Month: June 2005

Tragic Cygnet


June 22, 1947
Glendale

Swans mate for life, and no amount of publicity-seeking, Trans-American hanky panky can change that simple and profound truism.

You’ll perhaps remember the events of April 17, when Gus the Swan, resident of The Pond, Forest Lawn Memorial Park, and recently left bereft by the death of his beloved Elvira, was flown (via American, actually) to Egypt, Mass. to select a new bride from among the purebred flock at Charles P. Chase’s swan ranch. The droopy bird, nicknamed Gloomy Gus for the obvious suffering in his gait, was put into a cage with four lady swans, a quadrifoil reminder that Elvira was no more. Perhaps to put an end to the obscene display, after six days he made a selection. Henrietta was her name, and the two titular lovebirds flew, or rather were flown, back to the boneyard to honeymoon.

Despite news stories trumpeting (sorry) Gus’ new joy, inside it seems he still grieved. Early this morning his body was found deep among the reeds of his pond. Henrietta is inconsolable. And the men whose business it is to bury the dead in a timely and moderately tasteful fashion seem a tad unsure of what to do next. Hold private rites, and then bury Gus next to Elvira, they reckon.

The Times perhaps cynically suggests that they may not remember where they laid the lady.

Gus’ Home To-day

As legend has it, on New Year’s Day, 1917, Hubert Eaton, aka The Builder, stood on a hilltop overlooking the small country cemetery of fifty-five acres which had just been placed in his charge. As he gazed at the sere and brown hillside, at once a vision came to him-that he should build a Memorial-Park worthy of Evelyn Waugh’s mockery.

By 1947, he had done just that-Forest Lawn stood magnificently and The Loved One was published. Some have argued that Gus succumbed to mortification, while others feel he had served The Builder’s Dream proudly and, having done so, left the body.

In any event, here’s the pond, under the charmingly picturesque eye of the Tudor manor house (seemingly derived from Warwickshire’s Compton Wynyates, especially in the half-timbering) that serves as Administration Building and Mortuary.

And now, a vintage photo of the cob himself:


Scared Steer Traps Scared Woman in Short Alleyway

June 21, 1947
Lincoln Heights

Mrs. Ruth Twist wasn’t planning on a wild animal encounter when she entered the alley behind her home at 2219 Johnson Street, facing 2226 Griffin Street. But there she discovered an 1800 pound steer, anxious, exhausted and far from its unhappy recent home in a packing house near 700 N. Alameda.

That’s where the animal was first spotted, skidding on the pavement. Police tracked the beast from Alameda and Main, but lost it crossing Griffin, where it knocked Officer Herbert Hansford down.

Then the animal entered the alley, there pinning Mrs. Twist against a fence. The brave lady forced the steer to the alley’s mouth, where officers commenced firing, felling the beast and sending Officer L.P. Walters to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital with a ricocheted bullet to the arm. Mrs. Ruth Twist refused medical attention. And Chief Horrall had steak for dinner.

Bottle of Mayonnaise Costs Life of Child

June 20, 1947
Bellflower

Mayonnaise is rotten stuff, as the parents of little Steven Barrett, 4, discovered after their son was killed today when a car driven by Victor Martinez, 22, of 4321 Elm St., Long Beach, jumped the curb and crushed the tyke as he played on the lawn in front of his home at 5833 Penswood Ave. Martinez reported that he had lost control when a jar of mayo rolled off his bench seat, and he lunged for it. This was apparently considered a reasonable explanation for infanticide, and Martinez was not held.

Steven was #386 in L.A. County’s grim toll of traffic fatalities for the year. Another traffic death recorded today was that of Ellis W. Keim, 73, of 2264 Cedar Ave., Long Beach. Keim was struck in a driveway at 1366 Atlantic Ave. on May 23, and died at his home.

Our Greatest Killer

Do-gooders are forever obsessed with installing traffic lights. As if our freeways weren’t slow enough, they have to slow down our surface streets, the only viable way to traverse town. They seem to ignore the fact that automobiles long to kill in driveways and yards, not asphalt.

And why aren’t they taking on the real killer? Mayonnaise. Didn’t we learn anything from our GIs KIA’d in France?

Stevie Barrett’s home on Pennswood:

Note the kid out front. He and his family may learn the hard way that Dame Fate tempers her unremitting brutality with cruel irony. Of course, the family has built barricades to stop homicidal, mayonnaise-containing Chryslers.

Ellis Keim was hit May 23 in this driveway:

Well, tough to get a bead on where that was, until you turn 180 degrees and see what the neighborhood used to look like.

Jack Scher, Won’t You Please Come Home?

