Tag: christmas

A Holiday Reminder from your Friends at 1947project

 clarklobby

stillindangerDecember 30, 1927
Los Angeles

Christmas is over.  Get rid of the tree.  Especially if your tree is absurdly large, and its explosion into flame is going to ignite humans.

W. A. Thomas, 2317 Scarff Street, was sitting on a balcony of the Clark Hotel above just such a repulsively titanic symbol of holiday cheer when the spangled, glittering, belighted thing short-circuited.  A pop, a flash, a sudden roar, and the tapering fir became a sheath of flame.  As did Thomas.  He went to Georgia Street Receiving with second and third-degree burns of the face, neck, chest, arms and hands.  A Mrs. Ethel Williams of Phoenix took some lesser burns to the face, neck, arms and hands as well.

It would be some years before the advent of the aluminum, flameless variety.  (Should you own the Decemberween version of this style, the time is still now to box & basement your shiny friend.)  Thank you for your kind attention.

The Fox in Captivity

December 25, 1927
Pendleton, Oregon

It’s a blue Christmas for the family of Marian Parker this year, though they may take some pleasure in the knowledge that accused killer William E. Hickman tried to kill himself today-both times conveniently in front of a guard (Hickman was planning an insanity defense). The child murderer celebrated the holiday in a Pendleton, Oregon jail cell, prior to being transported back to Los Angeles for trial. Guards reported that Hickman roused himself from hours of lethargy by tearing pages from a bible and scattering them on the floor. He then asked for a handkerchief, and when his jailer obliged, quickly knotted it around his throat and pulled tight. The guard rushed into the cell, where Hickman climbed to the top of his bunk and attempted to dive headfirst to the concrete floor. The State of California went on to accomplish what Hickman failed to on October 19, 1928.

The calm before the storm

December 14, 1927
Los Angeles

The holiday is nearly upon us, and all across the city, citizens are Christmas mad. The Pacific Electric Hollywood car stalled, halfway through the First Street tunnel, and when the wire fell down and sent sparks arcing across the darkened windows, scads of package-laden shoppers panicked and stampeded, despite attempts by train staff to calm them. Several passengers suffered bruised knees, ankles and backs.

There’s naught but sadness at 4528 Amber Place, where the John Vernon Rosses mourn the death of their only child, John Vernon, Jr., aged 4. Mother was working days and father nights in downtown shops, to save enough to give the tyke his best Christmas ever, while a neighbor, Mrs. J.W. Loyal of 4600 Topaz Street watched the babe. When mother called for him around 1pm, he was dead in his cot, victim of some mysterious internal hemorrhage. An autopsy was ordered, but if any cause of death was found, it was never reported in the papers.

And down on Wilton Place, the Parker Twins, Marion and Marjorie, whisper together about what to give their father Perry for his birthday tomorrow. They cannot know that tomorrow Marion will be kidnapped from her school by The Fox, and that despite the ransom Perry pays, she will never come home again.