Gentle reader, a fresh manifestation of 1947project has emerged. For the first time, our crime-a-day blog becomes a house-by-house survey, exploring the great lost downtown neighborhood of Bunker Hill. Join us On Bunker Hill to meet the people, homes and peculiarities that called this place their own.And for even more historic LA oddities with regular updates, visit our current blog In SRO Land, lost lore of the historic core.
Category: Kim Cooper
It’s a Man’s World
March 17, 1927
Bakersfield
Frustrated at being rejected for employment as a nurse by Kern Hospital, twenty-one year old Gladys Maryon Lindley came up with a plan – become a man!
Dressed in men’s clothing and answering to the name “Billyâ€, Gladys presented herself at Kern Hospital once again. Instead of seeking employment as a nurse, “Billy†applied for the job of a male orderly this time and was hired on the spot.
Gladys went undetected until three months later, when the secret of her identity was revealed by one of her former teachers. Recognizing “Billy†at the hospital, the teacher ratted her out to hospital administrators. Gladys – aka Billy – resigned immediately.
Perhaps naively, the LA Times reported that “a real desire to do hospital work was given as the explanation of the masqueradeâ€.
In the Line of Duty
March 16, 1927
Los Angeles
If the drys are gonna catch the wets, they’re gonna have to wet themselves. So to speak.
At the trial of John H. Wyncoop, former chief field agent for the boys of the California/Arizona Federal Prohibition Enforcement Department, Wyncoop said “I knew that if I had liquor in my possession I could more easily get bootleggers to believe that I was handling booze and therefore make it easier to arrest bootleggers.â€
Uh-huh.
Wyncoop is on trial because he turned twenty-nine bottles of liquor to his own use, instead of turning it into the government warehouse. Can’t those government know-nothings see that you need that hooch to go under deep cover? That he only took home that demon rum in the solemn performance of his duty?
(Convicted by a jury of illegal conversion, he was given a short term in the county jail.)
Behind Every Great Man…
March 16, 1927
Los Angeles
Clarence and Ona Brown were married in 1922, but now Ona wants a divorce. “When I married him,†said Mrs. Brown, while weeping bitterly during her testimony before Judge Summerfield, “he was a second-rate assistant director, and I made a director out of him. That cost me my home, for he got to thinking so well of himself he attempted to boss the house. He went nearly a year without even speaking to me.â€
(She may have a point; see this page under "salary.")
Ona’s testimony was neither denied nor contested, and she won her decree.
Think of that the next time you watch "Garbo’s favorite director".
Grossery Shopping
March 15, 1927
Los Angeles
Traditionally, the term greengrocer refers to a retail tradesperson who sells fresh fruits and vegetables. Should you be down on Temple Street, you might find grocer Edith Green to be a greengrocer of the green meat variety. Mmmm. Heck, even her Temple Street neighbor Abraham Margolis purveys criminally suspect comestibles.
Edith, at 922 Temple, and Abraham, at 937, were both charged with selling adulterated and contaminated foodstuffs. Stock amounting to $2,500 ($29,055 currentUSD) were ordered destroyed, she given thirty and he 180 days in the hoosegow, suspended on the condition that they clean up their act. And their stores.
As much fun as it would be to venture in to those structures now to see what eighty year-old smells lingered from the putrid pigs feet and bad borscht, we’ll have to content ourselves with visualizing such while whizzing under the one-ten:
The Sunday Paper
In the past two weeks, I’ve come to understand why Kim usually waits until Fridays to post her 1947p stories. Ever since this leap year, I’ve found myself with the Sunday paper, which, while jam-packed with Bullock’s ads, real estate ventures, and fashion spreads (this week, an entire section devoted to shoes!), is rather short on crime and mayhem. After all, who wants to dwell on such things on the Christian day of rest?
And after the stories of the past two days, perhaps there’s some sense in that. Unable to top the likes of baby farms and superman love cults, I suppose it’s fair to say that I’m feeling a little blocked.
California fig laxative: it "can’t harm children." If that’s not a ringing endorsement, I don’t know what is.
And take a look at this plug for Jewish boxing legend Lew Tendler, as he prepares for his upcoming bout. Does the "S" stand for Southpaw or sexy?
