Thursday, April 15, 2010

Mystery History -- Solved


Tammy wins with her 9:51 a.m. Tuesday guess "Welcoming Mishima as Pasadena's sister city."

Her answer is not quite specific enough, but that's OK, I'm easy. In the photo above, shot in May 1958 in the council chamber at Pasadena City Hall, Mayor Seth Miller receives a gift from Japan Airlines stewardess Nobu Atsumi as a prelude to an open house the next day during which Pasadena's sister city of Mishima, Japan, would exhibit arts and crafts.

Mishima was adopted as our second sister city in 1957 (Ludwigshafen, Germany, was the first). President Dwight D. Eishenhower founded the Sister Cities program in 1956 to achieve international peace through a people-to-people concept of "twinning" U.S. cities with foreign communities throughout the world.

Here's the portrait of Seth Miller from the Hall of Mayors.


Seth Miller's family arrived in Pasadena in 1919 when he was 9 years old. As an adult he owned an automotive business for many years.

He was elected to the Board of City Directors in 1951. In 1955 he became vice mayor. Then, in 1956 -- during the long period when mayors were elected by fellow council members on a rotation schedule -- he became mayor five months ahead of
schedule following the resignation of Warren M. Dorn, who had been elected to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Miller served as mayor until 1959.

He passed away in 1967.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

That was the first thing that popped into my head. I had no clue.

Anonymous said...

Now we know Anne cannot be lobbied.

pasadenapio said...

Ann can't, either!

Petrea Burchard said...

Hee hee. I was close, though.

Jill :] said...

I know this is an older post, but my great grandfather was Seth Miller. He didn't arrive with his family when he was 9 in 1919. The year is correct when he came to the area, but his daughter, my grandmother, was born in Webster Groves, MO in 1914 and my great grandfather was born in St. Louis, MO in 1890. He also owned 2 service stations in Pasadena. I was glad to see a picture of my great grandfather, and appreciate the continued effort to keep Pasadena's history preserved, but just wanted to correct the dates.