“Where Are You From?” Parallel Worlds from Kansas City to Southern California

 

L to R: Anna H. Jones, Walt Disney, Sophia B. Jones
Courtesy Natural History Museum & D23

ELIAS DISNEY

Elias Disney, an Irish Canadian, immigrated to the U.S. about 1878. His came from Bluevale in the Ontario province. By all accounts he led a typical life of marriage, kids, and money-making ventures, along with relocating his entire family when a new opportunity presented itself. 

In 1911 he went to Kansas City where there were plenty other white Canadian emigres. There his youngest son, Chicago-born Walt, a 10-year-old, would spend his adolescent and young adult years until he eventually went to Los Angeles for his own opportunities.

ANNA HOLLAND JONES

In an earlier time – 1892 – 37-year-old Anna Holland Jones arrived in town to be appointed the first black female teacher in the city, and she taught at the only black high school, Lincoln H.S. She was also originally from Ontario, Canada – born in a town called Chatham (today by car would be about 2 ½ hours drive from Bluevale).

The year the Disneys arrived was the year that Anna became the first black principal at Douglass Elementary, the only black school for grades 1 through 6. By then she owned a home at 2444 Montgall Avenue and had several black resident boarders. She was likely the first single black woman to purchase a house in the city.

MONTGALL AVENUE

More needs to be said about Montgall Avenue - named for landowner Rufus Montgall, a slaveowner, who passed away in 1887. Anna’s neighbors were fellow black teachers, therefore the academic black elite lived there following a white exodus on the block. The street was near but not at the center of “Negro Quality Hill” (the black well-to-do geographic counterpart of the white “Quality Hill”). The analyses of historian Margie Carr suggest systemic racism took down the street within a generation.1

BELLEFONTAINE AVENUE

Her cross street was 25^th Street. The Disneys rented at 31^st Street but soon bought a house four blocks away at 3028 Bellefontaine Avenue (but still very close to 31^st Street). Anna’s neighborhood was dangerously far south, nearly encroaching onto the white areas. Before she acquired her own home, she roomed with another black educator family near 14^th Street. As the few black schools have always been at 19^th and as further north as 11^th Street, one can understand the pattern of segregation.2

Walt attended the all-white Benton Elementary School located just below 30^th Street. Racial integration at the school came about 1953, two years before Disneyland opened.

DR. SOPHIA BETHANA JONES & FREDERICKA JONES

For a time, two of Anna’s sisters also came to Kansas City - between 1903 and 1909. *They rented at 1213 Bellefontaine Avenue, near 12^th Street and in close proximity to Anna. The younger sister, Fredericka, was an experienced educator and opened a private day/boarding school. Her older sister, Dr. Sophia, was doubly as experienced in years than her younger sister but in the nursing and medical field. In March, 1905, the sickly Fredericka passed away. City directories show Sophia to have remained in the city until 1909. Census records show that she then left to live with brother George and his family in Ann Arbor, Michigan.3

MONROVIA

*Brother George resettled out west in Monrovia, California about 1914. Anna, Sophia and a third sister, Emily, followed, and they lived at 1301 Shamrock Avenue. *It’s probable that some or all the sisters migrated after 1919, for had they arrived earlier, surely writer Delilah L. Beasley would have included them in her sweeping The Negro Trail Blazers of California, published in 1919.

In Monrovia, once again the sisters were fitted into a predominantly black area. The Second Baptist Church of Monrovia was located on Shamrock in 1906.

Anna may have gone on teaching, and Sophia might have continued to apply her medical expertise (as she was listed in the Board of Medical Examiners in 1932). Since they moved to an agrarian environment, a “mom and pop” citrus-growing business likely provided a livelihood. Their neighbor was Japanese rancher, Shojiro Morimoto.

Still in existence in recent times is an organization founded by Anna in Monrovia: the Anna H. Jones Colored Women’s Club. Anna and Sophia died the same year of 1932 (ages 77 and 75 respectively).

*At the year of their deaths, Walt was well-established in Los Angeles, and his animation talents gained prominence. Mickey Mouse was already popular. Walt fitted easily after moving to the new place - where restrictive real estate covenants did not apply to him.

WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

As Disneyland’s Main Street grew in reverence as a part of America’s identity, the optimism and resilience that emanated from Montgall Avenue slowly faded away. The Disney home on Bellefontaine is on the National Register of Historic Places. *On the contrary, mere blocks away absent is recognition for the singular street where once lived those who worked for the betterment of former slaves and upcoming generations.

