Hurrah for the telephone!

November 30, 1947
Los Angeles

Hurrah for the telephone!

First, Mrs. L.B. Beddoe, 4587 Date Ave., La Mesa, received a call from daughter Pamela Evans, who said she was going to kill herself. Mama called the LAPD business office and asked if someone could please stop her.

Radio patrolmen J.P. Hooper and T.A. Gibson raced to Pamela’s pad at 104 N. Catalina, where the 19-year-old department store worker was passed out beside an empty pill box. The officers rushed her to Hollywood Receiving Hospital for a stomach pumping. Pamela presently revived, and murmured of the financial woes that had inspired her act.

But happily the phone had still been working, and so the lady lives. Moral: always pay your phone bill first.

Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons and forensic science seminars of LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

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Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons and forensic science seminars of LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

One thought on “Hurrah for the telephone!”

  1. A little grid, 13 boxes square, full of obscure words and frustration, the crossword emerged in The Times in November 1924 as the craze swept America following the publication of Simon and Schuster’s “The Cross Word Puzzle Bookâ€Â the previous April.

    Provided by the Bell Syndicate, the puzzles first appeared weekly in the Sunday magazine, including instructions on how to solve them, but soon became a daily feature.

    The syndicate’s 1947 puzzles (small by today’s standard of the 15 by 15 grid) are not particularly difficult compared with current puzzles. Although many words endure (ali, eel, era, ewe, ode, ute, atone, denim) the 1940s puzzles are remarkable for their lack of compass directions, Roman numerals, books of the Bible and use far fewer foreign terms. On the other hand, words like “gerentâ€Â (a person who governs or rules) and “hispidâ€Â (covered with rough bristles) have vanished from even puzzlers’ vocabulary, as have obscure definitions: “to spread for drying” = ted.

    “The Cross-Word Puzzle Book beneath a bough,
    Pencil, eraser, dictionary, thou
    Beside me, solving in the wilderness.
    Wilderness were Paradise enow.â€Â
    Grant Overton, after Omar Khayyam.

    Quote of the day: “But why do dogs have to die? What can’t they just go on forever?â€Â
    Meredith Davis, The Trouble About Having a Dog, The Times, Sept. 14, 1924

    https://www.lmharnisch.com

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