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WATERTO- LUCRETIA DEL VALLE

LOS ANGELES THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE DEL VALLE FAMILY IN

POLITICS and public life continued in the 20th century.
Their contributions formed a legacy that joined with the
contributions of other Latinos from all walks of life in
shaping California.
THE FINAL IMPORTANT POSITION DEL Although the Los Angeles Aqueduct was
VALLE HELD, FROM 1908 TO 1929, was on controversial, without it and other public
Del Valle had married Helen M. White Caystile in 1890.
Los Angeles's Public Service Commission, infrastructure works undertaken during
Their daughter, Lucretia del Valle (1892-1972),
which was responsible for water, power, Del Valle's time on the Public Service
after a youthful career as a stage actress,
and other public services. It was the Commission, Los Angeles never would have
followed her father into politics and became
ancestor of today's Department of Water grown from a 19th-century frontier town
a Democratic Party leader, at a time
and Power (LADWP). Del Valle was President into the metropolis it became during the
when it was unusual for women to be
of the Commission for much of that time, 20th century. Del Valle was so influential in
overseeing the Los Angeles Aqueduct's these developments that, just after his death, prominent in politics. She was a
California delegate to Democratic
chief engineer, William Mulholland, in the a memorial piece in the Los Angeles Times
National Conventions in 1928,
development of the water supply system declared, "To him, as much as to anyone, Los
that made possible the city's exponential Angeles owes the mighty aqueduct that was 1936, 1940, and 1956, and
growth during the 20th century. During the built to tap the water sources of the Sierra. His vice-chair of the Democratic
National Committee
Owens Valley water wars of the 1920s, when twenty-one years of service with the municipal
enraged ranchers seized and blew up the agency responsible for our water and power in 1937. She also
aqueduct that was diverting water from development attest the esteem in which his accompanied her diplomat
their lands to Los Angeles, Del Valle used fellow-citizens held him." husband, Henry F. Grady
his political skills to broker a peace that (1882-1957), during his
allowed the aqueduct to be repaired and the service as United States
project to go forward. Ambassador to India
and Nepal, Greece, and
Iran in the 1940s and 1950s.
While in Iran, she was known for
promoting women's rights.

When Edward R. Roybal (1916-2005)
ran as the Democratic candidate for
Lieutenant Governor of California
in 1954, Lucretia del Valle Grady
headed the women's committee
working for his election.