Thai royal family

Thai royal family, When Chinese President Hu Jintao landed at LA/Ontario International Airport in June, he was the most high-profile visitor in several years. But Hu wasn't the first Asian head of state to use Ontario's airport.

Exactly 53 years earlier, the king and queen of Thailand flew into Ontario. Unlike Hu, who traveled to Rancho Mirage for a summit with President Barack Obama, the Thai royal family settled in for a weeklong stay.

Using a home in La Verne as their base, the royal couple and their four children saw the sights in Southern California. Much of their expansive retinue, meanwhile, lodged in Upland.

Ontario, Upland and La Verne? This is a perfect Daily Bulletin story.

I learned about their visit in an appropriately oddball way some years ago, via Charles Phoenix's book "Cruising the Pomona Valley 1930 Thru 1970." His entry on the all-American Betsy Ross ice cream parlor in Pomona said the location was visited by the royal family of Thailand in 1960. "The monumental occasion was commemorated by adding the 'Crown Jewel' sundae to the menu," Phoenix wrote.

Ontario, Upland, La Verne and Pomona? This keeps getting better.

It took me years to get around to it, but I remained curious about the royal family's sojourn, and eventually, with the help of Kelly Zackmann of the Ontario Library, Allan Lagumbay of the Pomona Library, our newsroom's morgue of Progress-Bulletin stories, the Upland Public Library's microfilmed copies of the Upland News and Galen Beery of the La Verne Historical Society, I was able to piece together the story.

The main question: Why did the king and queen of Thailand stay in La Verne? Did they hear it was nice there this time of year?

Henry Kearns extended the invitation. He was an undersecretary of commerce for international affairs under President Eisenhower, and he owned a 60-acre property in the La Verne foothills.

This wasn't unprecedented: Unusual as it may seem, the King of Siam, which later became Thailand, may have visited La Verne in 1926, and the prince, princess and son definitely visited in 1931. Both instances involved a local man named Ralph Lewis, who had connections in both Hollywood and the Orient.

La Verne: gateway to the Pacific Rim.

Kearns' invitation was accepted. And on June 19, the Thai royalty arrived.

"A U.S. transport plane glided out of the dark sky to land at Ontario International Airport Saturday night in a moment of international importance for Ontario, marking the visit of a king and queen -- the royalty of Thailand," the Daily Report wrote the next day.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit were greeted by Mayor Dan Mikesell, State Department officials and Thai citizens, who bowed low to their ruler.

The couple's four children, ages 2, 5, 8 and 9, arrived separately a few days earlier at Los Angeles International Airport when Ontario was fogged in. They were driven directly to the Kearns ranch, 4431 Wheeler-La Verne Road.

The king, 32, was born in Massachusetts while his father studied medicine at Harvard University. He took the throne at 18, in 1946, when his brother was assassinated. The queen, 28, was a fashion plate who never wore the same dress twice; she arrived with 200 outfits, valued at $40,000 and tended to by three ladies-in-waiting.

(In the constitutional monarchy, akin to England's, the couple, now in their 80s, still preside over Thailand, and the king is the world's longest-serving monarch.)

In their nine-day stay in Southern California, the family would visit Paramount and Desilu studios, Disneyland, Santa Barbara and Vandenburg Air Force Base. They toured the Mobil oil refinery in Torrance and the Douglas Aircraft plant in Santa Monica.

The stay wasn't without its unusual and remarkable incidents.

At Paramount Studios, Thailand's king and queen met America's king, Elvis Presley, who was filming "G.I. Blues." Publicity photos of the moment, which is nearly as odd as Presley's Oval Office meeting with President Richard Nixon, can be bought on eBay.

"Cruising the Pomona Valley's" Phoenix told me recently that it was on the way back to La Verne from meeting Elvis that the royal family pulled over for ice cream in Pomona. He learned that detail from a 1990s interview with the widow of the founder of Betsy Ross. Well, it was June, which is excellent ice cream weather, and they had four children.

In Pasadena, the king sat in on a jam session with his favorite drummer, Ben Pollack.

"The jazz-loving monarch, who plays saxophone and clarinet, exchanged hotlicks with the drummer in a Pasadena home," the Daily Report wrote. "Pollack reassembled his old combo for the regal occasion."

At Disneyland, where the family was escorted by Walt Disney himself, the king was entertained at lunch by a jazz combo that played five of his compositions. At home, the king had a 13-piece jazz band that performed an hourlong show each week from the palace radio station.

Tragedy struck during the Disneyland jaunt.

At the happiest place on Earth, the family's public relations man, 42, collapsed of a heart attack and died. Stone Funeral Home in Upland handled the arrangements and shipped his ashes back to Thailand.

A story on the services in the Upland News carried the never-to-be-repeated headline "Thailand King Gets Haircut in Upland."

"The King of Thailand slipped quietly into an Upland barber shop for a haircut last Thursday morning, discussed his native country with Elmer Hershberger, then continued on to Stone Funeral Home..." the story began.

The unnamed barber shop was in the Vons center on Foothill Boulevard. Hershberger, for the record, gave the king "a regular feather edge American style haircut."

Elvis would have been impressed.

Much of the family's entourage, numbering more than 35, was ensconced at the Uplander Inn, on Foothill Boulevard at Euclid Avenue.

Little is known of the family's stay in La Verne. The Kearns decamped for Balboa, turning over their estate and colonial-style home to the royal family and leaving behind some jazz records and instruments for the king.

The king and queen one day accepted an invitation to visit James and Zella Worden just up the road, walking up to their home hand in hand, admiring the rose garden.

On June 27, the unofficial portion of their visit over, the royal couple boarded a flight to Pittsburgh where they were met by President Eisenhower. Before they departed Ontario, the queen was presented with a bouquet of red and white carnations by the Upland chapter of the American Red Cross, in recognition of her presidency of the Red Cross in Thailand. Paula Makabe, 14, of Upland High School presented the bouquet. Thirteen Civil Air Patrol cadets of the Old Baldy Squadron helped put the luggage aboard the plane and formed an honor guard.

The children stayed behind at the Kearns ranch during their parents' tour of the United States. Following a stop in San Francisco, the couple returned to Ontario the morning of July 14. They had a farewell luncheon at the Kearns Ranch, where they made presentations to the Highway Patrol and Sheriff's Department, specifically the San Dimas station, which had protected them.

That afternoon, the family and their retinue left for Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino, where they departed for Switzerland and a 13-nation European tour.