Drugs – Page 2 – 1947 Project

Cough Syrup Fiend

June 22, 1927
Los Angeles

Ranch dweller Grace Haynes was in divorce court today, seeking her freedom from husband Amos on grounds of extreme cruelty.

He didn’t abuse her, per se, but she claimed to be terrorized by his habit of knocking back bottles of high-octane cough syrup, after which he’d commence to ranting and raving before wandering out to the pig pen and beating holy hell out of their swine herd. And that can’t be good for the pork chops.

Amos denied the accusation, countering that he’d be happy to take Grace back if she’d just stop running around all night. A fascinated Judge Bowron continued the case to hear more the next morning, but the papers failed to report if Amos was delusional or Grace an imaginative liar, and whether or not the pigs turned up seeking damages.

Sooooo-ey!

Ask the Dust… there’s certainly enough of it

On routing duty in advance of the June 16 John Fante tour, Richard and I zipped down to 826 Berendo, where the master penned his great Ask the Dust, only to discover it the most heartbreaking sort of eyesore, boarded up yet all too easy to access, home now to the sorts of miserable edge-dwelling citizens who were, after all, his particular interest. One of them has a talent for charcoal portraiture.

Richard returned with photog Meeno Peluce and documented the miasma, then began calling city agencies in hopes, not of delaying the inevitable demolition, but of at least getting a plaque or street sign to honor the author and the work. Sadly, it seems the city only provides plaques for buildings that have been designated historic, and the only designation this poor, abandoned place is likely to get now is "Pee-YOU!" But we’ll keep trying; Fante deserves as much.

Stephen Cooper, author of Full of Life: A Biography of John Fante says, "When Ask the Dust was published in 1939, the young novelist John Fante was living with his wife Joyce at 826 South Berendo. Today the story of Arturo Bandini and Camilla Lopez is widely considered the starting point of Los Angeles literature. If the abandoned apartment building where Fante realized his masterpiece is torn down and hauled away, the neighborhood will be removing an eyesore but the city will be losing a piece of its history. I join with all who urge that this site be recognized in some concrete and permanent way so as to preserve the memory of the incandescent time when John Fante called South Berendo home."

Meanwhile, just a few miles north, a short portion of Berendo has been renamed for another notable L.A. author, L. Ron Hubbard. It would be sweet if the same could one day be said of the 800 South block and Fante.

Good Help Is Hard To Find

May 11, 1927
Los Angeles

Most liquor raids are tedious affairs, a pack of lit-up salesmen here, a couple sobbing college boys there. But once in a while, officers make a raid that’s just kind of special.

One such operation was on a blind pig at 3120 South Main Street, allegedly run by Mrs. Ocio Walsh. Mrs. Walsh was taken into custody on charges of possession of liquor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, while 38-year-old Frank Jones was charged with drunkenness and Robert Maschold, 37, with vagrancy.

That delinquency charge? See, Mrs. Walsh has a 14-year-old daughter, Mary Zella. Great kid, really responsible. When Sgt. Kynetto and Officers Wolf and Pound busted in they found a scantily-clad Mary Zella pouring a bottle of hooch down the sink. Mama sent her up to dress, the the clever minx hopped out a second story window and skedaddled.

Where’s she gone? Maybe back to the convent, from which Mama recently removed her to help out with the family business. Like I said, great kid.

How Men Turn To Crime

May 4, 1927
Los Angeles

Facing a sixty day sentence for bootlegging before Municipal Judge Tunney, Euell Thomasson appealed to the court’s mercy in light of his rather unusual personal history.

He had, Thomasson swore, been gainfully employed by a creamery company which sent a troupe of live, chained bears around town in its wagons as an advertising gimmick. Naturally, being bears, they were inclined to get cranky on the road, and one day one lunged at Thomasson and took a healthy bite out of his thumb.

This left him unable to work, and his employers refused to pay any compensation. So he began selling alcohol, a trade which apparently calls for but one working thumb.

It is a judge’s job to weigh the facts and mitigating circumstances in cases complex and peculiar. Judge Tunney determined the value of a bear-bitten thumb to be ten days, and sentenced the prisoner to fifty days in stir.

With Time Off For Being So Enterprising

May 3, 1927
Pomona

Some call it extortion; we call it a rather clever short con. C.L. Jackson and R.W. Hedgreth, both 48 and old enough to know better, approached service station operators Harold K. Hemmingway and Norman Bliss in the guise of being Prohibition officers, and asked where ’round here one could wet one’s whistle. After being informed of the details, Jackson and Hedgreth threatened to alert the real Prohibition men of the illegal info being spread, and demanded a pair of tires, gasoline and $25 cash to keep quiet. But Hemmingway noted the serial numbers on the bills and called the law, and the crooks were soon nabbed.

Justice U.E. White must not have thought much of the victims in the case, for he sentenced the men to six months in County Jail, which he promptly suspended for good behavior.

Meanwhile, in Reno, Nevada’s first short residency divorce was granted to Sophia M. Ross of New York, who braved the desert winds and cultural drought for three months so she could be freed of her Albert, who ate mashed potatoes with his hands.

