San Diego's least-remembered great man – U.S. Grant Jr. On a Sunday in September of 1929, 15 members of San Diego’s elite gathered to carry the coffin of an old friend. Among the pallbearers were …
August 26, 2023
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Stories by Phyllis Orrick
General Grant's heirs made mark on San Diego
Fled my father in La Jolla
La Jolla 1962 Dressed in long trousers and boat shoes and a white Lacoste tennis shirt, I accompanied Toby across Vista del Mar and Neptune Place to the Pump House and down concrete steps to …
August 19, 2023
Marguerite Henry, another horse-crazy girl
Misty of Chincoteague author ends up in Rancho Santa Fe When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a …
April 29, 2023
Local Olaf Wieghorst fans get burned
Olaf Wieghorst trusted the wrong man Almeida got his start at George Thackeray’s gallery in the late ’50s. He and his wife Grace agreed to talk to me at their house in Ocean Beach, a …
July 16, 2022
In the ashes of Kate Sessions' heart
Why the mother of Balboa Park is the mother of us all Sure, there’s a school and park named after her, and careless admirers credit her, rightly or not, with planting any large tree growing …
June 27, 2022
El Cajon Olaf Weighorst forgeries, Reader author's parents killed
Bushwhacked We look at a Wieghorst painting called Spring Rain, a dark, impressionistic work, one of about a dozen Wieghorsts on the walls. Thackeray can remember when Wieghorst painted it. “It was raining cats and …
January 22, 2022
Cave Couts, Old Town loveletters, San Diego's first school
Cave Johnson Couts Ysidora's brother-in-law, Don Abel Stearns, gave her the Guajome land grant surrounding Mission San Luis Rey. Couts resigned his commission with the Army and built a ranch on land that “had neither …
August 28, 2021
Jack Kemp and the fugitive, U.S. Grant's son, Seals ambivalent about Jesse Ventura
Kemp and the Fugitive Fotomat also gave Graham a political base. One of the first beneficiaries was Jack Kemp. On May 23, 1968, the San Diego Union reported that Kemp had “joined Fotomat Corp., La …
July 5, 2021
Chargers loot city money, QB Stan Humphries gets another concussion, Chargers players 20-30 years later
How Alex Spanos Made Off with the Police Building Fund “Yeah, that’s right, they’re going to steal the money for Alex’s Chargers training field from the cops’ pueblo land fund. A big chunk of their …
March 6, 2021
Best Reader stories from 1996
Mafia in San Diego before World War II (first in series of six stories) “The raids, all made with search warrants, started soon after noon and were not completed until early evening. All of the …
January 12, 2020
Best Reader stories from 1995
I've got Perry Mason on board! In early 1960, the man who created Perry Mason was introduced to an Imperial Beach resident named Francisco Muñoz. Erle Stanley Gardner had many friends, and he particularly liked …
January 11, 2020
Phyllis Orrick and the Reader
Orrick, one of founding members of the Baltimore City Paper, visited San Diego in the latter 1990s to write feature stories. Excerpts from stories Orrick wrote for the Reader: San Diego's least-remembered great man – …
September 21, 2019
San Diego's least-remembered great man – U.S. Grant Jr.
Buck Grant was a man of substantial means in 1893 (thanks, in large part, to that $1 million dowry from his senator father-in-law). He bought a 25-room mansion at Eighth Avenue and Ash Street.
July 2, 1998
Jeff's docs at Camp Pendleton find he's better without his epilepsy meds
'September 12 of 1993, when I collapsed at the bowling alley, the Vista Entertainment Center, that was the starting point," Jeff Olsen says. What started on that day was a new life for Olsen, who …
February 26, 1998
North Island key element in the Navy's nuclear fleet
The Navy's massive nuclear homeport project on North Island has come down to two state hazardous-waste permits that are pending before the California Department of Toxic Substances Control. One permit was set to go into …
January 15, 1998
Misty of Chincoteague author ends up in Rancho Santa Fe
When Marguerite Henry died last month at the age of 95, a relationship that began for me more than 35 years ago came to a premature end. Henry and I met for the first and …
December 18, 1997
James Meredith's Black Boys' and Men's Library School lands in San Diego
Rosalie Martin knows the vicissitudes of raising black boys, having seen two sons through college and graduate school and into corporate careers and now with a grandson in her care. So when her old friend …
December 11, 1997
La Jolla's Diversa gets to mine Yellowstone
When Diversa Corporation, a biotech company based in La Jolla, signed the first commercial prospecting agreement in a national park four months ago, Vice President Al Gore applauded it as a landmark alliance between the …
December 4, 1997
Sex-club operator Thad Poppell comes out swinging
Like most politicians, Eighth District City Councilman Juan Vargas hungers for publicity, but Vargas may regret one occasion when the press gave him the attention he asked for. A little over a year ago, Vargas …
November 20, 1997
What happened to Stan Humphries' brain?
In a curious way, Stan Humphries is among the luckier victims of concussion, Schrock says. The hit he took was so hard that it knocked him out, leaving no question that he had been injured.
November 13, 1997
From the Baja-Ha-Ha race to the Coconut Milk Run
It takes a lot of work to drop out of the rat race if the escape route entails crossing 3000-plus miles of Pacific Ocean. Justask Ellie Goolkasian and David Hudson, most recently of Oceanside. Three …
October 30, 1997
Rita Bronowski recalls her life in the sun.
The English-Speaking Union, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Planned Parenthood are among other groups that Rita has helped out. “I even had a big Clinton party here. I think he let us all down, don’t you?”
March 14, 1996
Olaf Wieghorst trusted the wrong man
Roy offered to authenticate some people’s holdings, but “this way, they don’t know, and they can turn around and sell it and in all good conscience say it’s an original Wieghorst as far as they know.”
January 25, 1996
Why Kate Sessions, the Mother of Balboa Park, Is the mother of us all
Aller traced Kate’s early palms (including those on Horton Plaza, Sixth Avenue, and Orange Avenue in Coronado) to seeds acquired by a nurseryman from a South African conservatory 40 years earlier. That would have dated them to 1892.
April 13, 1995