Month: November 2005

Finders Losers

November 14, 1947
Los Angeles

Two years ago, someone snuck into waitress Gertrude Dye’s home at 2208 1/2 Marathon Street and stole $2000 in War Bonds and Postal Savings notes out of a dresser drawer. She was able to replace the postal notes, but the War Bonds were a loss.

Until today, when she heard from an LAPD officer conveying a message from his counterparts in Bakersfield, where a gas station attendant had found the missing bonds under the floor mats of a used car he was servicing. The only problem: the bonds are made out to Gertrude and her former husband James. We hope they can split their windfall amicably.

What Folks Did Before Maytag

November 13, 1947
Los Angeles

17-year-old Ray Luedeman was cleaning rags in a pan of gasoline on the back porch of his home at 1877 W. 38th Street when the automatic gas heater beside him clicked on. Suddenly realizing the danger of the gas igniting, he scooped up the pan, sending gas flying all over the heater and his clothing. He’s in Georgia Street Receiving Hospital being treated for serious burns.

Further reading: Never Done, A History of American Housework

1877 West 38th Street, To-day

If Luedeman was so hot to play dry cleaner, he could have used Stoddard’s Solvent, introduced in 1926; considerably less flammable than gasoline. Or some delicious nonflammable perchloroethylene, 1930s darling of the Industry. Tell me what, if anything, has the allure and majesty of an afternoon of dry cleaning?

Where Luedeman ignited:


(-gone are the wooden columnar ionic porch supports, and there’s bevel clapboard under that stucco, but you get the picture.)


Dry cleaning? Wash without water, huh? Of course, look where it got that Ed Crane fellow.

The Case of the Suicide’s Bullet

November 12, 1947
Los Angeles

Mrs. R.J. Odman was sleeping peacefully in her bed at 825 N. Wilcox Ave. when Harry Lavine, 41-year-old guest of her upstairs neighbor, actor Matty Fain, shot himself just below the heart. The bullet exited Lavine’s back, came through floor and ceiling, and passed through Mrs. Odman’s splayed hair before stopping.

She was startled but unharmed; Lavine is in serious condition in the Prison Ward of General Hospital. Not for the threat to Mrs. Odman, though: Lavine, also an actor, was out on $5000 bail on a narcotics charge, but had failed to appear in federal court on Monday. Prior to shooting himself, he left a note absolving Margie Martini, 28, who was arrested with him on the drug charge. Miss Martini awaits her preliminary hearing in the County Jail.

A mini Matty Fain 1947 film festival:
Dead Reckoning, with Humphrey Bogart and Lizbeth Scott (Fain, uncredited, as “Ed”)
Down to Earth, with Rita Hayworth (Fain, uncredited, as “Henchman”)

825 North Wilcox, To-day

As I drove up Wilcox I was warmed at the thought of seeing the construction inherent in any structure whereby a bullet can pass through a person, and through the floor and through the ceiling below. (Of course, it may have been a firearm of some insane caliber, which made me smile inwardly all the more.)

Quickly pulled from my reverie as I saw Fain & Lavine’s Hollywood hangout had been destroyed as surely as had Mrs. Odman’s belief in a good night’s sleep–

Mom and kids nab peeping tom

November 10, 1947
Alhambra
Armed with a .22 caliber rifle and righteous indignation, Mrs. Violet Cuddy and her children Donald and Betty captured their neighborhood peeping tom, James Burke Bennett, 27, of 128 S. Chapel Avenue and turned him over to the cops. The courageous Cuddys reside just down the block at 209 S. Chapel. Bennett got popped on a vagrancy charge and sentenced to 90 days in County Jail, plenty of time for Violet to invest in some asbestos curtains for the bedrooms.

The Peeper of Chapel Ave

Nice of Bennett to provide a piece of paraphilia to today’s proceedings-What is it Auden said of the voyeur? Peeping Toms are never praised, like novelists or bird watchers, for their keenness of observation?

Was Jim just a hapless, callow youth, or drooling maniac? Perhaps he was, as was the original Tom, looking for Lady Godiva. He was simply looking for her in the Cuddy’s window. Since gone. I’d put this complex in the mid-50s.

And Bennett’s house, which contained the one neighborhood window into which he did not peer, has been replaced as such:

Hardly a love match

November 9, 1947
Gardena

Divorcee Gloria Hendrickson, 23, has known Bob Holstein, 37, for two years. He wasn’t much trouble until his own divorce went through last August; ever since, he’s been pressing Gloria to be his wife. She made it clear she wasn’t interested, but continued to see Bob. It made a break from her theater usherette job and nights at home at 14215 S. Vermont with her parents and 3-year-old son Richard.

Last night his frustrations reached the boiling point while he was driving her home from work after midnight. He pulled over on El Segundo between Vermont and Budlong and again raised the question of an engagement. The lady repeated no way, no how.

Bob grabbed the ribbon tie around her neck and choked her, dragged her out of the car, letting her head connect with the running board. Desperate, Gloria scrambled to get underneath the vehicle and away from her tormentor. Then another couple pulled up to see what the trouble was. Bob made noises about a lover’s spat, but Gloria shrieked and ran for help. Her saviors were Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Brownley of 334 Oxford St., and they brought her to the Vermont Ave. sheriff’s substation where she swore out a complaint.

Bob Holstein, still being sought, lives at 1540 146th Street in Hawthorne. So peel an eye for the louse.

Slack Rd. To-day

Slack. Yes. A lady just a-sittin’ on her rocker, smoking the day away. Now that’s slack. Slack Road, though, is no more, having become Michael Hunt. Whoever the hell that was. Ohhh-Mike Hunt. I get it. Real mature, El Monte.


A house of Slack…little bench behind some picket railing, the perfect place to smoke and be smoked.

(Actually, that spire in the distance is the 1956 Epiphany Catholic church, at which Michael Hunt was the first pastor. The street was renamed for him in 1985.)