Joan of Arc in Chinatown: A Brief History of Los Angeles' French Hospital

Jeanne d'Arc in front of the French Hospital

(now the Pacific Alliance Medical Center)

The first hospital in Los Angeles, St. Vincent's, was (and still is) a Catholic hospital. Which, given the city's Spanish roots and large numbers of Catholic Frenchmen in early LA, isn't surprising.

However, by the late 1850s, LA was becoming a little more diverse. Growing numbers of Protestants began to arrive, requiring the founding of the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1853 (before that, only Catholic schools existed, in spite of California becoming a state in 1848). Jewish newcomers (most of them German or French) also began to arrive.

People of all faiths need medical care. The Daughters of Charity, to their great credit, never turned away a patient in need, but the town was growing, and St. Vincent's only had so much space. The French community decided to see to its own needs. On March 1, 1860, thirty-three Frenchmen (and two Italians) met at the French Consulate, under the invitation of French consul Jacques Antoine Moerenhaut (remember the name Moerenhaut; you'll be reading a very long entry about him later).

The group decided to form a non-sectarian mutual protective association - predating the concept of an HMO - and named it the French Benevolent Society. Members contributed $2.00 each to the treasury (monthly dues were $1.00) and elected a nine-member executive committee responsible for creating the Society's constitution.

The Executive Committee elected its officers as following:

President: J.A. Moerenhaut
Vice President: C. Souza
Treasurer: Jean-Louis Sainsevain (no surprise here)
Secretary: Leon Victor Prudhomme
Commissioners: F. Guiol, Henri Penelon, A. Poulain, A. Labory, Guillaume Laché

Dr. Lacharmois was named the Society's first medical official. Initially, he worked out of an office in a house on Hill Street.

The Society elected a nine-member board each and every year. For many years, Jean Sentous was the Society's president; his son Louis Sentous Jr. held several offices in the Society and was its president for thirteen years (during his tenure, membership more than doubled).

The Society's earliest members included, but were not limited to: A. Davoust, Seigle, T. Moillan, Jules Segouin, R. Boltz, Delancre, H. Remebe, S. Lebreton, Pierre and Madame L'Arseval, B. Amillac, M. Brunet, P. Larrieux, Louis Vieille, A. Labory, E. Bordenave, Jean Hennequin, P. Lende, the Henriots, G. Dupuy, Cardou, Henri Deleval, Boutet, C. Cassagne, Jean Bernard, V. Fevre, Sanot, J. Lassors, A. Blanche, S. Lelong, A. Gossiot, Guillaume Coppé, Camille Plosson, T. Clermont, the Cléments, Pierre Bassac, J. Marcellin, Mathieu Garboline, C. Plassan, A. Cauginac, F. Brémont, Edouard Naud, E. Baudry, E. Riviere, A. Pouya, Maurice Kremer, Jean B. Trudel, Charles Ducommun, L.J. Coijdarrens, Joseph Hennequin, Damien Marchessault, Claude Planchon, André Briswalter, R. Doleau, A. Grange, P. Lude, M. Pointreaux, G. Murat, A. Hauline, A. Rendon, Antoine Ferrera, P.P. Raho, and C. Soprani.

Regular readers may recall that Michel Lachenais' first murder took place at a wake, when (after the mourners had been drinking for several hours) he got into a fight with Henri Deleval over whether the recently-founded Society had adequately cared for the deceased.

The Society also soon had a parcel at the old City Cemetery for burials. (Beret-tip to Richard Schave for the link.)

By 1861, the Society decided non-French (and non-Italian) Angelenos could see Dr. Lacharmois as well. Los Angeles was still a very dangerous place (so much so that Frenchtown was protected by a unit of the French Foreign Legion!), and there weren't many medical professionals in town. This decision, in effect, created a healthcare safety net for area residents who may not necessarily have preferred St. Vincent's.

General meetings were held twice a year, on the first Sunday in March and the first Sunday in August. This tradition, to the best of my knowledge, continued for the Society's entire existence.

Any extra money in the Society's treasury was earmarked for the purchase of land and construction of a hospital. In spite of the expense of tending to sick or injured Frenchmen (and in some cases burying them as well), the treasury had $5,000 within the decade.

