History – Everything That Happened .com

2018-01-102024-07-29

How I fought Hitler

When I was born, America’s involvement in the war was still three years away, but Hitler was already well known and widely hated. Fighting him would come naturally, even to little kids. Fortunately, after the war ended, Hitler was forgotten, and his name was never again mentioned. Ha, just kidding!

Here’s how I did it.

How I fought Hitler, part 1 – Starting when I was in kindergarten or maybe first grade, we won the war by bringing in peach pits and tin cans. As the teachers explained it, peach pits were baked into charcoal and used in gas mask filters; tin cans were melted down into tanks. After both ends of the can were cut off and placed inside, I got to flatten my family’s tin cans by jumping onto them off a kitchen chair. Back then, cans were made of tin-plated steel, not the cheesy aluminum they use today. In my teen years, it was a benchmark of strength to be able to fold a beer can in half with just one hand.

The U.S. paid for the war by selling war bonds. They sold for $18.75, and could be cashed in for $25.00 ten years later (that’s 2.9%). War savings stamps were sold as a way for kids to participate in the war as well. At my school, we were each given a booklet to be filled with 10-cent war savings stamps, with the goal of saving up enough to trade in for a war bond one day. I don’t recall the exact stamp-buying procedure, but if you showed up without your dime on the scheduled buy-and-paste day, teacher was not happy.

How I fought Hitler, part 2 – Here is a link to my recollections of the day the war was over, along with some other early childhood memories. Apologies for some bad language over there, but that Happened too.

How I fought Hitler, part 3 – I didn’t find out about this last way until 25 years afterwards. After my first son was old enough to be toilet trained, I asked my mother if she had any ideas on the ‘when’ and ‘how’. When the subject of ‘aiming’ came up, she became uncomfortable – she had always disapproved of the method, but admitted that when training me, my father had made it a game by having me pretend Hitler was in the toilet.

Nimm das, mein Führer!

2018-01-132024-07-29

Striped Shirt, 1945

Courtesy Cincinnati Enquirer; better image here

I was on vacation between first and second grade. We were living at Uncle Jim’s house. One day all the grownups started acting crazy and laughing and hugging and hollering and crying. I asked them what was going on, and they said the war was over. I asked them who won, but they just ignored me. I ran up and down the front steps for a while. I knew it was important. I had on my brown and orange striped shirt.

Before we lived there we had our own house. A few other things happened. I got hit on the head with a rock. I broke my brother’s radio and looked at a girl’s hiney hole. Italian kids moved in and came to my kindergarten. I asked my mother what two very bad curse words meant. My father stopped coming home. My teacher made me hide my face in her lap. I had to clean the school steps with a bucket and scrub brush because I wrote on them. While I was scrubbing my mother walked by on her way to the store but she didn’t look over at me. I cut off the tip of my finger slicing bread and got a red wagon for not crying too much on the way to the doctor’s.

At Uncle Jim’s house I jumped off his garage roof with an umbrella. I broke off enough roof shingles to build a fort but he made them not punish me. He had his grandfather’s Civil War rifle hanging on a rafter in the cellar.

When we got our own house again I used to play under our dining room table and make believe it was my fort. There was a metal lever there to pull the two halves of the table tight together and I would slide it back and forth and pretend it was the speed control on a trolley car. I wrote ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ in chalk on the underside of the table and the day the movers took the table apart to bring it to our next house they walked past my brother and me with the words facing out and he laughed but didn’t tell anyone.

“Atom Bomb devastating” – an ocean of contemporaneous news coverage, courtesy Jamie Bradburn’s Tales of Toronto

2018-01-132024-07-01

Roomers

After the war was over, my brother Dick, Mom and I moved out of Aunt Elizabeth’s and Aunt Frances’s houses and into our own rented house on Linwood Place in East Orange. Grandma joined us there; I think she had been staying with Aunt Mabel.

With the troops coming home, there was a national housing shortage, and my mother decided to bring in some extra money by taking in roomers. They would have the large bedroom at the front of the house, and share the single bathroom with us.

Our first roomers were the Turners, a pleasant couple in their thirties. I was unaware of their nighttime activities because my room was at the far end of the house, but apparently their lovemaking was so loud and frequent that my mother and grandmother came to doubt that they were married. The Turners were asked to leave, whether because of the noise or the not-being-married I don’t know.

Our next roomers were two girls in their early twenties, blond Charlotte and exotic Betty K. They formed a close friendship with my brother, then about 17, which ended when the three were caught by my grandmother “rolling around” on the double bed. There were no further roomers.

As you might guess, the shared bathroom was often in use when I got up in the morning to get ready for school . An empty milk bottle was kept on the top cellar step for when I couldn’t wait. Someone, I assume my mom, emptied and rinsed it later.

I once read a science fiction story about a town where there was a mysterious death-by-poisoning almost every day. The police were unable to determine how the victims ingested the poison. A mad scientist had developed a poison so strong that it remained effective no matter how much it was diluted. Method of delivery? One drop in an empty milk bottle. After the bottle was picked up and returned to the dairy to be washed and refilled, enough poison remained to take another life. Do you see where I’m going with this? After reading that story, I imagined tiny amounts of my childhood pee distributed to milk drinkers across Essex County and beyond.

2018-01-142024-07-27

Duck and Cover

“The film starts with an animated sequence, showing a turtle walking down a road, while picking up a flower and smelling it. A chorus sings the Duck and Cover theme:

There was a turtle by the name of Bert
and Bert the turtle was very alert;
when danger threatened him he never got hurt
he knew just what to do …
He’d duck! [gasp]
And cover!
Duck! [gasp]
And cover!
(male) He did what we all must learn to do
(male) You (female) And you (male) And you (deeper male) And you!
[bang, gasp] Duck, and cover!“

I did not grow up with a “constant fear of nuclear attack by the Soviets”, and for that happy truth I thank the Orange, New Jersey school board, which made the curriculum decisions affecting me and my schoolmates. We did have some fear, but it wasn’t constant. I’d call it more of a low-grade background concern, and a condition of life in the 1950s and ’60s.

We had only one duck-and-cover drill at Cleveland Street School, in sixth grade. I don’t recall being shown the Duck and Cover film, or getting any advance explanation for the drill, but one morning we were taught how to crawl under our desks and curl up in a ball. Our classroom was partly below ground level, with the window sills level with the asphalt playground outside. We were told that when we saw the flash we should not look out the window under any circumstances, but instantly get under our desks, facing away from the windows, which would shatter inward in just a few seconds when the blast wave arrived. We should keep our eyes closed and curl up with clasped hands protecting our necks, tricky when your desk’s iron legs are bolted to the floor.

If we happened to be outside when we saw the flash, we should drop down next to a curbstone, or lie down next to a log (assuming the town’s pioneer settlers left some unused logs behind, which they had not).

We never discussed that drill – in class with the teacher, among ourselves, or with our parents. and we never had another one. I think someone on the school board decided they were pointless, stupid and frightening, and said let’s not do that any more.

There was plenty of other propaganda around to influence us; I remember drawing a picture of a falling atomic bomb I labeled “Happy Birthday Joe”, and it was not Stalin’s birthday. Later, as a grownup, I would dream a few times a year of silo doors blasting open and missiles sailing out, whether their missiles or ours I never knew. These were not quite nightmares, I was a passive onlooker, but were not pleasant to wake up to at three in the morning. After the Soviet Union collapsed and the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, the world felt safer and the dreams pretty much stopped.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, one of my customers asked if I had sent my family to stay with relatives at the shore, farther away from New York City, a likely target. He was wide-eyed and genuinely frightened, and couldn’t understand why I wasn’t frightened too. That was a good question – I think I just couldn’t believe that either the Russians or us would do anything so crazy.

Fallout Shelter signs were posted on most public buildings; many remain

From a 1963 Department of Defense internal newsletter:

THE SHELTER SIGN. How many really understand the real significance of those black and yellow markers? There are six points to the shelter sign. They signify: 1. Shielding from radiation; 2. Food and water; 3. Trained leadership; 4. Medical supplies and aid; 5. Communications with the outside world; 6. Radiological monitoring to determine safe areas and time for return home. … It is an image we should leave with the public at every opportunity, for in it there is hope rather than despair.

2018-01-182024-07-27

Miss Alice Smeaton – teacher, ballroom dancer

Our teacher, Miss Smeaton, got married! She was our fourth- grade teacher at Franklin School in East Orange. The kids all loved her, but none of them loved her more than I did.

One Monday morning she walked into our classroom a few minutes late. She looked so happy! She wrote a strange name on the blackboard: “Mrs. Niedenstein”. She told us she was married now, and that was her new name. She wrote it one more time up in a corner of the board so it wouldn’t get erased. She said some things about how nice her new husband was, and added that she was very happy, as if we couldn’t tell.

The class was quiet, and maybe a little confused at this change to their worldview. Speaking for myself, I think I was a bit jealous: would this interfere with my own relationship with Miss Smeaton? Actually, nothing changed for anyone – if anything, Miss Smeaton, I mean Mrs. Niedenstein, was nicer than ever. However, fourth grade came to an end, and we went on to fifth grade, with a teacher whose name I don’t recall, then on to sixth.

Part way through sixth grade, my family moved from East Orange to Orange, about a mile and a half between houses. Orange had different school days off than East Orange, and I used those extra days to visit Miss Smeaton in her classroom, where she found work for me tutoring a couple of the slower students. Those visits ended when the school year ended, and I never saw Miss Smeaton again.

Writing this 70 years later, I wondered how old she was when she married. Sadly, the way such research usually starts is with a look through the obituaries, and I found one for her husband and one for her. I also found something oddly affecting – I learned that her first name was Alice. I had never thought of Miss Smeaton as having a first name at all.

She and Norman were both about 40 when they married; probably his war service had put their lives on hold, like many others. Later, after they retired, they lived in Ocean Grove for 24 years. Norman died there at 85, then Alice moved to Florida to be near her relatives. She died there at 95.

Kids never think of their teachers as having a life outside teaching, and I guess I’m still a child in that respect: I was surprised, and happy, to read in her obituary that “she was an accomplished ballroom dancer and won numerous awards in dancing competitions.”

So here’s to you, Alice Smeaton Niedenstein, ballroom dancer, and in a way my first love. I hope your last days were peaceful and happy.

Franklin School, now the Whitney Houston Academy

2018-01-192024-07-05

How things work

+++++
I first visited the Newark Museum on a field trip from grade school. The mechanical models exhibit was perfect for a kid like me who always wanted to know how things worked.

The models, maybe 80 or 100 of them, were each mounted on a 15-inch square wooden panel. Each had a visitor-operated pushbutton to set it to work performing its own unique, pleasantly noisy motion.

The catalog described the exhibit as “a dictionary of mechanical movements”, and promised to show how one type of motion can be converted to another; and to answer such questions as “how can hundreds of pounds be lifted with a one-pound pull?”

The exhibit was commissioned by department store magnate and philanthropist Louis Bamberger, and modeled on a 1928 exhibit at New York City’s Museum of the Peaceful Arts. The Newark Museum’s building itself was funded by Bamberger.

I spent many hours operating those models and studying how they worked. Sadly, a 1980s museum renovation removed the exhibit, and it no longer exists.

I didn’t grow up to be a mechanical engineer, but some of my jobs in the world of computing did come with the title software engineer. The only motion involved was the massaging and moving of invisible zeros and ones, much quieter than operating mechanical models, but still rewarding and fun.

Visitors to the Museum of the Peaceful Arts operating the steam-power group, 1930

All images courtesy allmyeyes.blogspot.com

Many thanks to graphic designer and artist Linda Eckstein, for her invaluable article on elemental kinematics, the motion of objects.

