Henry Eversole Jr.; Ran Food Businesses

Henry Owen Eversole Jr., former owner and developer of Coronet Foods Inc. and Wil Wright’s ice cream parlors, has died. He was 77.

Eversole died Monday in his La Canada Flintridge home of natural causes, his son, Henry Eversole III, said Tuesday.

Scion of a pioneer Southern California family, Eversole was the grandson of Eli P. Clark, who established the Pacific Electric Railway Co., the first rapid transit system in the area.

He was educated at Stanford University and Harvard Law School, and worked briefly as a Los Angeles deputy district attorney. He served as a U.S. Navy lieutenant in the Pacific during World War II.

After the war, he was an economic adviser under the Marshall Plan from 1947 to 1955, assisting with postwar reconstruction in Greece.

Returning to Los Angeles, he set up his Coronet company in the mid-1950s, and later started Wil Wright’s.

In addition to his son, Eversole is survived by his wife, Noorna, and four daughters, Alexandra Mary Eversole, Gillian Servais, Helena Eversole and Melina Lucy Montoya, and four grandchildren.

Services are planned at 2:30 p.m. Friday in the Wee Kirk of the Heather Church at Forest Lawn, Glendale.

The family has asked that any memorial contributions be made to the Los Angeles Mission.