By 1869, four plots of land - enough to build the hospital - had been purchased on the edge of town, one mile from the French Colony. The Executive Committee vocally disagreed on whether to build the hospital that year. While the hospital was badly needed, some members were not convinced it was the best time to spend the money. In the end, the needs of the community won out, and plans were made to build the hospital.

On October 4, 1869, the Society gathered at the corner of College and Castelar Streets and walked to the building site, where the cornerstone of the French Hospital - the first non-sectarian public hospital in Los Angeles - was laid with appropriate ceremony.

By March of 1870, only the hospital's second story and roof remained unfinished. At the semi-annual March meeting, it was discovered that the building fund had run out of money. This was quite upsetting to members, who wanted the hospital open but did not want to go into debt.

The Society made the best of the situation by equipping the completed ground floor and opening the hospital in its unfinished state (perhaps rationalizing that they could finish it later, since bad weather is so infrequent in Southern California). M. Sarlangue was appointed caretaker, with a different French couple overseeing housekeeping and nursing. Sure enough, the Society soon managed to raise the rest of the money and finish the hospital.

In 1876, Dr. Hubert Nadeau (no relation to "Crazy Remi" Nadeau) arrived in Los Angeles, taking employment at the French Hospital. The well-liked doctor also served as county coroner from 1879 to 1884, when he became Chief of Dispensary Clinics and Professor at the University of Southern California. He was also President of the County Medical Association. (Los Angeles boasts a Nadeau Street and a Nadeau Drive; based on their respective properties owned it’s most likely that Nadeau Street is named after Remi and Nadeau Drive is named for the good doctor.)

The Society also held fundraisers, including an annual picnic. The Los Angeles Herald announced the French Benevolent Society's 11th annual picnic would be held at Sycamore Grove Park on June 18, 1882. In part: "Original Game of Ball of Henry IV. Committee of Arrangements - Beaudry, Lower, Casenave. Ladies' Bar - Mrs. Ch. Deleval, Vignes, Penelay. Ice Cream - Mdlles. Vignes, Jos, Dol, Deleval. Bar - Ballade, Dombledy, Rouguy, Lecroq. Dance - R. Weyse, Mailhan, Sombloy, Marticio, Cajal, L. Vignes. Flowers and Lottery - Mrs. Pelissier, Ballade, Cassagne, Sentous, Le Masne. French Restaurant! Music by Wangeman's Band! Carriages will be run to the ground from Downey Block every hour. Price 25 cents."

The French Hospital began accepting Chinese patients in the early 1900s. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the hospital is now surrounded by Chinatown.

Originally a modest adobe building, the French Hospital soon had a wood-framed front house where the nurses lived. The hospital was expanded in 1926. Supposedly, part of the original adobe building is encased within the walls of the newer hospital building. (What I wouldn't give to find out what happened to the original cornerstone...but I'm not about to go poking around an active hospital facility on private property.)

In 1985, the French Hospital celebrated its 125th anniversary with a party including a six-foot cake, pinatas, Chinese lions, and a presentation by then-Mayor Tom Bradley. By this point, admission pamphlets were printed in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Vietnamese - but not French - and the hospital staff spoke 25 languages.

In 1987, a multimillion-dollar expansion of the French Hospital was approved. Unfortunately, a year later, excessive unpaid medical bills forced the hospital (along with several others, i.e. Linda Vista) to cut back on emergency services.

Within a year, local doctors in Chinatown, with help from a Japanese entrepreneur, sought to save and expand the French Hospital. Since 1989, it has been known as the Pacific Alliance Medical Center, and is still an active hospital (the hospital remained open continuously when it changed hands). Today, most of the patients are Asian; there are also sizable numbers of Latino and African-American patients.

The Jeanne d'Arc statue erected in 1964 stands outside the hospital to this day. Nearby is an Angels Walk stanchion with a brief overview of the history of the French community and the birth of Chinatown. (I suspect it was placed in Chinatown and not in Frenchtown due to the presence of the French Hospital and the nearby Fritz Houses, built as a family compound by a French carpenter.)

The city of Los Angeles just voted to landmark the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights. Would anyone like to help me convince the City Council to landmark the French Hospital too?