2018-01-212024-07-01

Superfund! (and why I care)

“On the morning of 15 October 1927, a dim, autumn day, a group of men foregathered at the Rosedale cemetery in New Jersey and picked their way through the headstones to the grave of one Amelia — ‘Mollie’ — Maggia. An employee of the United States Radium Corporation (USRC), she had died five years earlier, aged 24. To the dismay of her friends and family the cause of death had been recorded as syphilis, but, as her coffin was exhumed and its lid levered open, Mollie’s corpse was seen to be aglow with a ‘soft luminescence’. Everyone present knew what that meant.” –The Radium Girls, Kate Moore

Dial painters, 1922- courtesy Argonne National Laboratory

The Radium Girls were factory workers who from 1917 to 1926 hand-painted watch and clock dials with a glow-in-the-dark paint called Undark. The paint’s luminescence came from the radioactive silvery-white metal radium, then a recent and exciting discovery. U.S .Radium’s managers and scientists were aware of the paint’s dangers, but did not share that knowledge with the workers, who were encouraged to lick their brushes to bring them to a sharper point when applying the paint, ingesting tiny bits of radium. Some workers also painted their fingernails, hair and even teeth to make them glow at night. Within a few years, dozens of workers began showing signs of radiation poisoning.. They developed illnesses that included anemia, bone cancer, and necrosis of the jaw, known as “radium jaw”, which is as terrible as it sounds. By 1927, more than 50 had died.

At the Orange, New Jersey plant where the women worked, the company also extracted radium from raw ore, by a process called radium crystallization. Approximately half a ton of dusty ore was processed each day, with the radioactive waste dumped both on-site and off.

A 1981 gamma-radiation survey by airplane found about 250 sites throughout Orange, West Orange, and South Orange, many of them residential, where radioactive waste had been dumped or used as construction fill. Sites in Montclair and Glen Ridge were also contaminated, earning them their own Superfund designations.

The basements and adjacent soil of houses built using contaminated fill had to be dug out and replaced, with the contaminated material shipped cross-country for burial in Utah. At the site in Orange, the top 22 feet of soil had to be removed.

U.S. Radium had two other dial-painting sites, one in Illinois and one in Connecticut, that also required remediation.

EPA findings and actions

“In 1979, EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) initiated a program to identify and investigate locations within New Jersey where radium-processing activities had taken place. The former U.S .Radium Corporation processing plant was included in this program. In May 1981, EPA conducted an aerial gamma radiation survey covering approximately 12 square miles centered on the High and Alden Streets processing plant. This aerial survey located about 25 acres around the High and Alden Streets processing plant where elevated readings of gamma radiation were detected. This same survey identified areas of elevated gamma radiation in the nearby communities of Montclair, West Orange and Glen Ridge; the affected properties in these areas comprise two other Superfund sites, the Montclair/West Orange Radium site and the Glen Ridge Radium site.” — July 2011 EPA Review Report, full text available here.

Why I care

During the early 1950s, starting at about age 12, I played often at that site, No one knew about the contamination, not for thirty more years. Then on June 25, 1979, the New York Times published an article titled “Radiation Found at Site of Radium Plant Dating From the 1920’s“.

New Jersey’s humble Second River (to locals, simply ‘the brook’) flows alongside the site on its way east from First Mountain to join the Passaic River and Newark Bay. Who knows how much radioactive waste U.S Radium dumped into that little stream over the years? I played in that brook too, just a few blocks downstream, where minnows swam in the clear water.

I played in the yard between the paint application building and the brook. Railroad tracks ran through the yard then, and there were usually one or two freight cars sitting there awaiting loading or unloading. Adjacent to the tracks were the too-grimy-to-play-on portable conveyor belts and sturdy bins of the neighboring Alden Coal Company. I enjoyed playing ‘railroad engineer’, climbing the rungs to the top of a car and twisting its parking-brake handwheel back and forth from one extreme to the other.

By then, the paint application building was occupied by Arpin Plastics, makers of the “Arpin 75 Special Repeating Water Pistol”. (I don’t know why anyone would buy a non-repeating water pistol .) They also made a Tommy gun, with greater water capacity and firepower. Weapons that didn’t pass inspection were tossed into a dumpster behind the building, from which they could be rescued and rehabilitated by anyone willing to put in a little effort.

Apparently I didn’t spend enough time at the site to develop any sort of radiation poisoning. Thanks for asking!

Recent (May, 2018) Google Earth view of the main Orange Superfund site. Per the EPA, remediation is “essentially complete” and the site is being monitored . All that seems necessary is to add flowers and grass. Not sure what that wettish spot is.

Manufacturer’s ad for Undark, 1921 – courtesy Wikipedia

2018-02-122024-07-27

Anthracite

Coal delivery via chute, courtesy whippanyrailwaymuseum.net

We lived on the first floor of a two-family house in Orange. Each family had their own furnace and their own coal bin. For some reason, the builder put the bins at the rear of the cellar, unreachable directly from the street. When we got a ton of coal, it had to be hand-carried around the building to a cellar window.

The driver and his helper took turns pouring coal from a chute in the truck’s tailgate into wire-framed canvas baskets slung on their backs, then carried them down the driveway and behind the house. There they dumped the coal down a metal chute that ran through a cellar window and into one of the bins. My bedroom was directly above the bins; one day we got a coal delivery on a school holiday, and I took a weird pride in learning I had slept through the racket.

Coal delivery the hard way, courtesy whippanyrailwaymuseum.net

I was in charge of stoking our furnace when I got home from school. That meant shaking the ashes down through the grates and adding fresh coal on top. If the fire was ever allowed to go out, that was a major failure on the stoker’s part, and a major project for a grownup to get a new fire started. The remaining ashes and cinders had to be removed by shaking them through the grates, then a new fire laid, starting with crumpled newspaper, then strips of wood, then a layer of coal, followed by a match and a prayer.

One afternoon I forgot to tend the furnace. By the time I remembered, it was five o’clock, and when I pulled open the furnace door to add coal the fire was almost out, the last few embers dull red. I piled on some coal anyway, hoping against hope, but after a few minutes I could see it wasn’t catching. I got the idea of adding a little turpentine from the Mason jar we kept to clean paint brushes in. Well, it proved not possible to add just a little turpentine, because when I started pouring, the jar instantly caught fire. I dropped it into the embers and WHOOMPH there went my eyebrows.

The idea worked fine otherwise, and by the time my mother got home, the furnace was working, the house was warm, and I had washed my face. I’m sure she noticed my eyebrows, but my family doesn’t ask questions.

2018-02-262024-07-05

Yogi

Here’s everything you need to know about Yogi Berra.

Yogi was a catcher for the New York Yankees. He charmed and puzzled the world with his child-like musings and malaprops.

“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi

He made enough money playing baseball to afford a nice house in Montclair. In fact, he made so much money that he could afford to buy a second refrigerator, just for beer, and get it installed on his front porch.

Two of the older guys from our corner worked part time delivering heavy appliances. They were thrilled that they’d get to meet Yogi.

They lugged the new refrigerator up the porch steps and got it over to where he wanted it. They made it level and plugged it in.

He gave them each a dime.

“When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi

No, you take it, Yogi. Take it straight to hell.

2018-02-272024-07-10

Vincent’s ear

“What’s the craziest thing you believed as a kid?” – reddit

I believed that Van Gogh cut off his ear in frustration when he was painting a self portrait and couldn’t get the ear right. To me as a kid, it was the only logical explanation. I never discussed this with anyone, and believed it for a long time. There are many theories about why Vincent harmed himself, but the issue remains unsettled and the theories remain only that, theories.

I’ve seen varied accounts of exactly how much of his ear Vincent sliced off. When researching his Lust for Life biography of Van Gogh, author Irving Stone asked this question of Doctor Felix Rey, who treated Van Gogh in the hospital. The 2010 rediscovery of Rey’s response, which includes two drawings, gives us the answer: the entire ear, except for a small flap of the lobe.

Translated, the doctor’s comment next to the first drawing says “The ear was sliced with a razor following the dotted line”; the comment next to the second says “The ear showing what remained of the lobe.”

Along with the drawings, in his response Rey wrote

I’m happy to be able to give you the information you have requested concerning my unfortunate friend Van Gogh. I sincerely hope that you won’t fail to glorify the genius of this remarkable painter, as he deserves.

2018-03-012024-07-27

Roaring Twenties? No.

Early in January of 2020, I heard a television newsreader use the phrase “Roaring Twenties” to identify the new decade. It wasn’t her fault that it sounded dopey; she was only reading out the words written by some dopey newswriter. Please, anyone who’s trying to make “Roaring Twenties” happen, stop. The world already had a Roaring Twenties – it started a hundred years ago, it lasted ten years, and now it’s over. Based on what we’ve read in books and seen in a thousand black-and-white movies, it was a pretty good time to be alive, except of course for the last few months of the final year.

Maybe a few years from now, let’s say 2026, we can look back to see whether the preceding years were ‘roaring’ or not, then decide if we’ve been in “Roaring Twenties II” all along. Until then, if it really needs a name, let’s just call the decade we’re in now “the twenties”, or “the current decade”.

I have several photos of my parents taken in the 1920s, when they were in their twenties and in full flower. The photos are puzzling – my working-class parents are wearing what look like expensive clothes, and in one case, special clothes just to ride horses. So, at one time there was money to spare – what happened? Did they go bust in the Crash, as so many others did? I’ll never know. Meanwhile, I love this picture and seeing how happy they were then.

Later, during the 1930s and 1940s, my family wasn’t ‘poor’ – we were far from being Dorothea Lange subjects. Even after my father flew the coop in 1943 and my mother had to go back to work, we got along just fine, maybe occasionally borrowing a scuttle of coal from the neighbors until payday and our next coal delivery. After the next delivery, we returned the scuttle heaped as high as possible. That’s what neighbors do.

I once emailed my brother a long question about our family, and part of his answer was that there was “a lot of history there that we will never find out about because everybody just came and went without doing much talking.” Yep, that’s my family.

Mom and Pardo before the Crash. They would last another 10 or 15 years

2018-03-092024-08-06

Cousin Walter and the OSS

Cousin Walter wasn’t really my cousin, but I guess his being married to my real cousin Helen made him sort of a cousin-in-law, as if there ever could be such a thing. (Yes, there is such a thing, I checked.) Walter was an intelligent, happy and patient man. He sold cars for a living.

1951 Chevrolet Styleline Deluxe, courtesy cinemagraphcollection

Walter had several brothers and sisters who died young from heart problems. He was the only one left. Walter had his own worrisome heart problems, but was reluctant to get open-heart surgery. In the 1950s, open-heart surgery wasn’t far beyond the experimental stage, and had a high mortality rate.

One day after playing eighteen holes with his father-in-law Uncle Rob, he realized that during the round he had finished off an entire vial of his prescription nitroglycerin pills to stave off his chest pain .He decided to risk the surgery. It was a grand success, as proven by Walter living to be 87.

The 1920 U.S. census records show an oddity: according to the records, Walter’s parents were born in Russia but spoke German, and emigrated to the United States in 1909. At that time, Europe’s national borders were fluid, so “Russia” might have meant what later came to be called East Germany. Walter grew up speaking German.

During the war, he served with the U.S. intelligence agency Office of Strategic Services, the OSS. After the war, the duties of the OSS were assumed by the newly-established CIA. Walter never talked about what he did in the war, but he most likely interrogated German prisoners, and perhaps committed ungentlemanly acts of war similar to what the CIA does for us today. Here is an href=”https://arsof-history.org/articles/v3n4_oss_primer_page_1.html”>an overview of the OSS’s wartime activities.

After the war, Walter sold cars for a dealership in Nutley, keeping his eye peeled for clean trade-ins for his family. I bought a nice, sensibly-driven used 1951 Chevy through Walter. A few months later, I tested his patience a bit when the car threw a rod on the Garden State and I got him to convince the dealership to repair it, even though it was well past its 30-day warranty.

After I enlisted in the army, I imposed one more time on ever-patient Walter, getting him to convince his dealership to buy back the car. Just one of the semi-unreasonable things that teen-age me expected people to do for him.

Thank you, Walter. You were a true patriot and friend.

2018-03-112024-07-01

Handouts from my uncles

I never got an allowance and never asked for one, although I did steal money from my mother’s purse once, thirty cents to buy a pet turtle. I never lacked for anything that was truly necessary. My brother and I mostly wore hand-me-downs from our Uncle George’s youth; Grandma must have saved everything he ever grew out of – in my 3rd-grade class photo I am the only boy wearing knickers. In high school I wore George’s wartime Eisenhower jacket, proudly. Until I got my working papers, which New Jersey requires for anyone under 18 to get a “real” job, money for things I wanted came from doing odd jobs and getting small handouts from my uncles.

Eisenhower jacket, courtesy monstervintage.com

Uncle George spent his early career years working for Western Electric, helping build the Mexican telephone system. He was there so long that in his photos he looks Mexican, maybe because of the mustache. During WW II he was a Signal Corps major stationed in New Guinea, fighting the Japanese and taking occasional target practice against stacks of canned Spam .

