What are the odds that Los Angeles County would have two different Kauffman Avenues named for two different Milton Kauffmans, both born in 1882 and died in 1956? Temple City’s Kauffman Ave. honors a major developer who built thousands of homes; South Gate’s Kauffman Ave., named in 1923, honors Milton Melvin Kauffman. At least I’m 99% sure it does, as it’s flanked by Dorothy and Annetta avenues – and Milton Melvin Kauffman had daughters named Dorothy and Annetta. A native Pennsylvanian, this Kauffman came to L.A. in the early 1900s and married his first wife Rebecca in 1909. She passed away a decade later and he would wed twice more. He started working for big-time real estate operator William Irving Hollingsworth around 1915 and eventually became his company’s auditor. Hollingsworth was a partner in Forest Lawn and thus Kauffman sat on its board of trustees for years. In the 1930s, Kauffman was president of the Claude Neon Electrical Products Corp. – named after neon lighting inventor Georges Claude – and Hollingsworth was behind that too. In his later years, Kauffman went solo and attempted to manufacture a “body vibrator”. Your guess is as good as mine.
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