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Refurbished bench rekindles story of La Jolla family – San Diego Union-Tribune

A plaque honoring members of the Horchler family is displayed on a memorial bench that was recently sanded and re-stained. (Ashley Mackin-Solomon)

A continuing effort to refurbish memorial benches in La Jolla is intended to be for the community’s benefit, but for one local family, the impact is much greater.

A bench honoring members of the Horchler family was renovated recently as part of Enhance La Jolla’s project to breathe new life into memorial benches by sanding and re-staining them and cleaning any honorary plaques.

The Horchler bench in front of the J. McLaughlin clothing store on Girard Avenue was installed in 2004 and was in need of care.

“My husband [Helmut] grew up in La Jolla and it always felt like home to him, so I wanted to pay for a memorial bench for him when he turned 65,” Hilde Horchler said. “It was meant to be a surprise, but when we found out we couldn’t have a memorial bench for someone that was still living, the secret was out.”

As a workaround, Hilde decided to have a memorial plaque made to honor Helmut’s late parents and sister. The plaque reads: “Remembered with love by their family: Wilhelm and Elisabeth Horchler and daughter Irmgard. They found happiness in La Jolla.”

Helmut said the family came to the United States from Germany in 1954 and originally lived in Chicago. But one day, Helmut’s father came across a news article that called La Jolla “a paradise for artists.”

“My father was an artist, so he read that article and two weeks later we were packing our bags and on a train headed for La Jolla,” Helmut said. “He loved painting here. He exhibited at what was the La Jolla Art Center … and showed in galleries on Girard Avenue. That happiness seemed to rub off on all of us. My mother was happy because her husband was happy. My sister worked in a department store across the street [from where the bench is], and me and another sister worked at the La Jolla Beach & Tennis Club. I then worked at Burns Drugs [which closed in 2014]. The roots were very deep.”

A plaque honoring members of the Horchler family is displayed on a memorial bench that was recently sanded and re-stained. (Ashley Mackin-Solomon)A plaque honoring members of the Horchler family is displayed on a memorial bench that was recently sanded and re-stained. (Ashley Mackin-Solomon)

Hilde and Helmut now split their time between La Jolla and Texas and often go on walks when they’re here.

On May 14, “I was just walking by when I saw that crews were working on our bench,” Helmut said. “We had noticed that the bench looked deteriorated. We knew the wood was not up to standard anymore.”

As Helmut was watching the work, Brian Earley, manager of Enhance La Jolla’s Maintenance Assessment District, noticed him. When Earley realized the bench was for Helmut’s family, “it was a ‘wow’ moment,” Earley said. “He seemed astonished that someone was restoring the family’s bench.”

Helmut said “it looks nicer now than when it was first installed.”

“It was an emotional event,” he said. “It made me so happy and proud.”

Larger project

The work on the Horchler bench is part of an ongoing project to refurbish all the wooden benches in The Village Maintenance Assessment District.

“We started working on six benches just to see what it would take to go from gray and beat-up to being restored to the point that it could be a standard,” Earley said.

The project gained momentum, and about 30 of the approximately 70 wooden benches across six streets in La Jolla — not including those along the coastline — have been refurbished. The organization is using donations and budgeted funds from the city of San Diego to complete the project, which costs about $400-$800 per bench, depending on the amount of work needed.

“We want to bring back the memories for these wonderful families that helped build this community,” Earley said. “It’s pretty humbling. There is a story behind each plaque, but we’ve only discovered one so far [with the Horchlers]. They tell the story of La Jolla. Even though it’s a few lines on a copper plate, you can tell the community is what it is because of these people.

“We’re bringing these back to life. … We want to get them done and done correctly. We think La Jolla should have nothing less.” ♦

Originally Published: August 15, 2024 at 9:00 a.m.

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Publish date : 2024-08-15 12:00:00

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