Thursday, May 31, 1934

Walked to and home from school with the kids. Aunt Kate's were by.

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba
AKA "Gitmo"

 On May 31, 1934, the U.S. Congress ratified the U.S.-Cuban Treaty which abrogated the Platt Amendment, a legal document which had been a source of friction between the two countries. U.S. Ambassador to Havana Sumner Welles conducted the negotiations with the government of Carlos Mendieta, reaching an agreement on May 29th. The U.S. government insisted that the Platt Amendment be incorporated in the Cuban constitution in 1901, although the measure undermined Cuban sovereignty. Under this amendment, the Cuban government was not permitted to enter into a treaty with a foreign power which impaired the country's sovereignty, Cubans could not contract excessive foreign debts, the U.S. had the right to intervene to maintain Cuban independence, and Cuban territory had to be leased to the U.S. for naval bases.

Wednesday, May 30, 1934

NOTE: Ruth didn't write in her diary today.

Indianapolis 500 - May 30, 1934

The 22nd International 500-Mile Sweepstakes Race was held at the Indianapolis
Motor Speedway on May 30, 1934. The winner was the number seven car driven by
Bill Cummings, an Indianapolis native, at an average speed of 104.863 miles per hour.
Cummings led for 57 laps total, including the last 26. Of the 33 cars that began the race,
 only 12 were running at the finish, although there were no crashes resulting in serious
 injuries. One serious incident involved George Bailey, whose car went over the outside
wall, but resulted in only a broken wrist to the driver. The finish was the closest in the
 history of the race to that point, with second-place finisher Mauri Rose within 100
yards of Cummings at the finish (officially 27.25 seconds behind). Rose would also file
 a protest that Cummings had illegally gained ground during a "slow-down" period
following a crash

Tuesday, May 29, 1934

Mother went to the doctor today.

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. (May 27, 1911 – October 25, 1993)

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Price was an American actor, well known for his distinctive
voice and serio-comic performances in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.
He attended St. Louis Country Day School and was further educated at Yale in art history
and fine art. He was a member of the Courtauld Institute, London. He became interested in the
theatre during the 1930s, appearing professionally on stage for the first time in 1935.

He made his film debut in 1938 with Service de Luxe and established himself in the film Laura
1944), opposite Gene Tierney and directed by Otto Preminger. He also played Joseph Smith,
 Jr. in the movie Brigham Young (1940) and William Gibbs McAdoo in Wilson (1944) as well as a
pretentious priest in The Keys of the Kingdom (1944).

Price's first venture into the horror genre was in the 1939 Boris Karloff film Tower of London.
The following year he portrayed the title character in the film The Invisible Man Returns
(a role he reprised in a vocal cameo at the end of the 1948 horror-comedy spoof Abbott and Costello 
Meet Frankenstein). Numerous other horror films, too many to mention here, followed.

A patron of the arts, Price donated some 90 pieces from his own collection to East Los Angeles
College in Monterey Park, California, thus establishing the first "teaching art collection" owned
by a community college in the U.S. The collection contains over 9,000 pieces and has been
valued in excess of $5 million.

Price, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer at UCLA Medical Center. He was cremated and
his ashes were scattered off Point Dume in Malibu, California.



Monday, May 28, 1934

I stayed home from school today.

Dionne Quintuplets - Corbeil, Ontario, Canada

In the early morning of May 28, 1934 the names Annette, Cecile, Yvonne, Marie
 and Emilie became known to Canada and the world as the Dionne Quintuplets.

Born almost two months premature, with a combined total weight of less than
14 pounds, each child could be held in the palm of one's hand. The identical
quntuplets were taken from their poor, French-speaking parents at about nine
months were made wards of the province to protect their health and to keep
their father from using them to make money.

Ironically, it was the government that made the most money off the quints.
They lived their next nine years at the Allan Roy Dafoe Hospital, which was
built across the road from the family's farm house and became known as Quintland.
This quickly became a travel destination even more popular than Niagara Falls for the
 inquisitive tourists of the day. It is estimated that between 1934 and 1943 three million
 people visited Quintland, and earned the government and nearby businesses a
half-billion dollars off the tourists.




