I posted a series of LIFE MAGAZINE photographs from a February 3, 1958 issue of LIFE some time ago, which included the many out takes that were never published. The article was about a family moving to La Puente, California from the East Coast. I recently received an email from the little boy in the pictures (Dave Hoover), His email string is below from Dave Hoover:
This is my father and I walking back from a neighbor's pool. It was a set-up by Grant for an article about our move from Connecticut. The address is 1317 E Harvest Moon St. (In 1957 it was La Puente, it is now West Covina).
(Regarding the pool shot) I am David Hoover and I am sitting in the stair watching my Dad dive into the pool. As best as I can see from Google Earth, this pool is still in that yard, albeit not square anymore. This pool was at the corner house and Allan Grant thought it would be a good set. We were the 3rd house up the hill at 1317 E Harvest Moon St 91792.
There was a long article about MIT engineers who were moving from New England to California to work in the aerospace industry. I have the original magazine (dtd 2/4/58) with Shirley Temple on the cover and the three pages about our move framed. There were over 4,000 photos taken in Manchester CT and La Puente and 11 were used. How's that?
We lived there for a year in a house that Westinghouse actually owned for executives and then bought/built a home in West Covina in 1959 on South Glenview Road. Dad split time working downtown and in Azuza. We later moved to San Diego and then Huntsville AL and then Aberdeen MD. But that was the nature of our family.
I have framed the Life outtake photo of Dad and I walking up the street that was part of that set and a photo taken recently from the same vantage point from Google maps, That big bare hill to the north is not even visible any more. I've driven in the San Bernadino about 100 times in the past 50 years with a PA system in the back of a truck and it's fun to point out where the orange groves were off Francisquito and where our two houses were to my partners. I actually used to house our drivers coming in from the East Coast at the Best Western right on I-10 so that they could be into the city by 9am for gigs.
I'm glad I grabbed the photos when I did about three years ago. A lot of them are no longer available through Google images. I got about 35 and now there are less than 15. Allan Grant took about 500 each in Connecticut, on the airplane (it was rare then!), in my school, and then on Harvest Moon and the corner house "with the pool". Love all the photos of my Dad in a fedora and a bow tie and my Mom in pearls. It was so Ozzie and Harriet and so the 50s.
I live in Laurel Maryland in my 40th residence in my 59 years. But I'm here to stay. After 49 states and 30-odd countries and many years of rock and roll touring, I'm done traveling.
Thanks for writing, I love the Facebook Page "Vintage LA". We only lived there for 3 years before moving to San Diego, but I remember a lot of landmarks and have made some comments. I spent a lot of the 90s and the Aughts back working in Hollywood and the Valley and I've been back to all of those haunts and houses.
Dave Hoover.
Hope you enjoy the blog, Gary Cliser
