I once thought this street honored Emily Vose Wright (1855-1917), the former San Fernando schoolteacher who brought the unique name “Zelzah” to the Valley (see Zelzah Avenue). I figured she was a big enough deal to warrant her own street – but now I’m not so sure. Vose Street was in fact named (as Vose Avenue) in 1915 on a tract owned by the Lennox family, who as you might guess also named Lennox Avenue (then Street) where it meets Vose. The Lennoxes probably didn’t know Emily Vose Wright. However, they did know the unrelated Adney Edward Vose (1873-1946), a contractor who in 1914 built several houses on the J.C. Lennox tract – including one for himself – but soon decamped for San Diego and then Fresno. Complicating matters even further, the Lennoxes also knew the unrelated civil engineer Richard Hampton Vose (1866-1957) and his family, who in 1913 briefly owned a fruit ranch a mile south of Vose and Lennox. (They also quickly moved on – to Illinois this time.) Who knew there were so many Voses in what was then a sparsely populated SFV? But I think Adney is our guy.
Find it on the map:
