November 30, 1933

I straightened up the house today. Helen, Kate and Laten came over for Thanksgiving dinner. Had our goose Ruby sent, gravy, Irish potatoes, candied sweet potatoes, string beans, cake Jell-O, etc. Exchanged magazines with Helen. I stayed with Mrs. Raifert.

Charlie Chaplin
April 16, 1889 - December 25, 1977
Born as: Charles Spencer Chaplin

Charlie was born in London, the son of poverty-stricken music-hall entertainers.
At five he took his first turn on the stage; at age 17 he joined a music hall troupe
with whom he honed his pantomimic skills.

On tour in New York (1913), he caught the eye of Mack Sennett, who signed him
 to a film contract. His first movie, Making a Living (1914), premiered in February. He
made 35 films that year meanwhile developing his character of The Little Tramp,
baggy pants, derby hat, oversized shoes, and cane. The final touches were applied in
 The Tramp (1915) which made him an instant star.

In 1919 Chaplin teamed up with Douglas Fairbanks , Mary Pickford and D.W.
 Griffith to form United Artists, for production of their own films. In the following years
Charles produced, directed, and starred in such classics as The Gold Rush (1925),
City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940).

Over the years he was criticized for his many romantic affairs and for his political leftist
views. When Charles went to London in 1952 with his fourth wife Oona, he was
informed that he wasn't allowed to return to America. They moved to Switzerland.

During his absence from the States he made two more films, A King in New York (1957),
and his final film A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), which starred Marlon Brando
and Sophia Loren Chaplin did not return to the USA until 1972, when he accepted
a Special Academy Award.

Wednesday, November 29, 1933

Daddy took us to school. I went swimming. Had assembly. History test. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

Sinti & Roma
Victims of the Nazi Era, 1933-1945

A Bavarian law of July 16, 1926, outlined measures for "Combatting Gypsies,
Vagabonds, and the Work Shy" and required the systematic registration of all
Sinti and Roma. The law prohibited Gypsies from "roam[ing] in bands," and
those "[Gypsies] unable to prove regular employment" risked being sent to forced
labor for up to two years. This law became the national norm in 1929.

Between 1933 and 1945 Sinti and Roma ("Gypsies") suffered greatly
as victims of Nazi persecution and genocide. Building on long-hel
prejudices, the Nazi regime viewed Gypsies both as "asocials" (outside
"normal" society) and as racial "inferiors" - believed to threaten the
biological purity and strength of the "superior Aryan" race. During
World War II, the Nazis and their collaborators killed tens of thousands
of Sinti and Roma men, women, and children across German-occupied Europe.

 

Tuesday, November 28, 1933

Daddy took us to school. I waited for Nadine tonight but she had to stay after school. Hattie stayed all night at Mrs. Raifert's.

Hilda E. Gass - First female deputy in St. Clair County, Illinois

From the Belleville, IL, Daily Advocate:

On November 28, 1933, Miss Hilda E. Gass was named a special deputy sheriff for
 economical as well as practical reasons. When women prisoners are taken to the
penitentiary the law provides that a matron must accompany the guards. Heretofore
 special matrons were named for each trip to the penitentiary, but in the future
Miss Gass will be the matron as well as a guard.

In addition Miss Gass will be able to relieve the male deputies in the sheriff’s office by
 serving official papers when they are engaged in the solution of a baffling case. She
will also be of aid as a detective in cases in which women can gain greater confidence than men.

Monday, November 27, 1933

Daddy took me and the girls to school. Tomorrow we are to have a History test on Rome. I stayed all night at Mrs. Raifert's.

 Billie Holiday (AKA "Lady Day)
April 7, 1915 - July 17, 1959
Born: Eleanora Fagan Gough

On November 27, 1933, 18-year-old Billie Holiday recorded her first session,
 singing "Your Mother's Son in Law" with Benny Goodman. She got paid $35;
no royalties. The record flopped, but her singing career was on its way.



