Named in 1887 for Meda Ella Whitcomb (1866-1930), then daughter-in-law of Glendora founder George Dexter Whitcomb. Born Meda Ella Shepperd in Longton, KS, she married George Bennett Whitcomb (1860-1922) in Topeka in 1883. The couple spent a couple of years in Glendora, then moved up to Linn County, OR, where George B. worked in mining. Tragically, three of their four young children died from diptheria in May 1899; only their eldest, George Ernest, survived. Meda – who regularly went by “Ella” – divorced George B. in 1914, citing cruel treatment and frequent abandonment; eight years later, he died alone in his cabin in the Siskiyou Mountains.
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