Background
She was born Gladys Alice Wolf (sometimes spelled "Wolfe") on August 23, 1900, in Custer Township, Mason County, Michigan, the oldest child of George Henry Wolf and Emma Amelia Brandt.
(Historical Society of Centinela Valley Published date: 19...)
Historical Society of Centinela Valley Published date: 1994. Soft cover, 85 pages of text plus another 100 plus pages of black and white illustrations throughout, bibliography, index. From Preface The Historical Society of Centinela Valley is publishing this book in order to share with you its marvelous collection of photos of the rich history of Inglewood and also of Centinela Valley in general. The Board of Directors requested that I write the book and that Curator Betty Forsyth provide background material and photos. At age 93 I have been privileged to live during the major part of this history and to know personally many of the people about whom I write. When I came to teach in Inglewood Union High School in 1922, the school was only 17 years old and the town 34! During my 45 years on the faculty I must have had at least 10.000 students, so also knew most of the history-makers of later years. You may wonder why so much space is given to Los Angeles International Airport and Inglewood High School. Both played a major role! The location of the airport was the idea of Frank D. Parent, Aviation Chairman of the Inglewood Chamber of Commerce. The home of the owners of Maddux Air Line still stands on the comer of Eucalyptus and Plymouth Street. Their firstPassenger flight brought Will Rogers and Charles Lindbergh to Mines Field!
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She was born Gladys Alice Wolf (sometimes spelled "Wolfe") on August 23, 1900, in Custer Township, Mason County, Michigan, the oldest child of George Henry Wolf and Emma Amelia Brandt.
In 1910, the family moved to the Medford, Oregon, area for several years, where Gladys attended Medford High School for her first two years of high school. The family relocated to San Diego, California, and Gladys graduated from San Diego High School.
They had no children. Her husband preceded her in death on April 14, 1983. She spent her final year in a rest home in Alhambra, where she died on 15 April 1997, at 96 years of age.
Waddingham taught some ten thousand youngsters during her high-school career, including Robert Finch and Glenn M. Anderson, both of whom became lieutenant-governors of California.
Waddingham died April 15, 1997 in Alhambra, California. A Los Angeles Times reporter wrote in her obituary:
As Inglewood changed racially and faced growing crime problems, Waddingham was sometimes criticized for ignoring the efforts of black politicians in recent years.
But historians countered that she was merely recording early Inglewood history as she had observed it and that Waddingham personally campaigned to urge white residents to remain as blacks moved in.. When her hip was broken during a 1991 robbery, she said from her hospital bed: "This sort of thing happens everywhere.
lieutenant isn"t a matter of Inglewood."
The Gladys Waddingham Hall was named in her honor as part of the Inglewood Central Library complex.
The Centinela Business and Professional Women"s Club named her Woman of the Year in 1967, and the Inglewood Sertoma Club gave her a Service to Mankind Award in 1973. A 1920 graduate of Occidental College in Los Angeles (and winner of the 1990 alumni Seal Award there), she obtained her first teaching position in Las Vegas, Nevada.
(Historical Society of Centinela Valley Published date: 19...)
(Distributed January 2, 1985 on the 95th Anniversary.)
