Locals may ponder this street’s tortuous spelling – why that second “r”? Shouldn’t it be “Chester Oak”? In fact the namesake is a man: Chester Carl Roark (1918-2005), who went by his middle name. (I suppose “Carlroark Drive” isn’t any better.) The street was named in 1950 by Lakewood developer Louis Boyar, who employed Roark for many years as a comptroller. Roark was born and raised in Amarillo, TX, where he married his high school sweetheart Winona Case (1919-2013) in 1937. He joined the Navy in World War 2 and fought as a tail gunner in the South Pacific. After the war, the couple came to Long Beach, where Roark was hired by Boyar, but they soon settled in the San Fernando Valley and spent most of the rest of their lives in the West Hills neighborhood. The Roarks had two kids: daughter Carla and adopted son John.
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