After the war he returned to Western Electric, picking up his career where he left off. He had a good job and a bit of money, and he owned a grand old house on Park Avenue (the Park Avenue in Orange, not the one in New York) that was divided into several equally grand apartments. His house was three blocks from ours, and sometimes I’d be sent over there on a Saturday morning to get me out of my mother’s hair for a while. Sometimes he would give me a quarter, equivalent to about $2.50 today, for no particular reason. He knew my name, but for some reason always called me Sport. Maybe that’s what he called everybody.

When visiting him, I pretty much kept quiet (he was usually lying on the couch, hung over in a gentlemanly way) while I read through his New Yorker magazines and tried to understand why the tiny cartoons embedded in the text were not funny. I later learned that they were not really ‘cartoons’, but just design elements to break up the text.

On one visit, I had recently read a magazine article about the excellence of Louisville Slugger baseball bats – how the wood was chosen, how carefully they were manufactured for maximum ball flight, etc. etc. Not owning a bat of my own of any brand, I tried to plant in George’s mind the idea of him buying me one. (I have a strange aversion to actually asking people for what I want.) Through the morning, I produced a slow trickle of factual nuggets from the article. Being hung over, he was uninterested in, and unmoved by, my low-key salesmanship. Bad timing on my part.

George had probably heard about my experience helping my father paint a house at the shore, and through my mother he asked whether I’d be interested in a job repainting the decks, railings and stairs of his apartment house. Yes, of course I was interested, and I spent many sunny days that summer working on his house. Aunt Louise kept me in iced tea and sandwiches as I painted my way through several gallons of battleship gray.

George and Louise met and married during the war; she was an officer in the WACs. The grownups in my family didn’t seem to like her very much; she may have been too boisterous for their tastes, similar to how they felt about my Aunt Sweetie, also an ex-WAC and a bit on the rowdy side.

Once all the painting was done, George shook my hand, said “Thanks, Sport!”, and handed me an envelope. When I got home and showed my mother how much was in it, she was astonished. How much did he give me? I don’t remember exactly, but it was a lot.

Uncle Bill, aunt Mabel’s husband, would give me a quarter once in a while too, for no particular reason. We didn’t see Bill and Mabel very often until Grandma started showing her age and went to live with them; then the two families would trade her off on weekends, with Bill driving back and forth from their house in Livingston. I especially enjoyed the drive back down the mountain; coming down Northfield Avenue at night there was, and still is, a spectacular view of Manhattan, stretched out and sparkling 15 miles away.

Bill was a production foreman at the Ford plant in Mahwah. He was not Italian, but I came to think of him as a gavone, a word I picked up from my neighborhood friends, defined as:

Cafone (also caffone, gavone)
Noun
1 A labourer; a peasant, especially one who is Italian or of Italian descent.
2 slang Especially in Italian-American usage: a coarse-mannered person; a low-life, a lout. – Lexico

That opinion was solidified when he came into our kitchen once after bringing Grandma home, hawked up a big one, and spat into the sink. I was offended, and without thinking gave him the stink eye. He responded with a sneer and after that, the Uncle Bill revenue stream dried up.

2018-03-172024-07-20

Harassing Hitler

After the war, one day while I was in Michigan visiting my Uncle Bert and his family, I was nosing around in their cellar. On the top shelf of a wire rack over in one corner was a pile of almost-new comic books.

I have complained elsewhere here that there wasn’t any reading material in that house, at least not out in the open and available to me, other than Bert’s illustrated book of chicken diseases. But I forgot that beautiful stack of comics, which starred mostly WW II-era superheroes.

They seemed to have a common theme – at least one story in each issue had that comic’s hero slapping, punching, kicking, knocking down or otherwise humiliating either Hitler or Japan’s General Tojo. Mussolini didn’t suffer anywhere near the abuse the other two Axis leaders did, probably because Italy surrendered in 1943 and was a non-player for the rest of the war.

Superheroes were not the only abusers of the three Axis leaders and their armies; punishment could also be dished out by comic-strip celebrities such as heavyweight boxer Joe Palooka, or the band of rowdy grade-school boys known as the Commando Cubs.

As I read the stories, I had a fleeting thought that if a comic book writer could get a character close enough to Hitler to punch him in the face, why not just kill him? But I realized, since the war had already been over for three years, killing Hitler early would have put the world out of balance and messed up the space-time continuum, or something like that. Also to the downside, that writer’s superhero would have had one less villain available to humiliate in future issues. Finally, if our many years of post-war exposure to all forms of popular media have taught us anything, it is this: killing Hitler early always leads to unanticipated and undesirable consequences.

Outcomes, sans superhero intervention

After Italy surrendered in September 1943, Mussolini was dismissed from office by King Victor Emmanuel and imprisoned. He was soon freed by the Germans and restored to power as Hitler’s puppet. In April 1945, he was captured by Italian communists and executed by firing squad, then his body strung up for display. In a way, the terrible abuse inflicted on his corpse by the Italian people might be said to counterbalance his relatively light treatment in the comics.
Hitler committed suicide as Russian forces closed in on his bunker in April 1945.
Tojo attempted suicide as he was arrested by American soldiers in September 1945, but survived. He was hanged for war crimes in December 1948.

Here are some comic book covers from the internet.

Whistle while you work,
Hitler is a jerk.
Mussolini bit his weenie
now it doesn’t work.
– Carl Sandburg

2018-06-092024-07-22

6,350,400 cans of beer on the wall…

My mother had connections with New Jersey politicians and businessmen through her position at the Newark Athletic Club. Among them were the officers of People’s Express Trucking, and she got me a summer job with People’s the year I turned 17. Once she had thought she might get me an appointment to West Point through the same connections, but that dream died as I lost interest in “applying myself” to my lessons.

As background, problems at Schlitz’s Milwaukee brewery have impacted production, and the company is shipping, by rail, a few million empty beer cans for filling. The role of People’s Express is to get the cans off the freight cars, onto trailer trucks, and then to the local Schlitz brewery. My role, and that of several other youths, is to do the actual work.

International Harvester, Cars-from-UK.com

The first day, we meet with our crew chief at the People’s Express offices on Raymond Boulevard. Three of us will drive an International Harvester pickup truck daily to the railroad yards in Williamsburg, Brooklyn; the others will drive in with the crew chief in his car. I volunteer to drive the truck, I’ve had my license for almost three months now, I like driving and have lots of confidence. I was unaware that by law one must be 18 to drive in New York City, but the subject never came up.

The Williamsburg rail yards are about 15 miles away: across the Jersey swamplands, through the Holland Tunnel, across lower Manhattan, over the Williamsburg Bridge, then into Brooklyn to the yards.

Traffic lights in Manhattan come in two colors , red and green. If the red comes on during a green, that’s the same as a yellow, act accordingly. The system worked fine; I don’t know why they changed it.

The Williamsburg bridge is old and narrow, it was built for horse-and-buggy traffic. It’s difficult to drive our truck through the tighter spots without scraping a running-board; I do that about once a week.

On the return trip to Newark, the traffic is generally worse.

Canal Street across Manhattan is always stop and go;, when it’s bad we seem to tie for speed with the pedestrians. One day we are neck-and-neck with a gorgeous woman walking with a man, they get ahead, we get ahead, as we breathe teenage sighs and make comments among ourselves about her ass. Uh-oh, he’s heard us! He walks up to the passenger window. What if he has a knife?! He speaks… “Would you boys like to fock her?” Relieved, we explain that no, we have to get back to Newark.

One day we are stuck inside the Holland tunnel for so long that we unzip and whiz into the vents along the curb.

In the rail yards, freight cars are jockeyed around to align their center doors with our work platform. There are 48 empty 12-ounce Schlitz cans in each cardboard case. After we build a pallet of 35 cases (seven tiers, five cases per tier, 3 x 2 then 2 x 3, alternating), we use a pallet jack to get it into a trailer, 28 pallets per trailer; lather, rinse, repeat, it isn’t rocket science. We fill about three trailers a day.

We fall into a routine; on our morning break we have grape soda and pastries or pie. At lunch, we buy sandwiches and more grape soda, or beer, then sit on the end of an East River dock to look over at the Manhattan skyline and watch what floats by. A visitor from England once said about the East River, “All you Americans seem to do is defecate, fornicate, and eat oranges.” I would have said bananas.

We are sometimes drunk. The college guy has a ‘bit’ he does, I guess it’s a fraternity thing. He stands in the middle of Kent Avenue, drops his pants, and shouts “I KNOW ABOUT THAT, LADY, BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS?” Near the end of the summer he falls out of a freight car and breaks his arm.

Our truck has an on-the-floor gear shift, nothing new to me, but I’ve been using it wrong. Believing it’s a standard H pattern, I think I am shifting 1-2-3, 1-2-3 like normal people do, when actually I’ve been shifting 2-3-4, 2-3-4 for two weeks. So far, I’ve never needed reverse. One day they send me to get something at the hardware store. I park behind someone, and when I try to back up to leave, what is reverse for normal H people is actually low-low for me, and I keep creeping up on the car ahead. I finally go back inside and ask for help. The man behind the counter comes out to show me, and I learn that I also have to push the stick down at the same time to get over and down to R. Ohh, I say, thanks! I get back to the yards with no one the wiser.

We work six days a week and when the loadings seem to get behind, we are asked to come in on a Sunday. People’s Express manager Mr. Bruno drives up in his top-of-the-line baby-blue Cadillac to supervise and help us. He’s wearing sandals and some sort of crotchless wrap-around terry loincloth, and that is all. Every time he bends over to pick up a case, his nuts hang out. Two NYPD officers arrive, they see Mr. Bruno’s outfit and look at one another. They have been sent here on a blue-law complaint: non-emergency labor is not allowed in New York City on Sunday. Mr. Bruno tries to talk them out of it, but oddly enough gets no respect; we pick up and go home.

We finally run out of empty cans, but there is still some summer left. People’s is nice enough to transfer the crew to the Continental Can Company, which I guess is some sort of sister company that shares directors with People’s. Continental Can, whose logo of three nested C’s can be found everywhere, is located in Paterson, New Jersey. Here, we are introduced to the Steam Jenny.

Part 2: My summer of Jenny

Modern pressure cleaner, used. Courtesy Auctions International

Pressure cleaner explosion, YouTube. Courtesy ices.net

A 1950s-era steam jenny burns kerosene to boil water to make steam to clean dirty trucks and whatever else. It’s dangerous, and if you don’t get burned by the steam, or knocked off your ladder by the nozzle kickback, it might blow up because you neglected some element of its care and feeding. Attention, attention must be paid to such a machine; this is drummed into our heads over and over by a wizened yard worker who seems genuinely afraid of the thing. Jeez, we get it, enough! Maybe he’s seen some steam-jenny carnage in his day.

We train by using the jenny to blast steam up and down the sides of a particularly dirty trailer; we use a housepainter’s ladder to get on top and clean there too. The company finds enough jenny work for us to last out the summer; we are careful, and somehow we survive.

From Google, top answer to steam jenny safety tips

People also ask

Can a pressure washer cut your finger off?

Because he received near immediate treatment at the emergency room he was able to keep his index finger, although some of its function was lost. It doesn’t matter if the fluid is water, grease or paint – all can cause permanent damage and even amputation when injected at high pressure.

Through the summer, we have been paid as grown men; we even get time-and-a-half for overtime. Those big paychecks spoil me for going back to school: why go back to pointless boredom when I can be earning good money instead? I don’t attend school very much during my senior year, and I drop out towards the end. I do stop in to pick up my yearbook, though, and years later I have an observant visitor who wonders why no one ever signed it. That’s a long story, I say.

2018-07-182024-06-30

Roadside memorial

There’s a tree here in town just where the road starts a gentle curve to the left. It still has a scar from a drunk driver crashing into it 50 years ago. The car was packed with high school kids headed from one graduation party to the next. Some were killed, the rest injured. I didn’t know about the accident until I drove past years later with someone who had been in that class. She pointed out the tree and told me the driver’s name. He survived, and it turns out I know him. When I see him in town now, I try to avoid him.

There is no memorial at the spot, maybe there never was. The accident happened in the 1960s, and I don’t recall ever seeing any roadside memorials anywhere back then.