 .

Sunday, November 26, 1933

Went to Sunday school this morning. Saw "Footlight Parade" with Pauline. Daddy got me a white rat. Mrs. Raifert was over. I stayed all night.

Footlight Parade is a 1933 American musical film starring James Cagney,
Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell, and featuring Frank McHugh, Guy
Kibbee, Hugh Herbert and Ruth Donnelly. The movie was written by Manuel Seff
and James Seymour from a story by Robert Lord and Peter Milne, and was directed
by Lloyd Bacon.

The spectacular Busby Berkeley musical numbers, written by Harry Warren (music)
and Al Dubin (lyrics) and Sammy Fain (music) and Irving Kahal (lyrics), include
 "By a Waterfall", "Honeymoon Hotel", and "Shanghai Lil".

In 1992, Footlight Parade was selected for preservation in the United States National
Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".





Saturday, November 25, 1933

Ate breakfast at Mrs. Raifert's. Walked over to Carlins' with her. Ollie was over. Had chicken for dinner.

Joyce Clyde Hall (August 29, 1891 – October 29, 1982)
Founder of Hallmark Cards

In 1910, Hall moved from Nebraska to Kansas City, Missouri, with little more than two
shoe boxes of postcards. By 1913, he and his brothers were operating a store (which
would eventually evolve into Kansas City's Hall's department store) selling not only
postcards but also greeting cards. The store burned in 1915, and a year later, Hall bought
an engraving business and began printing his own cards, which he marketed under the
 Hallmark brand name. Hallmark's corporate headquarters remain in Kansas City.

Friday, November 24, 1933

Daddy took us girls to school. I went swimming today. Went to dentist in the evening, then played pinochle. I stayed all night with Mrs. Raifert.

Where are the jobs?

By November 1933, unemployment in America had skyrocketed to over 23%
and the Dow plummeted to 90, a loss of nearly 75 percent of its previous value.

In this photo, unemployed men queued outside a Depression-era soup kitchen
opened in Chicago by Al Capone in an effort to clean up his public image. The
storefront sign reads: "Free Soup, Coffee and Doughnuts for the Unemployed."
    

Thursday, November 23, 1933

Daddy took us to school. It snowed a little today. Mrs. Raifert came over. I stayed all night with her.

View From My Studio - Kansas City, 1933
(c) Fred Shane

A native of Kansas City, Missouri, Fred Shane (Frederick Emanuel) studied at the Kansas City
 Art Institute in 1923-24. He was with Randall Davey and John Sloan in Sante Fe in 1924; studied
 at the Broadmoor Art Academy, Colorado Springs, 1925-26; and worked in New York, 1926-27,
 where he  met Robert Henri. In 1928 he visited North Africa, Spain, and France.

     In 1932 Shane began teaching at the University of Missouri at Columbia; he was appointed
Art Department Chairman in 1958, and he retired in 1971. He was on the Public Works of Art
Project when he meet and developed a life-long friendship with Thomas Hart Benton in 1935.
Shane showed a painting at the New York World's Fair, 1939, and in 1940/41 made the mural
 Picnic, Lake of the Ozarks, for the Post Office of Eldon, Missouri, a commission from the
 US Treasury. From 1939 to 1944, Shane summered in Colorado, and in 1945 through 1949 in
California. In 1944 he was an artist-correspondent for the US Army Medical Corps.

     An archive of work by Fred Shane is in the State Historical Society of Missouri. Additional
permanent collections with work by Shane are the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University;
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the St. Louis Art Museum; the Abbott Collection of
Paintings of Army Medicine and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC;
the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Wolfsonian Foundation, Miami Beach; and the
 Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

Wednesday, November 22, 1933

I went swimming today. Daddy took us to school. Walked home with Ruth Ray and Nadine. Clara stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

On November 22, 1933, a trap was set by the Dallas, Texas, sheriff
and his deputies in an attempt to capture Bonnie and Clyde near Grand
Prairie, Texas, but the couple escaped the officers' gunfire. They held up
an attorney on the highway and took his car, which they abandoned at
Miami, Oklahoma.

