JERRY PERSON -- A Look Back

I ran across a note from Ann Minnie of our Chamber of Commerce

detailing some of the events the city and the chamber were doing in town

back in the 1950s.

That gave me the idea to look at one of our local civic leaders who

contributed both to the city and to the chamber.

Our Look Back person this week, Edward Frank Bray, was born in 1902 in

Foam Lake, Saskatchewan, Canada.

Frank Bray’s parents operated the first general store in Foam Lake.

They also homesteaded more than 4,000 acres where Bray grew up.

In 1904, Bray’s mother died, and he went to live with an aunt. He

continued to help out on the family farm and to work at the general

store.

It wasn’t difficult for Bray to attend school and work at the store,

as the school was located above the store.

Bray cared a lot about winter sports, especially ice hockey and ice

skating.

In 1924, Bray moved to Huntington Beach to be near his uncle, W. L.

McKenny, who owned a grocery store at the corner of Main Street and

Walnut Avenue.

Bray went to work in Santa Ana at the Alpha Beta market. In 1927, he

became the manager for our Alpha Beta store at 206 Main St.

Bray married Beatrice E. Henderson here in 1930. He continued to

manage the store until 1940, when he bought it and moved it to 218 Main

St., a site he had owned since 1937.

Bea opened her own store, Bea’s Hosiery, in the closed 206 Main St.

location and ran it from 1930 to 1942.

Bray’s stepson, William “Billy” Bray, became a partner in 1946. The

market was known as Bray’s Alpha Beta Food Center. Bray’s Alpha Beta

market was one of the earliest of the company’s chain of stores.

A member of both the Lion’s Club and the chamber, Bray was active in

our town’s civic affairs for years, and he was on our local high school

board.

“He was a very remarkable man,” said his daughter-in-law, Betty Bray,

when I talked to her on the phone.

Frank Bray became a director of the chamber, a position he enjoyed for

many years.

He and Bea lived in town at 321 2nd St.

Bray’s hobby was to go fishing, a hobby he found time to enjoy in his

later years.

Bray passed away at age 80 in 1982, Betty told me, which ended the

story of a most remarkable man.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach, CA 92615.