 

Sunday, May 27, 1934

We didn't go to Sunday school or church. Aunt Kate's were over.

Century of Progress - Chicago World's Fair

On May 27, 1934, a renovated and improved Century of Progress Exposition,
representing an investment of $43,000,000, threw open its gates to the people of the
world at 9 o'clock this morning with high hopes that 30,000,000 visitors would pass through
 the turnstiles before Oct. 31, the closing date. Opening day attendance was tallied at 148,664,
exceeding the opening-day record of 1933 by 30,000. President Roosevelt, in a sound picture
address, said the nation's troubles were over for the most part.  

Saturday, May 26, 1934

Mother got up for a while today. I straightened up the house.

Pioneer Zephyr

On May 26, 1934, the diesel-powered railroad train set a speed record for
for travel between Denver, Colorado, and Chicago, Illinois, when it made a 1,015-mile
(1,633 km) non-stop "Dawn-to-Dusk" dash in 13 hours 5 minutes at an average speed of
77 mph (124 km/h). For one section of the run it reached a speed of 112.5 mph (181 km/h),
just short of the then US land speed record of 115 mph (185 km/h). The historic dash i
inspired a 1934 film and the train's nickname, "Silver Streak".

Thursday, May 25, 1934

Mother is still sick.

Gustav Theodore Holst (born Gustavus Theodore von Holst, 21 September 1874 – 25 May 1934)

An English composer, Holst is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets. All told,
Holst composed almost 200 works, including operas, ballets, choral hymns and songs.
He was the brother of Hollywood actor Ernest Cossart and father of the composer and
conductor Imogen Holst, who wrote a biography of him in 1938.

Thursday, May 24, 1934

Mother stayed in bed sick today.

Edna Gellhorn (December 18, 1878 - September 24, 1970)

Born in St. Louis, inspired by her activist mother and very supportive husband, Edna
Gellhorn worked for the passage of clean water and pure-milk legislation. With her husband George,
she worked to reduce infant mortality through their campaign to ensure a safe milk supply
for babies and a provision for free medical clinics. During World War I, she served as
regional director of the food rationing programs.

In 1910, she fought for women's right to vote, saying she was "inspired by the message
that women had something to contribute." From 1910 to 1919, when women secured
the right to vote, Gellhorn worked with state and local Equal Suffrage Leagues. She helped
form the National League of Women Voters and served as the league's first vice president.
She also founded and was president of the St. Louis League of Women Voters and Missouri
League of Women Voters, where she served as the first president. Gellhorn led the
St. Louis league's effort to institute the merit system in Missouri government hiring as
well as leading the league to become one of the first racially integrated civic groups
in St. Louis.

Gellhorn received honorary degrees from Lindenwood College and Washington
University. In 1957 the St. Louis Globe Democrat named her a Woman of Achievement.

Wednesday, May 23, 1934

Walked to school and home with the kids. Some of the kids got the Centralian. A car bumped into Dean's truck.

May 23, 1934: The bullet-riddled bodies of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow

The bullet-riddled car Bonnie and Clyde were riding in when a posse composed of police officers from Louisiana and Texas, including Texas Ranger Frank Hamer, concealed themselves in bushes along the highway near Sailes, Louisiana. In the early daylight, Bonnie and Clyde appeared in an automobile and when they attempted to drive away, the officers opened fire. Bonnie and Clyde were killed instantly.

Tuesday, May 22, 1934

Went to picnic with Nadine and Pauline. Daddy got me excused from school. Went on dipper, scooter, hey day, ferris wheel, tumblebug, funhouse, etc.

Kansas City's 8th Street Tunnel

This abandoned streetcar tunnel had been essentially lost for forty years until a local realty company found the sealed entrance and reopened it. Actually two twin tunnels, the 8th Street Tunnel is well over a hundred years old, with one tunnel being built in 1888 and the other around 1903.

Monday, May 21, 1934

Walked to school and home with Ruth Ray. Nadine and Pauline didn't go. Went with Daddy to a job.

