San Francisco County CA Archives Biographies.....Walsh, Lawrence Francis October 31, 1866 - November 13, 1930 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ca/cafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Ila Wakley iwakley@msn.com October 31, 2010, 10:35 pm Source: California and Californians, Vol. IV, Published 1932, Pages 122 - 124 Author: The Lewis Publishing Company LAWRENCE FRANCIS WALSH was a native son of San Francisco and a representative of one of the honored pioneer families of California. He was long and influentially concerned with business, civic, municipal and political affairs in San Francisco, was a leader in the local councils of the Democratic party, and at the time of his death, November 13, 1930, he was division manager in San Francisco of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, with which important public-utility corporation he had done most effective service of constructive order, in which connection he had supervision of negotiations for most of the street lighting facilities of his native city. His character was the positive expression of a strong and noble nature, and his was ever a high place in popular confidence and esteem in the city that represented his home during virtually his entire life. Mr. Walsh was born in San Francisco on the 31st of October, 1866, and here his death occurred, after but slight former illness, less than two weeks after the celebration of his sixty-fourth birthday anniversary. He was a son of Lawrence Francis Walsh, Sr., and Sarah (Curran) Walsh, who were born in Ireland and who established their home in San Francisco as pioneers of the year 1850, they having here passed the remainder of their lives and having lived up to the full tension of the pioneer days, besides having part in the later drama of marvelous development and progress. The schools of San Francisco afforded Mr. Walsh his early education, and it is a matter of record that here he was one of the first students and graduates of St. Ignatius College, of the alumni association of which he was an appreciative and honored member in later years. As a youth Mr. Walsh entered the employ of the famous pioneer drygoods house of Murphy, Grant & Company, and in this connection he gained valuable experience in mercantile enterprise. Mr. Walsh was appointed to the board of education in 1903 and served eight years as president of the board. During his term occurred the great fire of 1906, with the tremendous task of rebuilding all the destroyed schools. Reconstruction plans to care for the thousands of children were under way immediately. In February, 1907, Mr. Walsh, with other board members, was summoned by President Theodore Roosevelt to Washington to discuss the Japanese school exclusion question. The Japanese Labor Exclusion Act was a result of these conferences. In 1908 Mr. Walsh was urged to accept nomination for mayor of San Francisco, an honor he refused. From 1893 to 1900 Mr. Walsh was engaged independently in the mercantile business on Sixth Street, and in 1910 he became assistant division manager for the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, of which he was later made division manager and for which he did large and important service in connection with the city's rehabilitation after the great earthquake and fire of 1906. Mr. Walsh long had much of leadership in municipal affairs and in the local activities of the Democratic party, he having been a delegate from California to several of the national conventions of his party. He was loyal, liberal and indefatigable in the reviving of his native city after the now historic earthquake and fire of 1906. He was one of the original directors of the Boys Welfare Organization in San Francisco and did much to advance the interests of this splendid service. Mr. Walsh was a zealous communicant of the Catholic Church, in the faith of which he was reared, and his wife was also an earnest communicant, she having died in 1927. Mr. Walsh was affiliated with Council No. 615 of the Knights of Columbus, with San Francisco Lodge No. 3, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and was a past president of Stanford Parlor of the Native Sons of the Golden West. He was made an honorary member of the alumni association of Santa Clara College, and had membership and was a director in the Union League Club and the Olympic Club. Early in 1923, while he was serving as assistant manager of the Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Mr. Walsh conceived and projected the idea of holding a Diamond Jubilee in San Francisco on the 9th of September, 1925, the seventy- fifth anniversary of the admission of California as one of the sovereign states of the Union. His idea met with enthusiastic commendation and support on the part of other native sons and other influential citizens, and the result was that California's Diamond Jubilee was gloriously celebrated during the week of September 5-12, 1925, it having been conceded that in its fidelity to historic detail and in colorful presentation of salient phases in California history it even surpassed the memorable Portola festival. With the wonderful observance the name and memory of Mr. Walsh must ever be recalled with high honor and appreciation, for his splendid work in connection therewith indicated the abiding fervor of his appreciation of and love for his native state. In the year 1893 was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Walsh to Miss. Jennie I. Sinclair, daughter of John and Helen (Kirby) Sinclair, who came from St. John's, New Brunswick, Canada, to San Francisco as pioneers of 1851, Mrs. Walsh having, like her husband, been born and reared in San Francisco. Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Walsh the eldest is Helen, who is now the wife of Dr. Francis Justin McCarthy, of this city. Lawrence Francis III was graduated in his father's alma mater, St. Ignatius College, and is now independently established in the insurance business in San Francisco. Here he married Miss Helen Gagan, and they have three children, Lawrence Francis IV, Sally Ann and Richard Sinclair. Joseph I., next younger of the children of the honored subject of this memoir, was graduated in Sacred Heart College and was a member of the junior class in the University of California and Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the time of his death. James Warnock Walsh, who likewise remains in his native city, married Miss Marian Reimers, and they have one child, James W., Jr. Sally, younger of the two daughters, and a graduate from University of California, is the wife of James Sheehan, a graduate of the University of Santa Clara, and they reside in the Walsh home at 106 Fifteenth Avenue, San Francisco. John Francis, youngest of the children, is a graduate of Sacred Heart College of San Francisco, and married Miss Imelda Crowley, of San Francisco, where they still maintain their home, and their one child is John Francis, Jr. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ca/sanfrancisco/bios/walsh1093gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/cafiles/ File size: 7.2 Kb