Donald Cass; Former Head of California Medical Assn.

Donald Cass, a former president of the California Medical Assn. and the last survivor of seven sons born to the man who helped develop Los Angeles’ telephone and banking systems, is dead at age 94.

The former chief of staff at Queen of Angeles Hospital died Monday at a Los Angeles hospital.

Cass, who practiced locally for 60 years, was a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Medical School. He was the fourth son of Alonzo Beecher Cass Sr., a former Indian trader in the Oklahoma territory who brought his growing family to Los Angeles in 1888.

With two brothers, Cass Sr. founded a stove manufacturing company that later also sold hardware. He became a founder of the Central Bank and later a director of Security Trust & Savings, a forerunner of Security Pacific Bank.

Cass Sr., who died in 1924, also became the first stockholder in the city’s embryonic Home Telephone Co. in 1898. It became Southern California Telephone Co. in 1916 and later Pacific Telephone.

Dr. Cass, who served as an Army Medical Corps captain in World War I, was president of the state medical association in 1950-51.

A widower, he is survived by a daughter, Margery C. Howards; two sons, Wilson and Donald Jr.; two sisters, Emily Sanson and Marcia Stewart; 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.