Local developer Ralph Rogers (1850-1915), the “Father of Garvanza“, named this 1887 street for his then-wife, born Julia Anna Nolden (1857-1912). She was his third spouse – and, in a way, his fourth. Some background: Ralph Rogers was born in Tennessee, raised in Texas, and wagoned out to SoCal with his family in 1868. He had three surviving kids with his first wife Lucinda, who died in 1884. His next marriage in 1885 barely lasted five months before second wife Amelia passed away, cause unknown. Then along came Julia, born in Milwaukee to a large German family. She married Ralph in Chicago in 1886 – it’s unclear how they met – and returned with him to L.A., where his real estate career was thriving. They had a son, Gerald (1888-1928), but it was a rocky union: Ralph divorced Julia in December 1894 on grounds of adultery, only to remarry her three months later. (A gossipy article in the Evening Post-Record said it was “for the sake of the children”.) In 1901, with Ralph up in Alaska for the Klondike Gold Rush, Julia divorced him on grounds of desertion. Ralph would tie the knot one more time; Julia would not. Patriarchal postscript: The troubled twosome lost their fathers in ghastly ways: Ralph’s dad Andrew was bitten on the finger by a horse and died from a subsequent infection; Julia’s dad Gerhard was beaten to death on a Milwaukee street.
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