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| Yum! Wilted Lettuce Salad |
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| Roscoe Conkling "Fatty" Arbuckle (March 24, 1887 - June 29, 1933) Born in Smith Center, Kansas, Arbuckle was an American silent film actor, comedian, director, and screewriter. After getting his start in vaudeville, he wound up at Keystone Studios, where he worked with Mabel Normand and Harold Lloyd. He mentored Charlie Chaplin and discovered both Buster Keaton and Bob Hope. Overweight and a very heavy drinker, Arbuckle was given a screen nickname he hated - "Fatty." In 1921, Arbuckle and two friends threw a party in a San Francisco hotel room. One of the women they invited became ill and subsequently died. Rumors abounded and Arbuckle was accused of rape and murder and went through three trials before being cleared of all criminal charges. The scandal and trials pretty much wrecked his career, but he eventually found directorial work under the name William Goodrich. In 1932 Arbuckle signed a contract with Warner Brothers to star under his own name in a series of successful two-reel comedies. He finished filming on June 28, 1933. The next day he was signed by Warner Brothers to make a feature-length film. He reportedly said, "This is the best day of my life." He suffered a heart attack that night and died in his sleep. He was 46. Rosco Arbuckle was cremated and his ashed scattered in the Pacific Ocean. |
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| One of four 1933 Goudey Babe Ruth Baseball Cards Some of the most recognizable Babe Ruth baseball cards are from the 1933 Goudey set. This 240-card set produced by the Goudey Gum Company is one of the most popular baseball card sets of all time (along with the T206 set). It has been the subject of numerous reprints. Because no Babe Ruth cards were included in the 1934 set, the 1933 Ruth cards are even more valuable. Depending on card condition, the value of the Babe Ruth 1933 Goudey cards range from a few hundred dollars to over $20,000. |
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| Ginger Rogers (1911 - 1995) Born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri, Rogers was an only child who spent most of her youth in Kansas City. Her nickname, "Ginger," came from a younger cousin who called her Jinja. After her parents' divorce and her mother's remarriage, she took Rogers (her stepfather's last name) as her own last name. She performed in vaudeville and on Broadway. Her appearance in the play "Girl Crazy" made her an overnight star at age 19 and earned her a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures. Rogers went on to star in 73 movies. While she's probably best known for "dancing backwards in high heels" with Fred Astaire, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1940 for her performance in Kitty Foyle. Married five times, she had no children. Ginger Rogers's ashes are interred in the Oakwood Memorial Park Cemetery in Chatsworth, California with her mother's, and just a short distance from the grave of Fred Astaire. |
 42nd Street Starring Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers |
| A 1933 American Warner Brothers musical film directed by Lloyd Bacon with choreography by Busby Berkeley. The songs were written by Harry Warren (music) and Al Dubin (lyrics), and the script was written by Rian James and James Seymour, with Whitney Bolton (uncredited), from the novel by Bradford Ropes. |
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| June 25, 1933 Silly Symphonies Sunday comic strip Copyright (c) Al Taliafero Charles Alfred Taliaferro (August 29, 1905 – February 3, 1969), known simply as Al Taliaferro, was a Disney comics artist who used to produce Disney comic strips for King Features Synidcate. He drew the Donald Duck comic strips from 1938 until his death in Glendale, California. He also designed the Litter Not mascot for Glendale in 1967. To this day it remains the mascot for the Committee for a Clean and Beautiful Glendale. Taliaferro was posthumously honored with a Disney Legends award in 2003 |
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| June 24, 1933: Actor John Wayne (1907 - 1979) marries Josephine Saenz Saenz was the first of Wayne's three wives. She was a Panamanian diplomat's daughter. They had four children during their 12-year marriage. Wayne went on to marry two more Latinas: Esperanza (Chata) Baur Diaz and Pilar Weldy. He and Diaz had no children during their eight-year marriage. During their 17-year union, Wayne and Weldy had three children. Wayne's love of all things Latin was such that when he died, he was laid to rest in an unmarked grave overlooking the Pacific Ocean - facing south. A memorial stone placed in the cemetery near his grave had the inscription he’d always wanted written on it. It was in Spanish: “Feo, Fuerte, y Formal” (He was ugly, he was strong, he had dignity.). |
