Under Every Tombstone: THE LARGEST SEAMLESS RUG EVER MADE IN AMERICA - The Kerr Rug Mfg. Co. for Angeles Abbey in Compton, California

This month's blog article will be slightly different than usual. I have been working on a project for Find a Grave that has taken up most of my time lately. In this regard I have created over 2,100 Memorial Pages for people interred at Angeles Abbey in Compton, California. I do have an interesting story in the hopper about "The Richest Woman in Evanston (68) Elopes with Car Salesman (29)" but to finish it I have to do further research at the Evanston Historical Society which I will not be able to do until next month. So this month we will take another trip to Compton, California and the Angeles Abbey Mausoleum Park.

My Find a Grave project has me using Newspapers.com to scour local newspapers for obituaries to identify people interred at Angeles Abbey. While searching the Santa Ana (CA) Register I came across the following advertisement from July 7, 1928:

I didn't really pay much attention to the ad until I saw that part that said:

We have just made and laid the largest seamless rug ever made in America in Angeles Abbey, Compton, California.

Well, that sounded interesting. I decided to contact the Kerr Rug Mfg. Co. to see if they had any information in their archives about the rug. I thought I would start with the address in the ad: 112 West Fifth Street, Santa Ana, California. No luck. An un-carpeted parking garage occupies that parcel today.

The ad said the Santa Ana address was a branch. I needed to look for the headquarters. I checked the Internet and found a Kerr Floors, Inc. at 130 E. Dyer Road, Santa Ana, CA. They had a website: www.kerrfloors.com. I sent them an email and here's the response I received the next day:

Different Kerr. There was a Kerr Rug in Fresno, but don’t know if there’s any connection to the Kerr Rug in the article. Good luck with your project. Wish I could help.

Thank you,

Kerr Floors, Inc.

Based on his information I looked for a Kerr Rug in Fresno. There was a Kerr Rug Co. at 539 G Street in Fresno, that had been founded in 1912. It was located in a beautiful (at one time) streamline-moderne building. Unfortunately the company closed and the building was razed in 2015.

A dead end. Then I decided to turn to my friend Bob Marlowe who is my "go-to guy" for information about Angeles Abbey. I wanted him to check and see if the rug was still there. Bob contacted the current manager of Angeles Abbey and here is his response:

When the current manager took over (21-22 years ago) he also saw that article. The rug had already been removed but he found it wadded up on an upper floor of the building in which it had laid. It was mildewed, etc. and he threw it away.

Any historian who is interested in Los Angeles knows that Los Angeles has a habit of throwing its history away. But with all the stories I have read about the deplorable condition of the buildings at Angeles Abbey I would have been surprised if the rug was still there.

Another dead end. But now I was more interested than ever. I decided to see if I could find a picture of the rug. After some digging I found one - and here it is:

It was obviously in the Abbey of the Angelus and went down the main hall from the front door all the way to the Angelus window.

Here's another photo that gives an idea of just how long that hall (and rug) was:

It would not have been easy to throw it out. Can you imagine just how heavy that rug was - remember, no seams.

So now you know the story of the largest seamless rug ever made in America.

To finish up this month's article I am going to take you on a visual tour of Angeles Abbey. It's from a booklet published in 1931 entitled "For Those Who Care" which was the motto of Angeles Abbey.