Child’s Play

December 10, 1947
Pasadena

Two baby cousins, each 14 months old, were playing together in the kitchen of the Joseph and Mary Diaz home at 3139 Alameda Street while the adults kibbitzed in the living room. Suddenly a child’s scream shattered the peace of the evening. The Diazes rushed into the kitchen to find their son Joseph Junior bleeding profusely from his head, as cousin Alice Vasquez sat spellbound, a pancake turner clutched in one fat fist. The families raced to Pasadena Emergency Hospital, where Joseph died a few hours later.

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 “Child’s Play”

  1. JEWS BEAT OFF FIERCE ATTACK
    ‘Taxi Army’ Saves Tel Aviv in Arab Invasion
    Panic Grips Hebrew City
    as Moslem Spearhead
    Knifes Into Border Area

    JERUSALEM, Dec. 8. (AP) Taxi-borne Jewish volunteers beat off a two-hour attack by Arab machine-gunners and grenadiers in Tel Aviv tonight and then took the offensive in the fiercest battle since the United Nations voted to partition Palestine.

    For a time as the spearhead of Arab fighters knifed into the Hatikva sector of the all-Jewish city, wild panic gripped Tel Aviv and its residents fled from their houses in blind confusion.

    Hundreds of Jews in the city responded to the cries of motorcycle couriers who raced through the streets shouting “Hatikva is in danger. Send help.â€Â One courier halted a motion picture performance with his alarm and sent hundreds of persons in the audience hurrying to the embattled quarter.

    Volunteers and fighting squads of Haganah, the Jewish defense army, commandeered taxicabs and sped to Hatikva in time to beat off the furiously fighting Arabs, who drove a wedge into the quarter from the border zone which separates Tel Aviv from the all-Arab city of Jaffa.

    Eyewitnesses said that as Hatikva residents fled in wild confusion the Arabs began tossing bombs into houses.

    Quote of the day: “Dream Dress to dance into 1948—Young sorceress of the wand-waist, bouffant skirt school, whirls through the holidays in the luminous splendor of rayon taffeta, roman-striped from deep purple to pale gold. And for a fillip of jeune fille elegance, mantilla with a pleated edge, in plain contrasting color!â€Â
    J.W. Robinson Co.

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