Tuesday, November 21, 1933

I walked to school with Ruth Ray. It is turning colder now. Stayed all night at Mrs. Raifert's.

Ad from The Southest Missourian - November 21, 1933

Questionable Advice?

“…daily the telephone brings comfort, pleasure, and often money to most of us.”

Sounds like the "cell phone wars" of today, huh?

Monday, November 20, 1933

Daddy took us girls to school. I went to dentist in evening. Had tooth filled. Mrs. Raifert came over. I stayed all night with her.

Baffin Bay Earthquake - November 20, 1933

The 1933 Baffin Bay earthquake was a 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck Greenland
and Nunavut, and Canada at 6:21 p.m. ET on Sunday, November 20, 1933.

The main shock epicenter was located in Baffin Bay on the east coast of Baffin Island.
The shaking associated with this earthquake was only felt at the small town of Upernavik,
Greenland. The 1933 Baffin Bay earthquake is the largest recorded earthquake to strike the
 passive margin of North America and is the largest known earthquake north of the Arctic Circle.

No damage was reported during this earthquake because of its offshore location
 and the small population of the nearby onshore communities.

Sunday, November 19, 1933

Went to Sunday School. Mother and Daddy and I took Ollie out to Frankie's. In the evening Mother and I went to church with Betsy.

Rose Joan Blondell (August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979) was an American actress
 who performed in more than one hundred movies and television productions for
 five decades as Joan Blondell.

Joan's cradle was a property trunk as her vaudevillian parents moved from place to
place; she made her first appearance on stage at the age of four months when she was
 carried on in a cradle as the daughter of Peggy Astaire in The Greatest Love.

During the Great Depression, Blondell was one of the highest paid individuals in the
 United States. Her stirring rendition of "Remember My Forgotten Man" in the Busby
Berkeley production of Gold Diggers of 1933, in which she co-starred with Dick Powell 
and Ruby Keeler, became an anthem for the frustrations of the unemployed and the
 government's failed economic policies.

Joan Blondell died of leukemia in Santa Monica, CA, on Christmas Day 1979 with
her children and her sister at her bedside. She is interred in the Forrest Lawn
Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, CA.


 



Saturday, November 18, 1933

Mother and Daddy and I went to Sears Roebucks and downtown. Mother and I got dresses. Went down to Mrs. Holbrook's on 16th. Ruth and Nadine were over.

November 18, 1933 appearance by Tom Mix and his Wonder Horse Tony

Thomas Edwin "Tom" Mix (born Thomas Hezikiah Mix (January 6, 1880 – October 12, 1940) 
was an American film actor and the star of many early Western movies. He made a reported
 336 films between 1910 and 1935, all but nine of which were silent features. He was Hollywood’s
 first Western megastar and is noted as having helped define the genre for all cowboy actors who
followed. Mix's intelligent and handsome horse Tony also became a celebrity.

Tom Mix has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. His cowboy boot
prints, palm prints and his famous horse Tony's hoof prints are at Grauman's Chinese Theatre
at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard. In 1958 he was inducted posthumously into the Western Performers
Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Msueum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Friday, November 17, 1933

We didn't get to ride this morning. I went swimming. I bought my lunch. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's all night.

Duck Soup
First released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933

Duck Soup is a 1933 Marx Brothers anarchic comedy film written by Bert Kalmar
and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, and
directed by Leo McCarey. It starred what were then billed as the "Four Marx Brothers"
(Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres,
Louis Calhern and Edgar Kennedy. Duck Soup was the last Marx Brothers film to feature
 Zeppo, and the last of five Marx Brothers movies released by Paramount.

Thursday, November 16, 1933

Daddy took all of us girls and Lucille to school. He put a sign asking for carpentry work on the porch rail. I stayed all night at Mrs. Raifert's.

