A Close Shave

 heeats

showoffOctober 13, 1927
Glendale

Last week we told you of the extrahuman feats of two and one-half year-old Virginia Mae Pike.  And now, collector of tale of childhood freakdom, comes two and one-half year-old Jimmy Baker Bogart.

The Pikes were fond of fumigators; the Bogarts, rusty razors.  They’d leave them lying around until they’d accumulate sufficient rust to look tasty enough, one supposes.  In any event, just such a brown’d blade seemed worth experimenting on with a new set of teeth, so li’l Jimmy bit off a chunk of Gillette. Though Mrs. Bogart pulled the major portion of our erstwhile whisker remover from Jimmy’s mouth, she watched a good piece of it go south.  The hastily summoned physician, apparently seeking to avoid the imperative and serious operation, put JB on an oatmeal and potato diet and that was that; the razor remain was satisfactorily dissolved within.

One wonders if li’l Jimmy grew up to develop a pathological aversion to the “safety” device, or if, conversely, having developed a taste and his inclination, went on to ingest the objects for a living.

allgrowdup 

Stormy Marriage for a Stormy Night

October 12, 1927
Los Angeles

Officer J.R. Reybuck had issues. Last summer, when he fought with his young wife, he thought he could resolve their troubles by choking her, snatching their baby son William, and running off to Yuma, Arizona, from which calmer perch he suggested she might join him and they could work everything out.

Lillian Reybuck had other ideas, and obtained a restraining order. She and her baby were living with her brother, Herbert, and mother, Mrs. Fred Hendricks at 914-and-three-fourths West Seventeenth Street, and that was where J.R. came today on one of his twice weekly visits. He was holding the child when he brought out his service revolver and shot his wife dead as she sat sewing in the front room. When her mother ran out of the kitchen, he took a couple of potshots at her. Mrs. Hendricks escaped out the door.

Reybuck unloaded a single shot through the left temple of baby William, killing him instantly. He then reloaded, leaned against the wall in front of his slain wife, and blew a hole through his brain.

He had blamed his mother-in-law for poisoning his wife against him.

Those Monkeys in City Hall

October 10, 1927
monkeybusiness 
 
Joe Pagglia had always wanted a pet monkey.  His friends and neighbors told him, "Joe, why not a kitty cat or a nice turtle?  Monkeys may be cute, but they fling their poop.  Who needs that?"  But Joe was undeterred, and was soon the proud owner of a monkey named Barney.  As everybody knows, monkeys hate to be cooped up, so being a proud and good pet owner, Joe Pagglia took Barney downtown for a stroll.

Unfortunately, in front of the under-construction City Hall, Barney slipped his rope leash and darted up a palm tree.  As Joe and several others struggled to coax Barney down, a crowd of about 600 spectators gathered to cheer them on.  Enjoying his audience, or perhaps terrified of them, Barney leaped 15 feet out of the palm tree, and made a dash for City Hall.  He then proceeded to scale the building, and in three minutes, was sitting on the Lindbergh Beacon.

Pagglia went up to the 28th floor, and cajoled Barney into position.  Then, he made a lasso, tossed it over Barney’s head, cinched it around his belly and hoisted his simian friend into Daddy’s loving arms.  The Times reported that "hereafter, the monkey pet will occupy a cage in Pagglia’s backyard," which is terribly sad.  But Barney seems like a crafty fellow – here’shoping he eventually made another break for it.

1947project podcast #8

The podcast returns with a vengeance, as nasty ladies spank stolen children, acid is flung into coppers’ eyes, a love bird feathers his nest and Crimebo answers your questions. Yes, friends, it’s time again to suffer through the 1947project podcastitifatorial, and you wouldn’t leave us to suffer alone… would you?

Here is the iTunes link for you modern types. 

Also available on Moli.

Cupid’s Arrows Bent

October 9, 1927
Ventura County and Beverly Hills

Two stories from today’s paper prove yet again that the course of true love rarely runs smoothly. The first comes from Las Turas Lake (now Lake Sherwood) at Las Turas Country Club, where W.T. Verry, Jr. narrowly escaped death this afternoon when his friends finally figured out that what they thought were flirtatious gestures between Verry and a pretty miss on the pier were actually "frantic signals for aid" from a drowning man. Verry was pulled from the lake by J.E. Bower and revived by artificial respiration.

