Los Angeles County
Biographies
MRS.
LAURA WILLIAMS
It
was Henry IV of France who started the famous slogan, “a chicken in every pot,”
with his statement that he desired every peasant to have a chicken in his pot
on Sundays. To Mrs. Laura Williams one
chicken probably looks quite forlorn, since she would be fully competent to have
cooked for Henry IV’s entire army! In
the catering business, and the official caterer for the Monterey Park Service
Clubhouse, Mrs. Williams often cooks every bit of the food for a banquet
herself, serving one hundred fifty people, while remaining quite
unruffled. In business for four years,
Mrs. Williams works with her daughter, Mrs. Virginia Macnider,
and hires some additional personnel. She
does her own baking, and specializes in accommodating large groups, banquets,
clubs and weddings, and does the food preparation “on the spot,” going into
homes, churches, or wherever the meal is to be served, not only in Monterey
Park, but in the surrounding area. Mrs.
Williams’ explanation for her choice of business is that she is from a large
family, has cooked all of her life, and loves cooking.
One of the seventeen children of A.
C. and Anna (Cook) Stoxen,
of whom fifteen are still living, all past the age of forty, Mrs. Williams was
born in Pukwanna, South Dakota, on June 13,
1905. Mrs. Williams is the only one of
her numerous family to live in California, the rest all live within a radius of
one hour’s drive from each other in the Midwest. Mrs. Williams’ parents were both natives of
Illinois. She received her elementary
education in Hebron, Illinois, graduated from high school in Wilmont, Wisconsin, in 1923, and graduated from the State
Normal School in Union Grove, Wisconsin, the following year. On December 22, 1924, she was married to
Marshall T. Williams in his home town, Aberdeen, South Dakota. Mrs. Williams is a landscape gardener.
Mr. and Mrs. Williams came to
California in 1944 with their daughter, Virginia, who was born on September 22,
1925. She lives in Alhambra with her
husband, Lloyd E. Macnider and three children, James
W., William T., and Marsha C.
The Williams’ entire free time and
much energy and interest are given to the welfare work in which they have been
engaged for eighteen years and which is more engrossing than any hobby.
They attend the Alhambra Friends
Community Church.
Mrs. Williams’ philosophy of life
may best be expressed as, “Easy does it; take one step at a time.”
Transcribed
by V. Gerald Iaquinta.
Source: Historical Volume &
Reference Works Including Alhambra, Monterey Park, Rosemead, San Gabriel &
Temple City, by Robert P. Studer, Pages 434-435,
Historical Publ., Los Angeles, California.
1962.
© 2012 V.
Gerald Iaquinta.
GOLDEN NUGGET'S LOS ANGELES
BIOGRAPHIES