Heap is fond of
golfing, hunting and all forms of athletics, especially football, and is an
ardent and enthusiastic fan and supporter of the same. He is firm in his statement that he prefers
California “First, Last and All the Time,” and is always happy to add that he
has believed and tried to practice his father’s favorite guide, key and motto,
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. IV, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 781-784,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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BIOGRAPHIES