Son of George Sidney Vickery and
Josephine (Josie) Cassander Hurt

Marriage
To Grace Iva Thomason

Harbor area historian, author and bon vivant, Oliver Vickery has died after a long illness. He was 90.

Funeral services for Vickery, whom the roadway at Cabrillo Beach was named, was in Halverson-Leavell Mortuary in San Pedro. Burial followed at Green Hills Memorial Park.

Vickery died in a Long Beach Convalescent Home. The 90 year old San Pedran, who last was hospitalized for treatment of dehydration and pneumonia, has been living in nursing homes in San Pedro and Gardena for several years.

Vickery was one of a few area residents who had the distinction of having a city street (Oliver Vickery Circle Way) named for him.

The historian was a lecturer as well as a columnist for The News Pilot. His many newspaper columns, called Harbor Heritage, were the basis for his history of the area.

Also called Harbor Heritage, the book chronicles the development of the Port of Los Angeles and it's communities from it's discovery by Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo in 1542 to its status as the leading west coast port. The colorful collection of tales is now used as one of the history texts at San Pedro High School.

Additionally, Vickery was a former manager of the Wilmington Chamber of Commerce, past president of the San Pedro Kiwanis Clubs and a former curator of the Banning Residence Museum in Wilmington. He also was active in the preservation of the Drum Barracks and was its one time honorary commandant.

Vickery was born December 30, 1896 in Birds Point, Missouri and was raised in the Cumberland Mountains of Kentucky. A 1925 graduate of the University of California, Berkley, he lectured on history, economics and nuclear energy.

Vickery was an unofficial observer for the State Department at the International Economic Conference in Moscow during the spring of 1952. He was the first man ever to make a speech in Russia on the American free enterprise system. Life magazine featured this episode in it's June 2, 1952 edition.

Vickery is survived by his sister, Edna Cecil Dennison of Coalinga and a niece of Sunnyvale. (Wayne County Outlook Monticello, Kentucky, 15 Oct 1987)

California Death Records
Name: Oliver Francis Vickery
Birth: 30 Dec 1896 Missouri
Death: 4 Sep 1987 Los Angeles Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Hurt
SSDI: Resident Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, CA
Burial: 8 Sep 1987, per cemetery

BROTHER
John Estill Vickery Sr
California Death Records
Name: John E Vickery
Birth: 15 Sep 1890 Missouri
Death: 11 Feb 1962 Alameda Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Hurt
(b. Birds Point, MO, per WWII Draft)

BROTHER
Clarence Edwin Vickery
Name: Clarence E Vickery
Birth: 30 Aug 1893 Missouri
Death: 2 Jun 1972 Fresno Co.
(b. Birds Point, per WWII Draft)

SISTER
Edna Cecil Vickery Dennison
California Death Index
Name: Edna C Dennison
Birth: 27 Oct 1901 Missouri
Death: 10 Mar 1990 Fresno Co.
Mother's Maiden Name: Hurt
Father's Surname: Vickery
SSDI: Resident Coalinga, Fresno, CA

ADDITIONAL INFO
Oliver Vickery, 91, Harbor Area's Colorful 'Official Historian,' Dies
September 10, 1987|BOB WILLIAMS | Times Staff Writer

Oliver Vickery, San Pedro's official historian, who was long known as one of the harbor community's most colorful characters, has died at the age of 91.

Vickery was in declining health for several years and had lived at a nursing home in Gardena until being moved to a Long Beach hospital, where he died Friday. He was buried Tuesday in Green Hills Cemetery in Rancho Palos Verdes.

A Kentuckian who maintained the courtly style and manner of the old South, Vickery arrived in San Pedro in 1917 in search of a long-lost uncle. He did not find the relative, he told friends later, but he found a community that engaged his passionate interest for the rest of his life.

In a 1981 Times interview, Vickery recalled that Gaffey Street, now a thoroughfare that runs into the Harbor Freeway, did not exist then. "There were lots of sheep grazing there and on up the hill, and a lot of coyotes, but no Gaffey," he said, adding that "I've seen a lot of changes."

Over the decades, Vickery acquired a vast store of information about people and events in the harbor area. He shared it enthusiastically in countless talks with individuals and community groups, in a history column in the San Pedro News-Pilot and in a 1978 book, "Harbor Heritage."

He was the first curator of the Banning Residence Museum in Wilmington and devoted considerable efforts to promoting the memory of Gen. Phineas Banning, a California pioneer who worked in the 1850s to establish San Pedro as an ocean port. Until his health began to fail, Vickery appeared at community events, such as the annual Wisteria Festival, in a dashing blue Civil War uniform and recited stories of the harbor area as they might have been told by Banning.

In 1981, the Los Angeles City Council recognized Vickery as the city's official historian for the harbor area. The Harbor Commission designated the winding drive in front of the Cabrillo Marine Museum as Oliver Vickery Circle Way.

"They usually don't name streets for you until you're dead," Vickery was quoted as saying. "I do so little and get so much."

While in his early 20s, Vickery received a degree in economics and history from UC Berkeley and then went on to work in banking and various mercantile businesses until his late 50s, when he decided to devote his full time to writing and lecturing on his beloved San Pedro.

He attracted national and international attention in 1952, when he attended an economic conference in Moscow and used the occasion to lecture the Russians on the virtues of the free enterprise system. According to an 11-page picture spread and story in Life magazine, "A Capitalist on the Loose in Moscow," Vickery received a standing ovation from the conferees. After that, much to the surprise of the CIA, Vickery was able to travel throughout the Soviet Union and bring back hundreds of feet of film. For years, he was much in demand on the lecture circuit in the United States.

Vickery's wife, Grace, died in 1979. They had no children.