The time travel bloggers share notable events of December and January 1927, including tales of poisonous liquor, hypercritical papas, NIMBYism in historic South Central and a millionairess tied up and left to die in a sack. Then there’s Crimebo the Clown’s sad recollection of all the ill-advised nastiness he failed to accomplish in 2007, and two new sponsors, one promising untold riches for customers who raise Huguenots in their back gardens.
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Sheriff’s officers responded to a desperate cry of murder after a corpse was found by oil field workers digging ditches in Brea, but when they investigated they determined it was merely the aged skeleton of an Indian, disinterred from his ancient grave. The corpse was reburied without ceremony, and the diggers advised to avoid the spot in the future.
And in another Sheriff’s case with a fresher body, the peculiar suicide by gun of Charles Norton, shopkeeper at 1760 East Slauson, was explained away rather ingeniously. Why was the man found dead in his bed in the store’s back room, when his brother said he had no reason to do away with himself? Deputy Sheriff Hackett believes the cause was a nightmare, triggered by the story "Shooting Mad" in the Wild West-themed magazine lying beside the dead man. Hackett suggests Norton dozed off while reading, dreamed a gunman was in the room, reached under the pillow for his own weapon and inadvertently shot himself. Stranger things have happened in Los Angeles.
January 8, 1927Yesterday’s news told of poison booze victim Dennis Cavanaugh. Now it looks like everybody’s trying to get into the act. Take, for example, Mrs. Helen Delamere, who in court papers filed today claims that her husband, P.F. Delamere, has been trying to poison her for several years. First there was the time he tried to get her to eat some poisoned pie. Mrs. Delamare’s nurse wouldn’t let her-but when the nurse ate it (waste not, want not!), she became ill. When on several occasions Mrs. Delamere consumed chicken and soup prepared by her hubby, sickness followed. And when Mrs. D, her sister, and mother nibbled on sandwiches made by the sinister Mr. D--you guessed it--the ladies were seized by illness.
Even Aimee Semple McPherson has been gripped by the poison fad. Suspicion was aroused today when a man hurried into a downtown messenger bureau carrying a brown package tied with purple string addressed to the evangelist and marked “rush delivery.” The man then refused to leave the office until the package was dispatched. Due to his erratic behavior, the delivery service sent a messenger boy out with the package, but instructed him to double around the block. The sender (who paid in cash and did not state his name) followed awhile, then disappeared. In the interim, the police were called.
The officers immediately suspected “an infernal machine,” but when the package and a burning dynamite cap were placed side by side, nothing happened. The cops thereupon opened the box and discovered it was filled with candied figs-sweetmeats now suspected of being poisoned. They await analysis by the city chemist.
January 7, 1927
Los Angeles
Bending the Volstead Act to the breaking point is de rigeur among the smart set, with an evening of drinking rarely resulting in anything worse than a queasy stomach and a screaming headache the next day.
Dennis J. Cavanaugh (22) and his companions Walter Scott and “Tex” Scott went out last night to do a little carousing. The young men began their evening by stopping off to buy a couple of pints of rum at a store on East Ninety-Second Street, run by the Henkins brothers, Clay (46) and William (48).
Where the young men went to party after purchasing the hooch is not known, but by this morning Walter was in critical condition at his home, “Tex” was very ill, and Dennis had been found dead on the front lawn of a house at 1847 Roosevelt Street – his body reeking of alcohol.
Whether they knew it or not, the Henkins brothers had sold the boys poison liquor. They are currently in jail facing manslaughter charges.
Buying illegal booze is dangerous – it’s like playing Russian roulette. But it becomes even more frightening when people like Wayne B. Wheeler, advocate of the Anti-Saloon League, come out in support of allowing the government to use poison to enforce Prohibition.
On January 1st of this year, the new government formula (“Formula No. 5”) for denaturing industrial ethyl alcohol went into effect. The formula doubles the amount of poison which manufacturers are required to use. Bootleggers sometimes buy industrial ethyl alcohol and substitute the original label with one of their own. Only three drinks of the libation may cause permanent blindness.
Many in Congress have demanded that the government stop legalized murder. The Secretary of the Treasury recently announced that he is opposed to the use of poison to enforce the law, but that “Formula No. 5” will remain until a non-removable, non-poisonous denaturant can be found by government chemists.
January 6, 1927
Los Angeles
Gladys Nolan, 22, of 5510 Lexington Avenue, had a craving for fine clothes and expensive perfumes. She needed them. Yes, there’s a difference between needs and wants. She NEEDED them.
Gladys was no klepto. She paid for the items, and not with money from the handbag of some white-glove spinster she’d clobbered and left twitching in her death throes down a urine-soaked alley. Gladys paid for these things with all the nicety befitting a girl of refinement, trouble being, she paid for the lovely things with forged checks.
A $200 ($2,206 USD 2007) fur coat and $34 bottle of perfume, she picked up at I. Magnin’s; a check signed in a fictitious name at Maison Blanche allowed her a gown and hat totaling $110. Some killjoy by the name of “Deputy District Attoney Frampton” got in a twist about this, convincing some other sourpuss called “Judge Ambrose” to hold her to answer in Superior Court and fix bail at $2000.