I like the idea of roadside memorials. Families and survivors usually place them near, or attach them to, any fixed object involved. They cause passers-by to think about how the memorial came to be, and in my opinion they probably save lives. It’s not always drunk driving that leads to roadside memorials, sometimes it’s just inattention or stupidity. Someone wrote a letter to the editor calling for all trees to be removed from the median of the Garden State Parkway, because people kept running into them and getting killed.

Some people don’t like the memorials because they can be tacky and garish. There’s a telephone pole across town that commemorates a more recent fatal accident. It’s covered with ribbons, photos and cheap plastic flowers. It’s directly across the street from someone’s house, and I know I wouldn’t want to see that out my front window every day.

The memorial I remember best wasn’t meant to be a memorial at all, it was simply a wrecked car put on display as a caution to young soldiers on my army post. The accident left the car mangled and lying on its roof, and it took a while to wrench it open and free the survivors.

Someone at headquarters had the idea of leaving the car on its roof and flatbedding it onto the post as an exhibit. There was a small rise just past the entrance, and the car was installed there, still on its roof, almost like an art exhibit, and allowed to ripen in the summer heat.

Over the next weeks, every soldier on the post was marched over to view the wreckage. Our NCOs made sure we got close enough to get a good look. In the silence as we reacted, we could hear flies, hundreds of them, buzzing around inside the car, attracted to the blood and vomit still pooled on the headliner. I don’t think anyone who saw and smelled that car will ever forget it.

Wear your seatbelts, kids. And don’t drive drunk.

These photos are from Bruce Wicks’ flickr album Roadside Memorials . There are over three hundred so far.

2018-08-082024-07-10

Among the bungalows

Bungalow colony, unknown artist. Courtesy merry3mnbpostcards, ebay.com

At its peak, the New Jersey resort town of Mount Freedom had eleven hotels and over 40 bungalow colonies. I wish I had better pictures, but the Catskills seem to have gotten all the photographer love.

I had a wholesale baked-goods route selling pastry and such, similar to what Entenmann’s sells today. My two customers in Mount Freedom, Max Shiffman and Hesh Steinberg, owned competing grocery stores about a mile apart.

Deserted colony, 2007, courtesy Carolyn via flickr.com

Max was the more enterprising of the two, bringing his wares direct to the customers. He filled his Volkswagen bus with baked goods, coffee, eggs, laundry soap and anything else he thought vacationers might need, and circulated through the colonies. On Friday morning I would leave a double or triple order with Max – weekend sales were brisk because all the hard-working fathers came down from the city to visit their families. Dugan products were kosher, so that helped too.

The 1999 film ‘A Walk On The Moon’ features life in a similar colony in the Catskills. We can consider Max a counterpart to the film’s Viggo Mortensen “Blouse Man” character. While Max sells pies and cakes to vacationing Holocaust survivors, Blouse Man’s truck is fitted out as a general store where he sells sexy blouses to frustrated housewives like Diane Lane.

Max had a wife who watched the store while he was out on his rounds, but Hesh did not, so Hesh’s business was limited to walk-in trade from the nearby bungalows. A while back I wrote about a memorable experience I had at Hesh’s when I accidentally disrupted a transaction.

With the construction of the Garden State Parkway came easy access to the Jersey shore and its nearby communities, and Mount Freedom began to fall out of favor as a vacation spot. The bungalows, built for occupancy only between May and September, were eventually classified as substandard housing and demolished, leaving only fond memories.

2018-08-082024-07-05

Transaction

In the 1960s, the Morris County resort town of Mount Freedom was booming. The town catered to Jewish clientele from New York and Brooklyn, many of them post-war refugees from Europe. The town competed with the Catskills’ “Borscht Belt”, with a half-dozen hotels and more than 40 bungalow colonies.

I had a wholesale route for Dugan’s Bakery. One of my customers was Hesh Steinberg, who owned a grocery store convenient to the bungalows.

One day as I walk into Hesh’s to get his order, I see that he is concluding a sale to a dark-haired young woman. Because Orthodox Jews may not have physical contact with the opposite sex unless they are married, Hesh will deliver any change by dropping it into her palm.

Wearing my company’s gray uniform, I step next to her to wait my turn.

She sees that I see the numbers on her outstretched arm and snatches her hand back. Her change rolls on the counter.

2018-08-112024-07-15

Guns N’ Riots

In The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Clint Eastwood says to Eli Wallach: “There are those of us with guns, and those who dig. You dig.”

When we first were married, Mimi and I lived on Pennsylvania Avenue in Newark. After a year or two, we moved to Highland Avenue, in the North Ward, near Branch Brook Park and closer to my job. The neighborhood was safe, but I wanted to have a gun. Actually, I had always wanted to have a gun, just on general principles.

One day, an ad in Popular Mechanics caught my eye: A .22 caliber 9-shot revolver, capable of firing the more powerful .22 LR long rifle cartridge, was available by mail for something like 30 or 40 dollars.

There was a catch, however: New Jersey residents needed a purchase permit signed by their local police department. Police departments don’t really want private citizens to have guns, and, considering the social problems of the day, I knew I’d be unlikely to get a permit from Newark.

Paperwork
To keep my car insurance down, I was using my mother’s address in Orange on my registration and driver’s license. I asked the obvious question, she said fine with her, and I filled out the application and took it to Orange police headquarters. In the “Purpose” section, I put “target practice” rather than “home defense”, which in New Jersey is a frowned-upon justification and less likely of approval. I also provided the names of two non-related character witnesses.

Progress was slow. I stopped at police headquarters every two weeks or so to ask about my application, which needed the chief’s signature. Each time, they told me “It’s on his desk”, and indicated a pile of paperwork literally on one corner of his desk. Finally, out of exasperation, when no one was looking I walked into the chief’s office and started leafing through the pile to see if my application was there. One of the cops saw me and asked what the hell I thought I was doing. I explained, and got escorted out of the building. But two weeks later, my permit came in the mail.

I sent for the gun, received it, bought some ammo, and spent an afternoon at the range. Satisfied, I cleaned it and put it away.

Similar H&R Model 949, courtesy gunsinternational.com

A neighborhood commotion
One evening there was shouting on the street in front of my house. I looked out and saw my neighbors gathered in a loose circle. At first I thought they were watching a fistfight, but they were watching one guy in his twenties menace another one with a hunting knife. The guy being threatened would edge away a bit around the circle, the guy with the knife would follow, always a few feet away, swinging the knife back and forth and thrusting it menacingly.

Remember, I was a young guy myself then, and I too was prone to doing stupid young-guy things. It seemed as though someone was going to get stabbed or worse, so I brought my shiny new gun out on the porch, fired a shot into the air, and yelled “break it up” or some similar nonsense. The circle did break up, but the guy with the knife came over to my bottom step and stood there looking like he wanted to come up and use it on me instead. I cocked the gun, making what seemed to be a very loud click, and leveled it at his chest. We stared at each other for a few seconds, then he walked away. Thank God he didn’t start up those steps, because I would have shot him dead for sure and probably gone to jail for it. We were both lucky.

So anyway. I went back inside and the cops came, but they didn’t come to my house. I found out later they only wanted to know who had the gun, nothing about the fight. My neighbors were the greatest: nobody saw nuthin’. I also found out that the fight started because knife guy thought unarmed guy had been tapping his wife.

I think my bullet ended up in Branch Brook Park, or maybe on the roof of Barringer High. Don’t shoot into the air, kids. Also, mind your own business.

Early unrest
Problems were developing in the neighborhood even before the riots. A local figure named Tony Imperiale formed the North Ward Citizens Committee to protect the neighborhood from “bad elements” and future looters. Committee members in fatigues made regular foot patrols, although I never saw one on my street. The committee was said to have an armored car and a helicopter.

When I came home one afternoon, my wife told me that while out with the baby-stroller she was accosted by four teenage girls. She was upset and afraid she wouldn’t be able to protect our children.

Coming home another day, I saw something remarkable – a mounted policeman on Park Avenue’s median strip, trying to control his horse and simultaneously swing his nightstick hard enough to discourage the girl attached to his leg and trying to pull him off.

A long-brewing fight between blacks and Italians broke out in the Barringer cafeteria and spilled onto the grounds. This was not a food fight, it was a cutlery fight, with knives and forks and trays, and the police arrived in force. Barringer was located one block before my street on the way home, and I saw the police presence and wondered what was going on. I learned something important that day – if you’re dressed for the part, you can go anywhere. I was still wearing the Columbo–style trench coat I usually wore to programming school when I walked over to have a look, fully expecting to be shooed away when I got too close. A clutch of detectives nodded as I walked past them, and I realized they think I’m a cop, too. (Another simple trick to go places you don’t belong involves carrying a clipboard.)

1967 riots
By the summer of 1967, I was working nights at the A&P warehouse and going to school during the day. When rioting broke out in July, the Watts riots of two summers earlier were still fresh in everyone’s mind, and we knew how bad it could get.

The next day, I drove my wife and sons to the shore to stay with her kind and generous Aunt Peg for the duration. When I got back that night, I took a quick drive around the neighborhood and saw jeeps and personnel carriers on Bloomfield Avenue, and armed National Guardsmen posted on street corners. After I parked, I took a careful look around before I got out and went inside. So far, all quiet in the North Ward.

I still had the attaché case I bought as a prop for my unhappy career selling mutual funds, and I began taking the gun to work and to school.

One night at the warehouse we were sitting out front taking a break, when racing down Frelinghuysen Avenue came a state police car, no lights, windows bristling with rifle barrels. A moment later there was a burst of gunfire, followed by “Halt!”

There was a lot of pointless arson. One night a warehouse worker ran up to the office, yelled “I have to go home, they’re trying to burn my house down” and continued out the door. He was talking about his apartment building.

Fixed bayonets on Springfield Avenue, July 14, 1967. Courtesy NY Times

1968 MLK disturbances
Next year, the assassination of Martin Luther King sparked riots in over a hundred cities. Fortunately, Newark was not one of them. We had only “disturbances”, including arson and heavy vandalism. Ultimately, nothing came to our end of town, but we remained anxious and alert.

Four days after Dr. King was killed, I went into New York City for a job interview, and saw painted on the wooden panels surrounding a building under construction, “DA KINK IS DEAD”. The pure evil and just plain meanness of that always stuck with me.

After I got the job and started riding the subway, I switched from my bulky attaché case to an un-jostle-able leather portfolio, basically a piece of black cowhide folded in half with a zipper.

Later that year there was some national news, I don’t remember what, that created an expectation of violence, and for a few days I carried the gun in my portfolio. One morning on the train to New York as I walked down the aisle looking for a seat, I noticed a black girl looking at me and smiling one of the friendliest smiles I’ve ever seen. I smiled back, and as I passed her she said “Cool, baby.”

After I took a seat, I realized the gun barrel had pushed through the portfolio zipper and was sticking out the front.

She knew who the sheriff was on that train.

2018-08-182024-07-15

Small fortune

Did I ever tell you about the time I was on a quiz show?

I was the newest employee at my job, so I got last pick of vacation dates. I ended up with the third and fourth week of November. The weather was still pretty good, and Mimi and I took day trips into New York City – seeing a play, hitting the museums, wandering around taking in the sights while favoring the sights that were free. When we got to Rockefeller Plaza, we took the tour of NBC’s Radio City Studios, where we saw a taping of the game show Play Your Hunch. I’ll let Mark Evanier’s “TV relic” site, oldtvtickets.com (worth a visit) explain how the show worked. Thanks, Mark.

“Merv Griffin hosted for most of the run, and the show was pretty simple. Two teams of contestants (usually husband-wife) would be shown little puzzles, usually involving three people coming out on stage or three objects being unveiled. The correct answer to the question would be one of the three choices, which were labelled X, Y and Z. If you guessed right, you got points. That was it.”

After the taping, they invited anyone who wanted to be on the show and would be in town the next week to stick around. The next week was Thanksgiving, so not too many people stayed. Our interviewer liked us, and said to come back ready to play on Monday.

The show was broadcast in color, and male contestants were “strongly encouraged” to wear blue shirts, not white, because white sometimes confused early color cameras. I didn’t own a blue shirt, so before we left the building we visited the upscale shoppes on the first level. A camera-ready light-blue shirt was $30, about $25 more than I was used to paying, but we saw it as an investment.

