Daeida Wilcox Beveridge: the Mother of Hollywood
HOLLYWOOD PIONEERS
Daeida Wilcox Beveridge
MOTHER OF HOLLYWOOD
By Allan R. Ellenberger
Mother’s Day in Hollywood would not be complete without mentioning its founder and mother – Daeida Wilcox Beveridge.
Daeida Hartell Wilcox Beveridge was born in Hicksville, Ohio and educated in the public schools of Canton and in a Hicksville private school. She married prohibitionist Harvey Henderson Wilcox of Topeka, Kansas and came to California in 1883. Three years later they purchased a fig orchard in the Cahuenga valley and soon bought the remainder of a 120-acre tract. Shortly afterward – depending on who is telling the story – she met a woman on a train to Hicksville who described her summer home near Chicago that she called Hollywood. The name appealed to Mrs. Wilcox so on her return she named her Cahuenga valley ranch – ”Hollywood.”
Wilcox was an integral part in the development of the area, laying out the village and the naming the streets. The first pepper trees and flower beds were planted under her personal direction. Among her many gifts was the ground for the city hall, public library, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, of which she was a member; Christian Church and the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was her early dream of beauty that gave fame to Hollywood, making it noted for its wealth of trees and flowers.
A marker erected in Daeida’s home town of Hicksville, Ohio. (Doc Wert /flickr). One error - her second marriage was to the son of Governor John L. Beverdige from Illinois and NOT California.
Her husband died in 1891 and two years later she married Philo Judson Beveridge, son of Governor John L. Beveridge of Illinois. They had four children, two of whom survived – Marian and Phyllis. Their home was on the northeast corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Wilcox Avenue (6467 Hollywood Blvd.).
Above is a plaque on the building where Daeida Wilcox’s home once stood.
In early July of 1914, Mrs. Wilcox took ill. On August 13, she entered Good Samaritan Hospital where she died the following day. Funeral services were held at the Connell undertaking parlor with interment in the family mausoleum at Rosedale Cemetery next to her first husband (there was no cemetery in Hollywood when her husband died in 1891). Survivors included her second husband, her daughters Marian Pringle and Phyllis Brunson, her mother Anna Hartell, an aunt Sylvia Connell and a niece, Gertrude.
NOTE: In 1937, family members removed their bodies, along with two infant children, Daieda’s mother and her second husband, to the Cathedral Mausoleum at Hollywood Memorial Cemetery where they rest today.
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