Meanwhile, 23-year-old Grace Dawson today resumed planning her Tia Juana wedding, cancelled because the bride was in County Jail when she was scheduled to walk down the aisle. Several days ago, detectives searching the Beverly Hills residence of bootlegger and narcotics kingpin "Black Tony" Parmagini turned up an address. A squad under Chief George Contreras then proceeded to 201 South McCarthy Drive where they found Miss Dawson, 25-year-old Alice Gray, and another young woman (who jumped out of Contreras’s automobile at a traffic light on Sunset Boulevard), along with sixty-five cases of mixed whiskies and other liquors. Dawson and Gray were booked for violation of the Wright Act before being released on bail of $1000 each.

Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off!

Call the Whole Thing Off Headline

You say eether and I say eyether,
You say neether and I say nyther;
Eether, eyether, neether, nyther,
Let’s call the whole thing off!
– George and Ira Gershwin

October 8, 1927
Los Angeles call the whole thing off pic

What’s a gal to do when she can’t even pronounce her own married surname? She files for an annulment!

Eva Tanguay, a singer, fell in love with and married a vaudeville performer. The man of her dreams was named Allen Parado, or so she thought. Eva soon found out that she’d been deceived, and that his name was actually Alexander Booke.

The newlywed singer thought she might as well roll with it – it wasn’t as if her spouse had some chippie stashed in a love nest downtown. Besides, Eva Booke had a nice ring to it.

But even a woman in love has her limit, and when she found out that her husband’s real name was Chandos Ksiazkiewicz she not pleased.

In Eva’s defense she tried very hard over the next several months to learn to pronounce and to spell the jumble of consonants. But try as she might introductions were awkward, and forget about signing for anything.

Chandos was not about to give up on his marriage and continued to pester his bride to reconcile – maybe Eva just needed a little more time to conquer the tongue twisting last name. Eva was having none of it, and was not entirely convinced that the name game had ended. Fearing that Chandos would not leave her alone as she sought an annulment, she applied for a restraining order. Judge Burnell sided with Mrs. K and signed an order forbidding Parado, Booke, or Ksiazkiewicz from bothering her.

A Ksiazkiewicz by any other name…

Wanderlust At Sea

manfound!October 7, 1927
Long Beach

Between Christ’s wanderings in the deserts of Jericho, and Kidder’s huddlings in the gardens of Glendale, there was Robert Sankey.  

Sankey, 44, a prominent Riverside contractor, was in a splendid mood September seventh last; he had no domestic or financial troubles, and bid his lovely wife and 13 year-old daughter goodbye that morning in his home at 270 Bandini Avenue before a trip to Laguna Beach.  He made it to Laguna Beach, and picked up $12,000 ($132,359 USD2006) in cash which he had been paid by the Colton School Board for the construction of Colton High School.

Sankey then told friends he was going for a swim, and left his bag, clothing, glasses and  shoes at a hotel near the beach.  From there he disappeared…the sea was dragged repeatedly for his body, but to no avail.  Had the briny deep swallowed Sankey?  And what became of the money?  And what’s this?—a few days ago, some Sankey acquaintance came forth and reported having seen Sankey on a Seattle-bound boat a day or two after the disappearance.

Today, Mrs. Paul McKenzie peered nervously through the window of her home at 4010 Massachusetts, Long Beach.  There was a dazed, raggedy man wandering aimlessly up and down in front of her house for the better part of two hours.  When she got up the nerve to confront the torn and tattered stranger, all a-jibber-jabberin’ to himself, it was, you guessed it, her brother, Robert Sankey.  Oh no, he insisted, I’m Andrew Borg.

Well, the Borg, I mean Sankey, had only $500 left (in checks issued by a Seattle bank) of the twelve grand, and even less of an idea as to where he’d been or what he’d done.  He could only confirm that his clothes had been given to him by “the skipper,” and that he’d been to sea in a small boat with two men and a woman.

Further investigation revealed that Sankey recently boarded the steamer Evanger at San Francisco (booking passage to Buenos Aires as “Andrew Borg, grain dealer, Witchita, Kan.”), but put ashore at San Pedro the day he reappeared in Long Beach.

