post-WWII Scottish immigration to California

[OC Richard]

When my family moved to the Greater Los Angeles Area in 1976 I enthusiastically joined the Southern California Scottish scene.

The Los Angeles area had a thriving Scottish community. The Los Angeles Branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society was said to be the largest in the world with around 500 members, and The Scottish Fiddlers Of Los Angeles was said to be the first Strathspey & Reel Society outwith Scotland. We had a large Highland Games which had been ongoing since the 1930s (a latecomer compared to San Francisco's Games which began in 1866).

The thing that made the local Scottish community authentic and immersive was that everything was run by Scots.

The people running the Pipe Bands and many of the pipers and drummers, the Highland and Country dance teachers, the leader of the fiddlers, the members of our Country Dance band, and even our kiltmaker were all Scots born in the 1930s (or thereabouts) and who had immigrated to California in the post-WWII era.

Many of the men were WWII veterans.

Here are the people I met as early as 1976. If you know other Scots of this generation prominent in the California Scottish scene please let us know.

Pipers:
Jimmy McColl, Gold Medallist, immigrated 1955.
Alec MacGillivray
Bill Lumsden and his son Charlie Lumsden
John Massie, immigrated 1960.

Highland Drummers:
Charlie Capperauld, immigrated 1952.
Tom Foley, immigrated 1976.

Dance Teachers:
Jack Rennie, born 1930, in the US by the 1960s.
Tommy Peel
Willie Wood
Margaret Lumsden

Fiddler:
Colin Gordon, born Aberdeen 1934, immigrated 1976.

Kiltmaker:
Elsie Steuhmeyer, born Glasgow 1934, immigrated 1973.

I might add that there was also a contingent of Canadian Scots:

Pipers:
Ian MacDonald, immigrated to US 1949.
Calvin Bigger; born in San Francisco but spent years in Canada, served in the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada WWII.
Kathleen Nicholson-Graham, immigrated to US 1966.

[Ninehostages]

The sun must have amazed them.

[OC Richard]

The sun must have amazed them.

What's interesting in that regard is that some of the men had served in North Africa and Sicily.

Perhaps they found the Mediterranean climate to their liking, and decided to seek such after the war.

[Ninehostages]

What's interesting in that regard is that some of the men had served in North Africa and Sicily.

Perhaps they found the Mediterranean climate to their liking, and decided to seek such after the war.

... lots of Italians in the Napa Valley, too.

[OC Richard]

... lots of Italians in the Napa Valley, too.

Also here in Southern California.

We have towns which have names many assume to be Spanish but which are actually Italian such as Pomona and Fontana.

When my family moved here in the 1960s there were still a few Italian wineries holding on, most had moved north.

Orange County had a German contingent who established wineries and named Anaheim.

Around 1900 a blight wiped out the wine grapes and most switched to citrus. (Orange County was already so named, before oranges were grown here.)

[grizzbass]

Interesting bit of history