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Bill Davidson
“At Home at the Del!”
By Karen Scanlon, CHA Volunteer
B
arely a step through the front entrance of the Temecula, California home of Bill Davidson and you are drawn into something special. A quick hello, no formalities, and the tour begins. Amidst his walls of history are 10 handsomely framed photos. “These belonged to Granddad. They were of his personal, first-namebasis friends. Top left is Franklin D. Roosevelt. That one is Granddad with Henry Ford and son in the Ford Building of the 1915 Panama Exposition.” He points to Taft, Coolidge, and Pendleton. “Here’s President Woodrow Wilson, in town to speak on the League of Nations in Balboa Park in front of a crowd of 50,000. Granddad found a microphone back East somewhere and it was the first time Wilson had ever used one. There was a huge roar when all could hear. He told Granddad that it was the greatest day he’d ever had.” So just who was this fellow to befriend such well-knowns? G. Aubrey Davidson founded the Southern Trust and Commerce Bank in 1909, and was President of San Diego Chamber of Commerce. But he offered San Diego something much longer lasting. Bill’s grandfather proposed an exposition to celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal. It would boost San Diego’s economy. A committee was formed, and Davidson served as President of the 1915 Panama-California Exposition and as Board Chair of the 1935 California Pacific Exposition. G. Aubrey Davidson’s exposition legacy remains in the magnificent structures that highlight San Diego’s famous Balboa Park. “Granddad was always calm, humble, and loving, especially to my grandmother. She always went first,” Bill says. “So many good memories of him, like driving to the sulfur pools in Warner Springs.” The Davidsons all resided at Hotel del Coronado. Bill was born in La Jolla in 1929, moved to Pasadena during his elementary school years, and then transferred to Coronado High School (CHS). “The hotel was only about a third occupied back then and Granddad rented three suites at $5 a night. I lived there through high school (then off to UCLA for college).”
Bill remembers well his first CHS football game, “A freshman walking toward the stands and here came these monstrous seniors with their big green and white uniforms, and the band was playing, I thought these guys are God to me, the most exciting thing I’d ever seen.” At the time, Ernest Tiedemann was manager of the hotel. “I loved the sweet rolls they had. I wore Levi’s, which meant I couldn’t go in the lobby with its dress code. Funny thing, during Prohibition, society people brought all of their ‘houch’ of rare wines and whiskeys and gave it to
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