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YourHub.com \\ Glendale \\ Stories \\ News \\ About Town

Glendale AARP slates 50th anniversary event

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Contributed by: Norm Young on 5/9/2008

"She was very gregarious and very firm, strict but fair," said Bill Topham as he recalled his memories of Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, founder of the American Association of Retired Persons.

"If you were chastised, you deserved it," he added.

As AARP celebrates its 50th anniversary nationally, Topham will be the featured speaker at an anniversary event the West Glendale AARP chapter will hold Monday, May 12.

He'll speak at 1 p.m. in the Carlson Fellowship Center of the First United Methodist Church, 130 N. Kenwood St., Glendale.

Topham, who is a member and former president of the West Glendale chapter, was a student at Lincoln High School in L.A. when Andrus was principal there.

When the school was damaged in the Long Beach Earthquake of 1933, it was rebuilt a few years later.

The boys in the school's electric shop class, Topham being one of them, helped purchase and install the sound and projection systems in the new auditorium.
He recalled that Andrus was a big supporter of the school's drama program, which meant the auditorium was very important to her.

"She interviewed all us boys before we could do the work," Topham said.
"I don't know that other high schools had so much available to them in terms of drama."

Some famous actors who came out of Lincoln High included Robert Preston, John Doucette and Robert Young, said Topham, who is the nephew of the man who Topham Street was named for in the San Fernando Valley - former L.A. Councilman John Topham.

Several of the students from Lincoln High also did improvements at Andrus' beach house at Balboa Bay, including some painting and laying a brick walkway.

To thank the boys for their hard work, Andrus invited them to a party at her home.

"She lived on the south side of Kenneth Road on the north side of Glendale," he recalled. She lived in what Topham described as a Monterey-style house.

For more information about the West Glendale chapter's event, call 818-243-2618.

Besides the Glendale chapter, AARP also has chapters in Sunland-Tujunga and Palmdale.

AARP has changed quite a bit from its early days.

Now, people who are 50 years old can enroll and the organization's marketing efforts have been shifting to attract a younger demographic.

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