Thomas Shellard Pinhey

Thomas Knevitt Pinhey I, Thomas Shellard Pinhey, Edward Shellard Pinhey, and Daisy Laura Pinhey, 1920

Thomas Knevitt Pinhey and Daisy Laura Pinhey had three sons, Thomas Shellard Pinhey, Edward Shellard Pinhey, and William Shellard Pinhey.

Thomas Shellard Pinhey, born October 24, 1911, was the eldest son of Thomas Knevitt Pinhey  and  William Fox Pinhey's second grandson (Eric William Digby Stillwell was William's first grandson).

Thomas Shellard Pinhey in 1927

Thomas Shellard Pinhey died tragically in 1927 at the age of 15 years in Hollywood California.   TKP and Daisy had recently moved to Hollywood from Morton Grove Illinois and Thomas' death was a major shock for the family.   My father recalled his brother Thomas as follows:

"In late May or early June 1927 Tom was a member of a wall scaling team that won the Boy Scout contests and the next day he complained of a painful abdomen. We were moving into a duplex, 737 North Harper, and it was the last day of school. I came home (our new home) and Tom was in bed and mother was wringing her hands and waiting for the doctor. Tom was delirious and talking to me about our coming vacation in Balboa and Newport Beach. We both loved the ocean and the swimming and surfing. The ambulance came and took him away and mother and father went along. William and I stayed at the home of an associate of fathers, Ernie Levy. The next morning my father asked me to go for a walk with him. He then informed me that Tom had died on the operating table. The doctors didn’t really know the cause of death but thought it might have been a ruptured appendix (note: the cause was officially peritonitis due to a ruptured appendix). My mother took this very badly and in August she and William took off on the Rose Queen to visit her sister Iris in Salem, Oregon. It was a good thing to do, as she and father were both so on edge that their once happy marriage was in danger of disintegrating. We had a housekeeper and bachelored along for about 5 or 6 weeks.

Tom and I had made friends while living at La Perla Courts and joined the

Boy Scouts (Troop 57, Heinz best). We met on Hollywood Blvd. in the St. Thomas Episcopal Church and had a lot of fun. After meetings we often stole loquats and oranges from the small orchards then in existence on Hollywood Blvd. Our new friends were Clinton and Sheldon Ellsworth; their mother managed the La Perla Bungalow Courts, Gerard Cloutman (his sister, Barbara Kent, was Miss Hollywood of 1927 and a fairly well known actress), John Mallet who lived on Hayworth in an apartment with his aunt and uncle (he was an orphan) and Homer Boyle who lived on Fairfax south of Sunset Blvd. Somehow I was designated to fight with Homer, for some obscure reason. He was older than I was, but I was sturdy and made out all right.

Tom and I hitched rides on the P&E (Pacific Electric Railway) trains over Cahuenga Pass, jumped off at Universal City and walked through Lasky Ranch where the old Westerns were made and hiked clear across to Griffith Park where Tom distinguished himself by teasing the bears in their pens. We did another freight car hop down Santa Monica Blvd. to the Santa Monica Pier. Did you ever notice that between the pilings under the pier there are plank walkways? We discovered that if we walked these we could come up under the floors of the various fun houses and other entertainment places “for free”. We swam in the surf and I was amazed to find that the ocean was colder in California than in Vancouver, B.C. The Japanese current did not set in at Santa Monica like it did in B.C.

We also sneaked into Bernheimer’s Gardens in Hollywood. All in all we had a great time that ended rather abruptly with Tom’s death. I joined the YMCA on DeLongpre in Hollywood as I was very lonely without Tom and I became involved with swimming. I was a very good swimmer and had several friends at the “Y”. Graumann’s Chinese was almost completed, and the Egyptian was the classy movie theater at that time (1927 or ’28). Father and I went camping almost every weekend and found a wonderful place called Emerald Bay south of Laguna. It is now a millionaire-type resort but in those days we paid 50 cents and pitched our camp tent. There were the remains of many old movie sets there and when later we took William and mother there, we took pictures of father kneeling to my mother on the old set of “The Black Pirate” which starred Doug Fairbanks. It was a wonderful place to swim and fish and helped lighten the pain and loss of my brother. Mother never got over it however, and when in later years I lost my daughter, 18 year old Sheila, I understood her grief."

 The Pinhey Brothers 1927
William Shellard Pinhey age 5, Edward Shellard Pinhey, age 12, and Thomas Shellard Pinhey, age 15

Thomas age 14 and Edward age 11, and William age 4

Unfortunately, my father and grandmother never told me where my uncle Thomas was buried.  I searched through the records for several years, and while I was able to locate the state death index listing his death, I could not find an obituary or other record.  I resorted to contacting the main cemeteries in Los Angeles, but no record of Thomas turned up.  Finally, in 2019, I was able to access Thomas' death certificate (below) and I was able to determine that Thomas was interred at the Inglewood Park Cemetery in Inglewood California, literally the last cemetery I would have checked!  I am grateful to be able to locate my uncle's final resting place and that I am able to document and memorialize his life.

Thomas Shellard Pinhey, Certificate of Death, 1927

I was also able to locate a sympathy note from the Hollywood Boy Scout Troop to my grandparents and also a very touching letter from Fanny Maude Pinhey to my grandmother Daisy regarding Thomas' death.

Sympathy Note from Boy Scouts Troop 57

Letter from Fanny Maude Pinhey to Daisy Laura Pinhey 

(sent from the W.F. Pinhey Residence Dunoon Road, Lewisham, London)

Interestingly, the letter shows Fanny Maude's address as 22 Dunoon Road in 1927. Apparently William Fox and Fanny moved to 24 Dunoon Road  (next door) shortly after the letter was sent.