Aline Ford

Aline Ford was born in Texas on August 27, 1893. The family moved to Judsonia, Arkansas and lived there in 1900. Judsonia is on the rail line -- expected as her father worked all his life for the railroad. By 1910, she was living in Saint Louis with her mother and her brother, Homer. In Saint Louis, she probably attended Hodgen Elementary School. In the 1950s, she visited the school site and had her picture taken in front of the school: Their home in 1910, at 1613 Missouri Avenue was only a few blocks from the Hodgen School. The school recently replaced the building pictured here with a modern one. Aline may have attended Galloway Women's College in Arkansas. During the same trip as the Hodgen visit, she visited the site of Harding College in Searcy, Arkansas. Harding was located on the original site of Galloway. Sometime before 1915, Aline married Charles Robertson, a druggist. Her first daughter, Marjorie, was born in 1915. In 1920, they lived in Little Rock, Arkansas. The marriage did not last much longer. Aline and Charles were divorced and on July 15, 1922, she married Virgil Augustus Beeson. Virgil had been a newspaper publisher and Arkansas Legislator. He served in Europe as an officer in the American Expeditionary Force and after returning to Arkansas, he became leader of the Arkansas National Guard. However, Virgil became embroiled in politics and lost a struggle with the second in command when the governor sided with the other guy. At the same time, he was divorced from his first wife, Charlotte Lewis; the proceedings were covered by the local newspapers. Perhaps because of this adverse publicity, the couple left Arkansas shortly after they wed. Aline and Virgil lived in many places for the next several years. Their first daughter, Aline Jr., was born in 1924 in Atlanta Georgia. Virgil also sold real estate in Florida during this time. Aline's third, and final, child, Beverly, was born in North Carolina in 1926. After Beverly was born, the family left North Carolina and came to California. Aline and the three girls traveled via train while Virgil drove his car. They sent telegrams to each other as they traveled. By 1930, the family was living in San Francisco. Aline began working for a typewriter company managing a business that supplied typists to businesses. They moved to Los Angeles and Aline performed the same kind of work for Royal Typewriter. In 1936, she founded the Beeson Agency to provide secretarial services to attorneys. The secretaries would come to the Beeson Agency office and wait until a call for their services was received, and be dispatched to the client's office. In later years, when telephones were more universal, the Agency would telephone the secretaries at their homes. The Beeson Agency was extremely successful into the early 1980s when changing technology made the business model obsolete. Meanwhile, Aline and Virgil's relationship hit the rocks and they were divorced in 1944. Aline married E. Brooks Pemberton in 1945. They lived in a number of places around Los Angleles. They lived in the Birmingham trailer park on Balboa in Van Nuys. In 1948 and 1949 they had a "ranch" they called AlBrooks Ranch on Tuxford in Sun Valley. They raised one calf and some rabbits while they lived there. Later they lived on Stagg Street near Lockheed Air Terminal. The house on Stagg was previously occupied by Marjorie and her family. Aline also later owned another house across the street which at one time was occupied by her daughter Beverly. Brooks was a man that nobody other than Aline seemed to like, and eventually she agreed with the rest of the world and they were divorced in the 1960s. In 1948, Beverly married Louis Denton in Portland Oregon. Louis was a used car salesman. Aline and Brooks would purchase used taxi cabs in Los Angeles, and drive them to Portland, where Louis would sell them for a profit. Beverly and Louis soon split up and Beverly returned to Los Angeles so this scheme ended. Aline preferred Lincoln automobiles, owning many of them from 1953 on. Only once did she purchase a Mercury instead as she thought a station wagon would be better for traveling to horse shows while pulling a trailer. However, she found the Mercury to lack the luxury she was used to in the Lincolns and traded it for another Lincoln. Aline was among the first to do many things aside from being a businesswoman in an era when most women were homemakers. She purchased one of the first color televisions, with the round picture tube. She was one of the first people to have a garage door opener. She flew to Hawaii in 1959 and traveled around the United States several times.She visited Mexico as well. She visited Knott's Berry Farm when it was a Berry Farm. She went to Disneyland when it was $ 0.90 admission but you needed to buy tickets for each ride. Beverly's daughters, Christie and Kelly, came to live with their grandmother in the mid 1950s. Aline was effectively their mother until they were grown. In the early 1960s, Aline purchased a house on Lassen Street in Chatsworth where she could have horses. They outgrew the property and she sold it and purchased a three-acre ranch in Sand Canyon in Saugus, California. Sand Canyon is now an exclusive residential community. They raised some Arabian and half-Arab horses. They owned a beautiful gelding, El Seyn, who won many prizes. Even later in her life, she continued to work at the business she had founded. Aline moved back to Stagg Street and lived there until she suffered a stroke and needed nursing care. She died on September 30, 1976. She outlived her daughter Beverly by two years, but failed to live as long as her oldest sister, Alma, by thirteen.