Paige Young in Los AngelesFamily History #1: 19-Teens, 1920s, Vaudeville. Joseph And Roxy LaRocca. Peoria. Virginia & Josephine Young. SLC. The Great Depression. Oakland. Meet Jane Harker #1. Warner Bros.
Posted on May 2, 2020
Family Background In Vaudeville:
Census records, military records and local directories show that Joseph Ned LaRocca, Diana Cotterell’s grandfather, was born in 1894 in Peoria, Illinois and grew up there.
Known as “Ned,” Joseph Ned LaRocca was a harpist in a family of several musician brothers, and one sister named Kathryn.
His father was Salvatore LaRocca. “Sal” a harpist from Italy who settled in Chicago. He raised a family in Peoria with Rose Ann, born Dunufrio.
According to Find a Grave website, the couple moved to Peoria when Salvatore was offered the leadership of a local Italian band: Marino’s:
Emigrated in 1872. Married Anna Rosalia Denufrio in 21 Dec 1879 in Cook Co, IL. In 1900, this family lived in Peoria. The children included: Roxie (1886), Katie (1890), Frank (1893), Joseph (1895), Nickolas (1897), and Paul (1899). Listed in Peoria City Directory by 1892. He was a musician, specifically, a harpist in Marino’s Italian Orchestra. It’s hard to read the marker, but Anna is listed as his widow in the 1907 Peoria City Directory. Anna and most of his children are buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in West Peoria. Find a Grave.
Salvatore LaRocca, died at age 52 in 1906, according to records from Peoria listed on ancestry.com.
I have found a few articles about the band Marino’s Italian Band. UPDATE SOON. Salvatore.
As of 2025, the traditional department store is on it’s way out. Mostly, anyway.
High School commencement ceremonies at an opera house in Mackinaw, Illinois. Marino’s Italian Orchestra from Peoria provides music.
The Weekly Pantagraph, Bloomington Illinois. May 21, 1897
According to the 1910 census
Ned and his brothers were living in Chicago with their widowed mother Anna, at 1245 Ohio St.
Ned LaRocca’s profession is listed as musician and age is 16 yrs.
His older brothers were also listed as musicians and the one sister Kathryn, a telephone operator.
The family returned to Peoria at some point.
Roxy LaRocca, the oldest La Rocca brother, was the family’s most commercially successful brother.
December 20, 1915 Bangor, Maine. Vaudeville was still a popular entertainment form this year.
Roxy was a famous-at-the-time Vaudeville harpist, known affectionately as the Wizard of the Harp.
He had several other monikers during his long career on stage. Roxy’s name made it across the nation when he broke a record for longest harp playing.
May 25, 1923. Middlebury, Vermont Register.
The LaRocca brothers were all musicians. Roxy and younger brother Ned were harpists.
Roxy and Ned both toured with major vaudeville circuits like Orpheum and Pantages in the 19-teens and 1920s.
Yet, none of the LaRocca brothers became quite as well known as Roxy.
Ned La Rocca
is Diana Cotterell/Paige Young’s grandfather and younger brother of Roxy.
Ned’s instrument is the harp, just like brother Roxy and father, Salvatore, Ned often used the professional name Ned Argo or just plain Argo.
Vaudeville was beginning to slide as a popular mass-media entertainment form. “Moving pictures” and Radio continued to chip away at the popularity of Vaudeville.
Ned was to have a future in performing with his harp for radio broadcasts in Los Angeles. More on this later.
RCA Corp. did a study in 1925 and found that 19% of homes had a radio. In 1930, it was 40%.
Part of the Salt Lake City drama and music community, Virginia and her sister Josephine were touring Vaudeville performers while still teenagers. (Not uncommon at the time.)
The sisters’ mother was named Josephine Young.
She died when her daughters Virginia and Josephine were in their early teens.
Virginia and Josephine’s grandfather was Brigham Young, head of the Mormon church aka LDS.
The girls’ grandmother was one of his many wives: Emily Partridge Young.
If you google Emily Partridge Young, you will see that she and her sister Eliza hold a significant place in LDS history.
