Los Angeles
County
Biographies
EARL
SEELEY WAKEMAN
Since
1913 Earl Seeley Wakeman has held a leading position in the Los Angeles bar and
has conducted much litigation of important character. Of Revolutionary ancestry, Mr. Wakeman was
born in Howard County, Iowa, April 11, 1887, a son of Edward James and Lucy A.
(Robbins) Wakeman, members of one of Iowa’s pioneer families. There they developed a fine farm from the
virgin soil, and improved it with excellent buildings, but lost it to a
railroad company that claimed the land by state grant. The progenitor of the Wakeman family in
America was John Wakeman, who came with the New Haven Colony, of which he was
treasurer. Timothy Wakeman served in the
Revolutionary War. The paternal great-grandfather
of our subject was a member of the first class in Harvard University and became
a prominent Episcopal clergyman. Earl S.
Wakeman received his early education in the public schools and Oberlin Academy. From early boyhood he had contemplated taking
up the legal profession and accordingly entered Stanford University at Palo
Alto, California, from which he received his B. A. degree in 1910, and that of
Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1912, and in that same year he was admitted to the
bar of California.
Mr.
Wakeman came at once to Los Angeles and for the first year he was associated
with the land title department of the Title Insurance and Trust Company. He later formed a partnership under the name
of Montgomery and Wakeman, doing a general practice. He subsequently became a member of the law
firm of Wakeman, Rogers and Brown, of which he became the senior partner. Mr. Wakeman is now engaged in private practice
with offices at 510 West Sixth Street, where he does a general law practice and
gives especial attention to jury trials.
In 1912 he settled in San Gabriel and was the first city attorney after
the incorporation of that city. There he
bought property and erected a home that is known as the “Scrap Book Farm House”
and which is the family home.
In
1906 occurred the marriage of Earl S. Wakeman and Harriett Alice Stillson, of Palo Alto, California, where her family were
among the early settlers. Of this union
have been born the following children:
Dorothea Kingsley, who graduated from the University of California, Los
Angeles, with the A. B. degree, and from the University of Southern California,
with the M. A. degree, after which she spent six months studying Chinese in the
college of Chinese Studies at Peking, China, and is now teaching at Wu Chang,
China (1934); Norman Hammond, the second child, and Gwendolyn, are attending
the University of California, Los Angeles, where the former is majoring in
medicine; and Geraldine, who is a graduate from the South Pasadena Junior High
School. During the World War period, Mr.
Wakeman served as a Four-minute man. He
has been prominent in the work of the Young Men’s Christian Association, having
served as a member of the board of governors for a period. He is a York Rite Mason, a member of Southern
California Lodge No. 276 F. & A. M., Signet Chapter No. 57, R. A. M.,
Golden West Commandery No. 43, K. T., and Al Malaikah Temple, A. A. O. N. M.
S. He has membership in the Sons of the
Revolution; the Justinian Club, of Los Angeles; the University Club, of Pasadena;
the Balboa Boat Club; the Alhambra Gun Club; the Alumni Association of Stanford
University; the Los Angeles County, the California State, and the American Bar
associations. He is an Episcopalian in
religious faith and in politics is a Republican.
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: California of the South
Vol. V, by John Steven McGroarty, Pages 425-426,
Clarke Publ., Chicago, Los Angeles, Indianapolis. 1933.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES