Christmas past

Dec. 22, 1968
Los Angeles

 

Photograph by Boris Yaro / The Los Angeles Times

Police Officer John Boddie of the Hollywood Division hands a doll to one of 250 youngsters who received Christmas presents after officers took up collection to provide toys and food to needy families in the area.

Dec. 8, 1957

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Christmas past

Oct. 11, 1959
Los Angeles

 

Gosh, I love the optional rotating base that plays "Silent Night" or "Jingle Bells." And you don't have to worry about them burning--ever!

Retro Christmas

All right, everybody, it's time to admit your deepest, darkest secret. Something you have kept hidden from the world for most of your life. No, I don't mean the candy bar you swiped as a kid. You know what I'm talking about. Every December you secretly harbor this wish. If only you could have...

AN ALUMINUM CHRISTMAS TREE!

And for you young people who have only heard your parents (or grandparents --ahem) talk about the joys of a metal tree, perhaps you think they are just telling stories--like the tooth fairy.

Oh no.

There was a time when people actually bought Christmas trees made out of aluminum. They were part of the Space Age decor and they didn't drop needles, unlike those nasty real trees.

Usually, they were decorated with monochromatic ornaments (all green, all red, all gold or all blue being popular as I dimly recall from my youth).

And to make the effect complete: Rotating colored lights. How the aluminum branches shimmered from red to blue to yellow!

As difficult as it may be to believe, some people found these trees kitschy or tacky. Others called them an outrage.

And eventually, they went away.

For years, there has been underground traffic in old aluminum trees at yard sales or on EBay. Battered, neglected and missing pieces, the aluminum trees were taken out of their hiding places and shipped off to new owners.

Now, however, there is a company selling new aluminum trees. And they are primo hipster bait.

Here you go.

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She's the sheriff!

Someone asked for more information about Jo Daviess County Sheriff Emma "Two Gun" Grebner, who figured in the Maria Ridulph case. Unfortunately, I haven't any idea how she got her nickname.

But here she is (alas, with only one gun):

 

Christmas past

Dec. 24, 1956
Los Angeles

 

 

 Photograph by Pete Grant / The Los Angeles Times

The Times features the home of W.N. Chandler, 13060 Otsego St., Sherman Oaks, in a Dec. 24, 1956, photo essay on holiday yard decor.

Dec. 7, 1957

 

 

Christmas past

Dec. 25, 1923
Los Angeles

 

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times

Brother Tom Liddecoat speaks during Christmas dinner at the Midnight Mission, 2nd and Los Angeles streets.  About 2,000 men who lived in "Hell's Half-Acre" of skid row were served, The Times said.  

Girl kidnapped

 

Dec. 3, 1957-April 26, 1958
Sycamore, Ill

Maria E. Ridulph* was a 7-year-old girl from Sycamore, Ill., who was kidnapped Dec. 3, 1957, and whose decomposed body was found April 26, 1958, near Woodbine, a tiny, unincorporated settlement in rural Jo Daviess County, about 98 miles northwest of her home. 

Many details of the case are murky because the only witness was 8-year-old Cathie Sigman, who was playing with Maria in the frontyard of a neighbor's home at the time of the abduction and gave different versions of the incident as the investigation unfolded. Like Maria, Cathie lived on Archie Place, five houses west of the Ridulph home on the south side of the street.

Maria was the youngest of four children born to Michael and Frances Ridulph, who lived in a white frame house with blue shutters at 616 Archie Place ** in Sycamore, a rural town of 7,000 people 68 miles west of Chicago. The Ridulphs had two older daughters, Patricia 16, and Kay, 15, and a son, Charles, 11. Although many people lived or worked on farms, Michael had a job at one of the few factories in town.

The missing girl was a second-grader with dark brown hair and brown eyes, the Chicago Tribune said. She was 44 inches tall, weighed 53 pounds, got good grades and received awards for perfect attendance in Sunday school at Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John.