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| James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (1913 - 1980) Born the seventh of eleven children in Oakville, Alabama, Jesse moved with his family when he was nine to Cleveland, Ohio, as part of the Great Migration of Negro families from the segregated South. His junior high coach, Charles Riley, recognized his running talent and encouraged that talent by accommodating his practice schedule. Owens first came to national attention in high school. He equaled the world record of 9.4 seconds in the 100-yard (91m) dash and long-jumped 24 feet 9 1/2 inches (7.56m) at the 1933 National High School Championship. Known as the "Buckeye Bullet" at Ohio State University, Owens won eight individual NCAA championships - this while going to school and working to pay his tuition and living expenses. In 1936, Owens competed in the Olympics in Nazi Germany and won four gold medals - blowing the Nazi propoganda about "Aryan racial superiority" out of the water. On the first day a miffed Hitler shook hands only with the German medalists and then left the Olympic stadium. After the Olympic committee said he had to shake hands with all the medalists or none of them, Hitler chose the latter. Prohibited from amateur sporting appearances, Owens ran a dry-cleaning business and worked as a gas-station attendant to support his family in still-segregated America until he eventually filed for bankruptcy. He was later successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. In 1966 he was appointed a Goodwill Ambassador by the government and traveled the world speaking and making appearances. He died of lung cancer at his home in Tuscon, Arizona. Jess Owens is buried in Oak Woods Cemetery in Chicago. |
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| Eugenia "Jeanne" Eagels (June 26, 1890 - October 3, 1929) A former Ziegfeld Follies Girl who went on to greater fame on Broadway and in the emerging medium of sound films, Jeanne Eagels was born in Kansas City, Missouri. After appearing in a variety of small venues in Kansas City, she left in search of fame and fortune in New York. She appeared in numerous plays, several silent films and two "talkies" that were released in 1929. Jeanne married twice but had no children. Just as she was preparing to appear in a new play, she died suddenly at the age of 39. Doctors disagreed as to the exact cause, though three different autopsies pointed to excessive alcohol possibly mixed with heroin or some other narcotic substance. She was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in the 1929 film, The Letter, but the Oscar went to Mary Pickford for the film Coquette. Jeanne Eagels is buried in Calvary Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri. |
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| 1920 Ford Depot Hack A 1920 Depot Hack is fitted with the demountable rims that became available on a broader range of vehicles that year. The rims allowed for easier flat repair, as the outer rim -- which held the tire -- could be separated from the wheel hub, which remained on the vehicle. Blogger's Note: I have no clue as to what kind of truck was sold; Mom didn't say. But I've driven Fords since ... well, since forever, so I just picked out a Ford and used it. |
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| 10-year old Walt Disney (center right) at a gathering of Kansas City newsboys in 1912. Walt Disney (December 5, 1901 - December 15, 1966) was born in Chicago but spent six of his younger years in Kansas City, where he attended Benton Grammar School and worked as a newsboy. His family returned to the Chicago area in time for Walt to attend high school there. He dropped out of school at the age of sixteen to join the army but was rejected for being underage and served as an ambulance driver after the armistice was signed. Walt then moved back to Kansas City to begin his artistic career. After a number of fits and starts, including seeing his popular "Laugh-O-Gram" cartoons screened at the local theaters, he went bankrupt and, with his brother Roy, headed for California to start over. The rest, as they say, is history. |
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| Helen Stewart, Ruth's beloved cousin and lifelong friend |
