Sunday, September 30, 1934

Went to Sunday school. I stayed for church. Ollie was over. Played cards in evening.

September 30, 1934: Babe Ruth's final game as a New York Yankee. He batted 0 for 3. From New York, he went to the Boston Braves. He played in his last Major League game in Philadelphia on May 30, 1935, when he left the field with a hurt knee.   

Sunday, September 2, 1934

Didn't go to Sunday school today. Mother is still sick in bed. Aunt Kate and Uncle Laten came by and took me to the magazine shop.

Clara Shortridge Foltz (July 16, 1849 – September 2, 1934)

Foltz was the first female lawyer on the West Coast. She was the sister of U.S. Senator Samuel M. Shortridge. The Criminal Courts Building in downtown Los Angeles was renamed after her in 2002, and is now known as the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center.

Monday, June 11, 1934

Daddy called up home (Clay Center, Kansas). Mother talked to Aunt Minnie.

1930s Telephone

The number of local telephone conversations grew 46.8 percent between 1920 and 1930, while the number of long distance conversations grew 71.8 percent over the same period. There were 5 times as many long distance telephone calls as telegraph messages handled in 1920, and 5.7 times as many in 1930. the share of all households with a telephone rose from 35 percent to nearly 42 percent. In cities across the nation, AT&T consolidated its system, gained control of many operating companies, and virtually eliminated its competitors. It was able to do this because in 1921 Congress passed the Graham Act exempting AT&T from the Sherman Act in consolidating competing telephone companies.

Sunday, June 10, 1934

Today, Kate's and us went to Houston Lake, then to Winnwood. Helen and I went swimming. Had a great time.

George Balanchine (January 22, 1903 - April 30, 1983)

Balanchine was one of the 20th century's most famous choreographers, a developer
of ballet in the United States and the co-founder and balletmaster of New York City
Ballet. He was a choreographer known for his musicality; he expressed music with dance and
 worked extensively with Igor Stravinsky. Thirty-nine of his more than four hundred ballets
 were choreographed to music by Stravinsky.

Students of the School of American Ballet gave the first performance of Balanchine's
 Serenade on Sunday, June 10, 1934, on the Felix Warburg estate in White Plains, N.Y.,
where Mozartiana had been danced the previous day. It was the first ballet that Balanchine
 choreographed in America. The official premiere took place March 1, 1935, with the
American Ballet at the Adelphi Theatre, New York, conducted by Sandor Harmati.

Saturday, June 9, 1934

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

General Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893 – April 8, 1981)

Born in Randolph County, Missouri, Bradley graduated from the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, New York, in 1915, when he was commissioned into
the infantry. He served along the U.S.-Mexico border and, between World War I
and World War II taught mathematics at West Point.

In February 1941, he was promoted to (wartime) temporary rank of brigadier general
(bypassing the rank of colonel - this rank was made permanent in September, 1943). The
temporary rank was confered to allow him to command Fort Benning (he was the first from
his class to become even a temporary general officer). In February 1942, he was made a
temporary major general (a rank made permanent in September 1944) and took command of
 the 82nd Infantry Division before being switched to the 28th Infantry Division in June.

Bradley did not receive a front-line command until early 1943, after Operation Torch. He had been
 given VII Corps, but instead was sent to North Africa to be Eisenhower's front-line trouble-
shooter. He moved to London as commander in chief of the American ground forces
preparing to invade France in 1944. For D-Day (6 June 1944), Bradley was chosen to command
 the US 1st Army, which alongside the British Second Army made up General Montgomery's 21st Army Group.

President Truman appointed Bradley to head the Veteran's Administration for two years after
the war. He is credited with doing much to improve its health care system and with helping
 veterans receive their educational benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights. Bradley became the
Army Chief of Staff in 1948. In 1949 he became the first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
and served in that position throughout the Korean War.

In retirement, Bradley wrote his memoirs (A Soldier's Story), served on several corporate
boards, enjoyed attending horse races, and was a consultant for the film Patton.

General Omar Nelson Bradley is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, VA.

Friday, June 8, 1934

We got our report cards. My semester grades: History S; English E; Expression S; Gym M; Latin S.

Kansas City Blues - cap insignia
Class Levels:
A - 1902-1907
AA - 1908-1945
AAA - 1946-1954

The Kansas City Blues are a former minor league baseball team located in Kansas City,
Missouri. The team was one of the eight founding members of the American Association.

