Charles being such a common name, I can’t be 100% sure of this avenue’s honoree, but as it was laid out on a 1924 tract co-owned by Alfred and Etta Harter, and as Etta was mother to one Charles Hyde (1907-1956), I suspect this is our guy. Charles Eugene Hyde was born in Denver, CO; according to records, Etta had wed Charles Hyde, a salesman of some sort, more than a year after little Charles’s birth. Was he adopted? Born out of wedlock? That I don’t know. Regardless, the Hydes came to Los Angeles in early 1911. Charles Sr. passed away just five years later. Etta married Alfred Harter around 1919 and the couple, with teenage Charles in tow, soon relocated to Culver City. Our subject went on to lead a quiet if truncated life: the 1940 census listed him as a gas station attendant residing in South L.A. with his wife Helen “Peggy” and infant son Michael; the 1950 census showed him and Peggy owning an auto parts store in Boulder City, NV. Another child, Carol, was born to them by that time. 48-year-old Charles was felled by a heart attack while watching Michael play baseball.
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