Hermosa Beach surf pioneer Dotty Kerwin remembered
Dotty Kerwin surfing in 1947. Photo submitted by Scott Kerwin
by Scott Kerwin
Dotty Kerwin enjoyed a quintessential southern California lifestyle for 80 years before passing away at the age of 87, surrounded by her family at her home in Hermosa Beach on July 21, 2013. Her husband Ted Kerwin, who passed away eight months prior, was a member of the Kerwin clan, one of the pioneer families in Hermosa Beach that included nine siblings born at the family residence and bakery business on lower Pier Avenue (now Pier Plaza) between 1911 and 1926.
Dotty Kerwin with husband Ted and sons Scott and Brad behind the Kerwin Building in 1953. Phot submitted by Scott Kerwin
Dotty started life as Dorothy Bell Droste in the Norfolk-Richmond area of Virginia, but in June 1934, at the age of 8, her parents loaded up their belongings in the family car and a small trailer, and the family of six headed west to California. After a sometimes eventful 10-day road trip, they got their first look at the Pacific Ocean from the top of the windswept sand dunes in El Porto, a small unincorporated pocket of L.A. County on the beach between El Segundo and Manhattan Beach. Her uncle, Ben Holmes (formerly Beno Droste), who had moved west many years before, had arranged for accommodation in a small house on Kelp Street overlooking the ocean. Although the vast expanse of sand and nearly complete lack of vegetation between the scattered houses was a bit of a shock at first, the proximity of the beach and ocean proved to be more than ample compensation, particularly for the kids. Uncle Ben, who was a successful film director, screenwriter, and sometimes actor, used his connections to get his younger brother Walt some work in the movie industry, including a short stint as an assistant director. However, the movie work wasn’t sustainable and the booming tourist trade of visitors to the beach offered other opportunities closer to their new home. Apparently with additional help from Uncle Ben, the family business was born with purchase of a combined service station, garage, body shop and towing business located on the seaward side of Highland Avenue between 40th and Kelp Streets. Unincorporated El Porto had a reputation as being a little wilder than the other beach areas and Dotty’s parents fit well with the eclectic mix of locals. Family lore says that for many years in the late 1930s the Droste’s had several slot machines available for play in the office at their service station/garage, giving customers the opportunity try their luck when they paid their bills.
Dotty and her siblings began to outgrow the little house on Kelp Street, so a spacious new home was purchased on 43rd Street a short distance north along Highland Avenue. The Droste kids (Keeta, Chris, Dotty and Beni) attended school in nearby El Segundo, where Dotty excelled in high school as editor of the school newspaper, editor of the annual, played volleyball, swam, sang with the school dance band and seemed to be a member of every school club and society that was available. After graduation from El Segundo High School in 1943, she attended UCLA for a year, also taking a “Rosie the Riveter” type job monitoring and sampling the huge storage tanks of gasoline and oil at the Standard Oil Refinery in El Segundo. Near the end of World War II she was replaced at the refinery by returning servicemen, moving on to more artistic, female pursuits by taking a job hand-painting dinnerware at Metlox Pottery in downtown Manhattan Beach. This artistic flair persisted throughout her life and was evident to anyone who saw a sample of her picture-perfect, swirling handwriting. Later in life she won local awards for her calligraphy and watercolor art work.
Dotty and friend Mary in 1947. Photo submitted by Scott Kerwin
Towards the end of the war Dotty gravitated south from her home beach at 43rd Street and began to frequent the beach on the north side of the Hermosa Beach Pier. She was apparently attracted to the area by the group of handsome, rowdy surfers who began to trickle back to their beach stomping grounds after serving during the war. Ted Kerwin had enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard about two months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and spent the major portion of the war years in the South Pacific, with extended duty in the Solomon Islands/Guadalcanal area. However, in the waning months of the war, he and his brother Fred were shipped home to more familiar territory, manning the USCG station at the end of the Santa Monica pier. It was around that time that Ted Kerwin met Dotty at the beach in Hermosa, impressing him not only with her stunning good looks and intelligence, but also her ease and skill in the waves. The Kerwin siblings made up the core of the Hermosa Beach Surfing Club, which was formed in about 1935, had a hiatus for several years during the war and had a brief resurgence in the later 1940s. Five Kerwin brothers (John, Joe, Fred, Jim and Ted) and one sister (Mary) are honored as Pioneer Members of the Surfers Walk of Fame on the Hermosa Beach Pier. Ted Kerwin, who was known as the best body surfer of the bunch, teamed up with Dotty for tandem body surfing, which was, and continues to be relatively rare in the surfing world. Several of their tandem rides were documented with photos by a LIFE magazine photographer in 1948, and also in a newsreel film that was made around the same time. One of their favorite surfing remembrances was a trip to ride the waves at Windansea in La Jolla, with fellow Hermosa Beach local and future surfing icon Dale Velzy in tow, where they wowed the San Diego locals by tandem body surfing back and forth across the peak of the waves during the course of their long rides to the beach.
