1947 Project

Remember Eugene H. White, the 31-year-old engineer who apparently vanished out of his blood-splattered car over the Valentine’s Day weekend, only to show up two weeks later in Seattle-town with an eight page manifesto blaming his troubles on a civilian version of combat fatigue? Well, Geno’s in the news again today.

Seems city inspectors complained that the addition he was putting on the White manse at 22304 Providencia St. sported a ceiling that was five inches too low-fine if he was building for snakes, not so good for a growing family. So Eugene, unemployed since the Seattle incident and harried from housebuilding while wife Elizabeth and the kids summered with family in Ann Arbor, did what any frustrated home builder would do: he set the house on fire.

As it burned he became remorseful and tried to stop the licking flames with his handy hose, but by then it was too late, and neither Eugene nor the combined hoses of four Reseda and Canoga Park fire companies could save the six-room structure. Arson officers arrested Eugene as he watched it burn.

Down at the Van Nuys Jail, he told reporters that the house had been a jinx all along. We’ll see if his wife agrees when she returns from Michigan.

Home on leave from Alaska for his grandmother’s funeral, 22-year-old technician 5th grade Richard DeSpain quaffed a lot of bay rum and got into an altercation with some Negro youths, whom he said robbed him. Determined to settle the score, he returned to his mother’s home at 323 E. 109th Street and retrieved his Japanese pistol.

The boy’s mother is Reverend Emma DeSpain, one-time follower of Aimee Semple McPherson and until recently minister at the now-closed Victory Chapel, 10700 Avalon Blvd. Reverend Emma was hosting a luncheon for several nice Christian ladies, but left her guests to plead with the boy to be more peaceable. In the course of their struggle, the gun, clutched in Richard’s pocket, fired, shattering mama’s thighbone.

Richard ran off, but soon returned to face the consequences. Cops are turning him over to military authorities, since his emergency leave expired two weeks ago, and the good Reverend says her injury is a small thing if it means her hard-drinking boy will start to live right. Here’s hoping!

Suggested reading: Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson

Police still don’t know who did it–adulterated the city’s soya sauce supply with quantities of arsenic nearly sufficient to cause death. Dozens of Japanese residents became ill earlier this month after ingesting rice seasoned with the poison, but all have since recovered.

Health inspectors today supervised the dumping of about 1500 gallons of suspect soya sauce, tipping drums down drains at a Little Tokyo wholesale business at 114 Weller Street. Another 48,500 gallons will soon face the same fate.

The sickly sweet odor of the sauce lingered on the air, bearing with it perhaps a hint of death, as the men from the health department acted to protect all citizens, even those of Axis descent.