Dylan Thomas (1914 - 1953)

Thomas began writing poetry as a child, publishing his work in school magazines. By 1930 he had taken to writing poems in penny notebooks; a number of his poems were published in the "Poet's Corner" of the Sunday Referee and in the influential New Verse. Ralph Maud, in Entrances to Dylan Thomas's Poetry, declared that the writer's first published poem was the subsequently popular "And death shall have no dominion," which appeared on May 8, 1933, in the New English Weekly.

The notebooks in which Thomas composed between 1930 and 1934, when he was sixteen to twenty years old, reveal the young poet's struggle with a number of personal crises, the origins of which are rather obscure. In his 1965 Dylan Thomas, Jacob Korg described them as "related to love affairs, to industrial civilization, and to the youthful problems of finding one's identity." Revised versions of some of the notebooks' poems became in 1934 his first published volume of poetry, Eighteen Poems.



Sunday, May 20, 1934

Daddy went fishing early this morning with some men. Mother and I didn't go to Sunday school or church.

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967)

Born in Joplin, Missouri, Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright,
and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry.
Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about
the period that "the negro was in vogue" which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue"

Throughout his career, Hughes received numerous honors and awards. He died in New York
City of complications following surgery for prostate cancer. Yale University holds the Langston
Hughes papers. 2002 The United States Postal Service added the image of Langston Hughes to
 its Black Heritage series of postage stamps.

Saturday, May 19, 1934

Nadine came down and we went out to Swope. Rode home with Daddy. Nadine, Gweyn and I went to the Fashion Show.

Little Miss Marker
Starring Shirley Temple, Adolphe Menjou, Dorothy Dell and Charles Bickford
Writers: Damon Runyon and Walter Lipman
Genre: Comedy/Family/Drama

Plot Summary:

Little Martha Jane, aka Little Miss Marker (Temple) is left with the bookmaker Sorrowful Jones by her dad as part of a bet on a horserace. Sorrowful (Menjou) and his group of fellow bookies take to her, reluctantly at first, but their cynical ways start to rub off on her. Will a party set at Camelot bring back her faith in humanity?

Friday, May 18, 1934

This evening Daddy and Mother and I took Mrs. Richards and Tiny and Louie to Swope Park. Went by Kate's on the way home.

May 18, 1934 - Academy Award first called Oscar in print by columnist Sidney Skolsky

There are several stories about how "Oscar" got its name.

One story gives credit to the Academy’s executive secretary, Margaret Herrick. The story goes that in
1931, she reportedly saw the statuette, studied it carefully and exclaimed, “Why he looks like my
Uncle Oscar.”

 Another is that two-time winner Bette Davis, who was married to Harmon Oscar Nelson, Jr.
nicknamed it for her husband.

Yet another says award-winning actor John Barrymore coined the name.

Regardless, most people give Sidney Skolsky credit for putting "Oscar" in print.

Thursday, May 17, 1934

Nadine and Pauline were down. I played tag outside for a while. Did a whole lot of nightwork.

May 17, 1934 - New York City lunch stand

Once the location of the Trinity Church uptown cemetery (until 1896), and today the site of a swing-set in the expanded playground adjacent to Carmine Street Pool, this location for a lunch stand drew upon the predominantly youthful patrons of the park, the pool, and the Hudson Park library branch.

Wednesday, May 16, 1934

Skated up to Pauline's but she didn't want to go skating.

Open battle between striking teamsters armed with pipes and the police in the streets of Minneapolis

The Minneapolis General Strike of 1934 grew out of a strike by Teamsters against most of the trucking companies operating in Minneapolis, a major distribution center for the Upper Midwest. The strike began on May 16, 1934 in the Market District (the modern day Warehouse District) and ensuing violence lasted periodically throughout the summer. Led by local leaders associated with the Trotskyist Communist League of America, a group that later founded the Socialist Workers Party (United States), the strike paved the way for the organization of over-the-road drivers and the growth of the Teamsters labor union. It, along with the 1934 West Coast Longshore Strike and the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party, were also important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Tuesday, May 15, 1934

Walked to school and home with the kids. Played jacks a little while with Betty. Ruth Ray was down.

