Domestic Unrest – Page 2

Two Strikes – And The Wife Steps In

December 4, 2007
Los Angeles

Like many people, Mr. and Mrs. Harry Franklin of 181 Griffith Avenue like to have a little nip now and then, a simple pleasure made exceedingly difficult these dry days. Of course, there are ways of getting around the Volstead Act, but these often prove risky. Just what the cops were doing in the Franklin family bathroom on November 2, the Times didn’t reveal, but the lawmen discovered eleven pints of whisky there.

This week, the Franklins came before Municipal Judge Sheldon. In an unusual move, Ludie Franklin, Harry’s wife, asked to be substituted for her husband as the defendant in the case. Harry, it seems, had already been twice convicted on liquor charges. If found guilty a third time, the judge could send him up the river for year or two. Judge Sheldon agreed to this novel plan and Ludie went before the jury, who found her guilty as charged and sentenced her to forty days in the clink. Let’s hope Harry had a nice, dry celebration for her when she got out.

Child Bride of the Ozarks

November 28, 1927

18-year-old Ora Obetz appeared in court today seeking to have her marriage of 5 years annulled. It seems that prior to their marriage, her husband, Louis Allen Obetz, 47, had been her stepfather.

When Ora’s mother died in 1920, the girl was left in the custody of Obetz, who spent the next few years traveling around the Ozarks in a wagon with her. When she turned 13, he gave her the choice of being placed in juvenile home, a convent, or becoming his wife. After a month of convent living, Ora finally consented to marry him in Kansas.

A year later, Ora gave birth to a son, and the Obetzs moved to Los Angeles. Shortly thereafter, Louis threatened Ora at gunpoint, at which point, the brave girl picked up her infant son, marched out the door, and left Obetz for good. That was two years ago.

Since then, Obetz filed a $100,000 "alienation of affection" suit against 83-year-old A.F. Christianson, a wealthy Angeleno whom Obetz claimed had influenced Ora’s decision to leave him. But before that case was heard, Ora had her day in Superior Court. The issue at hand was not whether Ora was coerced into marriage, due to the fact that Kansas had no laws mandating the age at which girls could marry. However, the legality of the marriage was called into question by Ora’s testimony that a friend of Obetz’s had posed as her dead father in order to obtain the marriage license.

On December 7, 1927, Obetz’s suit against Christianson was dismissed when the former failed to appear in court. He didn’t show his face on the 9th either, when Ora Obetz was granted her annulment and full custody of her son.

Mother Avenger

November 27, 1927
Los Angeles

Did you hear the one about the traveling salesman and the farmer’s daughter? Well, this time she wasn’t a farmer’s daughter—and the salesman ended up dead. Eleven days ago, 17-year-old Marie Hull went for a ride with Gordon J. Waters, 29, the salesman in question. When she returned home to 840 West 43rd Place, Marie tearfully told her mother that Waters had attacked her.

When Hazel Hull discovered Waters at her boarding house tonight, presumably to call on Marie, she was ready. When the salesman left the house, Hull rushed after him and pressed a .38 caliber revolver to his left side. She fired a single shot, then fled to her mother’s. Waters staggered to the intersection of Hoover Street and Vernon Avenue, where he collapsed. He died on the way to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital without making a statement.

Days of juicy reading followed. Booked into County Jail prior to the coroner’s inquest, Hazel Hull told reporters, "I am glad I killed him even though I hang for it. My little girl was sweet and good. I did the only thing I could to avenge her." Her ex-husband proclaimed his willingness to stand by his former wife’s side, and Marie asserted that if her mother "had not shot him I would have done so myself."

Meanwhile, Waters’s widowed wife of six months ("heavily veiled in a great pink chiffon drape that completely covered her head and shoulders," according to the Times) took issue with the Hulls’ insistence that her husband had been "a sheik" and "a rounder." She preferred to blame the other victim: "Marie Hull led my husband on. She knew he was married." This was a minority view, however; when the coroner’s jury announced their finding that Hazel Hull was justified in shooting her daughter’s attacker, applause broke out in the court room, and spectators rushed to shake Hull’s hand. The following day, Hull escaped a murder charge when the grand jury refused to indict her.

Despite the column inches it devoted to the case, the Times editorialized that "If Waters’s conduct was indefensible, there seems even less defense for that of Mrs. Hull" and likened the juries’ refusal to indict as an "indorsement [sic] of lynch law."

Who’s Your Daddy?

sues mother in law headline

November 5, 1927
Los Angeles

What consolation is there for a husband whose wife’s affections have transferred to another? He may look for solace in an illegal bottle of booze or in the arms of another woman, or he may seek revenge and sue the love thief! And that’s exactly what two Los Angeles men have done.

In the first case, Charles Martino’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Rose Sandello, began a whispering campaign which turned his wife against him. It didn’t take long for Rose to poison her daughter’s mind and convince her to leave Charles – the couple was married for only ten months. Poor Charles felt the loss of his wife so acutely that he filed a lawsuit against Rose asking $50,000 ($599,109.20 USD 2007) in damages. husband tells of loss headline

The second case is that of an absent husband and a wandering wife. Mr. George Hall was working in Chile for three long years, and he spent most of that time missing his wife Eva.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Eva didn’t have time to miss George; she was too involved with her lover, the cartoonishly named Mr. A.B. McNutt. When George returned home, Eva refused to live with him, and she informed him that she’d turned over $10,000 ($119,821.84 USD 2007) worth of their community property to McNutt – which he undoubtedly squirreled away.

