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ONTARIO -- Francis Raymond Line, filmmaker, author, world traveler, hitchhiker and humanitarian, died Tuesday leaving $50,000 to the Chaffey Community Art Association which he founded 58 years ago. He was 95.
Mr. Line died from heart complications at a caretaker's home in San Clemente, where he lived during the latter part of his life.
"He lived a simple life. He didn't acquire things. (My parents) were very generous with their money. They just didn't spend the money on themselves," said Mr. Line's daughter, Adrienne Knute.
In Ontario, Mr. Line and his wife, Helen, will be remembered for establishing the Chaffey Community Art Association and donating paintings by internationally renowned California artists. The donation is a memorial to Line's daughter, Barbara, who died of leukemia in 1940 when she was 8.
The paintings by artists Miller Sheets, Phil Paradise, Milfred Zorn, Rex Brandt and Phil Dyke are known as The Permanent Collection. They are hanging in the Lines Gallery at the Ontario Museum of History and Art, 225 S. Euclid Ave.
"The Lines Collection was kind of the nucleus of the total collection of the arts association," said sculptor John Svenson, of Upland.
Mr. Line was born in New London, Ohio, and raised in Howell, Mich., where his father operated five-and-dime stores.
When Mr. Line graduated from high school in 1922, he and his brother hitchhiked throughout America stopping in every state during his adventures, Knute said. When the 18-year-old was passing through California, he met Helen Gibson, his soon-to-be wife, then 15.
"They were down on the beach ... a weenie roast on the beach. The next day they went to church," Knute said.
Mr. Line traveled on. The couple wrote letters and visited each other until they married. Mr. Line studied journalism at the University of Michigan, where he graduated in 1928. During college, he took a year off to travel the world with his brother.
The couple moved to Ontario and Mr. Line worked as a proofreader for a newspaper in Riverside County. He left that job to start his lifetime work making travel films, showing them to schools organizations and lecturing about his adventures. He wrote eight books during his career including "Grand Canyon Love Story," "Foot by Foot," and "Sheep, Stars and Solitude."
After the Watts riots, Mr. Lines raised money and solicited help to build a swimming pool in the embattled neighborhood. For his efforts, Mr. Line received the Martin Luther King Jr. Human Dignity Award from the Metropolitan YMCA of Los Angeles.
He also worked to help Navajo children.
Mr. Line was a short, bald man who joked that he was the same height as Napoleon Bonaparte, Knute said.
The announcement of the $50,000 donation comes at a time when the association has been struggling to make ends meet.
"I'm somewhat overwhelmed, but through the years they've been so supportive of us, and they have approved of our long efforts to make our community more art conscience," said Betty Graber, trustee chairman for the paintings.
Mr. Line is survived by his daughter Adrienne of Cima, Calif.; grandson Jeff Kunte of Winslow, Ariz.; granddaughters Jan Barsten of Bradbury and Krista Mettala of Kirkkonummi, Finland; and five great grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. March 13 at St. Andrew's By-the-Sea United Methodist Church in San Clemente. Interment took place at Bellevue Memorial Park in Ontario.
The family asks that donations be made in the name of Mr. Line to one's favorite charity.
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