Los Angeles
County
Biographies
SOPHIE M. HILTON
Is
the pioneer spirit dead in America? It
does not seem so. It has not really been
so long since Sophie Hilton, as Tilly Hildebrand, crossed over from Utah to California
in a covered wagon to settle in Alhambra with her family in 1879, and she has
lived to witness John Glenn’s orbital flight.
In her day, in the words of Stephen Vincent Benet, “We cleared our camp
where the buffalo feed, Unheard-of streams were our flagons.” In our day who knows where men will clear
their camps and what frontiers they will cross.
Somewhere in the background of every American there was a pioneer, in one
sense or another. That spirit will not
easily be snuffed out.
The
only Alhambran living today who herself came west in a covered wagon, and the
one who, of Alhambra’s present residents, has lived there the longest, Sophie
Hilton was born in Santa Clara, Utah, on October 31, 1873. She is the daughter of Charles and Wilhelmina
(Staheli) Hildebrand, who had already given up their
native Switzerland to make a home in the New World, and who in 1879, embarked
on their journey to California, the fourth family to settle in Alhambra, where
Mr. Hildebrand, who had been in the upholstery and mattress-making trade in
Utah, purchased a seventeen acre farm in the area bounded by Sixth Street,
Main, Atlantic, and Commonwealth. When
the Hildebrand’s came to Alhambra there were only three houses there; they had
to live in the covered wagon until their home was built. Groceries had to be purchased in Los Angeles;
mail had to be picked up in San Gabriel; there were no schools, civic
buildings, or streets. The family
worshipped in the one-room First Methodist Church of Alhambra. Mrs. Hilton was educated in the one-room
schoolhouse where the Huntington Hotel now stands. Mrs. Hilton had six sisters and one
brother. One of her sisters, Mrs. Ed
Rhodes, was born in Alhambra and still lives there.
When
Mrs. Hilton was twenty-one she became employed in the Alhambra shoe factory, in
charge of the fitting room. She later
became a clerk in the suit department of the J. W. Robinson Company until
1907. A gifted vocalist, Mrs. Hilton did
a great deal of singing at various gatherings in her early life.
In
Los Angeles at the home of one of her sisters whose husband was a Presbyterian
minister, the former Sophie Hildebrand was married to Frank L. Hilton of
Washington, D.C., who had come to California as football coach of Occidental
College, with the bride’s brother-in-law performing the ceremony. During their forty years of marriage, from
October 15, 1908, until Mr. Hilton’s death in 1948, Mr. Hilton was well-known
in Alhambra, taking a part in civic affairs.
He founded the Alhambra Fire Department and was Alhambra’s second city
manager. For many years he was the
manager of the Water Works Supply Company of Los Angeles.
Mrs.
Hilton’s lifelong hobbies have been music and fancy needlework. The home she lives in at 301 North Stoneman
Avenue was built for her by Mr. Hilton in 1925.
Transcribed by
V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source:
Historical Volume & Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park,
Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple City, by Robert P. Studer,
Pages 783-785, Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California. 1962.
© 2013 V. Gerald Iaquinta.
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NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES BIOGRAPHIES