On Monday, we chatted with the other contestants in the hour or so before the show. The first couple we would play against were a pleasant brother and sister from Australia, traveling the world as a gift from their father.

Another pair of contestants was a country clodhopper and his wife, in the city for the first time. They had tickets for the musical Purlie Victorious, where “Purlie” is the lead character, and the wife was quite excited. Her husband kept calling it “PURELY Victorious”, what a rube. I mean, I’m from New Jersey, so I don’t have anything to brag about, but at least I crack a newspaper.

Before the show, Mimi and I got to meet some of the celebrities who would present the “problems”, as the show’s puzzles/games were called. Among them was Mitch Miller, who was later instantly recognized by our one-year-old watching at home (“Mehh Mrrrr!”, according to his grandmother). We also met Minnie Pearl of the price-tagged bonnet (“Howw-deeee!”), and shy science teacher “Mister Peepers” Wally Cox, who seemed to share a mutual attraction with Mimi.

As the show begins, host Merv chats a bit with the contestants. I’m not good at small talk, but Mimi covers for me nicely. I think Merv made a little dig about our chat imbalance, but maybe I’m too sensitive.

The contestants played their hunches, solving puzzles such as which of three students crossing the stage wearing graduation robes and oversized placards identifying them as student X, Y, or Z is transporting a stack of books between his knees. Yes, it was dumb.

Wally secret-signaled Mimi that the Swedish word “blyertspenna”, a word he enjoyed repeating, meant “pencil”, so we won that round.

We sailed along pretty well, but all good things must come to an end, and on the third day we were defeated by “Purely Victorious” and his smarter wife.

In the two years before Play Your Hunch first went on the air, a number of scandals revealed that some game shows were rigged.

The revelations eroded public trust and ended an era of prizes that for some shows could exceed $100,000. Play Your Hunch was never intended to be a big-money show, and for our run we took home $375, about four months’ apartment rent, so not too shabby.

No one foresaw the Game Show Network getting rich off reruns of old quiz shows, so the shows often reused their tapes, writing over earlier episodes again and again – what a loss. A few Play Your Hunch episodes have survived, making it to YouTube or a DVD collection, but apparently none of the ones we starred in. I recently spent some time on YouTube looking so you wouldn’t have to, and saw:

• Three pretty young women wearing knee-length puffy dresses take the stage, and the puzzle is announced:

“ONE OF THESE WOMEN” (you have my attention)
“ISN’T” (isn’t what?)
“WEARING ANY” (I am giddy, oh please please please)
“STOCKINGS” (feh, what a disappointment)

After someone hunches a hunch, the women, one at a time, pull a pinch of stocking away from shapely calves, but one of them cannot, BECAUSE SHE ISN’T WEARING ANY.

• I get a twinge of nostalgia when on another show I see a model dangle as a prize my favorite piece of 1960s techno-candy, the “Polaroid Highlander Model 80A Instant Camera”.

• On another episode, Merv flirts outrageously with the one songwriter out of three who wrote that year’s big Elvis hit.

“As Seen on TV”

• We were seen by my Dugan’s Bakery customer Mr. Bryan, who owned a grocery store where routes 46 and 10 intersect, at Ledgewood Circle in far-off Succasunna, New Jersey.

• Tony Imperiale, a neighbor who formed the North Ward Citizens Committee to protect our section of Newark from “bad elements” and future looters, shouted “I saw you! I saw you!” and waved madly from behind the fish counter at Food Fair.

• Jack Moore, a cousin on my father’s side who jumped into Lake Mohawk to save three-year-old me after I fell off the dock, called from Texas to congratulate us and say we looked great.

We have more friends looking out for us than we realize.

2018-09-032024-07-22

Pep talk

In the tiled passageways connecting New York City subway lines are colorful posters advertising businesses and products. One endorses The New School, a progressive university in Manhattan with a goal of supporting continuing education. Above a lush Gauguin painting, it counsels “IT’S NOT TOO LATE”, and reminds commuters that “At 35, Paul Gauguin was a stockbroker.” In the margin, someone has written “At 35, Mozart was dead.”

2018-09-142024-08-13

Valhalla

On one of the patriotic holidays, I decide to visit the grave of Gordon Gilchrest, my senior vice president when I worked at the Continental Insurance/Insco data center in Neptune. The Find-A-Grave website has lied to me; when I arrive at the advertised cemetery, he’s not there. I learn that he was cremated there, but his ashes were relocated by his family to Valhalla, New York. A helpful woman at the Kensico Cemetery there sends me scrupulous directions, along with a plot map. Maybe I’ll take a ride up to Westchester County this fall.

Rather than a “father figure”, Gordon always seemed to me more like a grandfather figure. Whenever I was called to his office to discuss some company business, we generally spent an extra 20 minutes covering his latest round of golf. He knew that I had been a caddie as a youth, but not for how long, and assumed incorrectly I had something beyond the most rudimentary knowledge of the game,

I learned very little about golf as a caddie, faking my way around the course carrying bags for leathery old ladies, and had never played a round myself. With Gordon, mostly I just listened to his play-by-play (“The 13th there is a dogleg left…”) and nodded as he broke open his second pack of Luckys that day.

Gordon had been in the Marines, fighting in the Pacific as a young second lieutenant. He and his platoon had fought their way through the Japanese defenses of several “stepping-stone” islands, taking bloody losses. He hated the Japanese, and years later if we had visitors from Continental’s Tokyo office or from a Japanese company trying to sell us some computer gear, he made sure to be out of the office that day.

One day there was a mix-up, and a delegation from the Tokyo office arrived in the executive suite without anyone having warned Gordon. During the introductions and pleasantries, one young visitor asked “Have you ever been to Japan, Gordon?” Gordon simply answered “yes”, and after a few minutes left the building.

2018-09-142024-08-06

Gordon and the party line

Gordon, my boss’s boss at Continental Insurance, was a Scotsman, and he met the Scottish stereotype for thriftiness. In addition to leasing our computers, he oversaw the company’s phone services, including those of the computer room and branch offices, and paid the bills. He was a talented manager of the company’s money, and of his own.

He lived in Brielle, an upscale town at the Jersey Shore. One day he told me he had asked the phone company to set up his home service as an old-fashioned party line, getting a monthly discount.

I knew how party lines worked from visiting my uncle’s farm as a kid in the 1940s. A single line, a length of wire, was shared with several neighbors. Each neighbor had their own unique incoming ring code, such as two longs and three shorts.

When an incoming call arrived, the code rang on every phone on the line. If it was your code, you answered. If it wasn’t, and you were nosy, you could quietly listen in. Anyone else on the party line could listen in, too.

To make a call, you picked up the phone and hoped to hear the operator say “Number, please.” If instead you heard a neighbor talking, you tried again later.

I didn’t understand why Gordon would want to put up with all that uncertainty just to save a few dollars. He explained that no one else in Brielle would ever want to be on a party line, so for him it was a private line, at a reduced price. Gordon was always one step ahead.

2018-09-142024-07-21

Red Scare

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“Study Chairman Mao’s writings, follow his teachings and act according to his instructions.” — preface by Lin Piao

In 1967, Mimi asked her sister to babysit and we took a ride to Montreal to visit that year’s World’s Fair, also known as Expo 67. As we wandered through the different countries’ pavilions, we came to a table loaded with stacks of the first English translation of Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book. I instantly wanted my own copy of that much-reviled and radical book, partly out of curiosity but mainly because I didn’t think I was supposed to have one – what was the big mystery? The Chinese ladies staffing the table happily took my fifty cents, and the Cold War ended. Well, not quite yet.

Mimi was not comfortable with my purchase, and, referring to the authorities we’d have to face when we crossed the border back into the United States, worried “What if they find it?” I didn’t expect I’d have to appear before the House Un-American Activities Committee if they did find it, but back in 1967, who knew? Before we started home, I hid it in the trunk of the car, under our literal dirty laundry.

I left the book on my bedside table and read a little bit off and on; it was interesting in parts but kind of a slog. I wonder what my brother would have thought, given that he had been an infantryman fighting in Korea when the Red Chinese started streaming across the border to reinforce the North.

Soviet pavilion, courtesy westland.net,
more at westland.net/expo67/map-docs/ussr.htm

Researching pictures for this post, I was surprised to find that the People’s Republic of China, mainland “Red” China, did not host a pavilion at the fair. So where did I get that book? Probably at the Soviet Union pavilion, the most popular one there. I think the Russians likely shared some of their exhibition space with their Marxist comrades. Wherever it was, the space was decorated with heroic propaganda posters exhorting the citizenry to increase production in all things.

In unrelated Expo 67 news, I remember trolling an exasperated staffer at the Bell Telephone pavilion over whether dialing the newfangled “pushbutton phone” being demonstrated was really faster than the rotary model, and if so, was that bit of speed important?

The Mao book did eventually cause a problem, I believe. My cousin Barbara lived out in southwest Jersey somewhere toward the Delaware River, so family get-togethers were seldom. However, at Barbara’s husband’s funeral Mimi and I renewed our friendship with her, and we invited her and her teenage daughters to visit us. One day they did, and after lunch, the two girls went upstairs to change for the beach.

In a few minutes, they came back down and had a quick huddle with their mother, who then made some not-very-convincing excuse to leave and the three departed, never to be heard from again. What I think happened was that while doing some normal teenage-girl snooping, they saw the Mao book on my bedside table. This is just a theory, I never shared it with my wife, but why else would they leave in such a hurry?

Anyone who isn’t scared off by now can read a dozen or so selected quotations here. See you at re-education camp!

2018-09-262024-07-15

“Five interesting facts about me for Alex”

Back when the connection from my brain to my mouse and keyboard was faster, I always took the online Jeopardy! entrance test when it came up. I think I usually passed, but they don’t tell you unless you’re selected for an audition, and I never was.

To me, the contestant-interview part of the program is usually boring; some viewers even fast-forward it. I resolved not to be fast-forwarded, and to have the required “Five interesting facts about me for Alex” ready well in advance.

They were:

Three-day winner with wife on 1961 Merv Griffin’s Play Your Hunch
Convinced my grandmother not to throw the cat out the window
Wrote worst poem ever for poetry contest, still got Honorable Mention
Played daily at abandoned US Radium plant, now a Superfund site
Captained a sailboat at age 12 by studying a how-to book

For extra credit,

Had my picture in Ebony magazine
Coined the term technoboner

2018-10-082024-08-05

Chicken chests

My wife’s sister Marg went to parochial school at Saint Columba’s, just a couple of blocks from where we lived in Newark.

Marg’s friend Sandy was as innocent and bashful as any 16-year-old Catholic school girl could be. Her mother sent her to the butchers to get chicken breasts for dinner, but she was too embarrassed to say the word “breasts”, so she asked for “chicken chests” instead.

I was barely out of my own teens then, and I loved ferrying Marg and her girlfriends back and forth from their dances and other school events. It was like having a carload of ultra-cute nieces. Besides Sandy, the regular passengers I remember were Dolores, Geraldine, Loretta and Annette.

St. Columba’s class of about 6 years earlier, the only picture I could find

There was a Barbara, too, sometimes. She lived the furthest from the school, out by Ballantine’s brewery. I’ve always been partial to the name Barbara, so she was kind of my favorite; there’s just something about that name. I never had a girlfriend named Barbara, but I did have a cousin Barbara that I liked a lot when I was kid, so maybe that’s it.

School uniform models model school uniforms!

Writing this, I could picture one other girl, but couldn’t remember her name. I knew it sounded French and that I’d recognize it if I saw it. Google led me to a site promising “Top 1000 popular baby names in 1944”, the year Marg and probably most of the other girls were born. The site was babynames.it, the ‘.it’ meaning located in Italy. I began scanning the girls’ names column, stopping at times to recall a bit of life detail floated up by a familiar name. Eventually, at 307th in popularity, there it was, “Camille”.

Camille herself wasn’t French, though, she was Italian like most of the other girls. A few years later she stayed with Marg babysitting our kids when Mimi and I drove up to Expo 67. She was sort of a favorite too, and maybe a little more sophisticated than the rest. Later, she worked at Bamberger’s and let me use her employee discount to buy stereo gear, so that was nice.

