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Elizabeth "Betty" Jolley Helped Students Cross the Street for 32 Years
When Elizabeth "Betty" Jolley was 10 years old her mother saw where her daughter wrote in a word book that she wanted to live in California when she grew up. "I was always star struck," she says. After school, Betty worked in a mill in her home town of Leeds in West Yorkshire, England. She then spent several years in New Zealand doing the same type of work. "It was a nice way of seeing somewhere else for free because they paid my way."
In 1961, family friends sponsored Betty to come to California. She found a job as a nanny to six children in Brentwood. But, she was homesick. When she went to the British Consulate to get her passport renewed a person there suggested that she try one of the English clubs. "In those days there used to be clubs from the part of England you come from," she says. She did and met her future in-laws.
Betty and her husband first lived in a house near Hamilton High School. Her daughter, Gloria, had asthma and a doctor suggested that they move closer to the ocean. Her father-in-law questioned their move to Venice. "No one wanted to live here in those days," she says. "It didn´t have a very good reputation."
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Venice's Boardwalk by Paul Tanck
I've recently read an interesting book, America's Boardwalks, which mainly tells the history of East-coast boardwalk towns, but also includes a chapter on Venice Beach.
Our nation´s boardwalks - gaudy, intoxicating, bright, loud, and altogether American - were first invented so that beach-goers could stroll along the shore in their evening wear without tracking sand into train cars or hotel lobbies. But it wasn´t long before the imagination of a country just becoming acquainted with the concept of leisure time, transformed the boardwalk into something more.
In America´s Boardwalks, author James Lilliefors takes us on a journey along the edges of the country to its most famous beach towns. Starting in the Northeast with Coney Island, Asbury Park, Atlantic City, Wildwood, and Cape May, we continue south to Rehoboth Beach; Ocean City, Maryland; Virginia Beach; Myrtle Beach; and Daytona Beach. In California, we explore the exotic scenes at Venice Beach and Santa Cruz. Lilliefors traces each town´s history and shows how the boardwalk has been essential to the area´s economic growth, status, and appeal; revealing the vitality of the boardwalk as an idea, rather than just as a place.
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Voice for the Animals Fundraiser - April 8th
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Myrna Loy Statue Dedication - April 10th
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Bungalows of Venice Book Signing - April 10th
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Princess Bean´s Messy World - April through June
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LAFD #63 Pancake Breakfast - May 1st
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Venice Garden and Home Tour - May 1st
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Oakwood Labyrinth - May 1st
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AWBW´s Art in the Afternoon - May 2nd
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Venice Art Walk - May 23rd
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