Month: January 2006

Loose Lips Sink Ships

January 21, 1947
San Pedro

When Jay Dee Chitwood fell in front of a truck near 203rd Street and Western Avenue in August 1944, the coroner thought he had a simple accidental death on his table. But look closer. Cause of death: punctured lung? Hardly a typical injury for someone hit by a car.

Only nobody did look closer until today, when officers picked up Mrs. Helen Chitwood, who had been yapping to a gentleman friend about how she’d stabbed her husband twice and watched him fall into the street, and the dopey cops never noticed the knife wounds. Detectives dropped by Helen’s pad at 888 1/2 Hamilton Way to ask if that’s how it happened. Sure, she told them, we had a fight and it happened just like that.

Mrs. Chitwood is cooling her heels in the San Pedro Jail, and the coroner has got some ‘splaining to do.

203rd and Western To-day

Those Chitwoods. Always stirring the pot. Torrance had had a two-year period of zero traffic fatalities before J. D.’s death that August day in ’44, and as a result the City Council built a decomposed granite sidewalk on the east side of Western, which had heretofore been pavement, which was just fine before the Lumia Trailer Park went up and folks started walking in the street.

And then the pot is stirred again, with some spice thrown in for good measure, when in a bar Helen lets blab that she shivved her hubby and pushed him in front of a car.

One problem though-she didn’t do it. The autopsy revealed that Chitwood’s lung was in fact punctured when crushed in the accident, and there was no evidence of a knife wound on the body, according to Police Chief J. A. Stroh. “I was drunk and didn’t know what I was saying and wanted to make my present hubby angry” revealed Helen Chitwood Schug, who was released to presumably relieved present husband Roland Schug.

In Other News II

A landfill full of splintered spindlework. Endless acres of white oak and Douglas Fir torn asunder, the bulldozer demolishing uncountable Queen Annes and Eastlakes, its unquenchable hunger for turreted towers and gabled gothic left unchecked. Midcentury Los Angeles was hot for Bunker Hill and Orange Grove Avenue and the very street you live on. The widows walk no more.

That was then, and this is now, and now, now we lose postwar LA. There’s a fight for Lincoln Place, there’ll be a fight for the Fabulous Forum, and we’ll have to shove long spiked poles into the graves of Millard Sheets and Welton Becket and Stiles Clements to cease their ceaseless spinning. Bit by bit, structure by structure, it goes. I’ve gone on about this before.

In any event, here are some simple, quiet buildings, wonderful examples of their type which, unlike press-grabbers like the Ambassador, will disappear unnoticed. They’re a lot like the ones in your neighborhood, you know, which, I might add, are probably just as threatened. Soak up old LA while you can.

Ulrich Plaut, 1949:

Architect unknown, 1959:

For the record, I lifted this info and these images from here.

Gary Schaffel hasn’t taken his Albers St. plans to the planning department yet, but he has informally cued his tenants to the impending evict & demolish scene. (Schaffel is the guy taking out the 1950 Stevens Nursery [Laurel Canyon & Riverside]. Turning that into 96 condominiums, via four-story blocks of stucco.)

We hear all about the need for affordable housing, yet Albers Street is another instance of a property owner demolishing (these are rent-controlled) in order to do away with such nuisances. The next time you hear some politico speak on the forthcoming affordable housing mandate, ask them why they don’t maintain the affordable housing they already have?

Should the Valley’s residents had an opinion on the matter-say, they preferred a bit of green space, or “neighborhood” sized buildings that contribute to a livable environment, over an endless chain of forty-foot stucco mountains-they could let the developers of the world know that it’d be appreciated if they stopped trawling around the ‘hood.

The Strange End of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

January 20, 1947
Los Feliz

Everyone says Henry R. Smith, 20, was a different boy when he came home after his Navy service. Morose, nervous. Still, two months ago he was all smiles when he married Barbara Anne Chilton, 19. The newlyweds moved into Barbara’s parents’ home at 1612 Hillhurst. Chester Chilton is a building contractor, and Henry went to work as his assistant.

Last night the young couple was celebrating Barbara’s return from a trip to San Francisco. They went out on the town with Chester, and returned to find the house thick with the smell of burning meat; a ham had been forgotten in the oven. (This would never have happened if the Mrs. were home, but she’s in Detroit settling a family estate.)