Segregation kept long distances against Anna, Elias and Walt though they lived for a long time within four square miles. No one had the chance to find commonality with a question “Where are you from?”

This post stems from a 2024 article of the Natural History Museum from when I was employed there as an archivist and uncovered a small packet of family photographs once belonging to the Jones Family.

1. Importantly, read Kansas City’s Montgall Avenue: Black Leaders and the Street They Called Home, by Margie Carr (University Press of Kansas, 2023). Google Books provide chapters for reading.

2.  Read also “Dissecting the Troost Divide and Racial Segregation in Kansas City” published by Martin City Telegraph, 6/30/2020.

3.  Consult “Searching for the BlackMeccas: the Jones Family” published by the Monrovia Historical Museum, 4/27/2025 to learn about what led the Jones enslaved ancestors to Chatham, Canada, the northern terminus of the Underground Railroad. Learn about Anna’s abundant work in civil rights, suffrage, temperance, and general betterment of women’s lives. See an overview of Dr. Sophia’s accomplishments being the first black woman to attain a medical degree from the University of Michigan medical school. Between the three older sisters combined, they taught at Wilberforce University in Ohio, other historically black colleges, and the Frederick Douglass hospital. Shout out to Dr. Susie Ling for her many years uncovering the lives of African Americans in Monrovia and the San Gabriel Valley.

*Update 3.15.2026: 

Of course, as usual right after I post I discover some of the most pertinent information. "The Incomparable Jones Family" video on YouTube, compiled by the Monrovia Historical Museum and the family historian Renee Cochee:

The move to Monrovia did occur around the year 1919.

Today, Anna Jones' home on Montgall Avenue is recognized on the African American Heritage Trail of Kansas City Missouri, as well as one of the markers on the National Votes for Women Trail.

Sisters Sophia and Fredericka lived with Anna on Montgall Avenue while their respective medical office and boarding school were located at Bellefontaine Avenue.

George Jones was a masterful carpenter and built the house on Shamrock where his family and extended family lived. The Jones impact to southern California is broader - taking into account that George built homes in Whittier for the Quakers.

The Anna H. Jones Scholarship Foundation, founded about 1921, benefited generations of southern Californians, including Monrovia native Ron Husband in 1969, who became the first African American animator at Disney.

 

Hiroshima and Tyrus Wong

The Asian Pacific American Heritage Month concludes in a few days.  The month of May was designated due to key historic May events that defined the Japanese-American and Chinese-American experience.

African-Americans have their month in February; National Hispanic Heritage month runs from September 15th through October 15th each year.



My mementos from the concert

The L.A.-based jazz band, Hiroshima, scheduled a concert in Arcadia this recent May 14th.  The group leader, Dan Kuramoto, called the attention of the audience to the heritage month, explaining that he coincided this at-home concert because "this is our month".



Dan Kuramoto and musicians at their May 14th concert

Several weeks earlier, the L.A. Asian Pacific Film Festival featured a screening of "Tyrus Wong:  Brushstrokes in Hollywood" in Little Tokyo's Aratani Theatre.  Tyrus, now 105 ½  years old, was the center of attention in receiving rounds of applause as he entered the theatre in a wheelchair.  His long-time friend, colleague and fellow artist, Milton Quon, arrived shortly before, with the help of a walker.



My souvenir button purchased after the screening

Pamela Tom's film reveals his contributions to the 1942 animated film, Bambi.  Tyrus' delicate expressions of forest scenes led Walt Disney to ultimately adopt his conceptual style for the entire film's background scenes.  In recent years, Tyrus was belatedly recognized and honored for his considerable contributions to the film, notably by the late Diane Disney (daughter of Walt).  The documentary also explains the influence of storyboard artists, (like Tyrus, who later worked for Warner Bros.) whose visual layouts for movie scenes often swayed the directors.



Filmmaker Pamela Tom during the Q&A session
following the screening at the Aratani Theatre

It would be wonderful if the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could present an Honorary Award to Tyrus next year .  It might redeem the sting from the last two years' Oscars ceremonies:  the #OscarsSoWhite show earlier this year was inclusive of Asian Americans but only to poke fun at the same old stereotypes; last year's awards show brought on comedian Margaret Cho to act as a North Korean.  (Update:  Rest in Peace, Tyrus Wong.  He died at age 106, December 30, 2016) (Update:  He was recognized for a couple of seconds during the In Memoriam segment of the 2017 Oscars ceremony televised February 26th)



Tyrus in 1928, seated with legs crossed at front row, second from left.
Courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research

Tyrus Wong was born in 1910, about the same time East Coast movie companies were discovering the year-round sunshine in L.A.  Tyrus immigrated from China to the U.S. as a child.  All he ever wanted to do was draw.  He made it a successful livelihood in order to raise a family by working in Hollywood but also branching out as a commercial artist.  He managed to bring his artistry into the cultural fabric of our country.

