President sends birthday card to RB’s McCallum
Elaine McCallum of Redondo Beach received a birthday card last week from President Barack and Michele Obama when she turned turning 100 years old. McCallum born in Butte, Montana and moved to Redondo Beach in 1914. She attended Redondo High and owned a liquor store at Inglewood Avenue and Artesia Boulevard. Her brother-in-law Captain Hans Monstad built the Redondo pier at his own expense in 1925. Her brother Fred Hall owned a fishing barge that was anchored in the bay. “Auntie” was a “flapper” who remembers dancing at the Redondo Beach Hotel and the Biltmore Hotel in Hermosa during twenties. She traveled around the world three times on steam ships with first husband Wayde Duncan, a vice president with Burma Oil Co. She says the Taj Mahal is the most beautiful thing she ever saw. When told, “Auntie, did you know that they cut the hands off of thieves in Saudi Arabia?” she snapped back, “Over here they make ’em Senators!” Auntie is famous for her appearance in commercials she does for her great grand nephew Todd Meacham’s TFA (Total Fighting Alliance). At the end of the commercial, she declares, from easy chair, “TFA has balls!”