The Man from Utah
Released May 15, 1934
Starring John Wayne, Polly Ann Young, George "Gabby" Hayes
Directed by Robert N. Bradbury
Written by Lindsley Parsons

John Wayne is rodeo rider John Weston, who hunts for the killers of rodeo riders before
they can win at a roving rodeo run by outlaws.



Monday, May 14, 1934

Walked to school and home with the kids. Daddy got a day job. Mother and I went with him to fix a house at 39th and Garfield.

"The Adventures of Babe Ruth" radio show - May 14, 1934

The Adventures of Babe Ruth radio show was produced by the NBC Blue Network, which later
 became ABC, and was sponsored by Quaker Oats and the U.S. Navy in 1934. As the name
 suggests, it described different situations from his career. Each episode was 15 minutes.

Sunday, May 13, 1934

Today was Mother's Day. Went to our Sunday school. Gave Mother her present. Went to a Mother's Day party in the p.m.


Happy Mother's Day!

Saturday, May 12, 1934

Nadine came down today. She and I went skating for a while. I traded three old magazines for one new and another older one.

Saturday Evening Post - May 12, 1934
Illustrator: W.T. Benda

Władysław Teodor "W.T." Benda (January 15, 1873 - November 30, 1948) was a Polish-American
painter, illustrator, and designer. Born in Poland, he came to the United States at the very end of the
19th century. He attended the Art Students League of New York and the William Merritt ChaseSchool.
In 1916 he joined the Society of Illustrators and in 1919 became a naturalized citizen. Benda married
Romola Campfield and they had two daughters, Eleanora and Baria, who were both artists.

Friday, May 11, 1934

Nadine, Ruth Ray and I walked to school and home together. I got Mother a baking pan.

The Epperson  House
52nd and Cherry, Kansas City, Missouri

Built by eccentric French architect Horace La Pierre in the early 1920s, the
Gothic style Epperson House has 54 rooms and a tunnel that connects the
two wings of the building. Uriah Epperson died in 1927, only four years after
its completion. His widow donated the castle to the University of Missouri-
Kansas City in 1952.

Epperson House is rumored to be haunted and has been featured on “Unsolved
 Mysteries” as one of the top five haunted houses in the United States.

Thursday, May 10, 1934

After school Daddy came by and took Ruth Ray, Nadine and me to Swope. I caught 6 fish. Saw Memorial.

1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike

Picket parade, Embarcadero, Friday May 10, 1934 (being led by Harry Bridges)

The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's
Strike) lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailorsand a four-day general strike in San Francisco,
and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States.

 

Wednesday, May 9, 1934

Ruth Ray made up with Nadine so us three walked to school and home together. Pauline was absent.

Dust Storm - May 9, 1934

Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive amounts of Great Plains
 topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago,
where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust. Two days later, the same storm reached cities in the
 in the east, such as Buffalo, Boston, Cleveland, New York City and Washington, D.C. That winter
(1934-1935) red snow fell on New England. 

Tuesday, May 8, 1934

After school today Daddy came by and we went to Sears Roebuck and got me a pair of shoes. Black oxfords.

Laura Elizabeth Ingalls Wilder (February 7, 1867 – February 10, 1957)

After settling with her husband and family on a farm in the Missouri Ozarks,
Wilder began writing a colum "As a Farm Woman Thinks" for the Missouri
Realist. In 1930, Wilder asked her daughter Rose for an opinion about a book
she had written - a biographical manuscript about her pioneering childhood later
titled Little House in the Big Woods. In 1932, this became her first published
book. By the time she finished her last one, These Happy Golden Years, some
11 years later, she had become one of America's best-loved children's authors.
Her books went on to become t he inspiration for a popular telelvision series
based on the series, Little House on the Prairie.

Laura Ingalls Wilder is buried with her husband and daughter Rose in the
town cemetery in Mansfield, Missouri.

Monday, May 7, 1934

Ruth Ray and Nadine had a fight.