The sisters were among the first “plural wives” of founder Joseph Smith.
These are the youngest two daughters of Josephine and Albert Carrington Young: Josephine and Virginia. They were the 2 youngest of 4 older siblings in the family.
Who survived to adulthood that is.
(From a Mormon genealogy website.)
Virginia and Joseph Ned LaRocca marry.
The musical play The Wrong Bird was written by Margaret Whitney, part of the theater and music circles in SLC. Whitney was noted as a successful “girl composer,” by several news articles at the time. The homestate Utah newspapers offered generous coverage to Whitney’s career and The Wrong Bird. Pantages picked up the musical play and the SLC based troupe toured on the circuit of Pantages owned theatres
Virginia Young and Ned Argo are both on this Pantages bill. His harp act toured with The Wrong Bird. Local Pantages Playhouse in Salt Lake City.
Salt Lake Herald Apr. 1, 1915
<<<<<<<Virginia Young listed as a player. Josephine is Joe here.
<<<<< Argo the harpist on the bill.
The married couple form a vaudeville act. They tour the US in the late 19–teens. They perform through most, if not all, of the 1920s. Ned continues to use the name Ned Argo or Argo. Virginia uses several different names. Jean Virginia is one. Verjenia is another.
Article about Wrong Bird star, Josephine Young. S
Joseph N and Virginia LaRocca are listed in the 1917 and 1918 and 1923 Peoria, Ill. directory.
1917 Peoria directory lists under LaRocca: Annie, Frank and Rose, Joe and Virginia, Nick, Paul, Roxy and Emma, all at 205 Martin St. ancestry.com
1922 Peoria directory lists Anna, widow, Paul, Roxie (no Emma) Ned and Virginia, Frank and Rose. ancestry.com
Sometimes Virginia’s sister and fellow vaudeville player Josephine, is part of the act. The girls went by the name “The Virginia Sisters.” This is seen in the ad below from the Salt Lake City Tribune. It is from Oct. 1, 1919.
June 30, 1917 Goodwin’s Weekly SLC.
Virginia was married by now and singing in a vaudeville act with her husband Ned, not named here.
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Saskatoon Daily Star June 6, 1916
Below we see Ned Argo and the Virgina Sisters play the Pantages in LA.
D.W. Griffith will be introducing his film Broken Blossoms and you will need a ticket!
Look at the few lines at the very end of the ad. 1919. ^^^^^^^^^^^^”dainty dancing and musical numbers.”
1920 approx. Josephine Young quit touring with her sister and brother-in-law and moved to San Francisco with her husband George Truman Harker.
They started a family there: Jack Truman Harker born in 1921, and a daughter, Mary Jane, in 1923 .
In the 1920 Federal Census, Virginia is listed as living in Peoria, Illinois with her husband and his family. Her occupation is listed as “Actress on stage.”
Virginia would gave birth to Donna Virginia LaRocca, 1921 in Peoria, Ill.
The whole LaRocca family including in-law Virginia, living together in 1923 in Peoria, Illinois, home base for the LaRoccas.
Her sister Josephine Young Harker is across the country in San Francisco. She gave birth this year to Mary Jane Harker. She had given birth to son Jack Truman Harker in 1921. I’m not sure where right now.
Frank & Rose, another in-law, would soon move to nearby Decatur for Frank’s employment at the Avon Theatre.
<<<<<<from a directory found on ancestry.com
Anna, the matriarch, is listed as a “widow of Salvatore.” J
Ned and Virginia continued to tour Vaudeville throughout the 1920s.
As you have seen.
I don’t know if they brought their young daughter, Donna, along on the tour. She might have stayed in Peoria with Grandma Anna LaRocca.
The couple had a stop over in 1926-1928 in Oakland, California as seen by directories on ancestry.com
Charlotte Observer June 27, 1929. With an act called “From Peoria.”
Ned & Virginia are listed in the 1930 census as living in Peoria, Ill. The family was only a few years away from permanently relocating to Los Angeles.
Vaudeville would soon be dead.
Mount Vernon Argus April 20, 1929
Another ad featuring “From Peoria”: An Act with the theme of middle-America i.e. Ned Argo’s hometown.