George filed suit against his wife’s lover for $25,000 ($299,554.60 USD 2007). He offered into evidence letters he discovered hidden in his home addressed to “Dear Baby”, and signed “Your daddy, Alva”.

Love bandits beware! Los Angeles husbands are coming for your…assets!

Mission Accomplished

zazala November 10, 1927
San Bernardino

Kim’s post a few days ago about the ineffectual hammer attack led me to this tale, which ends in what those of the gaming community refer to as a “finishing move.”

Ralph J. Zazala, 37, was sweet on Grace Hardesty, 35. He’d been seeing her for a spell. They took a little ride three miles north of Berdoo. Perhaps he hummed a little tune. He parked. Maybe he’d sneak a little smooch! Oh, and he brought along some things.

The blood-and-gore stained hammer disclosed that Grace had fought, in the car, long and hard for her life, and eventually escaped. She was on her knees at the roadside, apparently pleading for mercy, when he put his other tool, the shotgun, in her mouth and pulled the trigger. He then turned the weapon on himself.

Sheriff Shay found letters in Grace’s pocket indicating that while she and Ralph had been acquainted for some time, she was in fact a Mrs. Grace Hardesty, a fact to which Ralph evidently objected.

And so ended more love-stained, blood-stained Southern California romantic bliss.

We’re a Happy Family-No, Really!

November 6, 1927
Hollywood

Mrs. L.A. Corbin, 45, was rushed to the police receiving hospital today after she telephoned her neighbor and declared, “I have just swallowed enough poison to kill ten men!” While doctors labored to save Mrs. Corbin’s life, her 17-year-old daughter, former child star and current film ingénue Virginia Lee Corbin, told police she was ready to sign an insanity complaint against her mother. Mrs. Corbin had “taken all the money I’ve made in pictures,” Virginia Lee told detectives. “Mother wanted more money tonight and I wouldn’t give it to her; besides, she wouldn’t let me go out. I guess that’s the reason for all this. Let’s get it over with. If she acted this way before, she’ll do it again.” An ambulance took Mrs. Corbin to General Hospital’s psych ward, while a Times reporter snapped a photo of disgruntled looking Virginia Lee leaving the Georgia Street Police Station.

Two days later, Virginia withdrew her complaint. “She didn’t know what she was signing when she signed the complaint,” explained her adopted sister, Ruth Miehle. “Police Mystified by Action” read the Times sub-head that day; detectives noted that that Virginia had questioned them at length about the ramifications of signing the complaint, and went so far as to ask them to sign the document as complaining witnesses. Virginia herself was conspicuously unavailable for comment, so Ruth explained further: “There is absolutely nothing to the statements that Virginia is angry at mother over money matters.” Virginia’s assertions to the contrary, Ruth reported, were “misstatements by the police. But the police were equally certain that the statements had been made,” reported the Times. At any rate, Mrs. Corbin was moved to the relative comfort of the Rosemeade Sanatorium.

On November 9, the Times ran a photo of a smiling Virginia and Ruth on either side of their wheelchair-bound mother. “The family life of Virginia Lee Corbin once more is announced as harmonious,” wrote columnist Harry Carr shortly thereafter. “The loving daughters have not only released their mother from danger of going to a cell for the insane, but they have been publicly photographed chucking her under chin. I just don’t see the connection, but I have a feeling that chucking one’s relative’s under the chin is a public indication that you didn’t mean what you said-or something. At any rate, during the long winter evenings that family have much to talk about.” Or not-for despite the apparent reconciliation, Virginia petitioned the court for and was a granted a guardian. She also established a trust fund as a “first step toward recuperating asserted financial losses” due to “maternal extravagances.”

Mrs. Corbin recovered from her suicide attempt. The Corbin family contained to display a flair for drama. In 1929, the Times reported that Virginia was missing, possibly kidnapped, before she showed up on a train bound for New York City. Five years later, Mrs. Corbin instigated a search for Virginia and her family after hearing of “reports” in the British press that they were stranded in Belgium. Again, they were safe in New York.

Virginia Lee Corbin continued to act in smaller and smaller roles. “When the talkies began to displace the silent films, I decided an English accent would be a great help,” she told the press in 1930. Nevertheless, by 1936 the Times included her in an article devoted to the “Many Forgotten Names” of the previous decade. Her first marriage ended in divorce when her broker husband accused her of “habitual drunkenness.” Whether or not it was true, Corbin lost custody of both her sons. She died in 1942 of either heart disease or tuberculosis. She was only 32 years old.

The Venice Slasher

October 31, 1927

Venice, CA

A gory scene unfolded at the Venice Police Station today as 23-year-old Eddie Berry burst through the front door with a slit throat and passed out on the floor.

