According to the obituary for Olivia Marie Wilson (1895-1976), McBride Avenue was named for her (in 1921) while, under her maiden name McBride, she was a secretary at the Janss Investment Company, developers of Belvedere Gardens. City directories of the day confirmed that Olivia McBride did indeed work for Janss, so I believe her story. “Olive” McBride was a SoCal gal: born in Hemet and spending her early years in San Luis Obispo and Whittier, she and her family settled in Wilmington shortly before her 13th birthday. She then allegedly worked for the Fox Film Corp. as a secretary and/or bit player before joining Janss. In 1927, McBride became a bride, tying the knot with longtime boyfriend Roy Renwick Wilson. Alas, a heart attack felled him just seven years later and she raised their two daughters as a single mom. (The 1940 census indicated that a live-in maid, Hawaiian-born Eleanor Fukami, helped out.) Olivia Wilson spent the last two decades of her life in Anaheim and ran a bead store in Fullerton in the 1960s: Wilson’s Trim Shop.
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