November 16, 1933 - The U.S. officially recognizes the U.S.S.R.

From the New York Times:

The undertakings of the two governments were set forth in eleven letters and a memorandum
exchanged between the President and Maxim Litvinoff, Soviet Commissar for Foreign
Affairs, covering agreements and concessions completed in ten days of negotiation.

Subject to the approval of the Soviet Government, William C. Bullitt of Philadelphia, special
assistant to the Secretary of State, was designated to be the first American Ambassador to the
U. S. S. R.

The pact, read to the press by President Roosevelt at his press conference this afternoon,
covers propaganda, freedom of worship, protection of nationals and debts and claims.

Wednesday, November 15, 1933

Mother and Mrs. N. walked to 23rd Street. I ate my lunch in the other lunch room today. Went swimming. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

Mickey Rooney
Born: Joseph Yule, Jr., September 23, 1920, in Brooklyn, New York

Rooney first appeared on stage at the age of 17 months during one of his of his
parents' vaudeville routines. His father, a heavy drinker and womanizer, was from
Scotland, and his mother, Nell, was from Kansas City, MO. Fed up with her husband's
boozing and philandering, Nell moved with her only son back to Kansas City, MO.
She then moved with him to Hollywood, CA, and, while reading the entertainment
papers, she learned about a part for a dark-haired boy to play "Mickey McGuire"
in a series of short films. Lacking the money to dye her son's hair, she applied burnt
cork to his scalp for the audition. Joe, Jr. got the role and became "Mickey" for 78
of the comedies that he appeared in. His mother later decided to change his name (and
and hers) and Joseph Yule, Jr. became Mickey Rooney. After finishing the comedy series,
Rooney signed with MGM in 1934. He played several other roles before MGM cast him
as the teenage son of a judge in the first Andy Hardy film, 1937's "A Family Affair,"
setting Rooney on the way to another successful film series and a wildly successful
film and telelvision career.

Mickey Rooney has had one of the longest careers of any actor, to date spanning almost 90
years actively making films in ten decades from the 1920's to 2010's. He lives in California with his
eighth wife and is the last surviving male star from 1930s Hollywood.


  

Tuesday, November 14, 1933

Walked with Pauline, Bernice, Virginia, Ruth and Nadine to school. I stayed all night over at Mrs. Raifert's.

Pete Johnson (March 25, 1904 – March 23, 1967)
American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Johnson has been called "one of the three great boogie-woogie
 pianists (along with Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammons) whose sudden prominence in the
the 1930s helped make the style very popular."

Johnson began his musical career in 1922 as a drummer in Kansas City. From 1926 into the 1930s
he worked as a pianist, often accompanying Big Joe Turner. A record producer discovered
him in 1936 and got him to play at the Famous Door in New York. His concert with Turner at
Carnegie Hall started the "boogie-woogie craze." The song "Roll 'Em Pete", composed by Turner
and Johnson, was one of the first rock-and-roll records, although there is strong reason to believe
they stole that piece from Jelly Roll Morton who neglected to register his works, leaving him
without claim to them. Johnson continued to tour and to play until a stroke in 1958 left him
partially paralyzed. He died in a hospital in Buffalo, New York, at the age of 62.

Monday, November 13, 1933

Went to school. Daddy took us kids. Had History test. Graded our English papers. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

The dust storm (AKA "black blizzard") that stripped topsoil from desiccated
South Dakota farmlands is the first in a series of bad dust storms that began in 1933.

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major
ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to
 1936 (in some areas until 1940). The phenomenon was caused by severe drought coupled
with decades of extensive farming without crop rotation, fallow fields, cover crops or other
techniques to prevent wind erosion. Deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains
had displaced the natural deep-rooted grasses that normally kept the soil in place and
trapped moisture even during periods of drought and high winds.

