By LEONARD SARGEANT
News Assistant City Editor
LOS ALAMITOS— Miss Kate Rea, 85½, and her “kid” sister, Mrs. Ella Wallop, 80, were the hits of a ribbon cutting ceremony yesterday which opened an important link to a highway which had been named after them many years before.
Scene was the bridge over the San Gabriel River where the rites were held marking the completion and opening of the 1.6 mile extension of Willow St. in Long Beach to join with Katella Ave. in Orange County.
VETERAN PERFORMERS
Kate and Ella, namesakes of Katella Ave., posed for photographers as patiently as the many politicians who surrounded them.
The old pros at the ribbon-cutting bit included Supervisor Frank G. Bonelli of Los Angeles County, Assemblyman William Grant, and the mayors of three cities, James Bell of Los Alamitos, Ed Wade of Long Beach, and Paul S. Kemner of Signal Hill.
There was also a sprinkling of non-political bigwigs including Orange County Road Commissioner Al Koch, Assistant State Highway Engineer Ed Telford; Capt. Robert B. Buchan, commanding officer of Los Alamitos Naval Air Station; Dr. Orville Cole, president of Long Beach Chamber of Commerce, who arranged the program.
SONORA SNACKS
But it was the two sisters and a burro named Sonora loaned by Knotts berry Farm, who drew most of the attention.
Sonora ate his way through his favorite snack, a carrot, to cut one of the ribbons. The other was officially snipped in a more conventional manner — with a pair of oversized scissors.
The Rea sisters came to Orange County in 1896, to the 80-acre ranch which their father, John R. Rea, had purchased a few years before.
Forty acres of the ranch were located just east of the property which later became the Katella School, and the other 40 acres was just north of that. Ten acres of the old ranch now belong to Disneyland.
DEEP DUST
The old dirt road in front of the ranch and school, also called Katella, was used mostly by sugar beet truckers and sometimes was a foot deep in dust. Rea sold the ranch in 1905.
Miss Kate now lives at 224 E. Broadway, Anaheim. Her sister married William (Bill) T. Wallop, for 31 years superintendent and secretary of the Anaheim Union Water Co., and president of Anaheim Savings and Loan Co. The Wallops live at 2211 N. Moody Ave., Fullerton.
Opening of the newly constructed segment of highway eliminates the only missing link in an arterial route now extending for a distance of 28 miles between Redondo Beach and Anaheim. Cost of the project was $970,000.