According to her mother, Maria was high-strung. "My daughter was a nervous girl and if she got in any trouble would become hysterical," Frances said. "Someone would probably have to kill her to keep her quiet. I am the only one who could calm her down." She was a "screamer," her mother said, and afraid of being alone in the dark.

On the evening Maria disappeared, she and Cathie were playing in the frontyard of the Cliffe family home at Archie Place and Center Cross, which is part of Illinois 23 and heads north to U.S. 20, an east-west route through Woodbine and Galena to Dubuque, Iowa, that ends in Newport, Ore. The large block where the girls lived was bounded by Fair Street on the west, and to the south was De Kalb Avenue, which also forms part of Illinois 23.  There was a large open space on the block and portions of it had been plowed.

According to Mrs. Thomas Cliffe and a neighbor, Stanley Wells, Maria and Cathie were screaming as they chased each other around the trunk of a huge elm tree a little before 7 p.m., Dec. 3, 1957. It was cold and without street lamps, there were only the headlights of passing cars for illumination as the girls played in the dark.

Maria was wearing a boy's type tan jacket, black corduroy pants, a black and white checked shirt, hand-knit mittens, brown socks and white saddle shoes with zippers on the side that had leather tassels.

Whatever happened next is a bit confusing, but remember that it's a tale told by an 8-year-old girl who had lost her friend.

Cathie said that a young man about 24 who called himself Johnny introduced himself to the girls. He was about 6 feet tall with curly blond hair, she said. Although it was cold, he wasn't wearing a jacket, just a sweater. He was "tall, skinny and kinda white-faced," Cathie said.

In an early version of the story, the man said: "I'm Johnny, I'm married and I'm 24 years old." He asked the girls if they wanted piggyback rides. Cathie went home to get permission and when she returned, Maria and "Johnny" were gone. In a slightly later version, Cathie said she went home to get her mittens and when she returned the two were gone.

The next version is still different:

Johnny approached and said: "Hello, little girls, would you like to take a piggyback ride with me? My name is Johnny. Do you have any dolls?" In this account, he said: "I'm not married."

Cathie had a doll, but Maria didn't, so she went home to get one. While Maria was gone, the man held Cathie's arm and said: "I like you."

Maria took her best doll to get a piggyback ride, but Frances told her to take an older one instead. "You don't want to take that one with the new dress," Frances said. Cathie went home to get her mittens and when she returned Maria and the man were gone.

Unable to find Maria, Cathie went to the Ridulph house and said: "Maria is lost."

 

The search for Maria began by calling her name and checking with neighbors, but quickly expanded to include more Sycamore residents and the police.

There was some confusion about the discovery of Maria's doll, which was found near a neighbor's garage. Several people insisted that it hadn't been there during the initial search, but was found after police moved on. Investigators theorized that someone found the doll and moved it without realizing its importance. The doll was sent to the FBI crime lab for processing, but the results were never reported.

The FBI joined the case and in the ensuing days of frigid December weather, Sycamore and the surrounding area was thoroughly searched by hundreds of volunteers as well as military planes and helicopters. Police set up roadblocks and questioned motorists and searched vehicles.

On the theory that Maria might have been the victim of an accident, police searched crawlspaces and eventually drained a large quarry that had been turned into a recreational lake.

As the only witness in the case, Cathie was asked to view dozens of suspects and was placed under 24-hour police guard.

Maria's badly decomposed remains were found by Frank Sitar, a retired farmer from Hopkins, Minn., and his wife, who were searching for mushrooms on Roy Cahill's farm, about 20 miles east of Galena. Maria's body was about 500 feet off U.S. 20, lying face-down under a partially fallen tree and had apparently been there all winter.  She was wearing her shirt, undershirt and socks. Her coat, pants and shoes were never found.