An employee of the Venice Speedboat Company, Berry had been working on the Venice Pier when he was accosted by a woman packing a knife in her handbag. The dame was Berry’s sweet wife. She began to argue with him, then drew out her knife and slashed him across the throat, narrowly missing his jugular vein.

Berry was taken to the emergency room for stitches, while police went out in search of the estranged wife. However, the search was later dropped when Berry refused to press charges.

Okay, it’s not much of a Halloween story, but it was this or the story of a few rowdy teens from the Redlands being sent to a YWCA dance to keep them from vandalizing property. Plus, isn’t "The Venice Slasher" a great name for a would-be murderess?

Hair Today…

October 27, 1927
Los Angeles

naughtygirl

Of course we know that pigtails have gone the way of the dodo for the li’l ‘uns, torn asunder by the terrible rake of modernity, but we never thought the bob would be stomped extinct by carnality and venality, modernity’s ugly little twins. But the bob is gone! Long live the permanent wave!

Here, five year-old Dottie Landvogt, of the Seventy-Sixty Street Landvogts, sits at Johanna’s Permanent Wave Shop in the Pantages Building on Broadway. She’s hooked up to one of those Charles Nessler contraptions—a crazy of octopus holding two-pound brass rollers on a system of counterweights, suspended from a chandelier; the curlers, filled with a Borax paste reagent, are electrically heated to 200+ degrees to boil and steam the hair and, because Nessler didn’t have a shop in Los Angeles, this was probably one of the many cheap knock-off machines. Which meant Dot likely ended up with a nicely burned scalp to match her ‘do.

But such is the price of beauty.

By the time Dorothy is ten, heatless waves will be all the rage, so we wish her the best of luck in still having hair.

Lacy Underthings and Seagull Wings

October 23, 1927
Los Angeles

John A. Horn was born to be a poet but Fate (O! cruel mistress she!) decreed he make his living as a lingerie salesman. Worse, he was married to a woman who did not understand the lyricism of his delicate artist’s soul. So he left his wife—but not before explaining himself in verse.

Martha Horn, seeking a divorce upon the grounds of desertion, recently handed her errant husband’s scribbled magnum opus to Judge Gates:

"I’ll wait here ’till the sun sets," I told her
"If you are hungry, there’s a stand upon the pier."
She nodded. "You can wait. I won’t be long."
And saying this, she left me with the sun.
I sat upon the sand and watched the gulls
Skimming the restless water striped with gold.
The rolling waves tossed foam upon the beach;
"The lacy underthings the Old World wears,"
I told myself, then smiled quite satisfied:
Not many a clerk in a department store
From seven to six could say such clever things.
. . . . the sun
Was almost gone, the rounded golden edge
Was sinking out of sight when my wife called
"John." I saw her coming down the beach
Munching a bun. "I’ve one for you," she said.
I turned. The sun had sunk into the sea.

"And when I gave him the hot dog, he got sore," Mrs. Horn clarified for the court.

"This is just another example of the ancient controversy between rhyme and reason," chortled Judge Gates before granting a divorce to the long-suffering Mrs. Horn.

More Tales from the Tinderbox

This Weekend Last
Los Angeles

Running around, hosting the Dahlia tour on Saturday and taking photos of the trash incinerator in the backyard of the house next to Greene and Greene’s Merrill House on the Pasadena Heritage tour on Sunday, left me precious little time to blog, but don’t think I was totally shirking my responsibilities to you, dear reader. I still found time to put my feet up and flip through the paper, and on seeing Joan’s posts this morning, was reminded of a couple tales…

Re: She Who Must Be Obeyed, perhaps Frederick Mason should’ve married Mary Agnes Morgan:

mute

As James P. Morgan told it to Judge Bowron, the first twelve years of their marriage went along just swell, until one day in Agnes was struck dumb. She moved her effects to another room, and from there shuffled about in silence, cooking meals and soundlessly accepting her meager Saturday allowance. James finally asked for a divorce on the charge of desertion. Quipped Bowron, “Most extraordinary—never heard of the like. I know men who would say you were blessed beyond imagination.”

And oh, the joys of sweet, innocent youth. You’ve read about the pyro predilections of Joan’s Bakersfield brats—let’s throw kidnapping into the mix.

hazelsworld

You know, in your neighborhood, were an infant to be kidnapped, everyone would go apeshit, and there’d be feds everywhere, and News Chopper 5, and so forth. Over in Boyle Heights, they just sigh, and trudge over to Hazel Oden’s house, 2706 Wabash Ave. It seems that Hazel, eight, one of thirteen children, suffers from a mother complex that compels her to steal any tiny infant she sees unguarded; she will nurse and rock the baby for a time and presently forget all about it. (Just like a real mother—how cute!) Policewoman Georgia Robinson had to make the trudge on the 21st to go fetch one Estella Richmond, two months of age, who was sleeping in her buggy outside her home one moment and was wheeled off to Hazel’s the next. Hazel has been sent to Juvenille Hall for observation, where she will be examined by psychiatrists to determine whether or not her impulses may be controlled.

Unfortunately, it would be another forty-six years before Hasbro introduces BabyAlive.