Named for Clara Drysdale Cattern (1871-1934), whose mother Mary Hulda Titus Newton (1848-1904) owned this land. Drysdale Avenue was, along with the other streets on the so-called Newton Park tract, apparently named in 1900 while Mrs. Newton was still alive, yet neither the tract nor its streets were officially recorded until 1905, a year after her death. What happened in the interim is hard to say. What happened in the aftermath? Lawsuits! Cattern and her sister May Titus Levitt (1873-1912) fought over their late mother’s substantial estate for years. They even sued each other in 1910 over their widowed father Jacob’s guardianship. Jacob Newton, a once-prominent Angeleno who had fallen into an alcoholic stupor after his wife’s death, died in the midst of their squabbling. Clara and May reconciled shortly before May’s own death – then Clara sued May’s husband when she learned she’d been cut out of May’s will. (She won.) P.S. Novgorod Street is a Russian spin on the Newton name. Newton and Titus avenues were also laid out on the Newton Park tract but were renamed Pueblo and Tampico, respectively. See Newtonia Drive for more about the family.
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