Sankey remains in his Borgian state at Seaside hospital, where Riverside county authorities are vexed with Seaside staff; the Sheriff is itching to serve two warrants on Sankey, each charging sixteen counts of violating the State wage law, but the pesky physicians demand that officers wait ‘til Sankey’s physical condition permits such activity.

Whether amnesia or grift, please bear in mind…steer clear of small boats, and beware "the skipper."

theskipper! 

 

Didn’t Read Her Wilfred Owen

 fatesatwork

October 6, 1927
Fullerton

“Only because of a kind fate which guards the lives of children at play was Virginia Mae Pike, two and one-half years of age, alive today…” …or so reads the lead from this story.  Oh sure, that’s got to be it, it’s all thanks to some rather specialized application of Fortuna Primegenia.  

Seems Mr. and Mrs. George Pike tented their home at 365 West Truslow Avenue, into which fumigators pumped pure cyanide gas.  According to the medical experts, two breaths of the lethal fumes would kill a grown man, and here Virginia Mae stood erect in the stuff for two minutes.  There she was, inside the tent, still upright but unconscious, when they pulled her out, gave her some mouth to mouth, and off she went.

There are only four possible explanations:

a)    you cannot kill what is already dead; therefore, she is a zombie.  She will eventually chomp on her parents, who will in turn infect others—this should probably be dealt with.  Unfortunately for the Pikes, decapitation remains the best proven method for dealing with a zombie.

b)    she is wampyear.  Or vompyure.  Or however one spells “vampire” to make it phonetically accurate.  This should also be dealt with.  Again, traditional methods apply.

c)    she is a suprahuman.  Virginia Mae should be spirited away to a secret military base to breed an army of bioresistant super-soldiers, of course.

d)    the Pikes hired crummy fumigators.  

At least these are more probable explanations than the kindly consort of some damn Moiraes, #4 certainly so should you shave down the argument with Occam’s razor.

KarenCooper1927

But don’t say we didn’t warn you. 

Brotherly Lumps

East Los Angeles
October 5, 1927

Found wandering in a dazed and bloody state near Ninth and Dacotah, all attorney Frank Sweeney could say to police in the Georgia Street Station was "please don’t hit me!" Taken round the corner to the hospital, he was discovered to have a possible skull fracture.

In a moment of clarity, Frank suggested officers talk to his sister-in-law Mrs. Jack Sweeney at 101 South Bunker Hill Avenue (a now lost street, one tail of which remains). The lady promptly admitted that Frank had been over the night before and had said unpleasant things about her, whereupon her Jack knocked him into the stove. Why yes, he had suffered head injuries in the fracas. But gee, a skull fracture? He must have gotten that after he left.

Entirely possible, of course. Bunker Hill’s not known as the Historic Skull Fracture District for nothing!

Don’t &#*% With the Librarian

librarytheftThese days, if you make off with a stack of library materials, the Los Angeles Public Library will report your thieving name to a collections agency.  But library bandits of yesteryear like 20-year-old Clyde M. Thompson faced much stiffer penalties.

A librarian at LAPL noticed that the copy of Eugene O’Neill’s controversial play All God’s Chillun Got Wings was at large, and traced the missing copy to Thompson.  About 30 library books were found in Thompson’s home at 1406 E. 110th St., and he was sentenced to 60 days in jail, 2 days for each stolen book.

samuelwardlawDuring the 1920s, the Los Angeles Public Library employed detectives to investigate thefts and mutilation of library material.  A 1929 Times article featured the efforts of Special Investigator Samuel Wardlaw, a man as hardcore as he was humorless.

 
He interrogated patrons in the stacks when he observed them hiding books, and once used a sorority pin to track down a young woman who tried to sneak a rare volume of Chaucer out under her coat.  While he seemed to have a soft spot in his heart for the children he captured, Wardlaw regarded most library patrons with a certain degree of contempt.  He said, "Sometimes I think the Los Angeles Public Library must be on the mailing or calling list of every crank and eccentric in the West."
 
While the library detectives frequently visited people at home to reclaim stolen books, it was rare that criminal charges were pursued.  No particular reason was given for poor Clyde Thompson’s exceptionally harsh sentence.