Also at the baby names site, I learned how to pronounce the newly-popular girl’s name ‘Saoirse’, as in actress Saoirse Ronan. It’s properly pronounced SEER-sha, assuming we can trust the pronunciation of an unusual Irish girl’s name to an Italian web site. SEER-sha does sound like the way I’ve heard it, though.

I was working at the Foodland store in Elizabeth then, and companies like Heinz pickles and Sta-Puf fabric softener were always competing to get more shelf space for their products, usually by gifting store management with some thing of minor value. At Foodland, the definition of “management” was loose, extending all the way down to the bookkeeper, me.

One company tried to curry Foodland favor with tickets to a concert by Bobby Darin, the teen heartthrob of the day — ‘Dream Lover’, ‘Beyond the Sea’, lots more. No one else was interested in going, so I collected their tickets and turned them over to Marg to pass along. I provided concert transportation too, but didn’t go inside.

Ball pen and record, a $2.78 value for only $1.39. Courtesy popsike.com vinyl records

One summer Mimi and I rented a house up at Lake Hopatcong for two weeks. I had just changed jobs, so I didn’t have enough seniority to take my vacation during the summer. I commuted daily from the lake to Newark on I-80, not finished yet but hosting light traffic. There were no police assigned to the stretch yet, so you could go as fast as you thought you’d still be able to stop for a deer, if that’s clear. Fortunately I never saw any deer; I think the new road and its shoulders were so wide the deer were afraid to venture into all that open space.

The house was right on the lake and we had lots of room, so Marg invited her girlfriends to stay, visiting in shifts. They were good kids, and we loved having them around.

2018-10-082024-07-22

Pennsylvania Avenue

After Mimi and I were married, we lived with her sister and mother on Pennsylvania Avenue in Newark. Her sister was about 16, and as she walked to school, boys in passing cars would call out to each other “Mira! Mira!”.

Mimi took the bus to work every day, at the Mega Foods store in Scotch Plains where she was the bookkeeper. I picked her up every night, and that’s where we bought our weekly groceries. A hundred dollars’ worth of groceries filled the trunk and half the back seat.

At the end of Pennsylvania Avenue was small, triangular Lincoln Park. President Kennedy’s motorcade was once rerouted past it to counter a threat about traveling on Broad Street. Mimi didn’t know Kennedy was in town that day, but she and our 3-year-old got to see him and wave as he went by.

A little-noted Lincoln Park event months earlier was a battle between blacks and Puerto Ricans. During the fighting, park benches were disassembled and their slats used as lances and clubs. When I saw the fighting from a block away, I thought to myself, “Boy, I’m glad I’m not involved.” The police eventually arrived and broke it up. Helping to keep the city’s lid on, the newspapers made no mention of the event.

We seldom overslept on holidays, because if there was a parade involved the sections formed up in front of our house before moving to the main route on Broad Street. We shared our porch steps with excited band families and early parade-goers.

Mimi and I went to the Mosque Theater, now Newark Symphony Hall, to hear Nina Simone. We were led to the balcony and seated there with the other white people, 20 or 30 of us. We didn’t care, she was fantastic.

Mimi has read about a cooling summer drink called “The Pimm’s Cup” which requires 3/4 cup of Pimm’s #1 liqueur. She asks me to pick up a bottle, and next day on my way home I stop at the S. Klein On The Square department store, which has a liquor department. I ask the help for a bottle of “Pimm’s Cup”, having to repeat myself twice. They chortle, this is a new one on them, and they keep calling back and forth “Pimp’s Cup, Pimp’s Cup” until they locate one.

There was a small, smoky fire in the rooming house across the street. Even before the fire trucks arrived, the residents were outside on folding chairs, watching a ballgame on their rabbit-eared TV, an extension cord plugged into the vestibule of the church next door.

Our neighbor dies and while the family is at the funeral his house is robbed. The neighborhood is changing.

2018-10-122024-07-15

Highland Avenue and its Saint

San Geraldo leaving St. Lucy’s church to greet the expectant crowd

Moving in
When Pennsylvania Avenue started going downhill, Mimi and I found an apartment in a two-family house in a nicer part of town, Highland Avenue in Newark’s North Ward. It was near Branch Brook Park and close to my job. For a few weeks before we moved in, I stopped by for a couple hours every day on my way home, painting and putting up wallpaper. The owners, Fred and Evelyn, lived in the upstairs apartment and were happy to see the downstairs looking nice again. Our rent was very reasonable, only $90 a month. A few years later, they raised it, apologetically, to $95.

The neighborhood
With some exceptions, our neighborhood was Italian, from the family-friendly bar at one end of the block to Celentano’s latticini food store and pasta works at the other. A fancy Italian bakery was a few blocks west on Bloomfield Avenue; small and casual Vesuvio’s restaurant was a half block east. A tiny grocery store, John’s, was in the middle of our block, two steps down into what was once someone’s cellar. On the narrow shelves along one wall, there was just enough room for four units of any item you might need to make a meal or do a load of laundry. After you left, John would go into the back room and restock the shelf.

One exception to the mostly-Italian rule lived a few doors down, an Irish gent so pale that our new neighbor Josie referred to him as Mozzarella Face. My family and I were also exceptions to the rule, the worst kind, new arrivals to the neighborhood. When the window of a garage behind our back fence had a rock thrown through it, the owner implied that our five-year-old was responsible, saying “There was never any trouble in this neighborhood until your kind moved in.” I asked my son about it later. He didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, but he finally told me who threw the rock. I was happy to tell the garage owner that she might want to talk to little Carlo Parisi, a budding sociopath from the other end of the block.

The Saint
It’s true – you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone. One day we heard the sound of a brass band, and a religious procession began making its way down our cobblestone street. If you’ve watched the Sicilian funeral procession that opens Godfather II, you know what they sounded like. Our landlady Evelyn ran downstairs to announce “The Saint is coming!” and asked “Do you have your money ready!?” Mimi and I just looked at each other. By nature, I am a suspicious type, and I asked why we needed money. She said “For the Saint! To put on the Saint!”, as though it was the dumbest question she’d ever heard. Mimi was brought up Catholic, but this was a new one on her too, and we looked at each other again. Evelyn said “You have to, it’s bad luck if you don’t!”

So we located some cash and stepped outside. I hate making another Godfather comparison, but if you’ve seen the feast day procession in Godfather II during which Don Fanucci meets his end, you’ve seen the feast day procession of Saint Gerard too, Saint Gerard’s on a smaller scale of course. When the procession paused for a moment, someone gave us pins and we pinned our offering to the statue of Saint Gerard Majella, patron saint of motherhood, pregnancy, and those trying to conceive.

Summer fun
During the summer, portable kiddie rides like the Whip and the Ferris Wheel came by and parked for a few hours. Looking at the pictures now, the rides look pretty tame, but the smaller kids were crazy about them. A Good Humor or Mr. Softee ice cream truck usually tagged along.

Portable Ferris wheel on a day off. Courtesy morfar.info

For personal fun, Fred made radio-controlled airplanes in his cellar workshop, big buzzy ones with a four-foot wingspan. I went flying with him once out in the boondocks. It was fun, but I think he was disappointed that I wasn’t interested in taking it up as a hobby myself.

Raw beef tripe, courtesy ruthatkins.wordpress.com

The North Ward seemed to be hosting the last hurrah of the horse and wagon. A wagon carrying fresh, green produce clopped down the street regularly, and every Friday a peddler of tripe, a local favorite, came by shouting “a-tree-po! a-tree-po!”. For anyone wondering, tripe is the stomach lining of a cow. I have not tried it. Occasionally the ragman’s sad wagon came by, with him calling out his offer to buy rags and old clothes.

I was making good money on my sales route, and we bought a window air conditioner, one of the first on the block. I put strips of red reflective tape on the sides so no one coming up the alley after dark would walk into it. With Fred’s blessing, I hired an electrician to add another circuit to our box downstairs. Under the air conditioner’s friendly hum, on Memorial Day 1964, Mimi and I made another baby.

Toward the end
The father who was treasurer of our son’s Cub Scout pack skipped town with the proceeds of a candy sale they held to finance a trip. I was elected the new treasurer. When I called Scout headquarters to ask what the Scouts could do about the stolen money, basically they said “Tough”, and that the kids were out of luck. So, the kids did not get to go on their trip, and justice was not served. I regret now that I didn’t threaten to notify the newspapers; that would have made them step up, I’m sure. Of course, nowadays the Scouts have bigger embarrassments to worry about.

A young Hispanic couple moved into the second floor of the building across the street. Their electricity wasn’t on yet, but I could see generally what was going on. She was leaning with folded arms on the windowsill, watching traffic. He stepped up behind her, flipped her dress over her back and together they christened their new apartment. I didn’t watch all of it, but it was sweet. May their first child be a masculine child.

While still on Highland Avenue, I finished computer school and got my first programming job, at Condé Nast Publications in New York City. Looking back, Condé was the best place I ever worked. I loved working there, but I didn’t love getting there — if it weren’t for the commute, I probably would have stayed there until they carried me out. Instead, I took a programming job at Hess Oil in Woodbridge, with the goal of eventually moving my family to the shore.

Moving out
While I worked at Hess, we took the next step. We found a winter rental at the shore and made it our base while we looked for what optimistic people call their “Forever Home”.

Our Newark neighbors, including Mozzarella Face, whose real name was Tom, helped us load the U-Haul.

I began commuting from the shore to Hess, 40 minutes each way, always keeping an eye out for a job closer to home.

Saint Lucy’s Church, home to the National Shrine of Saint Gerard Majella

2018-10-172024-07-21

So far away

Doesn’t anybody stay in one place anymore
It would be so fine to see your face at my door
++++++++ – Carole King

In a moment of nostalgia, I look on Google Earth for the Continental Insurance data center in Neptune where I worked 35 years ago. The once starkly modern three-story building looks abandoned, its parking lots empty and overgrown. Trying to find an earlier view with any signs of life, I have to go back in the timeline more than twelve years.

I drive past the building to get a closer look, and see that giant demolition machines have begun chewing away at it. Already one corner of the building has been torn away – the third-floor executive offices are now just a ragged hole and a pile of broken concrete. Gone too is my up-and-comer, double-size cubicle location in the corner of the floor below. I think of my lost friends and moving myself and my family around the country chasing the next, better job.

All lost in the moves, me, all, all lost in the moves.

Even moving to another town, let alone another state, we lose something. It’s too bad we can’t all stay and live and love where we were born and not have all this loss.

2018-11-012024-07-26

Suicide by whiskey

While doing family tree research, I ran across a file that listed the cause of death and other details for 15,339 burials in the Wilkes-Barre, PA city cemetery. They date from the mid-1800s up to about 1960, when they slow down and stop, probably because of computers. Causes include such as “dropsy”, “fits”, “powder mill explosion” and “suicide by whisky”.

Here is what people were dying of back then, with the count for each cause. Many of these 2,300+ causes are duplicates except for small spelling or stylistic differences. I didn’t try to fix anything. When there was only one instance of a particular cause, I left the count blank to avoid clutter.

