SUDDENLY, Politi had his answer. He could preserve the wonderful buildings in paintings and drawings. Some residents had lived in their homes since the early 1900s and they told Politi what life was like in the early days. And so Politi preserved not only the houses but the stories of the owners as well.
"Will the parks be next to go?" Politi wondered. "Will huge buildings take their place?" Day after day Politi and his sketchpad visited parks throughout the Los Angeles region. It didn't take him long to discover that the parks had stories, too, stories of the people they were named for, the people who enjoyed them, and the celebrations that occurred there.
Next came stories and paintings of Los Angeles' many festivals. Politi was sure they, too, would soon be gone. So he filled the pages of "The Poinsettia" with stories of Hanukkah, holiday celebrations in the Pueblo days, Christmas in Japan Town, Olvera Street's Las Posadas procession, and the legend of the poinsettia.
What should he preserve next? Chavez Ravine and its quaint houses were already gone. Dodger Stadium stood in their place. So Politi and his pencil and paints moved on to Redlands, a nearby community filled with historic houses. Angeleno Heights, the area where Politi now lived, came next. There were beautiful houses there too. They should be preserved in paintings, drawings, and stories.
As the first author to put Mexican, Chinese and Japanese children in his stories, Leo Politi's books influenced children who imagined that they saw themselves in the stories. One of them, Richard Alonzo, went on to name a new elementary school after him -- Leo Politi Elementary -- in the Pico-Union District of Los Angeles. Alonzo was the school's first principal and is now one of eight local district superintendents for Los Angeles Unified.
Just before Leo Politi died in 1996 at age 87, he told his son, "I think I've had such a blessed life. Every day I just got up and painted."
\o7Ann Stalcup, www.annstalcup.com, is author of "Leo Politi: Artist of the Angels," published in 2004 by Silver Moon Press.
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This story is the last in a series celebrating the 225th anniversary of the founding of Los Angeles on Sept. 4, 1781. It will be on The Times' website at latimes.com/kids.