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| Thomas Coleman "Cole" Younger Born January 15, 1844 in Jackson County, Missouri Died March 21, 1916 in Lee's Summit, Missouri A guerilla fighter with Quantrill during the American Civil War, Younger and his brothers teamed up with a gang in 1868 and began robbing banks and stage coaches in Missouri and Kentucky. After most of their gang had been killed or captured or just plain quit, the Youngers joined up with Frank and Jesse James and added train robbery and murder to their list of crimes. With the Pinkerton National Detective Agency on their trail, the James-Younger gang headed for Minnesota. There, they decided to rob a bank. But the robbery went awry when the townspeople took up arms, wounding and killing some of the robbers. With hundreds of Minnesotans in hot pursuit, the James brothers made it back to Missouri but the three Younger brothers (Cole, Bob and Jim) were wounded and captured. The Youngers pled guilty to their crimes and were sentenced to life in prison at Stillwater, Minnesota. Bob died of TB while in prison; Cole and Jim were paroled in 1901. Jim committed suicide in 1902. Cole wrote a memoir portraying himself as more of a Confederate avenger than an outlaw. He lectured and and toured the South with Frank James in a Wild West show. Several years later he declared himself a Christian and lived a fairly peaceful life. Cole Younger is buried in Lee's Summit Historical Cemetery. |
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| June 17, 1933 - Union Station Massacre AKA The Kansas City Massacre The Union Station Massacre took place on the morning of June 17, 1933. Convicted bank robber Frank "Jelly Roll" Nash had escaped from the U.S. Penitentiary in Leavenworth, only to be recaptured in Hot Springs, Arkansas. He was brought by train back to Kansas City, and from there, federal and local law enforcement officers planned to drive him back to Leavenworth. As Nash’s custodians led him in handcuffs across the Union Station parking lot to a waiting car, two Nash allies, intending to free him, waited in another car. The resulting gunfight led to the deaths of Nash, a federal agent, two Kansas City, Missouri, police officers, and a police chief from Oklahoma. Two more federal agents were wounded in the clash. The car carrying Nash’s would-be “rescuers” sped away, and a subsequent federal investigation into the events of June 17, 1933, led to the execution of co-conspirator/cop killerAdam Richetti, as well as uncovering the involvement of Kansas City’s own hometown crime boss Johnny Lazia in arming, harboring and aiding the killers in their escape. It has long been rumored, although never proven, that Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd was one of the two men who intended to rescue Nash outside of Union Station that morning. And leading the federal investigation of the massacre was a young J. Edgar Hoover, who would later gain momentum and funding for the growing agency he headed, which would eventually become known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation. |
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| The Banking Act of 1933, enacted June 16, 1933, was a law that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to insure bank deposits in the United States. It also introduced other banking reforms. The act was a reaction to the collapse of a large portion of the American commercial banking system in early 1933. It is most commonly known as the Glass–Steagall Act, after its legislative sponsors, Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) and Congressman Henry B. Steagall (D-AL). |
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| Composed of flour, water, salt, boric acid, and silicone oil, the non-toxic, non-staining, reusable modeling compound that came to be known as Play-Doh was originally a pliable, putty-like wallpaper cleaner concocted by Noah McVicker for Kutol Products, a family-owned Cincinnati-based soap company. Following World War II, McVicker's nephew, Joseph McVicker, joined Kutol and discovered the wallpaper cleaner was being used by nursery school children to make Christmas ornaments. Joe McVicker took Play-Doh to an educational convention for manufacturers of school supplies, and the rest is history. Play-Doh's current manufacturer is Hasbro. |
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| Seattle postmark and two stamps showing the June 14, 1933 date for Flag Day that year But look closer at the postmark. Who knew the U.S.S. Constituion (Old Ironsides) was still making trips in 1933? Does anyone have an answer? |
