
May 23, 1942: Iyamma Satos uses three neckties to hang himself in Elysian Park. His suicide note reads:
“My country goes greatly wrong. I cannot face my good friend America anymore, so I had to die. Please bury me quietly.”

May 23, 1942: Iyamma Satos uses three neckties to hang himself in Elysian Park. His suicide note reads:
“My country goes greatly wrong. I cannot face my good friend America anymore, so I had to die. Please bury me quietly.”

May 22, 1942: As the prosecutor finished his closing arguments in the trial of Mazo Shepherd, accused of killing a taxi driver, the victim’s nephew walked up to Shepherd and shot him in the head.
Shepherd was taken from the courtroom and died a short time later, but not before the jury convicted him and recommended the death penalty.
And that’s how they do things in Harlan, Ky.

Here’s another mystery photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
[Update: This is Claire Luce. Please congratulate Dewey Webb and Mike Hawks for identifying her.]

Photo: A 2003 Cadillac hearse listed on EBay, with bids starting at $18,900.
Queen of the Dead – dateline May 21, 2012
• Restaurateur (The Forge and The Glen in Tulsa), racecar driver, military historian and coffee heir (McLaughlin’s Coffee Company) Bill McLaughlin, 83, died on May 1. Bill was the son of dancer Irene Castle, which is how I met him—he was a marvelous help when I wrote my biography of Vernon and Irene Castle a few years ago. He was funny, smart, and both honest and fair about his mother, who could be a real handful (Irene was one of those energetic, forceful people who sometimes make you want to hide under the furniture and pretend you are not home). Bill’s father was the equally impressive Frederic McLaughlin, the first owner of the Chicago Black Hawks, a major in World War I, and the son of W.F. McLaughlin, who founded the family coffee company in 1852. Vernon and Irene would be pleased that Bill named his daughter Castle McLaughlin, and that he followed their lead in animal-rescue causes (Irene, as usual, went overboard and sometimes made PETA look sane and temperate).

Graeme Fernie, a reader in Australia, sends along this mystery photo that he found in an album that includes images of San Francisco. He says it’s labeled San Juan. Other scans from the photo album are here.

I’m going to be appearing in next week’s Thursdays @ The Globe gathering at The Times at noon on May 24. Jessica Gelt and Julie Makinen are going to talk about the downtown hipster renaissance. I will be on hand to discuss the old days in downtown Los Angeles and vintage crime. Any questions about the Black Dahlia? Come on by.

May 19, 1942: It’s officially straw hat season in Los Angeles, so men, dump that felt chapeau and get yourself a nice Panama.
Lee Shippey writes that the evacuation of the Japanese has forced many (white) Angelenos to get back to doing yard work and gardening. And sorry, madam, there are no fresh strawberries at the market; the people who grew them have all been rounded up. But it’s a different story in Hawaii, Shippey says, where there are too many Japanese to be segregated.
And New York bans nighttime baseball for the duration. L.A., however, still has night games at Gilmore Field.

May 18, 1942: Former Police Officer Roy J. Allen, who was convicted with Earle Kynette in the 1938 Harry Raymond bombing, dies in the hospital at San Quentin. He was 38.
More on the Harry Raymond bombing
Charlie Chaplin’s “The Gold Rush” returns to theaters, “with music and narration.”

May 17, 1942: Lt. William K. Long lands his P-38, with smoke pouring from one of the engines, between the Venice and Ocean Park piers. “Then, swimming a short distance through deep water, he waded ashore,” The Times said.
Philip K. Scheuer visits the set of “Love and Kisses, Caroline” and asks: “Who’s that skinny little girl?”
Answer: Diana Barrymore.
Tenor George Garner and pianist Netta Paullyn Garner will present a concert at Occidental College to benefit the “Negro branch of the Young Women’s Christian Association,” The Times says. Garner was the first African American to sing with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Rediscovering George Garner on the Daily Mirror

Look what I found! A mystery fellow in a newsboy cap!
How to Wear a Hat – Newsboy Cap Edition
How to Wear a Hat — ‘Grapes of Wrath’ Edition
Movieland Mystery Photo – Newsboy Cap Edition I
Movieland Mystery Photo – Newsboy Cap Edition II
Movieland Mystery Photo – Newsboy Cap Edition III
Movieland Mystery Photo – Newsboy Cap Edition IV
How to Wear a Newsboy Cap – Marc Chevalier Edition

Tips on how to tell Chinese (allies!) from Japanese (enemies!) by cartoonist Milton Caniff.

