Author: Kim Cooper

Mrs. Ruth Twist wasn’t planning on a wild animal encounter when she entered the alley behind her home at 2219 Johnson Street, facing 2226 Griffin Street. But there she discovered an 1800 pound steer, anxious, exhausted and far from its unhappy recent home in a packing house near 700 N. Alameda.

That’s where the animal was first spotted, skidding on the pavement. Police tracked the beast from Alameda and Main, but lost it crossing Griffin, where it knocked Officer Herbert Hansford down.

Then the animal entered the alley, there pinning Mrs. Twist against a fence. The brave lady forced the steer to the alley’s mouth, where officers commenced firing, felling the beast and sending Officer L.P. Walters to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital with a ricocheted bullet to the arm. Mrs. Ruth Twist refused medical attention. And Chief Horrall had steak for dinner.

Mayonnaise is rotten stuff, as the parents of little Steven Barrett, 4, discovered after their son was killed today when a car driven by Victor Martinez, 22, of 4321 Elm St., Long Beach, jumped the curb and crushed the tyke as he played on the lawn in front of his home at 5833 Penswood Ave. Martinez reported that he had lost control when a jar of mayo rolled off his bench seat, and he lunged for it. This was apparently considered a reasonable explanation for infanticide, and Martinez was not held.

Steven was #386 in L.A. County’s grim toll of traffic fatalities for the year. Another traffic death recorded today was that of Ellis W. Keim, 73, of 2264 Cedar Ave., Long Beach. Keim was struck in a driveway at 1366 Atlantic Ave. on May 23, and died at his home.

Frustrated by her husband’s refusal to return to their home, Mrs. Jack Scher had an inspired brainstorm-she’d print up some handbills pleading her case, and hire a couple of strapping lads to distribute them in front of Scher’s fruit stand at 170 S. Marengo.

Were you among Scher’s customers or passersby today, you might have been handed a paper which read: “Mrs. Jack Scher would like her husband, Mr. Jack Scher, of the fruit and vegetable department of the Wonder Shipping Center, to come home to his wife and child.”

The scheme backfired when Scher became incensed, and shot at one of the youths with his .22, nicking the clothing of John Brangard, 127 N. Mentor Ave. His roommate Elrod Swanson was then swatted on his shoulder with Scher’s rifle stock. Pasadena police arrived and booked Scher, 43, for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, but a sympathetic judge freed the man. Officers hope to get a complaint.

Mrs. Scher reports that it’s now ten days since she and their ten-year-old son were abandoned at their home, 3453 Milton St., East Pasadena.

After ten years, Lester Jean Burnett is tired of the lies. In 1937, aged 18, he acted as a beard for his father Lester Senior, then 36, and Angelina Pizzuto, then 17, whose parents objected to their February-July romance.

Angelina and Lester Junior were wed, but it was Lester Senior who set up house with the girl. Angelina’s children Lester Bryan, 8, and Rose, 6, are supported by and informally acknowledged as the children of the older man. However, on their birth certificates, Lester Junior is named father.

In December 1942, all parties convened in Reno, where Angelina and Lester Junior divorced; Angelina and Lester Senior were married the same day.

Lester Junior entered Superior Court today seeking an official ruling that the two children are not his.

Lester Senior, a refrigeration engineer, resides at 2135 Iola Ave., El Monte, with Angelina and the kids.

Joe (or more like Jane) Citizen of the 700 block of S. New Hampshire Ave. just couldn’t stand the sight of the little blonde girl and her dog asleep in the back seat of that car one more night, so on the third incidence she phoned police. Sure enough, radio officers Clyde Giroux and D.R. Lynch discovered 7-year-old Linda Henderson and her dog Butch snoozing in the back of a car parked in front of number 747.

Asked where she lived, the yawning gamine explained “when the sun comes up my mamma comes and takes me to a café, but I can’t tell you where I live for we’re looking for a place.” But mamma was nowhere to be seen this evening, so officers left a note on the car. Then Butch and Linda were processed at Wilshire Police Station and the child sent along to Juvenile Hall.

A friend told Linda’s mamma what had happened, and Mrs. Louise M. Carringer (nee Henderson, 36, divorced) appeared, explaining that during her search for housing she only occasionally left Linda alone. Dep. City Attorney Perry Thomas responded by sending mamma, charged with child neglect, over to spend the night in the Lincoln Heights Jail.

Of Butch, who apparently made no move to stop the strange men from removing his charge from the vehicle, we know no more.

Soon enough ol’ Wanzy dropped in, and laid his paws upon several handy bottles. The cops revealed themselves and Wanzy moved as if to retrieve a gun. Bang! 11 shots pierced the hapless Wanzy, and more’n likely the bottles he so loved.

Memo to Lester Jacob Griffin of 582 Foster Street: next time you beat and menace wife Catherine with a shotgun, make sure son Ronald isn’t lurking nearby with a Japanese saber. The 14-year-old laid into his pop’s left forearm, inflicting a delicate little cut, but ending the assault on Catherine, who later signed a complaint alleging wife beating.

Lester J. is in El Monte Jail pending receipt of $1500 bail.

James E. Fronimos is a man of distinction- but who really wants to be known as the first man Pasadena cops ever booked for investigation of grand theft airplane and drunk flying?

Fronimos, 24, a student pilot with a scant two hours solo air time, decided to take a joyride in a Cub Cruiser he found parked at Montebello airfield around 1:30am. He picked the Cub because it was the only plane on the field with a self-starter. His intent was to circle the field a few times and bring her on home- but the inexperienced pilot’s circle developed an uncontrollable circumference, and soon he was running low on gas.

While in the air, Fronimos had moved from East L.A. to Pasadena, so when he brought her down, it was on the Arroyo Parkway, near California Street. Fortunately, he killed the ignition on the way down, thus only crumpling a wing and scratching up his face when he crashed into a light pole with a “hospital zone” sign on it, and not exploding.

Officers took Fronimos to the drunk tank and towed the plane to the wrecked auto yard at Ward & Son’s Garage.

In a township that has only just expanded its zoning to include businesses, it’s hard to find a place to set up shop.

Since Ann Frank, news ed of the West Covina Tribune is a mere slip of a gal (5’ 6”), she’s settling into a child’s playhouse, the temporary home of the three-month-old journal–recently evicted from borrowed space now needed for West Covina’s only market–until a more traditional office can be found.

At present, there’s not a single commercial space for rent within the city limits-and the West Covina Trib can hardly do business in Irwindale!