Trigger warning: some of these will make you very sad.

count		cause of death
11		?
		? & confinement 3
		2 gsws in back of head: murder investigation
		35 yrs.
		abb appendix
		abcess
		abcess of limbs
		abcess of stomach
		abcess on brain
		abdominal aorta
		abdominal cancer
		abdominal tuberculosis
		abdominal tumor
		abnormal aorta
		abortion
7		abscess
		abscess & died in hospital
		abscess in foot
		abscess in the head
		abscess inside
4		abscess of brain
		abscess of lob.
		abscess of lung
		abscess of lungs
		abscess on head
		abscess on lung
4		absess
		absess & sore on leg
		absess in head
		absess of bowel
		absess of bowels
		absess of liver
		absess of stomach
84		accident
		accident - fractured skull
		accident crushed head
		accident dislocation vertebrae
		accident due to burns
9		accident in mines
		accident on cars
		accident on r. r.
		accident on railroad
		accident swallowing meat
		accident with street car
		accident: fell in stone quarry
		accident; collapse of the bennett building
		accident; struck by car june 14th
17		accidental
		accidental (jumped from window-suicide)
2		accidental burns
		accidental choking
		accidental death: mine explosion
		accidental drowing
2		accidental drowning
		accidental drowning in susquehanna river
		accidental electrocution
2		accidental fall
		accidental fall of rock
		accidental gun shot wound to the heart
		accidental hanging while trying to get in window
		accidental r/r
2		accidental shooting
		accidentally run over by street car in miner's mills
		accidently killed
		accidently run over in mines
		accidently shot
		accidently shot by brother at lake nuangola
		accidently shot by his brother william while hunting at fox hill
		acdinental fall
		acute aedema larynx
		acute aftersis myocardial infection
		acute albuminuria
9		acute alcoholism
2		acute appendicitis
4		acute brights disease
6		acute bronchitis
5		acute cardiac dilatation
		acute cardiac dilation
		acute cardiac dilatitis
		acute cardiac failure
		acute cardiac insufficiency
		acute cardio failure
		acute cerebral vascular accident
		acute circulatory failure
		acute congenital heart failure
2		acute coronary occlusion
		acute coronary thrombosis
11		acute dilatation of heart
		acute dilation of heart
2		acute dilitation
		acute dilitation of heart
2		acute dysentery
2		acute endocarditis
		acute endoracditis
		acute enteritis
		acute erysipelas
		acute exaculation of a chronic alchoholism
		acute gas
		acute gastio intestinal infection
		acute gastriitis
5		acute gastritis
		acute gastro enteritis
2		acute heart disease
6		acute heart failure
		acute hemorrhagic gastritis
		acute hepatitus
		acute hydrocefalus
		acute hydrocephalis
		acute ileo colitis
5		acute indigestion
		acute indo carditis
		acute intestinal obstruction
2		acute laryngitis
3		acute meningitis
		acute mi
		acute myocardial infarction
		acute myocardial infection
		acute myocardial insufficiency
		acute myocardio infection
6		acute myocarditis
		acute myocarditis infection
15		acute nephritis
		acute nephritis after scarlet fever
		acute occlusion
		acute pancarditis
2		acute pericarditis
2		acute peritonitis
		acute peutonitia
2		acute pneumonia
		acute pulmonary edema
		acute pulmonary hemorrhage
		acute pulmonary tuberculosis
		acute sinusitis
		acute tonsilitis
2		acute tuberculosis
		addisons disease
		addison's disease
		adema
		adema of lung & heart disease
		adenitis
		advanced bright's
		aedema gottidis
3		aedema of lungs
		aedemia
		aeute nephritis
		affection of brain
5		ague
		albumanic
		alcholism
		alcohilic stimulant
		alcohol poisoning
		alcohol toxemia
		alcoholic neuritis
3		alcoholism
		alectesis
		alectises
14		amputation
		amputation; arm taken off by cars.
		amputation; falling under cars
10		anemia
		anemia & general debility
		anemia pectoris - acute indigestion
		aneurysm
		aneurysm of aorta
		angina pectoria
9		angina pectoris
		anthososilicoies
		anthra sclerosis
		anthracosis
		anthrasicicosis
		anthristosis
		anthro sclerosis
		anthrocosis
		antra coliscosis
		aoatetis
		aorta regurgitation
		aortic aneurism
		aortic insufficiencies
		aortic insufficiency
		aortic obstruction
3		aortic regurgitation
2		apendicitis
		apoplegy
		apoplely
		apopletic fits
		apoplexa
124		apoplexy
		apoplexy & dropsy
		apoplexy & paralysis
		apoplexy and paralysis
12		appendicitis
		appoplexy
		appoplictic stroke
		apuosis
		arrest.
		arsenic poison
		artereo sclerosis
		arteri sclerotic heart
		arteria selerocis
8		arterial sclerosis
		arterial sclerosis heart disease
		arterial sclerotic heart disease
		arterio claratic heart disease
		arterio occlusion
2		arterio schlerosis
		arterio schlerosis heart disease
		arterio scleroris
28		arterio sclerosis
3		arterio sclerosis heart failure
		arterio sclerosos
		arterio sclorosis
10		arteriosclerosis
		arteriosclerosis heart
		arteriosclerosis heart failure
		arteriosclerotic heart
		arteriosclerotic heart disease
2		artero sclerosis
		artery selerocis
		artherio sclerosis
		arthritis deformities
		arthrosclerosis
2		ascuhd
		ascvd
		ascvhd
		ashd
		ashd (heart disease)
		ashma
15		asphyxia
		asphyxiated by gas
5		asphyxiation
		aspiration pneumonia
		aspirin poisoning
		assault
		asthema
2		asthemia
67		asthma
2		asthma & dropsy
		asthma and fits
		asthma and heart disease
		asthma and stomach trouble
		asthma cardiac
		asthma; general debility
		ataxia
		atedectosis
2		atelactasis
		atelactasis pulmonalis
		atelectasis
		atelectasis pulmonalis
2		atelectosis
		atelectosis pulmonosis
		atelectrosis
		ateledosis
		ateloctysis of left lung
		atelsctrosis
2		aterio selerosis
		athero sclerosis
		athesia ani vesicalis
		atolectrosis
		atrophy
		atrophy of liver
13		auto accident
		auto accident - fractured skull
		autopsy requested
		axlectulis
		azotemia
3		baby sore mouth
		bilateral p
		bilious
2		bilious colic
6		bilious fever
		bilious fever & ague
		bilious intermittent fever
		biliousness
		billious colic
2		billious fever
		bite of a dog
2		black fever
		blast/explosion
2		bled to death
		bleeding
		blood aspiration trachea
5		blood poison
		blood poison and childbirth
		blood poison from popping a pimple with a pin
9		blood poisoning
		blood poisonmiong
		body found in river
		boiler explosion
		born dead
7		bowel complaint
		bowel complications
4		bowel obstruction
4		bowel trouble
3		brain abscess
		brain affliction
		brain croup
8		brain disease
		brain embolism
59		brain fever
		brain fever & inflamation of bowels
3		brain trouble
4		brain tumor
		brancho pneumonia
2		breast cancer
		bright disease
55		brights disease
29		bright's disease
		brights disease - heart trouble
		brights disease & pneumonia
		brights disease (kidneys)
2		bright's disease of kidneys
		brights disease: apoplexy
		brobchitis
		brochal catarrh
6		broken back
		broken hip
		broken leg and complications
2		broken neck
		broken neck; accident
		bron?? pneumonia
3		bronchial asthma
25		bronchial pneumonia
		bronchio asthma
5		bronchio pneumonia
		bronchio pneumonia - influenza
5		bronchio-pneumonia
97		bronchitis
		bronchitis & croup
2		bronchitis & old age
		bronchitis and bowel trouble
		bronchitis pneumonia
		bronchitis whooping cought
		broncho infection disease
		broncho pneumoni
80		broncho pneumonia
		broncho pneumonia following measles
35		broncho-pneumonia
		bronco pneumonia
		brunt
3		bullet wound
		bullet wound of chest
		buried alive in sand while making a tunnel with his companions.
		buried with mother ellen
		burn
17		burned
		burned at mines , by explosion of gas at wyoming colliery
		burned at sickler's fertilizing plant
		burned by gas
		burned by gas in mines
		burned by stove cleaning polish explosion
		burned in accident
		burned in mine
13		burned in mines
2		burned in prospect shaft
		burned in stanton mines
		burned in the mines
		burned in the stanton shaft
3		burned to death
		burned to death by parlor matches
		burned to death in blacksmith shop
		burned with kerosene oil
		burned with powder
42		burns
		burns about head
		burns from hot ashes
		burns from mine accident
4		burnt
		burus
		by fall of roof in mines
		c. s. meningytis
116		cancer
2		cancer & old age
		cancer amputation
		cancer in stomach
		cancer in the womb
2		cancer of bowel
		cancer of bowels
		cancer of esophagus
		cancer of hand
6		cancer of liver
		cancer of mouth
		cancer of pancreas
3		cancer of rectum
14		cancer of stomach
		cancer of stomach and liver
		cancer of throat
3		cancer of uterus
6		cancer of womb
		cancer on liver
		cancer on womb
		cancer uterus
		cancerous tumor
		canker sore mouth
		cankered throat
		can't read the cause
		capilary biomilitis
		capilary bronchitis
8		capillary bronchitis
		cappilary bronchitis
		car. of cervix
2		carbolic acid poisoning
		carbon monoxide poisoning
2		carbuncles
		carbunkle & fever
2		carcenoma
		carcenoma general
		carcimona of pyforus
		carcimona of rectum
		carcimona stomach
34		carcinoma
		carcinoma left breast (breast cancer)
2		carcinoma of breast
		carcinoma of breasts
		carcinoma of bronchus
		carcinoma of cervix
		carcinoma of duodenum
		carcinoma of esophagus
		carcinoma of forehead
		carcinoma of glands
		carcinoma of heart
		carcinoma of intestines
3		carcinoma of jaw
		carcinoma of larynx
3		carcinoma of liver
		carcinoma of lung & breast
		carcinoma of ovaries
		carcinoma of ovary
		carcinoma of pancreas
		carcinoma of pancres
		carcinoma of prostate
3		carcinoma of rectum
2		carcinoma of right lung
		carcinoma of right womnary island
13		carcinoma of stomach
		carcinoma of the prostrate gland
		carcinoma of uterius
5		carcinoma of uterus
2		carcinoma prostate gland
		carcinoma sigmoid
		carcinoma stomach
		carcinoma upper gastral
		carcoma of neck
		cardia rine disease
2		cardiac
		cardiac arithmia
9		cardiac arrest
		cardiac arrhythmia
5		cardiac asthma
		cardiac convulsions
		cardiac damage
2		cardiac decompensation
2		cardiac decompression
		cardiac degeneration
2		cardiac dilatation
		cardiac dilatutions
2		cardiac dilitation
3		cardiac disease
2		cardiac dropsey
6		cardiac dropsy
		cardiac dylation
		cardiac embolism
36		cardiac failure
		cardiac hypertrophy
2		cardiac insufficiency
		cardiac insuffiency
5		cardiac paralysis
		cardiac renal
		cardiac renal disease
		cardiac respiratory failure
		cardiac secumpution
		cardiac syncope
		cardiac valvular disease
		cardio disease
		cardio myopathy
2		cardio pulmonary arrest
4		cardio renal
		cardio renal disease
2		cardio respiratory failure
3		cardio vascular
4		cardio vascular disease
		cardiopulmonary arrest
		cardiovascular disease
2		carditis
		cariac failure
		caries of spine
		cat. pneumonia
		catalase of stomach
8		catarrh
		catarrh of stomach
3		catarrhal pneumonia
2		catherine kechline & louisa bevan on same line of lot record
		caught in machinery
2		cause not given
		cause unknown by person who applied for burial permit
		caused by drinking alcohol
		cba
		cellulitic pelumn
2		cellulitis
		cellultiis
		ceptic degeneration of uterus
4		cerebal hemorrhage
		cerebis - spinal syphylis
		cerebral ??something
		cerebral anemia
8		cerebral apoplexy
		cerebral applexy
		cerebral arteriosclerosis
3		cerebral compression
		cerebral congestion
		cerebral disability
9		cerebral embolism
		cerebral embolysm
		cerebral hemmerhage
2		cerebral hemmorage
3		cerebral hemmorhage
		cerebral hemmorrhage
		cerebral hemorage
		cerebral hemorhage
		cerebral hemorrage
100		cerebral hemorrhage
		cerebral hemorrhage - from accidental fall
		cerebral hyperaemia
		cerebral injuries
9		cerebral meningitis
		cerebral spinal meningitis
7		cerebral thrombosis
		cerebral tumor
		cerebral valvular disease
2		cerebral vascular accident
		cerebral vascular disease
		cerebral vascular thrombosis
		cerebritia
		cerebro meningitis
4		cerebro spinal meningitis
		cerebro spinal syphilis
		cerebro-spinal meningitis
4		cerebrovascular disease
		cerebrovascular occlusion
		cerebutis
		cetebral anaemia
		ch. myocarditis
		ch. pul. antheaposis
		change of life
		chemia
3		chicken pox
		child bed fever
10		child birth
		child birth & tuyphoid pneumonia
		childbed
