Los Angeles County, CA, Biographies

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 


Yda Hillis Addis

Yda Hillis Addis was born in Leavenworth City, Kansas.  Her people, who had been slave-owners, 
had fled from Lawrence, Kansas, about the time of her parents� to escape from the persecutions 
of the faction headed by �Jim� Lane.  Her father, Alfred Shea Addis, was of blood-kin to the Addis 
and Emmet families of well-known record, and her maternal grandfather, twice removed, was that 
illiterate but loyal and sterling backwoodsman, James Harrod, who entered Kentucky with Daniel 
Boone, and who, according to the school histories, �built the first log-cabin within the present limits 
of Kentucky.�  Miss Addis says the favorite admonition of her mother�s mother, when she or her 
brother did anything wrong, was: �Your Grandfather Harrod would not have done that!�  Mr. Addis 
moved with his family, after some time spent in Mexico, to Los Angeles, in 1872.  Miss Addis graduated 
from our High School and passed her examination, and commenced teaching in this city when quite 
young.  Her knowledge of the Spanish language enabled her to do good work in the schools where that 
was the vernacular of many of the pupils.  Miss Addis early showed her literary aptitude both in poetry 
and prose.  Her delineations of Spanish types of character in her stories in the San Francisco Argonaut, 
and other journals, which have been widely copied; her terse and often dramatic presentations and analysis 
of the action of the persons and episodes she describes; her picturing of Mexican traits and customs in 
various American newspapers, since her residence during the last three or four years in the City of Mexico; 
and finally her discovery of the lost art of Instering �Iridescent Pottery,� as described by her and Mr. W. C. 
Prime, in Harper�s Magazine for August, 1889, have combined to give her a national reputation.  Her kindly 
appreciation of Mexican character, her talents and her personal worth have given her the entre to some of 
the best families in Mexico.  Miss Addis�s friends believe she has a brilliant future before her.

 
An Illustrated History of Los Angeles County, California � Chicago, The Lewis Publishing Company, 
Page 367, 1889

Transcribed by Pat Houser, March 26, 2006