December 2007 – Page 4

Caution, Smoking May Be Hazardous to Your Health

Caution headline

December 3, 1927
Long Beach

Financial woes had driven 23 year old Clarence Martin to his breaking point. He rented a room at 555 East Seaside Blvd. in Long Beach, and resolved to end his life.

The young man turned on the gas and waited in the dark for the Big Sleep. Moments before he lost consciousness, he had a sudden change of heart and shut off the lethal fumes. Was Clarence’s epiphany the result of a glimpse into his family’s future without him, such as George Bailey experienced in “It’s a Wonderful Life”?

Did Clarence breathe a sigh of relief at his escape from death and begin to make plans for the upcoming holidays? Did he think about the wife he’d left in Gardena? She was probably worried sick because he hadn’t come home. Maybe he was going to phone her and let her know he would be with her soon, but decided to sit and smoke a cigarette first.

Lighting the cigarette was Clarence’s last act in this world. There was a terrific explosion which blew the door and windows out of the room. He was horribly burned, and later succumbed to his injuries at Seaside Hospital.

Good Find is Hard to Help

December 2, 1927
Hollywood

theclimax Mrs. Margaret Pumphrey, 27, of the Milner Road Pumphreys, was standing in her bedroom of her hillside home, preparing to go downtown, when she was approached by her white-jacketed butler. He asked if there were any further orders. Mrs. Pumphrey said there were none.

With that, her servant—Richard R. Ewell, 30—developed an “insane gleam” in his eye and approached further…whereupon Mrs. Pumphrey noticed the .45 automatic in his hand.

The chase—and fusillade of shots—began! Mrs. Pumphey fled through a bathroom and into an adjoining bedroom, through a hallway and down the stairs, but there’s no running from the staff. They know the house better than you do.

The mad pursuit and firearm blasts continued from room to room to room until Margaret managed to lock herself into a downstairs bedroom. Ewell fired several shots into the door to break the lock, but once he heard the window open, he ran around the house to catch her escaping. And catch her he did—as he climbed into the window, he shot her in the side as she ran screaming out the door.

The screams alarmed neighbor Mrs. Johnstone, who came running (with her two maids in tow [also suitably armed?]) and Ewell fired upon them from the home’s entryway—but Ewell, realizing that the alarm had been raised and his game discovered, put the barrel to his head and sent his brains all over the foyer he’d kept so spotless the three months he’d been under the Pumphrey’s employ.

Mrs. Margaret Pumphrey (could Kaufman & Ryskind have scripted a name of greater puffery?) suffered more from shock and fright (as visions of FLW’s former servant surely flashed through her head) than from her injury; she was rushed to Hollywood Receiving and was treated for the superficial wound and released.

According to LeRoy Bird, with whom Ewell lived at 4307 Hooper Avenue, Philadelphia native Ewell was an industrious man of good character and habits and never had any previous trouble. Detective Lieutenant Mahoney contends that Ewell had probably been crazed by dope, especially as he’d been out the night before and had acted strangely in the morning.

Ewell leaves a widow, Inez Ewell, in Kansas City. Because his death was self-inflicted, there was no inquest over the body. A small notebook was later found in Ewell’s possessions, and it was greatly hoped by Captain of Detectives Slaughter to contain names of prominent Hollywood people and information about dope trafficking; but sadly for Slaughter, “the only names in the book, the officer declares, are those of negresses and it is devoid of anything referring to narcotics or trade in the drugs.”

So why did Richard Ewell snap? If only we had some sign.

Whew, THAT’S a Relief!

cityfoundsafe!

December 1, 1927
Los Angeles

A couple decades ago there was the great quaking of earth up in San Francisco—that couldn’t happen down here? Could it? Could it?!

World Authority Doctor Robert T. Hill, geologist of International Repute, has spent years investigating the seismicity of Southern California, and today made public his findings. The business and financial leaders of Los Angeles thronged to the Alexandria Hotel, as guests of Eli P. Clark, director of the Building Owners’ and Managers’ Association, and sat in rapt attention and feverish anticipation of what Hill, Eminent Authority, had to say after his exhaustive study.

Of Southern California, Hill declared: “no other section in the United States enjoys greater freedom from major earthquake perils.”

strataperilfree! Whew indeed! It seems that the menace of an earthquake disaster is greatly exaggerated, and we’ve erroneous data to thank for that (usually from the prophesies of Stanford’s Dr. Bailey Willis, who, Hill feels, is full of hooey)—and which is responsible for the marked rise in earthquake insurance rates. Dr. Hill was corroborated in his assertions and supported with geological data by one Ralph Arnold, also a geologist of wide reputation, who went on to say that we have no need whatsoever for earthquake coverage at all in these parts.

Hill spoke long and hard about how the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey conclusively proved that Willis’ predictions regarding the movement of Gaviota Peak vis-à-vis the San Andreas rift are all wrong: so there. Moreover, Southern California belongs to the earth structure of Northern Mexico, and, as wholly dissimilar from Northern California geologically, whatever release of earth strain from Santa Barbara upwards has nothing to do with this part of the world. And so forth.

And who is this Robert T. Hill? Well, his paper on the Comanche Cretaceous is the foundation of our geological knowledge of the Southwest, and his studies of the Panama Isthmus were responsible for the location of the Panama Canal. And he was certainly on target with the whole “free from major peril” thing.

As one of the great geologists of our or anyone’s time, there’s a middle school named after him. Which is, by all accounts, a really weird place.