A Most “Pernicious, Revolting, Nefarious and Immoral” Love Cult
March 11, 1927Los Angeles
Fifteen-year-old Lloyd Alley, arrested today in Los Angeles, is said to have made statements “tantamount to a confession” of his involvement with the “Sacred School of the Great White Brotherhood,” an Oakland-based “love cult” with branches in San Francisco, San Jose, Portland, Chicago, and Texas. At the same time the teenager was spilling the beans in L.A., San Francisco police raided the cult’s Bay Area headquarters, where they found an “effigy of a woman with a sword piercing her heart, incoherent messages, cards bearing linked names of males and females and other equally weird evidence.” Cultists are said to have “encouraged free love in its most exotic forms” in its attempts to breed a “superman” and “superwoman.” “Mystical marriages” were arranged and “the sacred phallic laws” studied. Also in custody in Los Angeles is Russell Alley (Lloyd’s father, cult name “Omar”). Cult founder and high priestess, Mrs. Gertrude Wright (“Zareda” to her followers), is being held in Oakland, along with her disciple, Irma Gibbs (“Ermengarde,” a domestic in the Wright home). All were charged with contributing to the delinquency of minors: Lloyd Alley, plus two young women, Thelma Reid, 17, and Caroline Merwin, 18.
Lloyd Alley and Irma Gibbs both made confessions said to “be reeking with unprintable details,” though the paper managed to squeeze in a mention of two “new Messiah” ceremonials Lloyd performed with Caroline Merwin. Caroline (whose stepmother’s complaint set the raid in motion) was quite the little minx: when she appeared in juvenile court later in the week she relished telling the judge that she wore only “filmy underthings” during her initiation ceremony, and that her “vibration robes” were scanty as well. When she “admitted intimacies with Lloyd Alley,” the two of them laughed until the judge admonished them to be quiet.
Times columnist Harry Carr thought the juicy case was nothing but “Bunk”:
The attempt to paint these girls-and their beef-fed sheiks-as innocent, wide-eyed victims of a freak religion is enough to make anybody laugh.
Girls of this day and age are wise guys.
And any one of them knows that a so-called religious cult that involves being “initiated” in the presence of men with most of clothes off is merely an excuse for a debauch.
There is at least some hope for a girl who is frank enough to laugh.
Caroline Merwin was eventually released into her stepmother’s custody. Lloyd Alley was remanded into the custody of the Juvenile Detention Home and was later made a ward of the court. In May 1927, a jury deliberated for ten minutes before it found Russell Alley guilty of contributing to the delinquency of minors. Gertrude Wright and Irma Gibbs flew the coop before they could be tried; they remain at large.
Baby Farm
March 10, 1927
Bellflower
Police received a tip that next to the home of Ray Foss in Bellflower, several people had been observed burying something that may have been the body of an infant. Thankfully, no bodies would be found. Police had discovered however, that Ray had an outstanding felony warrant from 1925 for operating a "baby farm" in Moneta (near Gardena). The fear of being nailed on the baby farm charge loosened his tongue, and Ray Foss began to relate a sordid tale of baby trafficking, illegal adoption, an alimony racket, bigamy, and narcotics addiction.
Ray told the cops that a woman being held in County Jail on forgery charges under the name of Minnie Williams was actually his wife, and that she had been the proprietress of the Moneta baby farm.
The baby farm had come to the attention of the authorities in 1925 when Minnie sold a baby girl to a woman who gave her name as Mrs. Johnson. The infant was found to be blind, and Mrs. Johnson returned the child and demanded a refund. The child later died. Mrs. Foss gave the woman $25 in cash, and in lieu of the remaining $35, she gave her another baby! Ray and Minnie fled a short time later to avoid standing trial.
During the next two years Minnie trafficked in babies, ran an alimony racket, and fed her drug addiction. She provided infants for women to carry into court when seeking alimony. Prior to being identified as Minnie Foss, she’d tried a variation of the alimony con in Judge Hardy’s court. Using the Williams alias, she made an emotional plea for probation on the forgery charge, alleging that she was about to become a mother. The court soon discovered that she was not actually Minnie Williams, and that she was wanted in the Moneta baby farm case. With the masquerade over, Mrs. Foss began to confess to Deputy District Attorney Costello.
Things got off to a strange start when Minnie was asked to state her name for the record. She told the Deputy DA that her last name was really Hines, not Foss. She said that she’d married Ray Foss when she was only 15 years old, and then met Clarence Hines in 1921. The three lived together in a ménage a trois until Foss left. Minnie claimed that she then married Clarence, but never went to the trouble or expense of divorcing Ray.