May 16, 1942: Earl Blaisure came home drunk at 2:30 a.m., picked up his .22 rifle and pointed at his wife, Molly, the latest in what she described as continual beatings and mistreatment.
This time, however, she told him she was leaving. Fleeing an attack by her husband, she ran into the kitchen and grabbed a boning knife.
As their young children slept, she stabbed him in the heart. She was acquitted.
The city ordinance against jaywalking had recently been ruled invalid, leading to what police say is a sudden increase in pedestrians’ deaths.
The Supreme Courtreversed the murder conviction of Isaac Williams, an African American who was convicted of killing a Japanese during a holdup. Williams had accused the police of beating him into confessing, but prosecutors believed the evidence was so overwhelming that they didn’t bother to dispute his brutality claim, The Times said.
The Supreme Court interpreted the failure to deny the charges as though there was no defense, The Times said.
The officers in question, (possibly Detective Lloyd?) Baughn, (possibly Lee) Slajer and Capt. Edgar Edwards, belatedly told the Police Commission that the brutality charges were untrue.

This Batchelder soap dish has been listed on EBay. Of all the Batchelder items that I have seen on EBay over the years, I don’t recall one of these. Bidding starts at $49.

May 15, 1942: In a typical publicity stunt, someone from showman Earl Carroll’s operation offered to select Caltech’s beauty queen. Nobody told them that the campus was all-male (oooh girls can’t be engineers!). So the young men decided to have a drag beauty contest with assistance of some women from the Pasadena Playhouse.
And Disney composer Frank Church, who wrote “Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad Wolf,” commits suicide after suffering a mental breakdown.

Here’s another mystery photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
Our mystery guest is a stumper. I’ll leave him up another day to give the stragglers a chance.
Update: This is Deems Taylor, the music critic and narrator of “Fantasia.”

This photo of a horse-drawn hearse has been listed on EBay. Bidding starts at $250.
Queen of the Dead – dateline May 14, 2012
• One thing that none of the obits of Vidal Sassoon (who died at 84 on May 9) mentioned is that those severe 1960s geometric haircuts he pioneered? Looked good on almost no one. Unless you had perfect little Mia Farrow/Twiggy bone structure, those cuts made you look like Mr. Ed in unconvincing drag. Like that 1920s Dutch-boy bob popularized by Clara Bow and Colleen Moore—“ooh, doesn’t that look great?” one thinks. Till one sees “woman on the street” snapshots from the 1920s and you realize, “ohhhh . . . not so much, on real people.”

Too easy? Well, it is Saturday….

And for Thursday, we have a fun-loving bunch of mystery guests!
Update: This is Lila Leeds being pawed by a bunch of newsmen in a gag photo for the Los Angeles Press Club. Please congratulate Steven Bibb for identifying her. The fellow on the right is the unfortunate Roby Heard, who was beaten to death with a hammer in 1960. The upskirt fellow is Nils Ljunquist, with, from left, Clark Roberts, Heber Smith, Larry Miller and Les Wagner.

Here’s another mystery photo from the amazing collection of Steven Bibb!
Update: This is Doris Nolan. Please congratulate Mike Hawks (first) and Mary Mallory (second) for identifying her!


May 9, 1942: Allied forces fight the first what would be six major aircraft carrier battles with the Japanese, the next being the Battle of Midway.
On the jump, a war map by Times artist Charles Owens, whom you may remember from “Nuestro Pueblo,” a wonderful book of drawings of old Los Angeles, with text by Joe Seewerker. If you have never seen “Nuestro Pueblo,” it’s really worth getting a copy.
Also on the jump, The Times reports the death of Charlie Whitehead, chief nurse at the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital.
In the early 20th century, the LAPD operated the trauma hospital at 1st and Hill next to the Central Police Station (which is why you will see references to a police surgeon). This was replaced by the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital.
The obituary notes that Whitehead helped treat victims of the 1910 bombing of The Times Building at 1st and Broadway.
The Aztec, 251 S. Main has French Burlesque with the “sex-sational” double bill “Virgin Bride” and “School for Husbands.”

The Daily Mirror stopped by Vroman’s in Pasadena on Sunday to hear our old friend and former Times colleague Miles Corwin discuss his latest book, “Midnight Alley.”