Chester raced to the kitchen to deal with the mess, while Henry and Barbara retired to their bedroom. Half an hour later, a terrible boom split the evening’s peace. Henry ran out into the hall, shotgun in hand, and cried “My God, Pop, kill me. I just shot Barbara!”

Chester passed his son-in-law and saw his daughter splayed out on the bedroom floor, shot through the eyes. Henry came up behind him. Chester wheeled and raced out of the house, thinking he had to call the police, get help, get away, do something…

Another shot rang out. Henry Smith had blown his brains out.

1612 Hillhurst To-day

One would suspect that the Chilton home would be gone. Who could live in a house where the terrible smell of cordite and burning meat lay heavy in the air? And as Hillhurst is mostly commercial now, I figured as such. But there, behind those vans, that Enterprise RentACar-

-that’s the Chilton home if ever there was one.

Interestingly, three weeks later one John E. Westover killed a man in a bar fight on Vermont Avenue; Westover’s address is listed as 1612 Hillhurst. Evidently the Chiltons got out and rented to whomever would take the blood-soaked home. Perhaps the house is clean now, Hank’s madness having inserted itself into Westover, with predictable results.

Held Up in Hollywood

January 19, 1947
Hollywood

Stepping from a restaurant at 7050 Hollywood Boulevard towards their parked car, Hollywood Roosevelt Orchestra leader Freddy Rhea, his contractor roommate David Picken and Bunny Gravert, songbird with Rhea’s outfit, were robbed by a trio of trash-talkin’ banditos who relieved both men of their watches and Rhea of $70 in cash and $2000 in checks. The lady escaped unmolested.

The Madwoman of South Gate

January 18, 1947
South Gate

Two years ago, when she was 20, Mrs. Elaine Chatt Shedden gave birth to her second son, Robert, and suffered a nervous breakdown. She was voluntarily committed to Camarillo State Hospital, and spent three months there. Her marriage fell apart, and Mr. Shedden moved to Chicago. Elaine and the children settled in with her parents at 9230 Virginia Ave. and for a while things weren’t so bad.

Then they were. Mrs. Mabel Vanessa Winters Terwilliger, 46, lurched out into her yard, a knife wound in her back. Daughter Elaine came after her, and plunged the blade into Mabel’s side. The older woman was D.O.A. on arrival at Maywood Hospital.

Elaine, weirdly calm as only the mad can be, had changed out of her bloody dress and sandals and was scrubbing her hands when Capt. T.R. Chase and Sgt. Joe Heymans arrived. Sure, she stabbed her mother. The woman had nagged her about doing the dishes, and was plotting with her brother Robert Winters to have her involuntarily committed to a state institution. “I just couldn’t stand it,” said Elaine.

The children witnessed the incident, and neighbors, hearing screams as Elaine chased her dying mother out of the house and 40 feet onto the drive, called police.

9230 Virginia Avenue To-day

From Nero to Ed Kemper, matricide has sadly been a male-dominated activity. Nice to see the ladyfolk making strides. Perhaps she was a role model for those nice Parker-Hulme girls.

The earth below this grass still has Mater Terwilliger’s DNA soaked thereinto, but the house, and its damned dirty dishes, has been replaced thusly:

Though apparently the developers left the garage. No dishes in there. Madness-free since 1917.

And Mrs. Shedden, she went into the peaceful, non-dish-doing confines of Camarillo.

Now the California State University Channel Islands. Though how the students get any work done with those stabbing pains from Elaine’s ghost-knife is beyond me.

Memo to Burglars: Stay off Miz Jessie’s Porch!

January 17, 1947
Los Angeles

Mrs. Jessie Founder, all 100 pounds and 64-years of her, betrayed bravery beyond her station when a would-be burglar was spotted on her back porch. Matthew R. Rudolph, 21, armed with a 2 x 4 and a bottle, grappled with Mr. Founder for the latter’s gun, so Miz Jessie crept up behind the louse with a lead pipe and started swinging. Rudolph suffered head injuries and died hours later in the prison ward at County General.

The Founders live at 1750 E. 118th Street, ; before his head was caved in, Mr. Rudolph hung his hat at 1644 1/2 Palm Ave.