Author: Kim Cooper

Those battling Spreckelses are at it again! Last night, sugar heir John D. Spreckels III, 37, brained wife Lou Dell with a fireplace poker during a liquor-fueled argument at their home at 201 Santa Cruz Road. Call it a housewarming gift: they’ve been in the new place for all of two weeks.

Lou Dell ran from the house in a confused state and found herself at the nearby home of Laurie Connor, 215 San Luis Rey Road. Connor is a former relative by marriage of Mrs. Spreckels. John D. followed her, and began pounding on the back door threating to “kill” someone inside. This resulted in a call to police, and a charge of disturbing the peace, later expanded to assault with a deadly weapon and drunkeness.

Interviewed by officers, Lou Dell claimed she recalled raising her arms to prevent being struck by the poker her husband swung, but did not remember being hit. She does not know how she got to the Connor home. Mrs. Connor explained that she discovered Lou Dell on her back stoop after opening the door on her way to Pasadena.

Lou Dell indicated that she was willing to prosecute John D. on an assault charge, and was taken to St. Luke Hospital in Pasadena for stitches and treatment of a possible concussion. John was bailed out by Groves Bonding Co. with a call to appear in Arcadia Police Court at 9:30am. The bent poker remains at the Arcadia Police Station as evidence.

Further reading: Claus Spreckels: The Sugar King in Hawaii

Superior Judge Charles S. Burnell was all ears today when Edward G. Lamel, next door neighbor of pedigreed Irish Setters Pat and Gunner and their late master Carleton R. Bainbridge, took the witness stand on behalf of Bainbridge’s brother Sherman to testify about the dogs’ taste in motion pictures. Lamel, an engineer for the county, stated that Bainbridge often remarked on his pets’ preferences. The dogs were big animation fans, and enjoyed Mickey Mouse cartoons and Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Wycoff Westover, counsel for the doggys’ executor, Charles Connelley, stipulated with Sherman Bainbridge’s attorney that while the dogs do talk, they do not speak English. At issue is $30,000 which has been left to the dogs, disinheriting Bainbridge’s human relatives.

Suggested viewing: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney Special Platinum Edition)

Panicked citizens of Louisiana’s low-lying shore, woken by a 1:15am weather advisory warning that a 140mph hurricane might reach the mouth of the Mississippi by early afternoon, frantically sought to flee into the New Orleans tonight even as the river’s waters, driven by rising wind and tide, sloshed over the city’s vaunted levy system. A huge shelter with 800 beds awaited the escapees inside the Municipal Auditorium.

New Orleaneans hold great pride and confidence in their river levy system, but it has never before been tested by a strong hurricane. The levies were built in response to the devastating storm of 1915.

Severe damage has already been felt throughout southern Florida, with an estimated $25,000,000 loss to the citrus industry and 188 buildings destroyed in Ft. Lauderdale. Also threatened by the storm are Biloxi, Gulfport and other important tidal towns.

Recommended reading: Herbert “Gangs of New York” Asbury’s The French Quarter: An Informal History of the New Orleans Underworld

Two days before he died in February, attorney Carelton R. Bainbridge, 63, rewrote his will to include a very unusual bequest. His entire estate of $30,000 was left in the trust of his friend Charles Connelley for the care of Bainbridge’s beloved 6-year-old Irish setter dogs, Pat and Gunner.

In court today to challenge Bainbridge’s wishes are several two-legged hounds from the dead man’s past, including his brother Sherman, who publishes a pension movement magazine, and Sherman’s daughter Marjorie. Also on the scene is Mrs. Christine Halstead Bainbridge, the woman Bainbridge wed (and deserted) in 1926. She has a 1925 Bainbridge will in which she plays a featured role.

Sherman Bainbridge’s attorney Harold A. Fendler intends to show that Carelton Banbridge was not of sound mind when he made the 1947 will. As evidence, he claims that the dead man regularly took Pat and Gunner to the movies, where he would ask their opinions on the show. He believed the dogs could talk, and also read them bedtime stories.

Contractor Sam Murman, 58, was sentenced to one to ten in San Quentin today on a charge of collecting deposits of more than $38,000 from 44 ex-servicemen and their families for advance rent on an apartment project at 1414 W. 25th Street that could only accomodate twelve families. Murman blamed the discrepancy on the his illiteracy, claiming he kept all his contracts in his head and became confused. None of the victims ultimately gained occupancy in Murman’s building. Murman has filed for bankruptcy, but it seems unlikely that any of his victims will receive more than $100 of their $900 average loss.

The wreckers pulled down the old residential hotel at 609 East 2nd Street today to make a parking lot for Western Telegraph employees. Built in 1888 to accomodate 64 persons, by 1916 it was known as Walton House, after the owner-operators. By 1935 it was known as Old Timers Village or more fondly as Bachelor’s Lair, in honor of its cranky population of ex-miners and construction workers who permitted no feminine touch to impose its frills upon their pragmatism. They cooked, cleaned and laundered themselves as they had during their working days. But no more.

Those are wedding bells you’re hearing for hard-boiled pen-man James M. Cain, who took the occasion of the granting of Aileen Pringle’s divorce petition to announce that he intends to wed singer Florence MacBeth in October. The bride, widow of Captain Edward Whitwell R.A.F., has had a succesful stage career with the Chicago Grand Opera, despite sporting so dangerous a name. Post-nuptials, the lovebirds are off to Louisiana, where Cain intends to research a civil war novel while Flo begins her memoirs.

All Betty Rockwell MacDonald, the pretty, poised and wealthy 24-year-old wife of Robert MacDonald, wanted was for her husband to stop threatening her. And for him to get a job. He hadn’t worked since 1945.

Robert, 27, a former Lt. who received three Purple Hearts, a Silver and a Bronze Star in the European theater, has been receiving psychiatric care at the VA. This may have helped when Betty filed for divorce five months ago, agreed to reconcile, and recently began making divorce sounds again. Unfortunately, Robert’s shrink didn’t insist he remove his collection of war weaponry from the family home at 822 Warner Ave.

Last night, Betty phoned her attorney and insisted on revising her will. Now. She was not, she claimed, being threatened, but nonetheless she could not wait. And so her $100,000 fortune was to be shared by the MacDonald children, John, 6, and Eilen Gay, 11 months, with Betty’s mother as executrix.

Robert slept in the den last night, and was surly when Betty woke him to move his car so she could take little John to the dentist. The couple ended up in their upstairs bedroom, where they scuffled and argued. Nurse Constance Baker ran upstairs and saw John come hurtling out of the room as if tossed. Then gunshots: chest and head for Betty, mouth-shot for John. Both DOA, a sad finish to the story that began with the pair’s elopement in 1940.

Suggested reading: Surviving Domestic Violence: Voices of Women Who Broke Free