Victoria Marchant Mann remembers when she shopped at Mrs. Castle’s Pie Shop in Hermosa and Don Draper opened a little place like a garage on 2nd Street and ended up with a wonderful hamburger store for all the years he was there.
Today is her 95th birthday.
Marchant Mann’s grandparents came to Hermosa in 1915. They rented a beach house at 44 Strand and purchased it two years later. In 1921, they added the rear apartment at 43 Hermosa Ave., where Marchant Mann lives.
Over the years, seven generations have lived in the beach house.
Her grandfather had his own private practice but was at one time a police judge and city attorney. Marchant Mann remembers his office as judge was above the old police station on Hermosa Avenue. She used to sit and listen to the court cases. If anyone used bad language, her grandfather would stop the proceedings. She used to ride her bicycle to get mail out of the old mailbox for them.
These days, she enjoys her grandchildren, the beach and has wonderful neighbors. Marchant Mann had six children with her husband Bud, who died in 1975. She now has 23 grandchildren, 46 great grandchildren, and six great-great grandchildren.
She and her family are in Catalina Island as they have done for her birthday for 15 years.
“They come from everywhere,” Marchant Mann said by phone “We have had as many as 90 people here. We have new babies every year that come. We all rent the old houses. It’s like a family reunion every year.”
Marchant Mann’s granddaughter, Suzanne Larkin, said 99 family members are expected to visit the island during the week as part of the birthday celebration.
Marchant Mann and her family plan to go to a Mexican restaurant for lunch today, after which Marchant Mann plans to nap.
“She gets around,” Larkin said from Catalina. “She goes for walks, has coffee. She sits with different groups [while] we collectively wander in and out. She’s all set to go for a hike right now looks like.”
Marchant Mann, who has been involved on several different committees in town and a 50-year member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, has only to look at her family for her own legacy. Larkin is a member of the current Hermosa Beach leadership class. And her great granddaughter, Hayley Larkin, 30, was the chair of the Leadership Hermosa Beach class of 2011.
Marchant Mann attended Pier Avenue School, and was the owner and operator of Sand Castle Pre School at 44 Hermosa Avenue for 20 years through the 1960s and 1970s.
Asked if she had any life advice for those who are younger than she is, Marchant Mann chuckled and said, “I think we take it too seriously. I know now I worried about things I never needed to worry about. I just praise God for all the blessings he has given me. Enjoy your family. Stay close together.”