June 19, 1947
Pasadena

Frustrated by her husband’s refusal to return to their home, Mrs. Jack Scher had an inspired brainstorm-she’d print up some handbills pleading her case, and hire a couple of strapping lads to distribute them in front of Scher’s fruit stand at 170 S. Marengo.

Were you among Scher’s customers or passersby today, you might have been handed a paper which read: “Mrs. Jack Scher would like her husband, Mr. Jack Scher, of the fruit and vegetable department of the Wonder Shipping Center, to come home to his wife and child.”

The scheme backfired when Scher became incensed, and shot at one of the youths with his .22, nicking the clothing of John Brangard, 127 N. Mentor Ave. His roommate Elrod Swanson was then swatted on his shoulder with Scher’s rifle stock. Pasadena police arrived and booked Scher, 43, for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon, but a sympathetic judge freed the man. Officers hope to get a complaint.

Mrs. Scher reports that it’s now ten days since she and their ten-year-old son were abandoned at their home, 3453 Milton St., East Pasadena.

Scher’s Escape

This is the home from which Scher fled, to the safety of his fruit stand:

Maybe Scher liked the quietude of his fruity pals, away from Mrs. Scher. Or maybe he feared for his life back home-hence the necessity of discharging firearms at Mrs. Scher’s minions.

In any event, the Wonder Shipping Center and its fruit stand are gone, although the tree was certainly there in 1947. The strangely pre-Columbian Pasadena Sheraton was built on the site in 1974.

Son Says His Father sired Wife’s Children

June 18, 1947
El Monte

After ten years, Lester Jean Burnett is tired of the lies. In 1937, aged 18, he acted as a beard for his father Lester Senior, then 36, and Angelina Pizzuto, then 17, whose parents objected to their February-July romance.

Angelina and Lester Junior were wed, but it was Lester Senior who set up house with the girl. Angelina’s children Lester Bryan, 8, and Rose, 6, are supported by and informally acknowledged as the children of the older man. However, on their birth certificates, Lester Junior is named father.

In December 1942, all parties convened in Reno, where Angelina and Lester Junior divorced; Angelina and Lester Senior were married the same day.

Lester Junior entered Superior Court today seeking an official ruling that the two children are not his.

Lester Senior, a refrigeration engineer, resides at 2135 Iola Ave., El Monte, with Angelina and the kids.

Iola Then & Now

So ol’ Lester (nix with the rhyming gag, I get it) snowed the Pizzuti in an effort to snag the fair Angelina. Well, good for him. Ageism is one of the last bastions of intolerance to be toppled in America. Or at least that’s what I’ll tell the judge.

Their love-digs on Iola have vanished in toto:


In 1947, homes and neighborhoods were being bulldozed left and right for freeways. Today, they fall to schools and apartment complexes. 1960, though, was a swinging year in need of a golf course; hence the Whittier Narrows GC, designed renowned and unbelievably prolific California golf course designer William Bell. To be fair, Iola is now the site of the Recreation Area to the south, which is full of artificial lakes and trap ranges and terrifying inline skaters. The whole works pre-Iola was the Rancho Potrero Chico (which had previously been the Gabrielino village of Ouiichinga). RPC was owned by Juan Sanchez, whose 1845 adobe still stands a mile to the southwest. It was built with and still maintains an escape tunnel in case the house is attacked by Indians or, presumably, inline skaters.

Girl, 7, Found Asleep in Car with Her Dog

June 17, 1947
Los Angeles

Joe (or more like Jane) Citizen of the 700 block of S. New Hampshire Ave. just couldn’t stand the sight of the little blonde girl and her dog asleep in the back seat of that car one more night, so on the third incidence she phoned police. Sure enough, radio officers Clyde Giroux and D.R. Lynch discovered 7-year-old Linda Henderson and her dog Butch snoozing in the back of a car parked in front of number 747.

Asked where she lived, the yawning gamine explained “when the sun comes up my mamma comes and takes me to a café, but I can’t tell you where I live for we’re looking for a place.” But mamma was nowhere to be seen this evening, so officers left a note on the car. Then Butch and Linda were processed at Wilshire Police Station and the child sent along to Juvenile Hall.

A friend told Linda’s mamma what had happened, and Mrs. Louise M. Carringer (nee Henderson, 36, divorced) appeared, explaining that during her search for housing she only occasionally left Linda alone. Dep. City Attorney Perry Thomas responded by sending mamma, charged with child neglect, over to spend the night in the Lincoln Heights Jail.

Of Butch, who apparently made no move to stop the strange men from removing his charge from the vehicle, we know no more.