Patch Blog: How I Didn’t Meet General Patton

General Patton grew up in San Marino. The Patton Estate was on the west side of the on Euston Road. Patton Court and Patton Way are subdivisions of the original property.

Born Nov 11, 1885, General Patton left San Marino to be an officer candidate at West Point in the early 1900’s. He returned for occasional visits, but never to live here again.

In 1944, I was in the Navy Training V12 program at Cal Tech. When our group had a Sunday off we would go to Corona Del Mar to our family beach house. Bill Gulley, a classmate of mine, had a great recipe for enchiladas that he wanted to make for us on one of these beach Sundays. It required tortillas, chili sauce, onions, hamburger, and plenty of cheddar cheese.

That was all fine, but we didn’t have any cheese. The only solution was that we would have to go to the ration board at the city hall and get ration stamps and then use those to get the cheese. That’s the way it worked during the war.

My friends all picked me to do the ration deal because I had a home address here in San Marino. So, down I went to the city hall to stand in line.

When I got my stamps I had to sign the book. The attendant said, “Look who you just missed. A fellow resident!”

I looked at the book, and there in large handwriting with a nice flourish was the signature of “G.S. Patton, USA”.

“You just missed seeing General Patton!”