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| Penrod by Booth Tarkington Publication Date: 1914 Publisher: Grosset and Dunlap Penrod is a collection of comic sketches by Booth Tarkington that was first published in 1914. The book follows the misadventues of Penrod Schofield, an eleven-year-old boy growing up in the pre-World War 1 Midwestern United States, in a similar vein to Tom Sawyer. In Penrod, Tarkington established characters who appeared in two further books, Penrod and Sam (1916) and Penrod and Jashber (1929). The three books were published together in one volume, Penrod: His Complete Story in 1931. |
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| Edouard Daladier, the Premier of France, center, stands with the French delegation to the World Economic Conference in London, which began on June 12, 1933. More than a thousand of the world's top finance and government officials squeezed into London's stuffy Geological Museum to try to win agreement on measures to fight global depression, revive international trade, and stablilize currency exchange rates. Six weeks later, the World Economic Conference gave up and, without agreement, adjourned amid squabbling and finger-pointing between the world's democracies. |
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| June 11, 1933 Maureen O'Sullivan (May 17, 1911 – June 23, 1998) O'Sullivan acted in 64 movies (playing Jane to Johnny Weismuller's Tarzan six times), five short subjects, and eleven television shows (including a 1984 cast member role in the long-running Guiding Light soap opera). Married to director John Farrow, O'Sullivan was the mother of seven children: Michael Damien (1939–1958), Patrick Joseph (1942–2009), Maria de Lourdes (Mia), John Charles, Stephanie, Prudence, and Theresa Magdalena (Tisa). After Farrow's death she married James Cushing. There were no children born of that marriage. |
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| On June 10, 1933, Bonnie Parker, Clyde Barrow and W.D. Jones were traveling at a high rate of speed. Seven miles north of Wellington (Texas) Clyde realized too late that the bridge was out and flipped the car into the ravine below. Clyde and W.D. were uninjured and retrieved the weapons from the wreckage. A spark ignited the leaking fuel and started to burn Bonnie, who was pinned underneath the car. W.D. and Clyde heard Bonnie's screams and tried in vain to lift the car up enough to free her. Her face, arms and legs were badly burned before two witnesses to the accident helped lift the car off her. After that Bonnie was always seen being carried around by Clyde.  |
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On June 9, 1933, the President of the District Court in Tilsit, East Prussia, sent the above notice to a Jewish lawyer named Finkelstein. It relayed the news that Mr. Finkelstein’s name had been removed from the list of lawyers licensed at the local court in Tilsit on June 7, 1933, and from the list of lawyers licensed at the Tilsit district court on June 9, 1933. This was in keeping with the Reich Ministry of the Interior adopting the "Law Regarding Admission to the Bar" on April 7, 1933. From that point on, lawyers who were considered politically unreliable or of "non-Aryan descent" were dismissed or forced into retirement. |
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| Ruth Catherine McKenzie Age 13 Ninth Grade Graduation June 1933 |
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| Nelly Don Handy Dandy Apron Designed and manufactured by The Donnelly Garment Company in Kansas City, Missouri, the apron was patented around 1925. Millions were sold and the production of the Handy Dandy helped keep the factory open through the Depression. A seamstress never had to remove the apron from the machine while stitching. The wholesale cost was $6.50 a dozen. Ellen Quinlan Donnelly Reed (Nell Donnelly) designed a simple pink gingham frock in 1916, and sold 18 dozen of them to Peck's Dry Goods Company in Kansas City. That was the beginning of her Nelly Don brand, a brand that sold 75 million dresses from 1916 to 1978, making it the largest dress manufacturer of the 20th Century. Nell Donnelly Reed died in 1991. |
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| The world's first drive-in movie opens in Camden, New Jersey, on June 6, 1933 (Note: This is the reverse side of the movie screen) The concept was developed by Richard Hollingshead Jr., who experimented with various projection and sound techniques in the driveway of his house. Using a 1928 Kodak projector mounted on the hood of his car and aimed at a screen pinned to some trees, Hollingshead worked out the spacing logistics to make sure that all cars had an unobstructed view of the screen. He received a patent for his idea in May 1933 and opened his first drive-in theater only three weeks later. They quickly fanned out across the country. |
