Person

Mary Liddecoat

Mary E. Liddecoat dedicated her life to helping others. Born in 1907, Mary Liddecoat was born to Thomas and Mary A. Liddecoat. Her father was a wholesale produce distributor in Los Angeles and he began donating food to the Garvanza Tract run by Dr. Yokum. They would occasionally visit the “Pisgah Homes” where Mary pushed wheel chairs and helped people with tuberculosis. At seven years old, these experiences inspired Mary’s lifelong passion for helping people. She continued to get a front-row seat to LA philanthropy, as her father founded the Midnight Mission in 1916. After her mother passed in 1917 however, she traveled a lot with her father until the school boards convinced him to enroll her in homeschool and then Benjamin Franklin High School. She graduated from BFHS in 1926.

Mary Liddecoat’s career of helping people began in 1926, when she enrolled in the University of Southern California to earn a degree in sociology and then a Masters in Social Work in 1931. As she was completing fieldwork for her Masters degree, she was recruited to help with the social welfare crisis in Santa Barbara. She stayed on at the Santa Barbara Public Welfare Department for the next ten years. During the Depression, Liddecoat faced down the Board of Supervisors in Santa Barbara to convince them of the need for public assistance. In 1938, her efforts even reached the national level, as she was sent to Europe by the American Public Welfare Association to do a study on low-cost housing. Eleanor Roosevelt told Liddecoat that her study “just changed our thinking on public housing in the United States.”

In 1941, Liddecoat’s father fell ill and she left work to help him adjust. She relied heavily on a philanthropist couple that had frequented the Midnight Mission since she was about 10 years old, Albert and Bessie Johnson. Over the years, Mrs. Johnson had become a motherfigure for Liddecoat, despite the Johnson’s residence in Chicago. Liddecoat always cited a time in her early schooling days when Mr. Johnson flew out to LA from Chicago to tell her that her father was ill; Mrs. Johnson stayed back and nursed Mr. Liddecoat back to health, ensuring she was not left totally alone in the world. The generosity and care of the Johnsons, and Bessie Johnson especially, is why Liddecoat took her position on the Board of the Gospel Foundation.

After her father’s death in 1942, Liddecoat was recruited by the Los Angeles Red Cross to assist in the war effort. After 5 years, they offered her a position assisting German-American children in Germany which she turned down, feeling obligated to help Mr. Johnson set up the Gospel Foundation in the wake of Bessie’s death. Johnson wanted Liddecoat to run the foundation because he trusted her to uphold the founding principles that the Johnsons held dear.

The Foundation was gradually sold off in accordance with Johnson’s will, with the proceeds donated to charities assisting disabled children. From 1948 onwards, Liddecoat was the President of the Gospel Foundation and acting manager for Scotty’s Castle. Liddecoat lived at the Castle seasonally until it was sold off, though maintained her LA residence. Life at the castle meant a lot of public interface and public tours, as well as constant management of seasonal staff. Scotty spent the last 2 years of his life at the Castle with Liddecoat as his caretaker, before dying in January of 1954. The Gospel Foundation sold Scotty’s Castle to the NPS in 1970 for $850,000 and distributed the funds to a variety of charities. Liddecoat continued to support charities for the rest of her life. She died in June of 2005.