A Perfect Hostess

April 24, 1927
Los Angeles

Consider if you will the American bootlegger, that rat among rats, profiteer and fiend, feeder of poison to nice kids who hardly deserve to go blind or mad, lose their teeth in a brawl or crack their skulls in a crash. In time, some will become respectable, send their sons to Harvard or even the White House, but not now. We all know what bootleggers are like… don’t we?

Maybe not. Consider Hattie Mitchell, address unprinted, who appeared in Municipal Judge Turney’s courtroom to face charges of dispensing fire water to quite an array of gentlemen. The twist? She served her liquor in her bedroom, while laid up with a broken leg. The whiskey bottles stayed under the covers getting warm when they weren’t being poured, and the government’s man never saw money change hands, but all the same–a speakeasy, right there in her sickroom, not to mention the impropriety of a half-clothed woman serving liquor to men who weren’t family!

It was all too much for Judge Turney to take, and so the (formerly?) supine lady was sentenced to six months in jail and a fine of $500. But here at 1947project, we salute a gal with the gumption to ensure a steady stream of visitors to her sickbed, and are already planning our own future recovery, which will include daily specials, jukebox music and popcorn shrimp served promptly at 4pm.

Not Exactly the Welcome Wagon

April 13, 1927
Pasadena

Col. Frank Benedict is moving up in the world. Recently named one of six "minute men" prohibition officers and presented with a patrol car capable of hitting 80 mph (!) for late night liquor hunts, he’s also taken possession of a new home on exclusive Terrace Drive in Pasadena, just a jig from Millionaire’s Row.

In the evening, the gentle scents of jasmine, orange blossoms and datura perfumed the air… but beneath them, Benedict detected a heavy, sweet and larcenous odor, the unmistakable tang of sour mash a-brewing. Sniff, sniff, sniff went the revenue man, until he found himself three doors down, outside #146. Local and federal agents were called, and the raid that followed netted Frank Meyers (real name Joseph Mendella) in the act of tapping a 300 gallon still, 140 gallons of steaming mash and equipment valued at $50,000.

Mendella must have had juice, and we don’t mean joy juice. The case lingered until March 1928, when he was convicted of possession of a still and the mash, fined $500 and sentenced to just thirty days in jail.

The Oddest, Oldest Fellow

October 9, 1907
Los Angeles

The nation’s most senior Odd Fellow, Carl Schmidt of 2729 West Pico Street, died at aged 95, after a brief illness. Schmidt was born in Germany in 1812, and emigrated to Philadelphia at 18, where he was known as a locksmith of great facility. He joined the Odd Fellow’s Lodge No. 12 at 21, and in 1852 moved with his wife Joanna to Madison, Wisconsin, then a tiny trading post, where he co-founded Lodge No. 17. He maintained active memberhip in this lodge until his passing.

Joanna Schmidt died in 1900, and the following year Carl moved to Los Angeles to live with their daughter, Mrs. Gus Kleaman. A week before his death, Schmidt gained the distinction of being the oldest person to spend an hour under anesthesia, as surgeons attempted to repair a rupture he had suffered at age 8, which had lain fallow for eight decades before becoming an irritation. He appeared to rally from his surgery, but complications set in, and he died at home surrounded by his family. The funeral was held at his bedside, under the auspices of the Odd Fellows.

Scourge of Sonoratown

sonoradrug

August 3, 1907
Sonoratown

Beware the Plaza. Patrolmen do their best to beat down and drag away human fiends, filled as they are with a new drug menace and the awful blood-lust it produces.

In the labyrinths and dens of Sonoratown, violent outbreaks have become commonplace, as Mexicans of the lower caste have been frequenting drug stores to purchase a substance said to be more harmful in its effects than cocaine, morphine, or even opium. Victims of the powerful narcotic—its scientific name, Cannabis Indica—are helpless to control their need for it, or the frenzy it produces. An effort will now be made to regulate the sale of this poison.

The initial effects of Cannabis pellets, called “Hashish,” consist of mad exhilaration (especially, it is noted, involving one’s mistaken ability to lift heavy objects) and a distortion of the optic nerve, wherein men of ordinary size appear to be giants.

After its use for any length of time, a homicidal mania manifests itself, as under its influence, the desire to shed blood is uppermost in the mind. According to Police Surgeon J. Sumner Quint, much of the crime in the Mexican community is due to its use.

This writer urges all readers to steer clear from this terrible peril and its attendant misery!

Sleeping Like A Baby

June 14, 1907
Sonoratown

Mrs. Santos Rodriguez (nee Galvies) has a lover, Virde Parra. She also has a little 3-year-old daughter, and watching the babe was putting a crimp in her romantic life. A quick trip down to the druggist provided mama with what was almost certainly a bottle of lauadanum, that effective blend of opium and alcohol so beloved by Coleridge and de Quincey. As the child slipped into a powerful sleep illuminated with extraordinary visions, Santos slipped out of her little house at 643 Buena Vista Street and met Virde for a quickie at the La Guerra Hotel on North Main Street near Market.

But the lovers’ plans were thwarted when the lady’s husband, having heard rumors of her evening wanders and Parra’s visits, came home for an early dinner and discovered his child insensible. Patrolmen Leon and Murphy were called, and the child-doper and her honey were quickly found and placed in police custody, where the lady gave her maiden name and refused to talk about the case.