The discovery was reported to Emma "Two Gun" Grebner, the sheriff of rural Jo Daviess County, in northwest Illinois near the Wisconsin and Iowa borders. The local authorities were completely unequipped to handle an investigation of this magnitude. Grebner's force consisted of two deputies, one of them her husband, and Coroner James Furlong said he had never handled a murder case.

No photographs of the crime scene were taken, Furlong said, because "he did not want to see pictures of the body 'slobbered all over the front pages,' " according to the Tribune. Grebner said she didn't intend to even investigate the case because as far as she was concerned the crime wasn't committed in Jo Daviess County.

 

State pathologist Dr. A.R.K. Matthews of Rockford said the body was so badly decomposed that he could not determine a cause of death. With the abdication of the county authorities, the Illinois State Police took over the investigation.  "It's going to be a difficult case," said  Lt. Ray Kramer (or Cramer or Carmer). "It's just going to be tough police work."

Once the body was found, the Ridulph family removed Maria's playthings from her corner of the living room. "We took them away this morning," her sister Kay said. "There were many little things--her perfect tests from school and the toys she played with."

Hundreds of Sycamore residents attended the visitation the night before the funeral.  A spray of pink and white carnations and pink sweetheart roses, and a large color photo of Maria  were  placed on her small, white coffin. There were also a bouquet of red and white tea roses from  her second-grade classmates and a spray of white chrysanthemums from the neighbors.

About 300 people crammed into Evangelical Church of St. John for the funeral. "All hope and pray that the criminal will be apprehended," the Rev. Louis I. Going said.

More suspects were questioned but no leads ever materialized. The Tribune published a few anniversary stories about the crime, the last of them in 1961.

The case remains unsolved. Maria E. Ridulph, born March 12, 1950, died Dc. 3, 1957, is buried at Elmwood Cemetery. Her grave is close to that of Police Chief William Hindenburg, who led the investigation and died less than a year later of injuries he suffered in a car accident.

The newspapers never published any further information on Cathie Sigman of Sycamore, Ill. She would be 58 years old now.

I'd like to extend a special thanks to Larry Underwood of the Chicago Tribune library for help in researching this post.

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* Often misspelled Ridolph. The multiple spellings in these stories present unusually difficult challenges to the diligent researcher. 

** The Chicago Tribune reported that the Ridulphs lived at 616 Archie Place, but noted that it was the third house west of Center Cross, which may actually be 622 Archie Place. It's a bit hard to tell without making a trip to Sycamore.

Dec. 6, 1957

 

 

Christmas past

Dec. 20, 1949
Los Angeles

 

Photograph by R.O. Ritchie / Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, decorated for Christmas in a photo published in The Times, Dec. 20, 1949.

Random shot

I sense a note of sarcasm here. Actually, several notes. More like a fanfare, really. Either that or imdb has fallen down on the job. And we know that never happens.

 

Photograph by Larry Harnisch / Los Angeles Times

Hanukkah past

Dec. 29, 1951
Los Angeles

 

Los Angeles Times file photo
At the Jewish Home for the Aged, Benjamin Gorelik* lights the candles to illustrate Hanukkah in a photograph published Dec. 29, 1951. Gorelik, who died Feb. 1, 1952, was 90 according to California death records and 92 according to The Times caption. He also appears in a 1948 photo from the Jewish Home for the Aged, 325 S. Boyle Ave., so we can assume he spent his last years there. The rest of his life remains an untold story and I'll bet it was an interesting one.

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*The caption refers to him as Benjamin Gorelick. However California death records and the 1948 photo spell his name Gorelik.

Dec. 5, 1957

 

Paul Coates

Nov. 27, 1957

[Note: This is the article that inspired Lenny Bruce's famous bit on airplane glue--lrh. Below right, Bruce in 1963, by Times photographer Bill Murphy; bottom right, with his daughter Kitty, also in in 1963, by Times photographer Don Cormier].

This is a horror story for children, and I hope they read it.