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| John Lazia (born John Lazzio) AKA "Brother John" - 1896-1934 An American organized crime figure in Kansas City, Missouri Grown wealthy from his bootlegging and gambling operations, Lazia had strong ties to the Pendergast machine, which convinced the police department to turn a blind eye to his criminal activities. But in June of 1933, Lazia's position came under fire when a series of events challenged control of his leadership. First was the Mary McElroy kidnapping (see June 4, 1933 entry). The kidnapping was a blow to Lazia's pride and he felt it undermined his importance to Pendergast. Things were not about to get better. A local gang leader, Vernon Miller, asked Lazia to supply him several gunmen to free two bank robbers who were being transported by train through Kansas City ... continued on June 17, 1933. |
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| Shirley Temple in "Polly Tix in Washington" Comedy short written and directed by Charles Lamont Released June 4, 1933 The 11-minute film stars Temple as Polly Tix, Butler and Smith as politicians, Gloria Ann Mack as The Little Sister, and Philip Hurlic as Dynamite. Shirley Temple Black describes the plot in her autobiography: "I was a strumpet on the payroll of the Nipple Trust and Anti-Castor Oil Lobby. Mine was the task of seducing a newly arrived bumpkin senator." Temple wore black lace panties and bra designed by her mother, and, as her biographer Anne Edwards summarizes, "Jack Hays's intentions were obvious. The Baby Burlesks were meant to titillate male matinee audiences" The script required Temple to take a ride in an ostrich-drawn cart but the frightened bird bolted and Temple came close to being killed |
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| Mary McElroy (1907 - 1940) Mary McElroy, daughter of Kansas City city manager and member of the Pendergast political machine Henry McElroy, was kidnapped on May 27, 1933 from her Kansas City home. She was released after 34 hours of captivity, following payment of a $30,000 ransom, but she never fully recovered from the emotional turmoil caused by the publicity and the ensuing trial. Three of the four accomplices were quickly arrested, one of them on June 3, 1933. Walter McGee was sentenced to death, the first time in the United States that such a harsh penalty had ever been exacted for a kidnapping. George McGee, the younger brother of Walter, received a life sentence. Clarence Click, owner of the property where Mary McElroy was held captive, was sentenced to eight years. After Walter McGee's appeals reached Supreme Court, the sentence of death was upheld. Ironically, it was Mary and her father who convinced the governor to issue a stay of execution. Eventually McGee's sentence was commuted to life in prison. Henry McElroy died in 1939, shortly after he was forced to resign as city manager following the downfall of Tom Pendergast. Mary never managed to adjust to life without her father and and continued to feel pressure from members of the media who were eager to capitalize on stories of her kidnapping and the plummeting political legacy of her father. The pressures ultimately became too much for her, and on January 20, 1940, Mary McElroy committed suicide. |
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| Frank Monroe Hawks (1897 - 1938) in the Texaco Eaglet WWI vet - record-breaking aviator - billed as "the fastest airman in the world" On June 2, 1933, Hawks set the west-to-east transcontinental airspeed record in "Texaco Sky Chief", flying from Los Angeles to Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn, New York, in 13 hours, 26 minutes, and 15 seconds at an average speed of 181 mph. After years of record-setting flights, Hawks died in 1938 flying a Gwinn Aircar which crashed in East Aurora, New York. |
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| Erle Stanley Gardner (1889 - 1970) An American lawyer and prolific author of detective stories, Gardener was best known for the Perry Mason series. He also published under the pseudonyms A.A. Fair, Kyle Corning, Charles M. Green, Carleton Kendrake, Charles J. Kenny, Les Tillray and Robert Parr. Dead Man's Diamonds: Go Get 'Em Garver Novelette (Dime Detective) was published on June 1, 1933. His first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, was published by Pocket Books in 1933. |
