{"id":18106,"date":"2014-06-22T12:37:52","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T19:37:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/?p=18106"},"modified":"2014-06-22T12:37:52","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T19:37:52","slug":"smhps-lizzies-trail-inn-chicken-and-ravioli-dinner-meet-lizzie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/?p=18106","title":{"rendered":"SMHPS Lizzie’s Trail Inn Chicken and Ravioli Dinner – Meet Lizzie"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Lizzie Stoppel McElwain, photo courtesy of SMHPS, click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

Posted 6\/22\/14 –\u00a0<\/em>Introducing Lizzie of Sierra Madre\u2019s Lizzie\u2019s Trail Inn And Creator of Delicious Chicken & Ravioli Dinners<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jeff Lapides<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Saturday, June 28, 2014, the Sierra Madre Historical Preservation Society will host its second annual Chicken & Ravioli Dinner in honor of Lizzie and the good times associated with her establishment, Lizzie\u2019s Trail Inn.\u00a0 Please join us as we continue the spirit of Lizzie:\u00a0 her congeniality and friendship and delicious food!\u00a0 So, who was Lizzie and how did this come to be?<\/p>\n

Sierra Madre knows her as Lizzie, the operator of the Trail Inn on East Mira Monte at the foot of the Mount Wilson Trail in the 1920s and \u201930s. \u00a0History knew her as Elizabeth Louisa Ciez Adler Weiss Stoppel McElwain. \u00a0She led a colorful but all-too short life.<\/p>\n

The roots of her family names of Ciez and Adler are unknown.\u00a0 Her younger son\u2019s birth certificate lists Ciez as his mother\u2019s maiden name. \u00a0But Lizzie\u2019s obituary in the Los Angeles Times lists her maiden name as Adler.\u00a0 Lizzie was born in the Russian Empire on September 20, 1888.\u00a0 Her village was near Kiev in today\u2019s Ukraine. According to her obituary in the Sierra Madre News of January 4, 1939, within months of her birth, her mother died and her father was killed.<\/p>\n

The story continued: A family with nine children took her in, and when she learned in 1906 of being adopted, the now-eighteen-year-old Elizabeth ran away to Kiev. \u00a0A kind woman in the city welcomed the girl into her family.\u00a0 As it turned out, this woman was a sister of Elizabeth\u2019s birth mother \u2013 her aunt!\u00a0 Her new family immigrated to Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1909.<\/p>\n

Lizzie met her first husband, Louis Weiss, and they married in Cleveland. \u00a0They welcomed their first child, Joseph, in Ohio and relocated to Los Angeles in 1911. \u00a0In 1913, their second son, Ruben, was born.<\/p>\n

By 1920, Lizzie was the landlady at a rooming house at 309 Temple Street in Los Angeles (currently the site of the County of Los Angeles Heating and Refrigeration Plant). \u00a0According to the previously cited obituary, she was fluent in nine languages and volunteered as an interpreter at the Los Angeles County Hospital on Mission Road on the east side of the Los Angeles River. Her husband passed away the following year. It\u2019s worth noting that Mr. Weiss was 35 years Lizzie\u2019s senior.<\/p>\n

Residing at the rooming house was Louis August Stoppel who was to become Lizzie\u2019s second husband in 1927. \u00a0In the meantime, according to Dr. William White in 1996, Mrs. Elizabeth Weiss bought the business at the Trail Inn on her birthday in 1925. By October of the following year, Louis Stoppel\u2019s name appeared on search warrants and a disposition of a guilty plea for illegal manufacturing of alcohol at the Trail Inn and the adjacent Richardson House.<\/p>\n

During Lizzie\u2019s years at the Trail Inn, the establishment developed a sterling reputation for her kitchen fare, especially her fried chicken and her ravioli dinners. It also had a less savory back story of sexual trysts in the three cabins above the inn, and, of course, the moonshine. But everyone agreed that Lizzie was most congenial and had many friends.<\/p>\n

On November 1, 1935, Lizzie\u2019s declining health (thought to be due to breast cancer) led her to relinquish the Trail Inn.\u00a0 Louis Stoppel had left Lizzie sometime in the early years of the decade. \u00a0But on December 16, she once again assumed the lease and the business. \u00a0In 1936 Lizzie married Edward Harding \u201cMac\u201d McElwain and got the support she needed.<\/p>\n

Even though Lizzie was ill, she continued to personally pay bills and taxes through December of 1938. \u00a0But the end came on January 3, 1939, at the age of 50. \u00a0Lizzie is buried in East Los Angeles at the Home of Peace Memorial Park on Whittier Boulevard.<\/p>\n

Lizzie\u2019s Trail Inn lives on as the City of Sierra Madre\u2019s mountain history Museum.\u00a0 The Museum is operated by the Sierra Madre Historical Preservation Society and is open Saturdays between 10 and noon. The spirit of Lizzie\u2014congeniality and friendship\u2014continues to greet all visitors.<\/p>\n

Lizzie\u2019s Famous Chicken & Ravioli Dinner<\/strong>
\nSaturday, June 28, 2014, 5-8 pm<\/strong>
\nMt. Wilson Trail Park<\/strong>
\n167 Mira Monte Avenue<\/strong>
\n$30 per person<\/strong><\/p>\n

*No tickets will be sold the day of the dinner*<\/strong>
\nTickets may be purchased at the following Sierra Madre locations:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arnold\u2019s Hardware, Mary\u2019s Market, Savor The Flavor, the Sierra Madre Public Library,\u00a0and of course, Lizzie\u2019s Trail Inn (Saturdays 10:00-noon)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted 6\/22\/14 –\u00a0Introducing Lizzie of Sierra Madre\u2019s Lizzie\u2019s Trail Inn And Creator of Delicious Chicken & Ravioli Dinners By Jeff Lapides On Saturday, June 28, 2014, the Sierra Madre Historical Preservation Society will host its…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,7],"tags":[10],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18106"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sierramadrenews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}