Los Angeles County
Biographies
ISABEL
DINSMOOR PUTNAM
Possessing
an energy that any number of people many years her junior would do well to
match, Isabel Dinsmoor Putnam, thirty-four years a teacher, has, since her retirement
in 1956, continued as a leader in community and church activities. Being president of the Rosemead Woman’s Club
now occupies a great deal of her time, but prior to holding this office, the
intrepid Mrs. Putnam was a candidate for Rosemead city councilwoman in
1960. She is one of those to whom others
instinctively look for leadership, and was the first woman ever to be president
of the El Monte Union High School Teachers’ Association, holding that office in
1940.
Mrs.
Putnam, born on February 28, 1896, in Austin, Minnesota, is the daughter of
Adelbert Orsman and Carrie (McGregor) Dinsmoor, both born in Wisconsin. Her grandfather had made his first trip to
California by train in 1876, went back to Minnesota full of enthusiasm for the
west coast, and settled in Compton, California, in 1895. The Dinsmoor’s, with their daughter and
infant son, visited there for a year in 1900; in 1912, on the death of his
father, Adelbert O. Dinsmoor, while in California for the funeral, paid a visit
to a cousin who lived in Rosemead. While
there he saw Edgemont Park, the country home of the J. W. Robinson family,
vacant since Mrs. Robinson’s death. When
he returned to Minnesota he had Edgemont Park on his mind, and in 1916, while
their daughter was still in college, the Dinsmoor’s rented the estate and later
purchased it, establishing a dairy farm.
A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Mr. Dinsmoor was active in
community affairs and in the El Monte First Methodist Church, was president of
the El Monte Union High School Board for some time, and a member of the board
of trustees of the El Monte Union High School District from 1920 until 1932,
and of the Rosemead Elementary School District from 1924 to 1926. He was president of the California Milk
Producers’ Association for five years until his death in 1935. Mrs. Dinsmoor was active in missionary
societies.
Isabel
Dinsmoor Putnam received her elementary and high school education in Austin,
Minnesota, graduating in 1913. She
earned her Bachelor of Arts degree at Northwestern University and took a number
of summer courses at the University of Southern California, the University of
California at Los Angeles, the University of Colorado, and the University of
Mexico City.
Her
thirty-four year teaching career included two years, 1917-1919, in Carrollton,
Missouri, where she taught the first Spanish class, a year in Winslow, Arizona,
two years at Mesa Union High School, and twenty years at El Monte Union High
School, from 1922 to 1942, at which time she left teaching until becoming a
member of Rosemead High School’s first faculty in 1949, and remaining there
until her retirement in 1956. Her
teaching fields were Spanish, English, and mathematics.
Church
work has always ranked high in importance in Mrs. Putnam’s life. She is a member of the Rosemead Community
Methodist Church where she is presently librarian, a teacher in the Sunday
school, and a member of the commission on education and the commission on
evangelism, and secretary of spiritual life of the Women’s Society of Christian
Service. She has just completed two
years as president of the Rosemead-Temple City Council of United Church Women.
A
former member of the El Monte Business and Professional Women’s Club, Mrs.
Putnam was its president from 1927 to 1930.
She is active in the Rosemead Philanthropy Club and the Rosemead
Republican Women’s Club. She is also a
member of the El Monte branch of the American Association of University Women,
and in 1959 and 1960 was president of the Rosemead Senior Citizens’
Association, known as the Sunset Fellowship.
In
the Little Stone Chapel at Turner and Stevens Mortuary in Alhambra, the former
Isabel Dinsmoor was married to Reverend Horatio Scorvil
Putnam on August 29, 1942. Reverend
Putnam is a graduate of Boston University and the University of North
Dakota. He was head minister at several
churches in Massachusetts and Vermont and was chaplain of
Vermont State Prison. He came to
California in 1923 and served in churches in Lompoc, Los Angeles, El Monte,
Colton, and Long Beach. The last church
at which he was head minister was in Fillmore.
When he came to Rosemead Community Methodist Church as an associate minister
he was semi-retired; he retired in 1951.
Reverend Putnam is a member of the Masonic Order, which he joined in
Massachusetts.
Mrs.
Putnam did quite a bit of traveling before her marriage, to Alaska, to Hawaii,
to Europe in 1930, to Panama and Cuba, and in 1934 and 1938 to Mexico to
study. She is fond of gardening and,
because her name is Isabel, has a hobby of collecting small bells; she has her
grandmother’s school bell from 1859. Her
bell collection numbers about one hundred fifty.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Historical Volume & Reference
Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel & Temple
City, by Robert P. Studer, Pages 436-439,
Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California.
1962.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
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BIOGRAPHIES