A 1944 Birth. Birth Certificate. Intro to Family Members. Neighborhood. Walt Disney & Hollywood Connection. Griffith Park Maternity Center. 10-20-2025

Posted on April 27, 2020

The woman who many might recognize as Paige Young, a Playboy Magazine Playmate in November 1968, was born Diana Lee Cotterell, March 16, 1944 in Los Angeles.

She was born at the Griffith Park Maternity Home, located at 1933 Griffith Park Boulevard.

Diana Cotterell birth certificate, Father is Robert Morgan Cotterell. He is 27 years old and born in Algon Iowa.

Diana’s older sister Constance Susan Cotterell was born at the same maternity center in 1942. It was designed as a “birthing center” for mothers of the Christian Science religion aka Church of Christ Science.

The Griffith Park Maternity Center:

was well established by 1931, it continued in that capacity for decades. Later, it was a senior residence for several decades until the facility was demolished.

Aug. 38, 1938.

Griffith Park Maternity Center in 1938. Paige Young would be born here as Diana Lee Cotterell, 6 years later. And her sister Constance in 4.
Los Angeles Times Aug. 31, 1938

An actual MD was present for the birth of Constance and Diana, born just 2 years apart. HIs name was Otto E. Schoenfeld M.D. and had an office on Crenshaw Blvd. Mother is Donna Virginia LaRocca.

Notice the location of the home, 3834 Evans St., is listed as “Hollywood.” Today this location would be be considered Los Feliz or East Hollywood.




I read several posts on an “ex-Christian Science” message board forum. ADr. Schoenfeld was mentioned several times along with the Griffith Park Maternity Home. These “ex-members” knew that this Dr. Schoenfeld helped deliver them. Several wrote that they remember when siblings were born there and Schoenfeld helped to deliver them too.
At the Home and others like it, mothers were allowed to labor and give birth “drug free.” Which was against the norm of the times.



When asked about drugs given in labor in hospitals from1 940-1945 , Google AI says

Chloroform: Widely used as an anesthetic to induce unconsciousness and alleviate pain during labor.
Opium: Used for its pain-relieving and sedative effects.
Barbiturates: These sedative medications were sometimes used to induce a “twilight sleep,” aiming to provide a relaxing, dreamy state during labor and potentially cause the parturient to forget the pain and fear associated with childbirth.
Terse birth announcement for Diana Lee Cotterell in the LAT. April 4, 1944. Daughter of Mr. & Mrs. Robert Morgan Cotterell
1933 Griffith Park Blvd. It was listed as a senior residence for decades. USC photo archives has photos of the GP Maternity Center as it would have looked when Constance and Diana Cotterell were born there. Taken by a master documentarian of early Los Angeles Dick Whittington. Lots of greenery and pathways with privacy.

Above is a shot I took the day I visited in 2016. Ugly multi-unit housing has been built there since as seen on Google Maps.

By 1938 Ned LaRocca and his wife Virginia, Diana’s grandparents, were living at 3834 Evans. The couple lived there with their daughter, Diana’s mother, Donna Virginia LaRocca.

3834 Evans St. Home of Ned, Virginia and Donna LaRocca from around 1936-1944. Listed as Diana and Constance Cotterell’s home on their birth certificates. This home was close to the Maternity Center.

Neighborhood

3834

3834 Evans street showing the rather steep driveway. Located close to Marshall High School.

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Disney Hyperion Studio taken in 1931. Notice Marshall High School in the background. Marshall is a stone’s thrown from the LaRocca family home at 3834 Evans. Since the LaRoccas moved in about 1938, they weren’t neighbors with the Hyperion Studio for long. Credit findingwalt.com

This studio is where Snow White, the first full-length animated feature, was produced. Its’ success made Walt Disney enough money to build a larger studio in Burbank, which was up and running by January of 1940.   The Burbank Disney studio the location of Disney to this day.

A Ralph’s Market now stands at the old Hyperion studio. 

Marshall High is on Tracy St.

Marshall High School has been seen in many films and TV shows.

The iconic building and its grounds have appeared in several films and shows. These include Grease, Pretty in Pink, Grosse Pointe Blank, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Boy Meets World, i-Carly, Lucas Tanner, and Highway to Heaven.

To mention only a fraction of titles.

3834 Evans St. is also close to a Los Feliz and Franklin Hills landmark: The Shakespeare Bridge.

Shakespeare Bridge in Franklin Hills, close to the LaRocca home on Evans.

From Evans walk to St. George and turn left. Walking southwest you will pass a Walt Disney home on your left.

Keep going until you see Franklin Ave. and turn right. The Shakespeare Bridge will be .3 miles ahead.

Evans St. between Hyperion Ave. and St. George.

Ned LaRocca permit to build a garage.
City of LA building permit for a garage at 3834 Evans St in 1938. Owner is Ned LaRocca, Diana’s grandfather.

On the back of the document:

The map below shows location of 3834 Evans St.


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View at Los Feliz Blvd and Rowena looking east in 1933 by Anton Wagner, photographer. Close to 3834 Evans St., the LaRocca’s home from about 1938 to the mid-40s.

LA Directory 1938. The LaRoccas were on Evans, while sister-in-law Rose a widow to Frank LaRocca, Ned’s brother. Frank died in 1937. Rose is still on Gatewood. In other yearly directories during her early widowhood years, Rose was listed as seamstress, a cook and a factory worker. Rose returned to Los Angeles after her husband’s funeral in his hometown and her homestate of Peoria, Illinois. She lived in the home on Gatewood for many years as far as I can see, ended up and died in Glendale. 1977. For more details on the family, see the next chapters.
Found on ancestry.com This form was nicknamed the “Old Man’s” draft card. Joseph Ned LaRocca’s home address is 3834 Evans, he’s 47. It lists his wife Virginia and gives his employment as CBS and NBC, Sunset & Vine. Much more information about this in the other family chapters.

This 1942 registration card of Joseph Ned LaRocca’s, was required by a Selective Service Act after Pearl Harbor.

The directive of the “Old Man’s Draft” was to inventory information. It focused on the skill set of “older” American men aged 45 to 64 years.

In case these skills were needed for the war effort.

It was compared to a “snapshot of American males age 45-64 years old.” AI

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