Murders Most Foul: Michel Lachenais

While Frenchtown's residents were mostly decent people, a few bad grapes did get into the wine vat. Michel Lachenais was one of them.

Armand Michel Josef Lachenais, by all accounts a large and intimidating man, was born circa 1827 in France's Basque region, and most likely arrived in Los Angeles in the 1850s. He received a town lot in 1857 and was married to Maria de la Encarnacion Reyes, daughter of a respected Californio family. The couple adopted a daughter, Serafina.

In the fall of 1861, a Frenchman living in Los Angeles died (I can find no reference to the deceased's name anywhere). Other French-born residents organized a wake in a private home (Harris Newmark gives September 30 as the date; a newspaper account says it was October 3...your guess is as good as mine).

The non-sectarian French Benevolent Society had been established in 1860 to see to the medical needs of the French community (construction on the French Hospital would begin in 1869). During the wake, after the mourners had been drinking for several hours, Lachenais accused the Society of neglecting the deceased.

Henri Deleval, a normally peaceful man who worked at the Aliso flour mill, defended the Society. Lachenais cursed out Deleval, prompting Deleval to punch him in the face. This angered Lachenais, who drew his pistol and tried to shoot the unarmed Deleval. The gun misfired. Lachenais pulled the trigger again, causing another misfire. Lachenais stepped into the light, reloaded his gun, and deliberately shot Deleval twice in the stomach.

Henri Deleval died later that night. An angry mob of Frenchmen went to Lachenais' ranch, but he had already fled Los Angeles, leaving his wife and daughter behind.

This incident was extremely embarrassing to the city's French community, who prided themselves on being law-abiding at a time when Los Angeles, with a population around 7000, averaged about twenty homicides per year. One French citizen offered a $100 reward (about $2,900 today) "for the apprehension, and delivery in the County Jail" of Lachenais.

After five years of hiding in Mexico, Lachenais surrendered to the Deputy Sheriff. He pleaded self-defense at the trial, and was acquitted. This was likely due in part to his claiming to be afraid of vigilante justice.

The community was furious. The very next day, barber and former councilman Felix Signoret (don't let the job titles fool you; Signoret was a massive man with hands the size of hams) led a vigilante group that overpowered the sheriff and hanged four other murderers who were slated to be defended by the same lawyers who had secured Lachenais' acquittal. Signoret, who had participated in lynchings before, let it be known that the vigilantes would consider hanging lawyers who secured acquittals for murderers.*

Meanwhile, Lachenais just couldn't seem to keep his nose clean. By the fall of 1866, he faced another murder trial. One of his vineyard workers, a Native American man named Pablo Moreno, was bludgeoned to death with the butt of Lachenais' revolver. When the body was exhumed, it did indeed have a badly fractured skull.

There had been no actual witnesses to the assault; Moreno gave a deathbed statement to another Native American before Lachenais could bury him in secret. Lachenais' other employees all stated that he was guilty. However, they could not testify against him in court; at the time, the law prohibited Native Americans from testifying against white men. Maria Reyes de Lachenais testified that Moreno had gotten drunk, fallen, and hit his head on a rock. (Which doesn't explain why Moreno, a former Mission Indian and therefore a Catholic in the eyes of the Church, was secretly buried without last rites in an unmarked, unconsecrated grave.)

The jury didn't buy it. This time, Lachenais was convicted, albeit on the reduced charge of manslaughter (sadly, Native American laborers were of little or no concern to the authorities at the time). He was sentenced to three years at San Quentin.

Lachenais appealed his conviction, and his case was heard by the California Supreme Court (remember, this was the 1860s - less than 400,000 people lived in California at the time). Justice C.J. Sanderson ruled that, since the case was largely circumstantial and since the indictment had been based on testimony from Native Americans (which was inadmissible in court), a new trial was necessary. However, the new trial never took place, and Lachenais was free.

Lachenais went back to farming (near what is now Exposition Park), but kept getting himself into trouble. In July 1870, he was back in court, charged with malicious mischief for illegally diverting water from a zanja. This time, he was found guilty and ordered to either pay a $43 fine or spend 21.5 days in jail. His appeal was denied (it isn't clear whether he paid the fine or went to jail).

