Is the girl in black my mother? The time and place are right. According to the source, the year is 1938, and at that time, Mother was working in the first building at left in the distance that's entirely in the sunshine: Philharmonic Auditorium on Pershing Square in Los Angeles.


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Got a neat birthday present to myself in the mail today: this old linen postcard of the Barker Hotel in Los Angeles which was the first place Mom and her sister lived on their own after they moved out from Utah. They shared a room there from 1936-1938.


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I got to ride Angels Flight again on my recent trip to Los Angeles. It was the first time I'd been a passenger on the old funicular railroad in almost 50 years.


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This was Mother's first car - a 1936 Pontiac Master Six Coupe.


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In 1934, at the age of 16, Mother graduated high school and moved to Los Angeles to attend Woodbury College, where she would study to become an executive secretary. While attending school, she lived with her mother and sister at 1434 Bond Street near downtown. After Mother got her B.S.S. in 1936, she and sister Lorraine got an apartment of their ( Read more... )

When I was a kid, I was a terrible snoop and thief. One day, in search of plunder, I found this little wooden box deep in Mom's closet that looked like a treasure chest. (Many years later, I was to learn that the cedar box was Mother's high school graduation present.) Imagining I'd find the chest full of old coins, I broke into it. I was ( Read more... )

Seems I've uncovered a bit of a mystery. Here, previously, I've told the story of " General Longstreet's palms." In it, I related information I found on the USC Digital Library site which stated that the palm trees and the house pictured in these two photos were on property owned by Confederate General James Longstreet, most notably of the Battle of ( Read more... )

In this old post, I told the story of my mother having had her picture taken by a street photographer somewhere in downtown Los Angeles in 1936, when she was a 19-year-old secretarial student at Woodbury College. Some time later, I finally identified the location of the picture as having been the 900 block of South BroadwayThereafter, I decided ( Read more... )

I've just returned from my first visit to Los Angeles in 10 years, and by far, the greatest thrill of my trip was seeing that at least some of General Longstreet's ancient palm trees in West Adams are still alive. After reading this, I was genuinely afraid that all of the old palms might have been removed by now. What a relief it was to see that my ( Read more... )

Today I am driving to Los Angeles for my first visit in 10 years.

I will be the guest of my childhood best friend, Richard Rudolph, who I've known since we were 5. Here's Rich typing a term paper at my house back when we were in high school.


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