As we’ve seen, the couple was living in Oakland, California for two years in the late 1920s.
Yet they can lay claim to being from Peoria, Ned’s hometown, and play this up for their latest Vaudeville act.
1930 Census Marinellos and LaRocca, cousins Mildred and Donna V. are listed next door to each other in the family home on Martin in Peoria. Looks like the Marinellos are sharing 208 Martin with another family. Ned, “Jeanette” and Donna Vey are lodgers at the home of a Lena Buckley. Previous census and directories show the LaRoccas only, listed in this address home.
It appears like they were renting their own home in 1930, just months after the 1929 stock market crash that resulted in the Great Depression.
After Vaudeville died out in the early 1930s, the Great Depression was already in full swing.
Roxy LaRocca retired at this time to the LaRocca family hometown of Peoria, Illinois, where he started a magazine stand. He later became involved in local politics.
Frank and Rose, Ned and Virginia, moved to LA during the Depression early/mid 1930s. See much more information about this in the next chapter……..
Her career there lasted for only about 2 years.
Please see my next chapter Family History #2 for an in-depth history. It includes the move to Los Angeles in the 1930s. It also covers Radio City from 1938 through the 1940s.
There is also much more on Jane Harker, model/starlet. She worked with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars during her brief career at Warner Brothers studio.
Jane appears in an obscure Noir film: The Unfaithful starring Ann Sheridan. Also starring Angels Flight, one of the last remaining relics of Bunker Hill in Los Angeles. This film has been shown on TCM a few times.
Jane is credited on imdb as the “red-headed snob” in Humoresque starring Joan Crawford and John Garfield.
Harker had small parts in movies with stars such as Joan Crawford, Ann Sheridan, John Garfield, Bette Davis, Jack Carson, Errol Flynn, Eleanor Parker and more.
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1940s (1930s) Los Angeles: Family. Marriage. Hollywood Wedding Chapel. Los Feliz Houses. Mildred Marinell. WW2. P.O.W. Divorce. Updated 11/24/2025.
Posted on April 29, 2020
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.”
Mildred K. Marinell signature listed on next to last line.
Mildred is the daughter of Joseph LaRocca’s only sister Kathryn LaRocca Marinello, and Donna’s first cousin. Mildred dropped the “o” from her birth name. The family name is recorded as both Marinello and Marinelli; Mildred became Marinell, so it’s been confusing to research.
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.
Much more on Donna’s cousin Mildred coming up. (I suspect she occasionally used the name Penny Pepper in show business.)
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.
This location, Shoredale and Gatewood Streets are in the Elysian Valley or maybe “Frog Town” part of Los Angeles. Very close to Elysian Park which was the very first City Park in Los Angeles
They moved to Evans St. near Marshall High School around 1938.
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:
<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Wilmington Daily Press Journal July 26, 1944
Robert Cotterell’s daughter Constance is 2 years old, and Diana only 5 months, on the date the POW announcement was published.
Los Angeles Evening Citizen News July 29, 1944 >>>>>>>>
For his part in the war effort, Joseph Ned LaRocca signed up for the “Old Man’s Draft Card.” In 1942, Congress enacted a “law” to show solidarity for the war effort. It provided the Government an idea of the skills the skills “older” men in the US populations. For utilization in the war effort.
The document shows Ned was living at 3834 Evans in 1942.
He was driving to and working as a harpist in the famous NBC and CBS buildings on Sunset & Vine. (More on this in other family chapters.)
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.
Close up
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
Mildred ended up marrying Clayton Bartlett and having children with him and living in the San Fernando Valley.
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.
Mildred would name her daughter “Donna Lee,” (Lee was Diana/Paige’s middle name) Bartlett,” born in the early 1950s. I’ve tried and can’t reach her.
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.
View of the surrounding area is spectacular as is the building itself. It’s one of those house you see in Los Angeles that look precariously balanced on a steep hill.
Perhaps Virginia and Ned sold this spectacular double house to finance their home in the San Fernando Valley?
Paige Young in Los Angeles 