Gladys was given probation and told to keep her nose clean. Which she almost did.
Whatever became of Gladys Nolan? A lady whose refinement and obvious taste sadly outdistanced her pocketbook? Guess we’ll never know.
January 5, 1927
Albany, New York
Cain is alive and well (jeepers, the life span of these antediluvians) in the land of Nod York, East of Eden, or at least Schenectady…seems that one Harry Cain was engaged in a phone call, and was having some trouble making himself understood to the person on the other end of the line.
Finally the landlady came to the rescue. “CAIN,” she shouted into the telephone, “C-a-i-n. You know, the man that killed his brother.”
That set off the other party on the phone all right…murder! The police were summoned and Harry Cain was in jail in a matter of minutes. It took hauling the landlady in some time later to explicate the whole mess.
Still, I’d keep an eye on that Lamech character.
January 3, 1927
South Los Angeles
The men came marching onto County land, with their boots and their buckets and their shovels and their poles, and the ladies of East 71st Street, just east of Hooper Avenue, came out of their little bungalows, leaving their babies and their breakfast dishes and their washboards and their bougainvilleas, and they met there, in the middle of the road, and looked each other up and down.
"Why have you come to our little street?" asked the ladies.
"To install high tension electrical wires," the men replied.
"Down the middle of our street?"
"Down the middle of your street."
"Like hell you will!" was the ladies’ retort. And when the workmen returned to sink their poles on Monday morning, they found an angry mob of females who congregated around the various spots where holes were to be sunk and planted their bodies in the way of any work. One octogenarian brought a chair out and sat atop the digging spot, while others stood their ground and glared. At lunch time, other women came out and changed places, so no child would go without its meal.
The men retreated, not willing to spill female blood or risk their own safety further. On further investigation, it was revealed the city has not obtained the proper county permit to plant any such power line down 71st Street, so any such erection would be delayed indefinitely. And the next day, a spokesman for the work crew said, "They not only won, they routed us altogether. There’ll be six feet of ice at Sixth and Broadway before some of our men venture on Seventy-first street again. We ceased operations because we are not putting up any poles or lines on any street where the people object to them. Nothing will be done unless we can come to some agreement with the women."
Here’s to the heroines of the Battle of East 71st Street: Mrs. P. R. Bottomly of 1348 East 71st Street, Mrs. H. B. Dawson of #1332, Mrs. M. M. Schnell of #1342 and Mrs. W.J. Kline of #1315 and those who sat for the photograph (L-R): Mrs. Louisa H. Orr (aged 82), Mrs. W. A. Grubbs, Mrs. G. S. McIntyre (provisional general), Mrs. M. Robertson (aide-de-camp), Mrs. R. Jackson (chief of staff) and Mrs. Louise Dixson. For sisterhood is powerful, NIMBYism is nothing new in Los Angeles, and who the hell wants power lines cluttering up their view?
January 1, 1928
Los Angeles
A year ago prohibition agents observed that "last-minute calls for holiday cheer" skyrocketed on New Year’s Eve, so this year detective chief George Contreras and his men staked out area roadhouses. When "suspicious-looking characters" drove up, they were searched. Five flivvers were confiscated and thirty bootleggers arrested—and yet heads are splitting all over Los Angeles this morning for, despite the last minute roundup, the hooch flowed freely last night.
Indeed, by 7 o’clock this morning, the Coroner’s Office and Receiving Hospital listed two dead, eight critically—perhaps fatally—injured, and another seventy people slightly hurt in booze-fueled traffic accidents, including a pedestrian who was "partially scalped" in a hit-and-run at 39th and Vermont.
Over at 1827 W. 78th Place, Justus Gunn woke up after the party he and his wife hosted for their friends and discovered that his wife was missing. Gunn told police he "retired [or passed out?] as the guests were leaving" and didn’t notice the little woman was gone until this morning. Friends didn’t know where she was, and Gunn declared there had been "no quarrels or disagreements which might explain her sudden departure." There was no further mention of Mrs. Gunn in the pages of the Times, so whatever the cause of her disappearance, it probably wasn’t criminal.
More ominously, 14-year-old Florence Ellison left her father’s house (723 Bonnie Beach Place) yesterday afternoon to visit her mother (522 Clifton Street). Around 7:30 last night, Florence rang the doorbell at 620 South Wilton Place and told C.R. Morrison she was lost. Morrison drove Florence to the streetcar, gave her directions, then returned home and called Florence’s mother. But Florence never arrived.
Epilogue: Florence Ellison was found, fatigued and possibly drugged, on January 2. She told police that after becoming lost, she joined the New Year’s celebrations downtown where she met cabdriver Edmund D. Kearney at about midnight. They had drinks, and after a drive through Chinatown, Florence spent the night at his apartment. Kearney was held on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. No information was given as to just how Florence spent New Year’s Day.
