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Historical records matching Charles Theodore Von Der Ahe
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About Charles Theodore Von Der Ahe
From: Title: California and Californians, Volume 3 Author Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez Editor Rockwell Dennis Hunt Publisher The Lewis publishing company 1930
Charles Von der Ahe is a California merchant and business man whose career has given a new meaning to the much abused word service. It was service comprising hard work that not only laid the foundation but has been the dominating element in his entire career. Mr. Von der Ahe began life with a minimum of capital and a superabundant ambition, and before he was forty-five years of age he built up an organization known as Vons Incorporated, comprising a chain of more than eighty retail grocery stores.
Mr. Von der Ahe was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, August 29, 1883. His parents were Rudolph Peter and Caroline (Larsen) Von der Ahe. His father was a glass blower by trade. Charles Von der Ahe had his first school advantages in his native country. He was seven years of age when, in 1890, his parents came to the United States, landing at New York. For a time they lived at Colorado Springs, Colorado, later in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and his father also worked at his trade in the great glass factory at Alton, Illinois. The parents in 1921 moved to California and lived in Los Angeles until their death.
In the meantime Charles Von der Ahe had received his education and had experimented with various lines of work, eventually determining that his forte was in the mercantile field. In 1906, when he was twenty-three years of age, he arrived at Los Angeles. Not long afterward people living in the community of Fifty-fifth and Central Avenue and the outlying districts came to know something of this young man, who was driving a butcher wagon and selling meat at retail. Wherever he went he impressed by his thoroughly business like manner, his uniform courtesy, his unwavering honesty and his emphasis upon good service at reasonable charges. A number of years went into his apprenticeship and laying the ground work of experience. He was doing work that constituted a preparation for the future, but had accumulated no large volume of credit or actual capital when, in 1914, he made his independent start in the grocery business. His first store was located at South Figueroa and West Seventh streets, on the site now occupied by the Barker Brothers establishment. It was an independent venture under his own name, and he knew that only by starting at the beginning could he hope to grow, and he knew also that service would have to be the foundation on which to build. Even then he had in mind some general plan of building up a chain of stores. After two years he sold out his establishment and then went into the real estate business. He was too active and energetic to sit in an office waiting for customers to come to him, and after having been in business six months without making a single deal, he finally walked out and left the office, to take up something more in line with his previous experience.
[p.279] His next departure was buying rundown grocery stores, building them up and selling out at a profit. His success in this made him known as a store speculator, and he was frequently called upon by wholesalers to look over certain stocks of grocers who had become dilatory in paying their accounts. Mr. Von der Ahe could step into a store and in a few moments accurately appraise the business, telling almost to exact dollars and cents how much stock was on the shelves and in the back room, and how much business was being done. For two years most of his time was taken up with this kind of work.
In the meantime, between 1914 and 1915, he started store No. 1, the first of the chain of stores that subsequently became Von's Incorporated. It was located at West Forty-eight Street and Vermont Avenue and is still in operation. From that small store, located on the outskirts of Los Angeles, his business expanded until in fifteen years Von's Incorporated operated over eighty stores, in twenty cities, fifty-three of them in Los Angeles residential and home communities. Other stores were scattered over a district from the mountains to the sea and as far east as Whittier. Mr. Von der Ahe developed a real genius in building up a system of merchandising, handling the finest of goods through attractive stores, and having started his career by handling goods over the counter he knew every detail of the work and had the gift of faculty of training others, so that the staff of employees of Von's Incorporated, from clerks to branch managers, were permeated with the spirit and enthusiasm of the head of the business. Von's stores had a distinctive character, and though not only clean, attractive, filled with tempting merchandise, there was something in the spirit of the personnel which caused customers to enjoy the experience of trading, whether their purchase was small or large, and consequently the volume of business grew steadily in the face of increasing competition.
About 1928, when Mr. Von der Ahe had a chain of eighty-seven stores in operation, he put this large ground into the still greater chain of the Mac Marr Stores, which embraced about 1500 individual stores located up and down the entire coast from San Diego to the Canadian boundary and many in the inter mountain places in Nevada, Utah and Montana. Mr. Von der Ahe was vice president of the Mac Marr Limited until September 1, 1930, when he severed his connection to give all his attention to his private interests. The general offices of the Mac Marr Limited are located in the Von Office Building on Central Avenue at Los Angeles.
Mr. Von der Ahe is a director of the Seaboard National Bank of Los Angeles, a member of the Breakfast Club, California Club, Commercial Club, Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, Merchants and Manufacturers Association, California. Country Club, Douvall Beach Club, and Los Angeles Lodge No. 99, B. P. O. Elks. He is a Lutheran. A hard worker all his life, he has appreciated the value of social contacts, is a popular member of the various organizations mentioned, and is also a patron of clean outdoor sport, and enjoys such pastimes as golf, bridge, and bowling.
While Mr. Von der Ahe was president and general manager of Von's Incorporated, the vice president of that business was his wife, herself a very capable business woman, whose judgment has had much to do with his success. Mrs. Von der Ahe before her marriage was Miss Linda Luer of Los Angeles. She was born and educated in that city. Her father, A. O. Luer, is an early resident of Southern California and head of the Luer Packing Company, a well known wholesale meat packing house of Los Angeles. Mr. and Mrs. Von der Ahe were married January 22, 1907. Mrs. Von der Ahe is a member of the Catholic Woman's Club of Los Angeles. To their marriage were born eight children, five [p.280] sons and three daughters, all natives of Los Angeles. The names of these sons and daughters are Theodore, Wilfred, Carl, Walter, Virginia, Clyde, Muriel and Dorothy. Mr. Von der Ahe and family reside at 5250 West Second Street.
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Charles Theodore Von Der Ahe's Timeline
| 1882 |
August 29, 1882
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Copenhagen, Denmark
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| 1908 |
March 27, 1908
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California, United States
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| 1910 |
May 9, 1910
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Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States
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| 1912 |
March 29, 1912
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| 1914 |
August 4, 1914
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California, United States
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| 1916 |
May 15, 1916
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California, United States
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| 1918 |
February 28, 1918
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Los Angeles, California, United States
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| 1919 |
August 2, 1919
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Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States
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