How did Minnie end up trafficking in babies? According to her, she was in fact, a "serial adopter". In 1922 she had noticed a newspaper ad about adopting a baby. She said that she went to the Mexican quarter near the Plaza and met with a couple who told her that they had a child they couldn’t keep. Minnie took the baby home and passed him off to Clarence as his own child. She told him that the child had been born to her while she was away in Burbank!
Clarence may have been a very dim bulb, because over the next few years Minnie said that she brought home several other infants including a set of twins, and that she had informed him that he was the father! According to Minnie, Clarence never questioned her about any of the babies, so she continued to adopt.
Maybe Clarence wasn’t quite as gullible as Minnie had thought, however. When questioned by police, Clarence told a slightly different story. He said that he’d known that his wife sometimes placed “not wanted†babies. He also told investigators that he was aware of a black trunk which may have been used to store baby clothes or as a coffin for some of the unwanted babies. The trunk was later found at a home near Bakersfield that had once been occupied by Ray Foss.
When the trunk was examined by police it was found to contain baby clothes, a hypodermic needle, and a marriage license issued to Ray Foss and Minnie Magnolia Williams. Also found in the trunk were approximately twenty-four photographs of young girls and babies.
Even though Minnie said that she’d adopted the infants, the most likely scenario was that she occasionally kept unwanted babies born to women in her care. Where did all of the babies go? Police traced many of the children to foster parents who subsequently adopted them. Several infants remained unaccounted for.
Although there were many unanswered questions – particularly regarding the fates of the infants who could not be found, Deputy DA Costello dropped the baby farm charges because Minnie and Clarence had confessed everything to his satisfaction – including an addiction to narcotics for which Minnie was treated with Narcosan. The DA’s office couldn’t pursue the bigamy charges because the statute of limitations had run out.
Minnie pleaded guilty to issuing a fraudulent check and was given a sentence of from one to fourteen years in prison. Clarence received a similar sentence.
The Dyak Go Green
March 9, 1927
Borneo
On the one hand, the Dutch government’s Eurocentric cultural imperialism is wiping out the native culture of Borneo; on the other, they’re teaching headhunters the benefits of recycling.
The Dyak have long needed a nice fresh human caput for any and every sort of local ritual, but the generations-long war against the practice by their clogphilic, decapitated-headphobic overlords, has shown them the benefits of conservation (long practiced in the densely populated liberal parliamentary democracy that is Holland).
It is reported that now, the Dyak just borrow heads from neighbors for celebrations such as the birth of a child or the ending of a period of mourning. In fact, a paltry few heads are passed around in a tribe where just a generation ago each family had a bag of its own.
(According to Dr. William O. Krohn, Chicago alienist, there’s still no lack of headhunting when absolutely necessary-a rajah’s death demands craniums, for example, and victims thus beheaded are regarded as members of the monarch’s heavenly retinue.)
Despite the Dyak’s newfound respect for Westernized ideals, Borneo’s 1957 independence from windmills and tulips removed such colonialist standards of civility. The wild and wooly Americas, though, never had a break from her fascination with beheading.
Closer to home, LAPD became head-hunters of another kind when in January 1939, Cleveland Chief of Police George Matowitz received a letter postmarked from Los Angeles that read in part:
(Relatedly, while there are few great films about Los Angeles, there are fewer great films about headhunting. And Los Angeles.)
His Majesty Requests
March 6, 1927
Los Angeles
Los Angeles
Not every L.A. woman has the chance to be wooed by royalty, but Mrs. Edith Brown of 4720 ½ Mascot Street proved singularly unimpressed by the stream of letters emanating from the pen of Lionel I, self-proclaimed King of America. The lady, apparently a democrat, called the cops. They took His Majesty (otherwise known as Lionel Craviato) before the judge, who sent the regal fellow off to City Jail to learn that even a king should not annoy a lady.
An excerpt from one of the offending missives read: "All the American army and navy love me and they recognize me as their first chief and want me to be king of their country. I will conquer and civilize the whole world!"
Hmm, maybe the problem was that this would-be king never learned how to write a proper love letter. Lionel, Lionel, Lionel, no woman wants to read about how much the army loves you! Also, for future reference, we like rubies.