Sunday, November 12, 1933

Mother and I went to Sunday school and c hurch. I went to the church in afternoon. Saw The Conquerors. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

The Conquerors - AKA Pioneer Builders

Director: William A. Wellman

Plot summary:

A newlywed couple journeys west to make their fortune, and begins a banking empire.

Saturday, November 11, 1933

I straightened up the house. Ruth Ray and Nadine were down. I stayed all night over at Mrs. Raifert's.

November 11, the date of the original Armistice Day
Now called Veteran's Day in the U.S. and Remembrance Day in the U.K.

In the U.K. the idea for a white poppy for peace arose from the concerns of the wives, mothers,
 sisters and lovers of the men who had died and been injured in World War One. Increasingly
aware of the likelihood of another war, they chose this symbol ‘as a pledge to Peace that war
must not happen again’. In 1933 the Women’s Co-operative Guild distributed the first white poppies.

The declaration of war in 1939 put a stop to Armistice Day ceremonies.

Happy Veterans Day
And thank you to all who've served





Friday, November 10, 1933

Daddy took Hattie and me to school. Also some other kids. Went swimming. Walked home with Rose.

1933 German Volksempfaenger (People's Radio) VE 301

Using only three tubes, this is a very simple radio by late-1930s standards.
It's also controversial. Why so simple and controversial?

The Volksempfänger was sold for propaganda purposes during the Nazi years.
The low price made it affordable to the masses. A similar goal fueled development of
 the inexpensive Volkswagen (people's car) which American buyers later adopted
 as the VW Beetle. The initial price of the radio was 75 Reichsmarks, which was about
two weeks' wages for a German worker, vastly cheaper than most 1930s radios.

The VE 301 in the radio's name refers to January 30, 1933, the date Hitler became chancellor
of Germany. The People's Radio could receive only long wave, meaning that it could not
 receive broadcasts from most foreign radio stations. 

Thursday, November 9, 1933

Went to school. Had Latin test today. Give report tomorrow. Mrs. Pyle is coming back next week, I think. Stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

November 9, 1933 advertisement for Tarzan the Fearless

Tarzan the Fearless (1933) is a 12 chapter film serial starring Buster Crabbe in his
 only appearance as Tarzan. It was also released as a 71-minute feature film which
comprised the first four chapters of the serial version. Co-starring was actress Jacqueline
Wells, who later changed her name to Julie Bishop. The serial was produced by Sol Lesser,
written by Basil Dickey, George Plympton, and Walter Anthony (based on the character
created by Edgar Rice Burroughs), and directed by Robert F. Hill.

Wednesday, November 8, 1933

I went swimming today. Then I went to the library for English instead of going to Study Hall. I stayed at Mrs. Raifert's.

King Nadir Shah of Afghanistan

King Nadir Shah is assassinated on November 8, 1933, at a school prize-giving in the
courtyard of the palace. The assassin proves to be a servant of Yusufzai Sadar Ali Gholam
Nabi Khan, who was executed for conspiracy and treason exactly a year previously, and
his motive was to revenge his master. He is executed along with a number of his associates
 on December 22. Nadir Shah reigned for just over four years, during which time he laboured
 chiefly to instil into his subjects a desire for national unity and for peaceful progress in the
 arts of civilization. His son, Zahir Shah, a youth of 19, is immediately proclaimed king, and
receives the allegiance of the primie minister, the minister for foreign affairs, the minister of
war, and of the rest of the ministry, the Ulemas, as well as the tribal leaders.

Tuesday, November 7, 1933

Mother ironed today. I stayed all night at Mrs. Raifert's as Mrs. Holbrook is gone.

Mary Lee Taylor radio program - November 7, 1933
Sponsored by the Dairy Goodness People

This series, "the longest-running cooking program on radio," began November 7, 1933
on CBS and concluded October 9, 1954 on NBC. The CBS episodes were initially fifteen
minutes long and devoted to cooking tips and recipes.