The band, Hiroshima, formed with a unique sound through the accompaniment of the Japanese string instrument, a zither called the Koto, played by master kotoist June Kuramoto.  The early band was a pride of the 1970s local L.A. Asian American dance scene, and Hiroshima later found mainstream success, radio play and Grammy nominations.  Like Tyrus, the band Hiroshima managed to bring their artistry into the cultural fabric of our country.



June Kuramoto on the Koto

This post is published on the day of President Barack Obama's historic trip to Hiroshima, Japan, one of the two sites bombed by U.S. atomic bombs to force an end to World War II.


The Official Milton Quon Fan Club

Over 1,000 artists worked on the 1940 Walt Disney film Fantasia.  The 75th anniversary of its theatrical release is nearing in November.  One of those artists is an Angeleno, Mr. Milton Quon.  His family and members of his church (a place he attends regularly on Sundays) organized a program celebrating his accomplishments the past Saturday evening, June 13th.

There is not an actual fan club...but this post expresses admiration for the second-generation Toishan Chinese American, which is what I have in common with him.  A 2005 Los Angeles Times article "Through a native son's eyes" posed the question whether Milton's artistic style was influenced by his ethnicity; the writer, Scott Sandell, concluded that "Quon's story remains quintessentially L.A."



Milton Quon chatting with filmmaker Arthur Dong on May 13 in Little Tokyo
at a screening for The Curse of the Quon Gwon

I bumped into Milton and his son and daughter last month at a program in the series Big Trouble in Little Tokyo.  That evening we enjoyed watching the restored circa 1916 silent film "The Curse of the Quon Gwon", the earliest known feature film by a Chinese American.  Come to think of it, Milton would have been a toddler, 3 1/2 years old when that film was made...

It had been three years since I first met Milton and members of his family at the Vincent Price Art Museum in 2012 when his work was on exhibit in a Pacific Standard Time Exhibition "Round the Clock".

Getting back to the June 13th event, the evening highlighted Milton's animation work on the "mushrooms" in Fantasia and Mr. Stork's delivery in the 1941 Disney film, Dumbo.  In Fantasia, he helped bring to screen life Hop Low and the Mushroom Dancers, performed to the soundtrack's Nutcracker Suite - Chinese Dance.



The souvenir program listed Chinese Dance
(Image courtesy of the Seaver Center for Western History Research)

Jeff Quon, one of Milton's sons, told the audience last Saturday that his father remembered vividly attending a staff screening; it was extra special because the film employed a unique new sound technology "Fantasound", which later evolved to the widely-used stereophonic sound.



Before the event, Milton is shown preparing a sketch

During the Q&A session, many in attendance were already familiar with his life story, and some prompted him about his acting roles and his friendship with fellow Disney animator Tyrus Wong.

Milton recalled playing one of the passengers aboard bus 2525 in the 1994 film Speed starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves.  Milton explained that he was required to audition, and happily he got the part.  There were some dangerous rides -- and he got extra pay for it, he said in a rather dead-pan delivery characteristic of Milton, which brought chuckles from the audience.  He was 80 years old at the time according to a 2014 revisit with all the "bus passengers" written by Kristopher Tapley.

Milton explained his role in the 1994 film Speed

As for his friendship with Tyrus Wong, Milton immediately said, "He's a couple of years older than me".  Milton said Tyrus had a sporty car, and he had his eye on a girl Ruth (she later married Tyrus.)  He and Tyrus used to go to the beach and fish -- bonita fishing.  At some point, Tyrus decided he wanted try kite flying. 

Milton will be celebrating his birthday number 102 in August. 

Update July 18th:  Milton is mentioned in a recent New York Magazine article The Triple-Digit Club:  Meet 5 Centenarians Who Don't Act Their Age.

[Update July 17, 2019]  Mr. Milton Quon passed away peacefully on June 18, 2019, surrounded by his loving family.

3.14.2021:  View an updated tribute to Milton and his friend Tyrus Wong by clicking on the picture.