It's the story of a new "kick" among Southern California teenagers which, unless it's halted immediately, is going to result in some very tragic deaths. Already, nearly a dozen juveniles, from 12 to 17, have been hospitalized or put under doctor's observation.

Two are in Juvenile Hall, suffering apparent addiction symptoms. One has been in the hospital ward there since Saturday.

And numerous others have admitted to their parents, school officials and sheriff's officers that they have been participating in the "fad."

The fad, as ridiculously harmless as it sounds, is sniffing glue of the type used in making model airplanes.

It has become dangerously widespread among junior high and high school students in the Bellflower area, with isolated reports of cases beginning to pop up in other county districts.

Authorities admit they are in a quandary. There is no law against sale of the airplane-type glue.

"The only course is a process of education,' said Lt. Harold Stockbridge of the Norwalk Sheriff's Juvenile Detail.

"Meanwhile, we are pushing an investigation to determine the exact extent of the practice."

The procedure followed by the kids is to purchase 10-cent tubes of glue (with extremely high benzene content), squeeze the substance onto small bits of rag, and then inhale the fumes either through the mouth or nose.

Inhalation of the fumes has an immediate exhilarating effect. The user becomes giddy, or as one boy described it to me, "We climb up to Cloud Nine."

That's the immediate effect noticed by the kids.

Other possible effects, described to me today by William Prillmayer, assistant chief of the Los Angeles office of the Federal Food and Drug Administration, are:

1--Immediate death.

2--Permanent body damage.

"One strong dose definitely could be fatal," Prillmayer told me. "And repeated use of benzene can cause the heart to vibrate itself practically to pieces."

Prillmayer listed as possible complications from repeated small doses:

Depression of the central nervous system, weak heartbeat, gastric irritation, anemia and irregular muscular movement.

He said that doses such as many of the teenagers have taken, over a period of time, could dissolve the fat tissue of the body, which would then infiltrate into the bone marrow. This causes a breakdown in the blood because it prevents new red corpuscles from being manufactured.

I bought a tube of the type of glue being inhaled by the kids yesterday to have it analyzed by Dr. Ralph Willard of the Hollywood Testing Laboratories.

His report:

It contained more than 50% benzene.

I also talked with parents of some of the admitted users.

One mother told me that her 13-year-old son, who had been inhaling benzene since midsummer, began to have fainting spells and, on a few occasions, passed out on lawns on the way home from school.

"There were other times," she told me, "when he'd just go blank--he wouldn't know where he was."

Finally, this week, the boy broke down and told his mother the cause of his illnesses. Today, he's in a hospital.

Another parent reported that his son had complained for the last few months of severe head- and stomachaches.

When the man finally learned the cause of his boy's illness, the boy told him:

"All the guys got them. But we'd ease the stomachaches by eating tubes of toothpaste. It didn't hurt so much then."

One woman told me that her 14-year-old son had been inhaling the volatile fluid since June.

"He finally told us so two days ago," she said.

During the five-month period, she told me, the boy suffered a complete reversal in personality.

"He began getting in fights and committing petty thefts," she said. "Once, he even poked the manager at the movies."

I asked her if she didn't suspect something was wrong.

"Now," she answered, "I can see how blind I've been. He apparently was sniffing my nail polish and gasoline too.

"Because, sometimes, I'd notice my nail polish bottle had been used, and my husband complained that someone was taking gasoline from the garage.

"The boy even was so careless as to leave little squares of cloth around the house, with glue on them, but I didn't catch on."

The parents I talked with all were from Bellflower.

One by one, over the last several days, they learned that their children were involved in a very serious health problem.

Some discussed it with doctors, others with law enforcement groups, and still others with school officials.

The culmination came two nights ago, when representatives from 29 involved families decided to meet and bring the matter into the open.

"We asked various officials to attend,' one mother told me, "but the only one who did so was the principal of the high school."

The principal, John C. Fisher of Bellflower High School, said:

"We're calling in all the boys on the list given us by the parents. We'll do everything in our power to halt this extremely alarming practice."