Before the show switched to NBC in 1948, it had expanded to thirty minutes,
and there it became part of the "NBC Saturday morning parade of stars".

The new version, introduced informally by the announcer as "Mary Lee on NBC," was an unusual but effective generic hybrid. Each episode begins with "The Story of the Week", a light domestic drama about fifteen minutes in length featuring young married couple Jim and Sally Carter. These segments have much in common with the many radio sitcoms of the day. In one show, we find Jim seized by jealousy because an old friend of his is flirting outrageously with Sally right before his eyes. The very next week Sally has to deal with the fact that one of the neighbors, a "cute redhead", is helping Jim out in his business a little too often and far too enthusiastically to suit her.

After the story in each episode comes "The Recipe of the Week". Economy is emphasized here, but we are also reminded of the time when no dinner was considered complete without bread and dessert. The Father's Day meal presented June 18, 1949 for example consists of braised round steak, fried potatoes and green beans, vegetable slaw, rolls and butter, vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce, and coffee with milk and sugar. Using the sponsor's inexpensive Pet Milk product in preparing most of the dishes helped hold the cost to $2.06 for a meal serving four people

Monday, November 6, 1933

Went to school today as usual. Mother washed. I had quite a few lessons to do for night work.

Marlene Dietrich - November 1933
Born: Marie Magdalene Dietrich
(27 December 1901 – 6 May 1992)

The Song of Songs (1933) is a romantic drama film starring Dietrich as a naive German
peasant who moves to Berlin and suffers much heartache. It was based on the 1908 novel
 Das Hohe Lied by Hermann Sudermann and the subsequent 1914 play, The Song of
Songs by Edward Sheldon.

Sunday, November 5, 1933

Mother and I didn't go to Sunday school or church today. John and Clara and Ollie and Mrs. Raifert were all over tonight.

Mary Louise Cecilia "Texas" Guinan (January 12, 1884 – November 5, 1933)

Guinan was one of five siblings born in Waco, Texas. When she was 16 years old,
her family moved to Denver, Colorado, where she was in amateur stage productions
and played the organ in church. Guinan married John Moynahan, a cartoonist for the
Rocky Mountain News. The union was childless. Moynahan's career took them to
Chicago, where Guinan studied music before divorcing him and starting her career as a
professional singer. She toured regional vaudeville with some success, but became
better known for her entertaining "wild west"-related patter.

"Texas" Guinan moved to New York and worked as a chorus girl in Vaudeville
 and did some acting in movies. During Prohibition she opened a speakeasy called the
300 Club, which became famous for its scantily-clad fan dancers. Guinan has been credited
with coining a number of phrases. "Butter and egg men" referred to her well-off patrons,
 and she often demanded that the audience "give the little ladies a great big hand". She
traditionally greeted her patrons with "Hello, suckers!"

Guinan returned to acting and eventually wound up taking her show, "Too Hot for
Paris," on tour. While on the road, she contracted amoebic dysentery in Vancouver,
 British Columbia, and died there on November 5, 1933 at the age of 49, exactly one month
 before Prohibition was repealed. 7,500 people attended her funeral. Guinan is interred
in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York.

  

Saturday, November 4, 1933

Aunt Kate, Uncle Laten and Helen came by and Mother and I went to town with them. They had supper here then.

Belle Starr
Birth Name: Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr
(February 5, 1848 – February 3, 1889)

Born on her father's farm near Carthage, Missouri, May Shirley received a classical education 
and learned piano, while graduating from Missouri's Carthage Female Academy, a private
institution her father had helped to found. She also learned to ride and to shoot.

After a Union attack on Carthage during the Civil War, the Shirleys moved to Texas.
There, May Shirley became reacquainted with Jesse James and the Younger brothers -
her childhood friends turned criminals. Following the war, she married Jim Reed and, two
years later, gave birth to her first child, Rosie Lee (nicknamed Pearl). Jim turned to crime and
the Reeds moved to California, where their second child, James Edwin (Eddie) was born before
they moved back to Texas.

