Profiles in OC Pioneers Who Were Klan Members: Albert Hetebrink, Fullerton Rancher

If you were a proud, upstanding White man during the 1920s, joining a fraternal organization was a must. Catholics joined the Knights of Columbus or the Knights of Pythias; worldwide-domination types preferred the Masons. The Elks, the Kiwanis, and many, many others: they all did good and upheld American values.

Then you had the loser fraternal organization in town: the Klu Klux Klan, the only one stupid enough to stress white supremacy as its raison d'etre, even though the other fraternal organizations were practicing and supporting the same policies of segregation that the Klan desired. So it took a pretty stupid, racist baboso to join the Klan, especially in a place as lily-white as Orange County. As a result, the Klan's numbers weren't as large as those of the other fraternal organizations, and you had families that had Klan members and non-Klan members.

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The Hetebrinks were a prominent Fullerton ranching family, with their family home still standing on the corner of Berkeley and Chapman avenues in the city. That house, seen above, is named the John Hetebrink House and remains in the family's possession even though it's surrounded by Fullerton College, parts of which sit on the old Hetebrink ranch. There's also a Henry Hetebrink House on the Cal State Fullerton campus (named after the patriarch of the family), a Hetebrink conference room at the university as well, and a Hetebrink Street on the development.

Gustavo Arellano