As a mother put it:

"It's been a case, up to now, of the word being spread from one kid to another--and all they learned about the glue was the so-called kicks you could get from it.

"By having adults bring it out in the open and discuss it--now they'll know the dangers too. And I don't think any sane child will inhale the stuff if he knows it can kill him."

And it can kill a person--quite easily.

If you read the papers closely, you will see articles, all too frequently, about men dying while inside storage tanks or railroad tank cars which had contained certain fuels with high benzene content.

Cause of death: Asphyxiation or heart failure from inhaling the fumes.

And those who don't die can continue to carry the poison in their systems.

As one physician explained it to me:

"A person may go days or years afterward without suffering the effects--and then, all of a sudden, have a complete physical breakdown."

If that doesn't scare our teenagers, then they're a lot dumber than I think they are.

Christmas past

Dec. 23, 1936
Los Angeles

 

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times
A 10-piece orchestra of elementary students serenades Times Publisher Harry Chandler. The students also visited Mayor Frank Shaw and school Supt. Frank A. Bouelle. Student musicians included cornetists Wayne Crapser, Raymond Isum, Josephine Satterfield and John Woodward; flutists Richard Padgham and Dino Williams; clarinetists Patches Quaintance and (illegible); trombonist Robert (illegible); and Richard Cassel on bells.

Mystery photo

 

Photograph by Don Cormier / Los Angeles Times
Isn't this a great picture of Joe Louis? I found it Saturday while digging through all those boxing photos. OK, who's the brunette?

• Jane Russell? (Chris Morales). Bingo! OK, what's the occasion?

• Some kind of adoption event? (Barbara Bassett). Absolutely right. Louis and Russell (a longtime adoption advocate), along with athletes Johnny Roseboro, Kenny Washington and Tommy Davis attended Baby Day in the Board of Supervisors' hearing room, Oct. 18, 1961, for the beginning of what was called Negro Adoption Week. County Supervisor Ernest E. Debs, who was an adoptive parent, noted that there were 100 African American children available for adoption in Los Angeles County and suggested the slogan: "A Happy Home for Every Child Before Christmas."

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Hanukkah past

Dec. 6, 1950
Los Angeles

Los Angeles Times file photo

On a tour of the University of Judaism and its museum, Peter M. Kahn Sr. tells the story of Hanukkah to Lawrence Shapiro, Judith Ann Simon, Ned and Michael Shapiro and Shelley Gach. Kahn, the first president of Mount Sinai Hospital and head of the Growers Marketing Co., was chairman of the University of Judaism's board. He died in 1952 at the age of 73. The Jewish Community Library of Los Angeles bears his name.

Dec. 4, 1957

LAPD HQ

 

Photograph by Larry Harnisch / The Los Angeles Times
The new Los Angeles Police Department headquarters under construction, Dec. 1, 2007.

Christmas past

Dec. 13, 1913
Los Angeles

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times

 

Body dumped

 

Nov. 29-30, 1957
Los Angeles

We're in one of those hilly neighborhoods east of Glendale Boulevard, a couple blocks north of Echo Park. They're putting in Dodger Stadium just over the hill. Everybody else is having Thanksgiving dinner and she gets dumped.

Let's get out and take a look. Watch where you walk and don't touch anything.

This is her. On her back, with her shoes under her arm. Here's the tire prints. Somebody pulled up, lifted her out of the car and dragged her next to a hedge near 1812 Ewing St.* She was flashy, all dressed up in red. Red pedal pushers and a red bolero top. Maybe nobody ever told her not to to wear white shoes after Labor Day.

Looks like she's asleep, doesn't she? Fresh needle mark in her left arm; old ones too. And a tattoo on her right wrist: "ARANA."**

This is the second one this month. There was that woman dumped in an alley at 3531 3/4 9th Ave. on Nov. 16. Mickey Arr, 36-year-old secretary. She was dressed up too. Dress, sweater and coat.