A newspaper account states that, just a few months later, Lachenais argued with a man known only as D'Arque and shot him in the face, blinding him. Lachenais was arrested, but there is no evidence he was ever tried for the shooting.

In October of 1869 or 1870 (sources disagree on the year), Maria Reyes de Lachenais died suddenly at the age of 48. It was widely rumored that Michel killed her, although he was never arrested or charged in her death. (Sadly, it's not unusual for abuse victims to cover for their abusers out of fear. I suspect Maria's testimony in the Moreno murder case was concocted to avoid her husband's notorious wrath.)

Finally, Lachenais shot and killed his next-door neighbor, Jacob Bell. It was no secret that he had threatened Bell over water taken from the zanja running between their farms and that the men had disputed the ownership of a piece of land. Lachenais could not resist going to the saloon, drunkenly boasting about murdering Bell, and stating where he had left Bell's body (history does not record whether he was criminally insane, incredibly stupid, or both). This time, he was swiftly arrested for murder.

The people of Los Angeles were fed up with Lachenais' violent behavior. He was due to be arraigned on December 17, 1870. The jailers summoned a priest from La Placita and allowed seventeen-year-old Serafina to say goodbye to her father. But the vigilante committee was determined to act. After a meeting which calmly reviewed Lachenais' life, Felix Signoret once again led the vigilantes, this time numbering about 50, to the jail and broke down the doors.

Lachenais was dragged to the city's hanging grounds - a corral gate at the corner of Temple and New High Streets (which no longer exists). He was made to stand on a large wooden box, with the rope around his neck. Incredibly, this time he did not resist. He did, however, ask to make provisions for Serafina's education** and shouted "I am hung by a set of Germans and Jews because I am a Frenchman!" (I have yet to find any proof of German or Jewish people in the mob - which was mostly Frenchmen.) History records La Placita's priest praying at the site. (Father Lestrade had retired by this point, so the priest was most likely Lestrade's Italian-born successor, Blas Raho.)

One of the youngest members of the lynch mob, incidentally, was 15-year-old Joseph Mesmer, son of French entrepreneur Louis Mesmer. Before he turned 30, Joseph would open one of LA's first bookstores.

Lachenais stated "Well, it's all through, and I'm going into the spirit land to fight the Germans." (The Franco-Prussian war was raging at the time.) He turned to the priest and said "Goodbye, Padre" before proclaiming self-defense in the murder of Jacob Bell. But the mob was having none of it; the hanging took place quickly. Lachenais was allegedly still talking when someone kicked the box out from underneath him.

There is a surviving photograph of the lynching (don't say I didn't warn you). William Godfrey, a photographer with a studio on Main Street, took the picture (and made extra money selling prints of it).

County Judge Ygnacio Sepulveda, wanting to rid Los Angeles County of lynching once and for all, asked the Grand Jury to seek out and charge the mob's leaders. The Grand Jury replied that if the court system had not previously failed to convict Lachenais, the lynching would not have happened.

New High Street no longer exists; per an old map in CSULB's collection, it disappeared underneath Little Tokyo sometime in the past 90 years. However, the former corral site is known to be the current home of the U.S. District Courthouse.

The Workman and Temple Family Homestead Museum will be giving a talk on the lynching in October. I hope I will be able to attend.

*Friendly warning: do not mess with French people. I mean it. We have done battle with ravenous wolves (I'm not kidding), we helped the Colonies defeat the British in the Revolutionary War (you're welcome), we overthrew and executed our own ruling class (which includes very distant cousins of mine), we overthrew and executed some of the leaders of the Revolution, we successfully took over much of Europe before (eventually) getting rid of that Italian upstart Napoleon, we make awesome spies/saboteurs, and we fight like hell every time we go to war (barring extenuating circumstances like a severe shortage of soldiers - and we usually win). France's last execution via guillotine took place in 1977 - the year of Star Wars' theatrical release. It's true that we speak a fancy-sounding language, know how to make anything prettier, and are probably shorter than you, but we can still kick your dérriere. So please don't give us a reason to do it.

**Sources disagree as to the exact nature and order of Lachenais' last words. In compiling this account, I relied on recurrence of words, the age of the account given (accounts written soon after an incident are the most accurate), and logic.