Culvers Take a Look at Namesake City Where None of Them Reside

By KENNETH J. GARCIA

July 24, 1988 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

A few characteristics immediately stand out about the Culvers: There’s a lot of them, and on the whole they’re pretty patient.

Those family features became evident Saturday as about 100 Culvers waited quietly for more than an hour to find enough working buses to cart them away on their tour of Culver City, the town founded by Harry H. Culver 75 years ago and the reason 180 Culver/Colver cousins converged on the city this weekend for the third national family reunion.

Backdrop for Films

Name tags to the left, Minoltas to the right, through the city streets cruised the hundred Culvers, enjoying the sights of the area that served as the backdrop for many of the nation’s most famous films. It probably should have been called Studio City, but Harry decided to name it after himself. His relatives were pleased with the choice.

“I don’t normally like crowds, but this is special,” said Patricia Culver Battle, Harry’s daughter who reminisced about the days she used to play in the family’s 10,000-square-foot mansion. “But when you get a gathering of Culvers, you definitely get a crowd.”

Two of the buses broke down, and two more were called in before the family members could see the town that cousin Harry built after plunking down $2,000 for 93 acres of barley fields between Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean. The Culver cavalcade toured the mansion that Harry built and later moved to Cheviot Hills in 1926. Later, they visited his grave at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

They came from about 26 states--most in the Midwest and the Northeast as well as a migratory flock of Culvers from Canada--and sat fascinated as the tour guides reflected on the largest city (pop. 42,000) of the four bearing the Culver moniker in the United States.

No Culvers in Culver City

Sadly, there’s not a single Culver still living in Culver City. But the Culver cousins couldn’t have cared less.

“It’s beautiful,” said Marlene Culver, who flew in with her family from Pittsburgh. “I had no idea it was so nice. A woman on the plane with us told us that we should tour a nicer part of town, but she obviously hasn’t been to Culver City.”

They saw the studio back lot where Atlanta burned during the filming of “Gone With the Wind,” viewed the spot where the Laurel and Hardy pictures were made and surveyed the place where Howard Hughes built the Spruce Goose.

But the biggest crowd response was reserved for the smallest people as the Culvers howled when they passed by the building that housed the Munchkins during the filming of “The Wizard of Oz.”

Considering how the buses were running, it’s a good thing that only a small portion of Culvers decided to come out for the reunion. There are an estimated 10,000 Culvers and Colvers throughout the country, according to family historians.

Almost all of them are descended from Edward Colver, a Puritan who immigrated to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1635.

Today, about 90% of the family members go by the name Culver instead of Colver, a spelling that emerged from a typographical error somebody made when copying church records way back when.

Largest Gathering

The first family reunion was held in 1985 in Culver, Ind., home of the Culver Military Academy, to celebrate the Culvers’ 350th anniversary in America. The following year, the clan gathered in Mystic, Conn., where founding father Edward once lived. But this weekend’s gathering, which began with a dinner Friday evening, is by far the largest gathering of Culvers in recent history.

“There are certain benefits in having a name that’s not too terribly well known, like the DuPonts,” said Lowell Culver, who flew out from a Chicago suburb to spend the weekend in Southern California. “It makes tracking each other down a lot easier.”

Charles Colver, a councilman and former mayor of Covina, organized the reunion, sending out more than 1,500 invitations throughout the country to distant and near cousins.

The reunion also featured the unveiling of the Harry Culver memorial coin, which has his portrait on one side and the Culver City seal on the other. It includes Harry’s words: “I will build my dream city.” Awards were also handed out to outstanding Culvers.

Charles Colver said the months it took to arrange the reunion were well worth it. If the family name were different, though, he said he might have reconsidered.

“If the family name was Smith or Johnson or Jones, it would have been a lot more difficult,” he said. “We can’t compete with the Joneses.”