Let's get a closer look. How about that? Her pupils are dilated; wide-open and not pinpoints.

Here's her purse, right next to her. Everything's here.

Black leather wallet full of baby pictures. Christine and Frederick.

Here's her hype kit; eyedropper, spoon and syringe.

All right, lady, let's see who you are. Carol Ann Berutko, 22. One address says 3836 Lugo, Lynwood, another says 8138 Cypress Ave.*** Works as a waitress. She's got a prior from 1955; 90 days for narcotics.

A retired cop named Kenneth Kane is going to find her in a few hours. They'll come and get her. Someone will go down to the address on Lugo and tell her mother. They'll find out Carol just got divorced from Fred L. Berutko, another addict, who's in jail. The mom has been raising the kids while Carol was living downtown someplace.

We might as well get going. Nothing else to see here. Poor kid, 22 years old. You wonder what's going to become of her two children, that boy and girl, with their mom dead and their dad in jail. You can only hope for the best.

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* The Times said she was "on a dirt slope about 120 feet north of the corner where Ewing dead-ends into Vestal Street."

**Spanish for "spider."

*** The Times and the Mirror reported that her mother lived at 8836 Lugo Place, which doesn't exist. This is possibly a typographical error for 3836 Lugo. 8138 Cypress St. is in Covina; 8138 Cypress Ave. is in South Gate.

Dec. 3, 1957

 

Deadly triangle

 

Dec. 1, 1957
Los Angeles

George and Bill had known each other for five years and were best friends. They worked together in an East Los Angeles metal shop and lived next to one another in Rosemead.

Bill, 30, and his wife had the house at 4837 N. Halkett Ave., and George, 24, had the house at 4843 N. Halkett, which he shared with his wife, Lou Ray, 22, and their 4-year-old son, Johnny.

Then Bill and Lou Ray fell in love. It apparently was no secret. The two couples used to double date and on a Friday night, the four of them met at George and Lou Ray's home to talk over the affair.

George asked that Bill and Lou Ray go off and make a final decision about what they were going to do. After they left, Bill's wife went home.

George wrote a note:

"It all depends on what Lou Ray tells me. Bill and Lou Ray think they are in love. They went out tonight to talk things over and make sure. If Lou Ray decides she really loves Bill, I'm going through with it. She and Johnny are all I've got. I love Lou Ray so very much.

"I cannot live without her. Johnny boy is my truly heartbreaking reason why I should not do this, but I cannot help it."

About 11:45 p.m., Bill and Lou Ray returned and told George they were in love. However, they had not reached any decision over what to do about it. Bill went home.

Half an hour later, Lou Ray found George on the front lawn, shot in the head with a .22. She ran to Bill's house and someone called an ambulance.

George Louis Sposito, 24, was pronounced dead on arrival at General Hospital. The Times never followed up on this story, so we don't know what became of Lou Ray or William D. "Bill" McHenry.

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Christmas past

 

Photograph by the Los Angeles Times

Aviation cadets at the preflight training center near Santa Ana decorate a Christmas tree in a photograph published Dec. 24, 1942.  From left, Peter Kaldare, David T. Gunn, Edward Kahill and Loren Gale. I wonder if they survived the war.

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Should women work?

Dec. 2, 1957
Los Angeles

I am always perplexed when I come across one of these 1957 stories in The Times in which a working woman preaches against the evils of working women. It is almost beyond belief that nobody ever questioned this absurd contradiction. But if anyone did, I haven't found any evidence yet.

In August, there were several stories about working women and the horrors of day care. Here's an advice column, and I (almost) can't believe the ridiculous response. The idea of telling a wife that she should pretend to be ill so her husband won't nag her about working sounds like a plot for Lucy and Desi. 

I'm running the column exactly as it appeared, just so people can read it for themselves.

 

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Dec. 2, 1957