Hatching An Egg

January 2, 1947
West Hollywood

When confronted by a would-be bandit in the 8900 block of Sunset Blvd., Miss Eleanor Falk, 30-year-old bookkeeper for a nightclub at 9039 Sunset, refused to hand over the sack containing $2000 in receipts. Instead, the clever girl dropped the bag and sat on it, then commenced to yell so forcefully that the crook hopped back into his accomplice’s car and took a powder. Then the unflappable miss continued along to the bank, where she made her deposit as planned.

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Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons and forensic science seminars of LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

3 thoughts on “Hatching An Egg”

  1. SECOND CHILD DIES
    AS TRAGEDY STRIKES
    SAME FAMILY TWICE

    Douglas Dine Trust, 8-month-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard J. Trust of 806 W. 108th St., died yesterday at Childrens Hospital of a pulmonary infection which became fatal within a few hours after its onset.

    Douglas was the brother of Dicky, the couple’s first son, who succumbed of lymphatic leukemia in December 1939 at the age of 2 following an illness which aroused wide public sympathy and brought the fruitless aid of the best medical authorities.

    The Trusts, grief-stricken over this second tragedy to strike at their family, have one remaining child, Peggy, now 10.

    Private funeral services will be conducted Saturday.

    + + +

    In the fall of 1939, The Times carried a series of heart-wrenching stories about Dicky Trust, a toddler who was diagnosed with leukemia, which was then incurable.

    “I’ve cried when I had time, but I can’t now,â€Â his mother, Bernice, told a Times reporter. “I’ve prayed and prayed and cried—but now there is so much to do and nothing helps. Oh, nothing helps—and he’s been failing so fast today.â€Â

    “Please, God, let my baby live,â€Â his mother sobbed as she knelt next to his crib. “My child can’t die. My child can’t die.â€Â

    The boy rallied as nurses volunteered to help him and an unidentified Riverside doctor used an unidentified injection to reduce his white blood cells. Around Thanksgiving, his mother said: “I’m sure my baby isn’t going to die.â€Â Dicky’s appetite returned and he asked his mother: “Can I go out and play?â€Â

    Then he died a few days before Christmas. The birth of his younger brother was reported in The Times in May 1946. It seemed impossible, but a few months later he was dead too.

    Public records, however, fill in the story. The Trusts had another son, Raymond, in July 1949. And as he does not appear in the state death records, or in The Times, we can hope he is still with us at the age of 56.

    Bonus factoid: The Times Winter Edition includes photos of automobile plants operating in Los Angeles: Ford in Long Beach; General Motors in South Gate, making Oldsmobiles, Pontiacs and Buicks; Plymouth and Studebaker. The Times reports that a Chevrolet and a Lincoln-Mercury plant are under construction, while three factories are being converted to produce Willys, Nash and Kaiser-Frasier autos.

    Quote of the day: “It was as if some Southland Jupiter on an Olympus of the Sierras had commanded the rain and the wind to cease and had ruled that this be the holiday of holidays. For there came with the dawn flame in the east a benign conspiracy of the elements to make this New Year’s Day a gentle one through which the blossomed shadows of loveliness glided effortlessly down Colorado St.

    It was, too, as if this festive local Jupiter had dispatched his Olympian court to reassure the blushing rose, to alert the sleepy violet. And who indeed could gainsay the Junoesque beauty of the girls who smiled through the mist of heather?â€Â

    The Times’ Gene Sherman, on the Rose Parade

    https://www.lmharnisch.com

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