Ted and Dotty Kerwin tandem surfing in 1948. Photo by LIFE photographer submitted by Scott Kerwin
Ted and Dotty Kerwin were married in April 1948 and the first of five children was born in 1949. Although the beach lifestyle was still an important part of their life, their growing family made surfing trips to San Onofre, Malibu and Windansea a thing of the past, and their enjoyment now came from providing the opportunity for their children to follow in their footsteps. Similar to her own upbringing, family life started in a small house not far from the beach that was quickly outgrown. Shortly after the birth of their fourth child Ted and Dotty bought the sand hill lot across the street from their small home in Hermosa and put together plans for their dream home with panoramic views of the Pacific. Completed in 1958, it was quite large and spacious for the time and was featured in an article prepared for the Home section of the local Daily Breeze newspaper. The new home included a large “playroom” and two-car garage on the ground floor that served as a meeting place and hang-out for literally hundreds of friends and classmates of the Kerwin children that were welcomed as part of the extended family. This open house atmosphere was similar to the way Ted and Dotty had grown up at the beach, and the garage and backyard provided a place for storage of as many as 35 surfboards in the 1960s and 70s. Dotty acted as surrogate mother for many of these kids and she always seemed to be able to make the time to lend a sympathetic ear, give them a ride to where they needed to be, or sometimes provide a temporary place of refuge when things weren’t going well at home.
Dotty Kerwin’s 80th birthday with husband Ted and kids. Photo submitted by Scott Kerwin
With the duties required for raising five children, and all the associated action on the home front, you would think there would have been no time for anything else. However, Dotty was also active in several women’s organizations, including the Dianas and St. James Women’ Council in Redondo Beach where she typically wasn’t satisfied unless she was secretary, chairman or held some other position in the organization. Whether it was for one of her women’s organizations or for the extended family, her forte was organizing large dinner parties or luncheons, where her near-gourmet offerings seemed to get better as the number of guests increased. Her family and friends can all readily identify one or more favorite group meals prepared by Dotty, and the rule was that you always had more than enough for everyone and then a bit more in case more people might happen to come along..
Dotty Kerwin with a lobster in Paddleboard Cove in PV in 1945. Photo submitted by Scott Kerwin
Annual gatherings of family and friends at Avalon on Catalina Island in August and Big Bear at Thanksgiving are longstanding traditions that essentially began with the arrival of kids in the 1950s, giving Dotty vacation venues for her treasured role as mother and gracious hostess. However, early inspiration for the Avalon vacations probably came from Ted and Dotty’s trips in the 1940s to dance to the music of the Big Bands in the Casino Ballroom. The trip on the S.S. Catalina (aka: the “Big White Steamer”) typically included a dance band to and from the island, and apparently it was not uncommon for a reveler to leave the ship a little early when arriving back in L.A. Harbor after midnight. The Catalina vacations were greatly enhanced by construction of Ted’s 30-foot fishing boat the “Teedor” in the early 1960s, which provided another unique source of enjoyment, adventure and generous hospitality for family and friends vacationing in Catalina. At Big Bear in the 1980s her children finally figured out a way relieve Dotty from fulltime hostess mode by organizing team theme nights for dinner on the Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving Day. Themes like Swiss, Cuban and Elvis night included not only preparation of appropriate dinner items, but also improvised costuming, in character food service and some type of rudimentary show. Although it seems odd to say, creating another source of enjoyment and good times was the only way to convince Dotty to surrender her role as the family ringmaster and provider.
Beach group at the Hermosa Beach pier in 1947. Phot submitted by Scott Kerwin
In recent years Dotty’s short-term memory began to fade and with the loss of her dear partner Ted, the ageing process seemed to accelerate. In the final week of her life she weakened considerably and was confined to bed – in words Ted used to describe his waning days, she was just “out of gas”. Bedridden and spending much of her time sleeping in the days before her passing, none of her family were surprised to hear her greet a visiting friend with “Would you like something to eat or drink?”
Dotty Kerwin is survived by five children: Scott (Georgina), Brad, (Lynda), Bonnie (Pat McElroy), Duff and Casey (Tracey), nine grandchildren: Jason, Adrian, Darcy, Rory, Brendan, Emma, Teddy, Duffy and Maddie and a large contingent of other family and extended family. Her sister Beni Haley of Manhattan Beach is her last surviving sibling. A memorial mass and service will be held on Catalina Island at 12:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 8, 2013 at St. Catherine’s Church, 600 Beacon Street, Avalon. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that a donation be made to Torrance Memorial Hospice, 3330 Lomita Boulevard, Torrance, CA 90505.