The Blues did not field particularly competitive teams unil 1918, when they won the AA pennant.
 The team won again in 1923, and again in 1929. They won the Junior World Series championship
 that year, defeating the Rochester Red Wings of the International League in a best-of-nine series.


In 1936, the Blues became a farm club of the New York Yankees. They won the AA championships
 five times in the 1930s and 1940s. When the American League Philadelphia Athletics moved to
Kansas City in 1955, the Blues moved to Denver, Colorado.

Thursday, June 7, 1934

Pauline and I went to Irving graduation. She got a permanent. I went to her graduation at Central Junior.

"The Scout"

The Scout is a famous statue by Cyrus E. Dallin in Kansas City, Missouri. It is more than 10 feet tall, and depicts a Sioux Indian on horseback surveying the landscape. The Scout was conceived by Dallin in 1910, and exhibited at the 1915 Panama–Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco, where it won a gold medal. On its way back east, the statue was installed on a temporary basis in Penn Valley Park. The statue proved so popular that $15,000 in nickels and dimes was raised to purchase it through a campaign called "The Kids of Kansas City." The statue was dedicated in 1922 as a permanent memorial to local Indian tribes. It is currently located east of Southwest Trafficway in Penn Valley Park, which is south of downtown Kansas City.

Wednesday, June 6, 1934

Didn't take any tests today. Just sat around in Gym and then waited for Ruth Ray to walk home with me.

Augustine Voldemaras
Dictator of Lithuania 1926-1929
Succeeded by Antanas Smetona

On June 6, 1934, followers of Augustine Voldermaras attempted a coup to overthrow
 the Lithuanian government. Having already been convicted of high treason in May 1930 and
 exiled to a village, Voldermaras was imprisoned for twelve months as a result of the coup attempt.

Tuesday, June 5, 1934

I took my Latin and English tests today. Made an M on both of them. Walked home with Ruth Ray.

1934 Royal Typewriter - Model 10-KH-957

The Royal typewriter entered the market in 1906. It would grow to be one of the leading
brands that would dominate the market together with the Underwood and the Remington.
In 1914 the upright Royal 10 appeared (see above). This was the classic model with
 beveled glass sides that would grow to be one of the market leaders.

Monday, June 4, 1934

I took my History and Expression exams. Made an M on the first and an S on the Expression test.

Storm path for the 1934 Central America Hurricane

The 1934 Central America Hurricane is among the deadliest hurricanes on record. Although
a weak hurricane, it killed 1,000-3,000 people, mainly from landslides in Central America,
and spawned eight tornadoes when it made landfall in Louisiana. The storm formed on June
4 dissipated on June 18, doing $2.6 million (1934 USD) in damage.

Sunday, June 3, 1934

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

Clement O. Miniger - (November 11, 1874 - April 23, 1944)

An American industrialist and philanthropist, Miniger founded the 'Electric Auto-Lite
Company' (now part of Honeywell) in 1911, acting as the company's president until 1934
 and its chairman of the board from 1934 to 1944.

The Toledo Auto-Lite strike was a strike by a federal labor union of the American Federation
 of Labor (AFL) against the Electric Auto-Lite company of Toledo, Ohio, from April 12 to June 3, 1934.
Miniger was instrumental in settling the strike.


The strike is notable for a five-day running battle between roughly 6,000 strikers and 1,300 members
of the Ohio National Guard. Known as the "Battle of Toledo," the clash left two strikers dead and more
than 200 injured. The strike is regarded by many labor historians as one of the three most important
strikes in U.S. history.

Saturday, June 2, 1934

Straightened up the house today.

Louise Stanley - 1883-1954

With a Ph.D in biochemistry, Stanley worked as a home economics instructor
at the University of Missouri from 1907 to 1911 and as chairwoman of the home
economics department from 1911 to 1923, when she was appointed Chief of the
National Bureau of Home Economics for the United States Department of
Agriculture. While serving in this position, she directed the first national farm
housing survey, which contributed to the establishment of programs to improve
rural living.

Throughout her life, Stanley was a memober of the Food and Nutrition Board of
the National Research Council. She was appointed to the American Standards
Association, making her the first woman to hold an official USDA position. A
National Agricultural Hall of Fame inductee, Stanley Hall at MU was named for her.

Friday, June 1, 1934

Next week we have our final tests at school.

"Night of the Long Knives" - June 1, 1934

Also known as the "Röhm-Putsch", this was a purge that took place in Germany where
 the Nazi regime carried out a series of political executions. Most of those killed were
 members of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary Brownshirts.

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.