Margaret Louise Brown

Margaret Louise Brown, (c.1908 - Sep. 25, 1971). An unsung hero in the bunch, Margaret exemplifies the spirit of volunteerism that has led to South Pasadena’s legacy as the oldest self-built float in the Tournament of Roses.

South Pasadena’s High School Art Teacher during the Great Depression created a series of winning floats. She had graduated from UCLA in 1928 and joined the South Pasadena school faculty after teaching in El Centro schools. In 1936 she moved to Beverly Hills to head up the art department of its public schools, but still travelled back to South Pasadena to lead the all-volunteer team of float builders for yet another year, winning the biggest prize of all – the Sweepstakes Trophy.

She excelled in the standards set by the notorious Isabella Coleman, “Mrs. Rose Parade”, but unlike the professional builders, only had a meager budget of $1,500 ($35,634 in 2026 dollars). She contributed to the City’s present-day badge of honor it holds as the “Oldest Self-built Float in the Parade”. (Its first “float” was entered in 1911, although entries from the 1890’s by The Raymond and the local Tennis Club, as well as Minerva Hamilton Hoyt’s status as a founding member of the Valley Hunt Club, predate that).

Margaret returned to South Pasadena in 1940 with a flower girl of another sort – to marry Dr. Charles Bish, a dentist whose first office was inside the Rialto Theatre. He soon built a Mediterranean professional building at 1401 Fair Oaks Ave, (now demolished). The couple later moved to Sierra Madre. For a time, she taught at the Claremont colleges while Millard Sheets was also on faculty. In addition to her credits in the Tournament of Roses, her accomplishments included being head of the Beverly Hills School art department during its formative years.