Juliana (Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina; 30 April 1909 – 20 March 2004)
Queen of the Netherlands 4 September 1948 – 30 April 1980
Spouse Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld

On May 7, 1934, Netherlands Princess Juliana opens the Juliana Canal, a
a 36 km long canal in the southern Netherlands, providing a bypass of an unnavigable
 section of the river Meuse between Maastricht and Maasbracht. It is an important transport
connection between the ports of the Rhine delta and the industrial areas of southern Limburg
and southern Belgium.

Sunday, May 6, 1934

Went to Sunday school with Ruth Ray and Mother.Went for a drive with Richards'. Went by Helen's.

Jean Harlow, Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer at the May 6, 1934
wedding of actress Carmelita Geraghty and screenwriter Carey Wilson.

Thalberg - Hollywood's "Boy Wonder" of the 1920s and 1930s - helped
create the studio system. He oversaw production of such mammoth hit
films as Ben Hur (1925), Grand Hotel (1932) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).

Thalberg died in September 1936 at the age of 37. Shortly afterwards, the Academy
created the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which is presented periodically to
producers "whose body of work reflects a consistently high quality of motion picture production."

Saturday, May 5, 1934

Went up to Pauline's. Ruth Ray and I went to the picnic. Roasted weiners and marshmallows at Swope Park.

Swope Memorial Golf Course

Designed in 1934 by legendary architect A.W. Tillinghast, Swope Memorial Golf Course was once the home of the PGA Tour's Kansas City Open (1949), making it the only public course in the area to have hosted a PGA Tour event. Carved out of the wooded land in Swope Park, this tight layout, along with its undulated fairways and multi-tiered greens, provides a true test of golf - one that legends Ben Hogan and Sam Snead have been challenged by.

Friday, May 4, 1934

Walked to school and home with Pauline and Ruth Ray. Picnic tomorrow.

Roscoe Turner (September 29, 1895 – June 23, 1970)
Record-setting aviator and three-time winner of the Thompson Trophy
Photographed on May 4, 1934

This air racer was sponsored by Heinz 57 (painted on the fuselage), which was a well-known Pittsburgh, PA company. Turner is wearing his standard uniform:  blue coat, wings of his own design and parachute. This photograph was taken prior to Turner winning the 1934 Thompson Trophy.

Thursday, May 3, 1934

NOTE: Ruth didn't write in her diary today.

Franklin D. Roosevelt
XXXII President of the United States 1932-1945
May 3, 1934: Proclamation 2083 - Mother's Day

By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation Whereas by House Joint Resolution 263, approved and signed by President Wilson on May 8, 1914, the second Sunday in May of each year has been designated as Mother's Day for the expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country; and  
Whereas Senate Resolution 218, adopted April 26, 1934, states that "there are throughout our land today an unprecedentedly large number of mothers and dependent children who, because of unemployment or loss of their bread-earners, are lacking many of the necessities of life," and the President of the United States is therein authorized and requested to issue a proclamation calling for the observance of Mother's Day this year;
 
Now, Therefore, I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon our citizens to express on Mother's Day, Sunday, May 13, 1934, our love and reverence for motherhood:
 
(a) By the customary display of the United States flag on all Government buildings, homes, and other suitable places;
 
(b) By the usual tokens and messages of affection to our mothers; and
 
(c) By doing all that we can through our churches, fraternal and welfare agencies for the relief and welfare of mothers and children who may be in need of the necessities of life.

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

Wednesday, May 2, 1934

Walked to school and home with Ruth Ray and Pauline. Donald got my ball off the roof. I drew some dolls for  Betty.

3¢ Mothers of AmericaFDC: May 2, 1934 · 15,432,200 Issued
Commemorative Postage Stamp of 1934

Tuesday, May 1, 1934

Walked to school and home with Ruth Ray and Pauline. We played ball this evening.

USS Ranger - Trial Run, May 1, 1934

The USS Ranger, CV-4, is the first US Naval vessel designed and constructed as an aircraft carrier. Authorized February 13, 1929, her keel was laid September 26, 1931 by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company, Newport News, Virginia. She was launched February 25, 1933, and commissioned June 4, 1934.