Named in 1923 for a family who lived on the selfsame street. Mathieu Reynier (1852-1924) was a French sheepherder. Records vary as to when he came to the U.S. and whether he brought his young bride Marie (1864-1948) with him or married her in the States, but the two were in Los Angeles by the time their eldest son John (1889-1956) was born. Then came Frank (1894-1975), Jeanne (1896-1977), and finally Rose (1900-1981). By the time the latter was born, the Reyniers had settled here in what was then called the Ballona district. Only Rose would leave this area: she married a fellow Frenchman, Eugene Villard, and moved to San Gabriel. Five years later, in 1927, Eugene’s brother Albert went insane and shot Eugene and two other Villard brothers to death, right in front of their parents, before killing himself. The Reyniers lived a quieter life, growing vegetables here and raising livestock in the Soledad Canyon area – although it appears that Marie was in a psychiatric hospital from at least 1920 to 1930, according to census records. Jeanne, who also married a Frenchman (Joseph Giraud), lived next door to her unmarried brothers on Reynier Ave. Their homes became the site of Reynier Park in 1978.
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