1940s (1930s) Los Angeles: Family. Marriage. Hollywood Wedding Chapel. Los Feliz Houses. Mildred Marinell. WW2. P.O.W. Divorce. Updated 11/24/2025.

You were introduced to Diana Cotterell/Paige Young’s parents in an earlier chapter, let’s learn more about them.

Robert M. Cotterell was 23 and Donna V. LaRocca 19, when they were married in 1940.

Donna is listed in the 1940 census as living with her parents at 3834 Evans St., and that she was a “New Worker” in “Dramatics.”

Below is the Hollywood Wedding Chapel where Robert and Donna were married per the marriage certificate.

The famed Garden of Allah apartment building was across the street.

This Hollywood Wedding Chapel building was purchased by famous director/writer Preston Sturges in 1940. He transformed it into “Players” restaurant which became a watering hole for the movie business.

Players has its’ own interesting Hollywood history.

Donna and Robert must have been one of the last couples to marry at the chapel before Sturges took over.

Now this location is a Pink Taco restaurant. 

**UPDATE** Pink Taco abruptly closed in 2024.

Diana’s father Robert Morgan Cotterell was born around 1917 in Algon, Iowa. He moved to Los Angeles around 1938 to follow his interest in aviation. (According to his son in a facebook message to me.)

From Constance Susan Cotterell’s birth cert. in 1942. Father Robert a Leadman at Douglas Aircraft.

Donna Virginia LaRocca’s parents Ned and Virginia LaRocca were Vaudeville musicians and traveled the Pantages, Orpheum and other Vaudeville circuits for about the first 10 years of Donna’s life. For more, see related chapters.

Donna Virginia was born in 1921, in Peoria, Illinois, the hometown of her father: Joseph Ned LaRocca. 

Donna V. moved with her parents to Los Angeles around 1934.

Robert M. Cotterell during World War 2:

 

Robert Cotterell’s daughter Constance is 2 years old, and Diana only 5 months, on the date the POW announcement was published.  

From the 1944 birth certificate of Diana Lee Cotterell, later Paige Young. Home residence listed on Evans Ave., located a stone’s throw away from Marshall High School.

1945 Diana’s father Robert Cotterell is liberated from the German Camp. where he spent approx. one year. I have no idea what he experienced but it probably wasn’t great. Robert’s daughter Diana was 1 year old in 1945 and first-born Constance, 3 years.

1947

Donna LaRocca Cotterell files for divorce against Robert Morgan Cotterell.

1947 Only 2 months later, the divorce is granted. This seems unusually quick.

Historic Context:

Robert and Donna Cotterell were one couple out of thousands who made up a nation-wide spike in divorce rates after WW2.

Statistics show that in 1946 one in four US marriages ended in divorce.

A 1946 article published in the New York Times said:

“More than half of America’s 1,500,000 war-wed G.I.s have returned. Already one out of every four of these 800,000 men is entangled in divorce proceedings. Experts are predicting that by 1950, 1,000,000 of these wartime marriages-or two out of three-will end in divorce.”

 Robert Cotterell remarried in approximately 1949 to Patricia Frick and the couple had two children, in 1950 and 1951.

 He got a job after the war working for Douglas Aircraft. The job took his family all over the San Fernando Valley. One stop was Laguna Beach.

I would imagine Robert paid alimony to Donna, normal at the time. He also would have paid child support for his daughters Constance and Diana. I have not been able to learn what kind of relationship the sisters had with their father.

 Virginia LaRocca, Donna’s mother, Diana and Constance’s grandmother, was named owner of a double house at 3710 & 3712 Arbolada.

This house is only one mile from the home on Evans St.

Donna has a voter registration record with this address way back in 1944 below and in Robert Cotterell’s POW announcements in the newspapers.

Joseph LaRocca is listed in the LA telephone directory with this Arbolada address in 1948.

Arbolada Rd. is a dead end street.

The homes are located high on a hill with an incredible panoramic view of the area. It’s minutes away from the Evans St. home, so still near Griffith Park.

The homes have a steep step climb.

Document from ancestry lost. Apologies. It was a Voter’s registration showing the following information.

Joseph and Virgina La Rocca listed above at the Arbolada address. Antonio and Corina La Bianca are at 3301 Waverly Dr.

Virginia’s listing leaves off “Christian Science” and just says her employment is “practitioner.” She now has an R by her name!

Antonio and Corina La Bianca purchased the house on Waverly Dr., sometime in the 30s or 40s but will confirm.

Unfortunately, the world knows the story of their son Leno.

The LaRocca Arbolada Road house is close to the LaBianca residence on Waverly Drive. Leno and Rosemary LaBianca were victims of the Manson family at this location. However, between the 2 houses is a large plot of undeveloped (!) land, so one has to travel a circuitous route between the two homes, as a friend did for me one time that I visited. There is no direct path between the two houses.

 The 2 Italian families (Joseph’s wife Virginia was not Italian but Mormon with English ancestry) lived a 5 minute car drive from each other at one point, even if they never met.

Mildred Marinell

  Diana/Paige’s mother Donna was very close to her first cousin “Mildred Marinell.”

Mildred lived close to Donna in Peoria, Ill., with her in Los Feliz section of LA at 3834 Evans St. And a few doors down from each other in Sherman Oaks, San Fernando Valley, in the 1950s. This is seen in census records mainly.

Seen below: Port Angeles, Washington Sept. 21, 1937. Mildred dropped the i/o (I’ve seen it both ways) from her name

Mildred Marinell and her mother Kathryn living at 3834 Evans. 1936

The city of Los Angeles experienced a housing shortage during the post-war years. More so than the usual housing shortage that seems to have almost always existed in LA.

This fact caused me to wonder how the LaRoccas were able afford the 2 houses. They bought one right after the other, or overlapping, in the 1940s. Evans St and Arbolada Rd. houses.

 Documents and articles show both addresses were used beginning in 1944 up until about 1948.

I didn’t find an exact answer but the next several chapters may shed some light on this “upwardly mobile” family.

Virginia LaRocca had been a full time Christian Science Practitioner sometime in the 1940s, as best as I can tell now.

She had her own phone listing in LA phone books for many years for the purpose for her work as a Practitioner or CSP.

“Gin” became a Christian Science Reader at some point.   Her income from this is unknown. It is a high position in the Church of Christ Science.

Virginia’s sister Josephine Harker was listed in a directory at the Evans house around 1940. Harker was her sister’s sometimes singing/dancing partner back in the days of Vaudeville (see related chapters).

It’s easy to imagine that the Evans house was entirely too small to fit all these family members comfortably.

And of course there was daughter Donna and granddaughters Constance and Diana Cotterell born in 1942 and 44.

Father Robert was serving overseas most of this time, his name was connected with both addresses as articles show.

I’m not sure where exactly Robert moved soon after he was liberated and returned from a German POW camp.

His son Robert Cotterell JR. wrote me that his father told him he received a “Dear John” letter from wife Donna, when he was overseas.

I imagine POWs weren’t allowed any mail.

All these names, excluding Diana and Constance, were linked to the Evans or Arbolada address from 1938 through around 1947. These dates are per records I have shown or seen.

Donna and Robert were officially divorced in 1947 per notice in the LAT.

Perhaps Virginia and Ned sold this spectacular double house to finance their home in the San Fernando Valley?