Aug. 7, 1907
Los Angeles


He swore at her and told her to go to hell. He rarely worked and only helped her run their boarding house when he felt like it. She hid all the butcher knives to keep him from killing her and their little girl. She hid his pistol in a bag of rags and sold it. She threw his razor down between two houses.

Finally, she sought a divorce after he came home drunk Feb. 22, 1907, and began hammering on the doors, threatening to break them down, and promising to kill her and their daughter, who had sought refuge with one of the lodgers in their boarding house.

Paul J. and Kate A. Conrad had known each other for 18 years, according to testimony, and although she detested being with him, she said: “I hated to have people think I had such a husband that I couldn’t live with.”

Nearly blind, Paul Conrad left his family and came West from Buffalo, N.Y., in hopes that his vision would improve in Los Angeles. He had sold her interest in a saloon—for too low a price, she said.

Once in California, he persuaded her to sell her candy store for $500 ($10,261.79 USD 2005) , give him half the money and bring their daughter, Irene, to Los Angeles, where they began a boarding house at 1145 Maple Ave.

At dinner, “Conrad had asked that some dish be passed to him and after waiting, reached for it gropingly, and finally plunged his hand into the syrup. He had burst forth in angry profanity at his wife, it was said, raging at her for not passing what he had wanted,” The Times said.

Conrad admitted that he had been drinking on the night in question and that he had made a disturbance, but said his anger was not directed at his wife but at one of the boarders. He said he had taken some of their furniture, although complaining that it had not been divided fairly, and started a smaller boarding house of his own.

Upon hearing the testimony, Judge Bordwell ruled against Kate Conrad’s plea for a divorce.

“He said that as Mrs. Conrad had known Paul Conrad since she was a girl of 13 and had been his wife for 18 years, it was rather late in the day for her to decide she did not want him any more,” The Times said.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

Aug. 3, 1907
Los Angeles

An enormous explosion shattered the night in the Dayton Heights neighborhood near what is now Virgil Avenue and Middlebury Street.

“The shock of the explosion awakened people for blocks around, many of them rushing out of doors in their nightclothes, fearing that an earthquake had occurred,” The Times said. “Several men were on the scene in a few minutes.”

Neighbors discovered Mrs. William Morley, dazed and stumbling outside the smoking ruin that was once her six-room home. Morley said she had gone to the kitchen to cook something and when she struck a match to light her gasoline stove, the blast blew out the walls of the house, which burned to the ground.

“She did not say how she happened to be up at that hour, fully dressed,” The Times said. “The mysterious feature about the case is the fact that the explosion was strong enough to wreck the building and still left the woman uninjured.”

The house was valued at $1,000 ($20,523.57 USD 2005) and the contents at $500 ($10,261.79 USD 2005). Domania has the current values.
Above, a home-wrecking gasoline stove.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

July 31, 1907
Los Angeles

After a delay due to illness, newsboy Charles “Winnipeg” Wilson took the stand to testify against Evelyn Ferguson, who is accused of shooting him because he was attacking her friend Grace Ryan.

Although “she was not in a condition at the time of the shooting to remember much about how it happened,” Ryan testified that she and Ferguson had returned from a day at the beach when they began fighting with Wilson and a group of companions.

Wilson testified that he and his friends, including a police officer named Norris, had also spent the day at the beach and on the way back to his room, stopped to buy some beer. When they arrived at his room, a fight broke out between him and Ferguson, who was accused of grabbing Officer Norris’ pistol and shooting Wilson in the back.

Unfortunately, nothing further can be found on this case. But one lesson is the age-old truth that alcohol and firearms do not mix.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

July 24, 1907
Los Angeles

On a speaking tour of America, former Columbia professor James H. Hyslop is trying to raise interest in a scientific approach to psychic research while deflating the fabulous claims of mediums and other fakers.

“There is so much fraud in connection with the physical demonstrations, said Dr. Hyslop, that much time would be wasted in making the investigation,” The Times said. “To see a table get up and prance across the floor doesn’t prove anything in connection with a future life.”

“We want this study to stand on the same plane as the search for the North Pole and experimentations in the use of balloons and airships,” Hyslop said.
In a presentation at Blanchard Hall, Hyslop told of what he described as scientific experiments involving in contacting the deceased: his brother, who died at the age of 4; his wife, who had been dead for 18 months; his father; and father-in-law.

Working with a medium identified as Mrs. Leonora Piper of Boston, Hyslop said he received accurate replies to questions although Piper knew nothing about him.

Hyslop wrote extensively about the psychic world in books like “Science and a Future Life” and “Enigmas of Psychical Research.” In 1918, he got in trouble with the family of Mark Twain over claims that he had contacted the deceased author. He died in 1920.

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

July 21, 1907
Los Angeles

President Theodore Roosevelt suggests “reading of certain books of pure fiction that have the prime quality of being interesting.”

The Times quotes Roosevelt: “You will learn the root principles of self-help and helpfulness toward others from ‘Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch’ just as much as from the formal treatise on charity, you will learn as much sound social and industrial doctrine from Octave Thanet’s stories of farmers and wageworkers as from avowed sociological and economic studies and I cordially recommend the first chapter of ‘Aunt Jane of Kentucky’ for use as a tract in all families where the men folks tend to selfish or thoughtless or overbearing disregard of the rights of their womenkind.”

More about Octave Thanet (Alice French) here. Was the U.S. president actually recommending that Americans read the works of a lesbian writer? Sure looks that way, doesn’t it?

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

July 20, 1907
Los Angeles

The court summoned 80 prospective jurors to decide the case of Dr. Chan, who was accused of practicing medicine without a license, but more than half asked Judge Rose to be excused from service.

“An officer was sent out with the summonses yesterday morning. He had not been at work more than an hour when the first indignant citizen appeared in court and demanded to be released from jury duty on the ground that his wife was ill and he had to go home several times a day,” The Times said.

“Another businessman said that he hated the whole Chinese race and that he wouldn’t give any of them a fair trial.”

Although the court agreed to excuse the head of a local bank, many other people were told they had to serve.

On July 26, The Times reported that the court was still trying to seat a jury in the Chan case, having called 620 prospective jurors, a Police Court record. By July 30, 780 people had been called before a 12th juror was selected.

Chan was convicted and fined $250. The Times said: “Other Chinese cases now pending may require the next two years in trial since it is almost impossible to secure and unprejudiced jury.”

Lmharnisch.com

Lmharnisch.blogspot.com

July 18, 1907
Santa Monica

Officials of Santa Monica and Ocean Park are fighting a lawsuit that seeks to block the discharge of raw sewage into the ocean. According to testimony, the outfall pipe sags so badly that it isn’t always cleared and as a result, sewage molders in the pipeline, a problem aggravated by warm summer temperatures.

Judge Bordwell, however, ruled that he was unable to render a specific decision because the case was improperly presented. Bordwell ordered Santa Monica and Ocean Park to find a way to ease the situation within 15 days.

“It is, and has been for a long time, a miserable mess, but the court will render judgment which will probably very speedily overcome the difficulties. It will be necessary for the officials of Santa Monica and Ocean Park to take such steps as are necessary to abate the nuisance or they may find themselves under judgment of contempt for failure to do so,” Bordwell said.

In September, residents of Ocean Park and Santa Monica approved a $150,000 ($3,078,535.54 USD 2005) bond issue to build a septic tank and wharf at the foot of Colorado Boulevard for disposal of sewage.


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