Donald Allison

I went over to the Seaside Museum and Historical Society last Thursday to hunt down a history story for the Signal, and upon talking with Archival Manager Ella Beigh, she told me that they had finished scanning in the Henry Montag glass slides, but she hadnt printed out hard copies yet. I asked her if it would be all right if I got on the computer and checked them out, and she allowed me special access.

As I went through a good portion of the 1,421 images, one immediately caught my eye as I spotted W.C. Fields as a young man, with two beautiful young ladies along with his token stogie. When I looked up at the name of the photo, there was a WC at the end of the file number. Wow! I was by myself at the time, and when Ella walked in to see how I was doing, I told her that I loved the W.C. Fields photo. Ella looked at me with a shocked look and said, What W.C. photo? I showed her what I had found and she was so surprised as well. She went online to look up photos of him, and sure enough, thats W.C.

I think its great that such a famous figure would be hanging out in Seaside. I was born in Hollywood, Calif., so Ive always had a connection to that part of Los Angeles, and growing up I always imagined what it would have been like to have lived there in the early 1900s. The reason I was able to spot W.C. so quickly is because he was fresh in my mind from reading an article in Smithsonian magazine about golfer John Montague who played with W.C. at Lakeside Golf Club around the 1930s. I loved the descriptions he gave of W.C., who lived across Toluca Lake and would row his boat over with a flask of gin in his pocket to make his tee time.

It seems like the W.C. photo is just the tip of the iceberg, and although I was at the museum for over two hours going through the photos, I could have stayed for the whole day and not have gotten a good look at everything. The photos are very well done for that time era, and I personally have never seen such a fine collection of photos from that early: so crisp and in focus. I was able to find photos to go with a few history stories Ive wanted to write, but wouldnt have been the same without a good photo. Thank you, Ella, and everyone at the Seaside Museum and Historical Society for allowing me to hunt for stories.

Ill be running the other great Montag photos I came across, and you can plan on a great history story in the next few weeks. The late 1910s and the Roaring20s seem like such a romantic time to have been alive, and you can really see it in the eyes of the people in Montags portraits. And the clothes! Wow, people really dressed chic and swanky here in Seaside back then, and its kind of funny to think how much times have changed.

Some of the outfits are incredible, and a few quite shocking for how provocative they are, especially for that time era. Montag must have had a pretty private studio, because one photo too racy for a family newspaper shows a young woman wearing nothing but a barrel around her. She is laughing very happily in the photo, and the barrel just barely covers her up. Its a lot of fun learning more about Seaside as I write the historical stories, and by the looks of Williams slides, this has been a hip place to be for a long time.