After Jim was killed, Belle (as she then called herself) married a Cherokee Indian named
 Sam Starr and settled with him in Indian Territory. There, she learned ways for organizing,
planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers, as well as harboring
 them from the law. Belle's illegal enterprises proved lucrative enough for her to employ
bribery to free her cohorts from the law whenever they were caught.

After Sam was killed in a gunfight, gossips and scandal sheets linked Belle to a series of
men with colorful names, including Jack Spaniard, Jim French and Blue Duck, after which,
in order to keep her residence on Indian land, she married a relative of late husband's, Jim
July Starr, who was 15 years her junior.

Two days before her 41st birthday, Belle was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor's
house when she was ambushed. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds in the back and
neck and to the shoulder and face. There were no witnesses and no one was ever convicted.

Belle's story was picked up by the dime novel and National Police Gazette publisher, Richard
 K. Fox. Fox made her name famous with his novel Bella Starr, the Bandit Queen, or the
Female Jesse James, published in 1889 (the year of her murder). This novel is still often
cited as a historical reference. It was the first of many popular stories that used her name.  

Friday, November 3, 1933

Daddy took me and Ruth R and Pauline and Nadine to school. I bought my lunch. Walked home with Maiden.

Joan Winters (1909 - 1933)

It reads like the plot of a movie. A young, beautiful, restless American showgirl
travels to the exotic east where she finds intrigue, romance - and a violent death.

As reported on November 3, 1933, in the Los Angeles Times:

(AP) Jerusalem, November 3 - Joan Winters, described as an American professional
dancer, and an Indian Moslem were found slain at the foot of the Mount of Olives
near the Garaden of Gethsemane today. The two bodies were found in an olive grove
outside the city wall. Police found no clues as to their assailants.

Authorities said they are at a loss to account for a motive. The slain Indian was
tentatively identified as Mohamed Karaman, an Indian civil servant from Madras.

Long story short: There were hints of a romance between Winters and Karaman.
 They met in Athens and from there sailed to Haifa. Joan's fatherdismissed the idea of
a romance between his daughter and Karaman as “a remote and absurd possibility.”
Karaman, maintained Joan’s parents, was hired as a tour guide.

Joan Winters was shot three times in the head at close range. Karaman was also
murdered with three bullets. Winters had not been molested and robbery was
not a motive as both victims were found with money and personnel possessions.

Though there was never any concrete proof, the final official police report concluded
that the couple were killed by Arab rioters who were protesting against Jewish
immigration into Palestine.

On November 5, 1933, Joan Winters was buried in the American Cemetery in Jerusalem.

Thursday, November 2, 1933

I went down today to have my tooth pulled. We went in at Katz's Drug Store, too.

Michael "Mike School" Lascoula (1906 - 1993)
Soldier in the Kansas City crime family

Born in Kansas City, Mike Lascoula produced an impressive criminal
resume beginning in 1929. He was arrested for robbery, narcotics
trafficking and gmabling. In his prime he operated a number of underground
casinos. Along with his brother Joe (November 1, 1933 profile), he boasted
narcotics contacts in New Orleans, Chicago and Manhattan. Along with several
several compatriots, Mike Lascoula was indicted as a tax cheat in August 1960.

Wednesday, November 1, 1933

I went swimming today. Still have got that substitute in English. Her name is Miss Dowell.

Joseph "Joe School" Lascoula (1897 - 1983)
Soldier in the Kansas City crime family


Joseph Lascoula was born in Termia, Palermo, Sicily. His first recorded
arrest in Kansas City was in 1919 for bootlegging. His forays into crime
involved fencing of stolen goods and drug trafficking. He also operated
a number of nightclubs on behalf of the synidcate. He and his younger
brother Mike (see November 2) were trusted members of the Civella
brothers' inner circle. (Civella profiles coming soon.) During his heyday,
Lascoula was described as feared and respected.