34		childbirth
		childs sore mouth
		chills
2		chills, infl.
		choera morbus
		choked on piece of meat
2		choking
3		chol. inf.
		choleceatitis
2		cholecystitis
6		cholera
2		cholera imorbus
14		cholera infantium
		cholera infantm
700		cholera infantum
		cholera infantum & measles
		cholera infantum & pneumonia
2		cholera infanum
2		cholera infanutm
		cholera infection
		cholera morbers
		cholera morbis
2		cholera morbitus
25		cholera morbus
		cholera murbus
		cholera pneumonia
		choleramorbus
		choleva morbus
3		cholic
		chorea
		chr. alcoholism - heart failure
2		chr. myocarditis
		chronic
		chronic alcoholism
		chronic anthia silicous
2		chronic asthma
		chronic atrophy
		chronic brain disease
		chronic brights disease
		chronic bright's disease
4		chronic bronchitis
		chronic cardiac disease
		chronic cysititis
		chronic cystitis
13		chronic diarrhea
		chronic diarrhoea
		chronic dyspepsia
		chronic elino.
6		chronic endocarditis
3		chronic enteritis
		chronic gastritis
		chronic heart
2		chronic heart disease
		chronic heart trouble
		chronic hypertensean
		chronic inflamation of bowels
		chronic inflamation of stomach
		chronic intestinal catarrh
		chronic laryngitis
		chronic mastoiditis
		chronic mylitis
		chronic myocardia
29		chronic myocarditis
		chronic n?phi?tis
30		chronic nephritis
		chronic omyocarditis - apoplexy
		chronic passive congestion
		chronic pluericy
		chronic pulmonary disease
		chronic pulmonary tuberculosis
		chronic rheumatism
		chronis pulmonary disease
		cinsumption
		cirorsis of liver
		cirrhosis
		cirrhosis liver
23		cirrhosis of liver
5		cirrhosis of the liver
		cnsumption
		cnvulsions
		coasting accident on new year's day
		cold
		cold & rheumatism
		cold from bathing
2		cold on lungs
		cold settled on lungs
3		colic
3		colitis
		collapse of heart
		colored: died from stab wounds
		complete facture skull
		complication of diseases
		complication of bowels
16		complication of diseases
86		complications
		complications - embolism
		complications following pneumonia
		complications from intestinal obstruction
		complications of diseases void ?
3		complications of disease
		complications post mortem
		complications with ?
		complications; acute indigestion
3		compression of brain
		concussion & hemorrhage
		concussion fo brain
61		confinement
		confinement fever
		confinment
		congenital asthma
		congenital debility
		congenital heart defect
		congenital heart disease
		congenital luis
		congenital malformation
		congenital stricture
		congested heart failure
		congested u of a failure
		congestiion of lungs
2		congestion of bowels
27		congestion of brain
		congestion of kidneys
2		congestion of liver
2		congestion of lung
32		congestion of lungs
		congestion of lungs and meningitis
2		congestion of stomach
3		congestion of the brain
2		congestive chills
9		congestive heart failure
		congestive pneumonia
		congestrual heart failure
		conggestion of lungs
		conmvulsions
		constipation
467		consumption
		consumption & asthma
		consumption & heart disease
		consumption and bright's disease
		consumption convulsions
12		consumption of bowels
		consumption of brain
4		consumption of lungs
		consumption of stomach
		consumption of the bowels
		consumption of the lungs
		consumptionm
		convulsion
		convulsion fits
		convulsiona
425		convulsions
		convulsions & fits
		convulsions caused by burn?
		convulsions following whooping cough
		convulsions with measles
		convulsive chills
		convulsive fits
		convultions
		convultions ?
		convulusions
		copd
		cor. patmorale
		cor. thrombosis
2		coronary
		coronary acclusion
2		coronary artery disease
		coronary artery occlusion
2		coronary embolism
		coronary myocarditis
70		coronary occlusion
		coronary oculsion
		coronary sclerosis
25		coronary thrombosis
		coroners office
		cou. of brain
		could not tell the cause
		cousetonic?
28		cramps
		cramps and lockjaw
		cramps in stomach
		cronic bronchitis
		cronic endocarditis
		cronic gastritis
9		cronic myocarditis
3		cronic nephritis
219		croup
		croup & congestion of lungs
14		croup & diphtheria
		croup & fits
2		croup & inflamation of lungs
		croup & inflammation of lungs
		croup and defiletheria
		croup following measles
		croup, diptheria
		croupous pneumonia
		croupus pneumonia
		crushed by fall of rock
		crushed by fan dropping on him in mines
		crushed pelvis
		ct. of nosophargr??
		cut while shaving
4		cutting teeth
2		cva
10		cyanosis
		cyclone
		cyclone accident
		cyonosis
		cystis with senectis
4		cystitis
		dead 2 weeks before birth.
10		dead born
		deadborn
		death caused by eating lye
		death caused by gun shot.
		death during delivery
19		debility
		decapitated by cars while working in franklin colliery
4		decline
		decline (old age)
		dehydration
3		delerium tremens
		delerium tremons
		dementia
		demtia
29		diabetes
		diabetes (2nd word unreadable)
		diabetes gangrene
		diabetes meelitis
		diabetes melitis
7		diabetes mellitis
3		diabetes mellitus
		diabetes millitus
2		diabetic coma
		diabetic gangrene
		diabetic mellitis
2		diabetis
		diarhoea
		diarhora
64		diarrhea
		diarrhea & ague
		diarrhea & croup
		diarrhea & teething
2		diarrhoea
		diarrhora
		diarrhorea
		dibility
2		did not know
		died 8 wks. after surgery for an intestinal obstruction
		died after a short illness
		died after an operation; 3rd child of abraham broody to die within 5 months
		died at city hospital
		died at hospital
		died at hospital of fits
		died at the hospital
		died from a fall
		died from injuries rec'd in laurel run colliery accident on 27 jul 1906
		died from injuries received in laurel run colliery accident on 27 jul 1906
4		died from injuries received in mines
		died from injuries received.
		died in childbirth
		died in harrison co., oh
		died in hospital
		died in south carolina
		died in the hospital
2		died in utero
		died same day
		died suddenly of heart disease
		diffi ???
		difficult labor
2		dilatation of heart
		dilatation of the heart
		dilated heart
3		dilation of heart
3		dilitation of heart
		dimentia
		dinerrhora
		diph
		dipheria
2		diphthemonia
		diphthera
		diphthereia
7		diphtheretic croup
		diphtheretic paralysis
536		diphtheria
		diphtheria & blood poisoning
		diphtheria & cholera infantum
24		diphtheria & croup
		diphtheria & dropsy
2		diphtheria & membranous croup
7		diphtheria & scarlet fever
		diphtheria & scarletina
6		diphtheria and croup
		diphtheria and membranous croup
		diphtheria and scarletina
		diphtheria and weakness
2		diphtheria croup
3		diphtheriatic croup
		diphtheric croup
6		diphtheritic croup
		diptheratic croup
61		diptheria
2		diptheria & croup
		diptheria & scarlet fever
2		diptheria and croup
4		diptheria croup
		diptheria laryngitis
		diptheria scarlet fever
		diptheriatic laryngitis
		diptheric croup
		diptherite shotriatitis
		diptheritic croup
		dirrohea
		disease not known
		disease of bowels
		disease of kidneys
2		disease of liver
2		disease of spine
		disease of womb
		disease organite
		dislocation of hip
		dislocation of neck by hanging
		disorder of brain
		dopsy of brain
		double lobar pneumonia
		dragged by a mule
5		dropsey
179		dropsy
		dropsy & asthma
		dropsy & bronchitis
		dropsy & confinement
		dropsy & heaart disease
3		dropsy & heart disease
		dropsy & heart failure
		dropsy & inflamation of lungs
		dropsy & old age
		dropsy & paralysis
		dropsy and heart disease
		dropsy and senility
3		dropsy of brain
4		dropsy of heart
		dropsy of the heart
		dropsy of the lungs
2		dropsy on brain
		dropsyconsumption
		drosey
		drowing
36		drowned
		drowned at blackman mines
		drowned at retreat state hospital
		drowned by his mother, who commited suicide
		drowned in baltimore dam
3		drowned in canal
		drowned in canals
2		drowned in river
		drowned in sump in buttonwood
		drowned in susquehanna river
		"drowned: at first unknown, but now presumed to be that of john stephens, a
		polander or hungarian from the poor district."
24		drowning
		drowning accident
		drowning in the river
2		drug overdose
		drunkenness
		dyotheria croup
2		dyphtheria
		dyptheria
12		dysentary
89		dysentery
		dysentery & typhoid fever
3		dysentry
2		dyspepsia
		dystentery
9		eclampsia
		ectopic pregnancy
9		edema of lungs
		effects of a fall
		effects of accident in mine
		electruction
		elileptic fits
		emaciation
		embolis of brain
13		embolism
		embolism of brain
10		emphysema
		empyema
		empyencg
		emypynecia
		encapaloclel
		encepalitis lethargica
		encephalitis
		encephalomalosis, left
3		endo carditis
		endo myocarditis
16		endocarditis
		enlarged heart disease
		enlarged liver
		enlarged liver & spleen
		enlargement of brain
		enlargement of heart
3		enlargement of liver
		enlargement of the liver
20		enteritis
34		entero colitis
		enteron colitis
		entertis
		entis colitis
		entritis
8		entro colitis
		entro-colitis
		enysipelas
		epethetonia
4		epilepsy
		epilepsy & dropsy
		epileptic convulsions
		epileptic convuslion
		eremia
		erisypilas
		ersipelas
		eryciphelas
		erycipilas
2		erycypilis
		erysepelas
18		erysipelas
		erysipelas (aka st. anthony's fire)
2		erysipelas from vaccination
2		erysiphelas
		erysiphelas from vaccination
2		erysipilas
		erysiplas
		erysyphelas
		eterus colitis
		euleritis
		euremia
		eurpynemia
2		euteritis
8		eutero colitis
		exapthalmic goiter
8		exhaustion
		exhaustion - old age
		exhaustion during labor
		explosion
		explosion accident in mines
4		explosion in mines
3		explosion of gas
3		exposure
		exsanguination
		extensive burns
		exzemia inflamation of cervical glands
		fainting
		fall
		fall at work in mines
		fall down a shaft
		fall from a breaker
		fall from wagon
		fall in mines
		fall of mines
2		fall of rock
		falling down shaft
		falling in sewer trench
3		fatty degeneration
2		fatty heart
		fatty inflamation of the heart
		fecal impaction
		fell dead from heart disease
		fell down bank & broke his neck
		fell down mine shaft at d.l.& w.
6		fell down shaft
		fell down stairs
		fell down stairs of baptist church
		fell down step
		fell down steps
		fell from car
		fell in shaft
		fell on sidewalk
		fell through bridge
		fell under wheels of d&h freight train while jumping off
		female complaint
		feveer & ague
33		fever
		fever & ague
		fever; died at city hospital
		fibroid phthisis
		fibroid tuberculosis
		fibrosis
266		fits
2		fits & inflamation
		fits & influenza
		fits & weakness
		fits, cramps
		flu
2		flu - pneumonia
		foot cut off by cars
		found dead
		found dead in river
		found dead, cause unknown
		found drowned in river
		found floating in susquehanna river
		found in old grave yard
		found in river
		found in river with throat cut
		found on culm bank
		found on empire culm bank
		foundling from infants home
		fracture of back
		fracture of base of skull
		fracture of hip
		fracture of pelvis
		fracture of skull
2		fracture of spine
		fracture of vertebra
		fracture of vertebrae
		fracture pelvis
		fracture right scapula
2		fracture skull
		fractured base of skull
		fractured femur
2		fractured hip
		fractured pelvis
		fractured pelvis; accident at work
		fractured ribs
23		fractured skull
		fractured skull & cancer
		fractured skull due to tornado. daughter mary may have survived.
		fractured skull due to tornado. father james survived.
		fractured skull from a fall from telephone pole at work, 26 aug 1915.
		fractured skull from being hit with a falling tree
		fractured skull from falling 30 feet from a roof, while hanging laundry
		fractured skull, struck by train
		fractured spine
		fractured vertebra
		fractured vertebrae
		fractured vertibrae
		fractures and lacerated scalp
		fractures of legs
		frightened to death
		from fall
		from injuries received
		from injuries received from a 17 oct 1916 automobile accident.
5		from injuries received in mines
		from injurries doing acrobatic stunts on an iron bar at meade st. playground.
2		frozen
		frozen dead
		frozen on wilkes-barre mountain
		fuerrcular menngitis
2		fusion of brain
		g. i. hemorrhage
		gall stone surgery and weak heart
		gall stones
		gallstone colic - cronic intestial neph.
2		gallstones
		gangreen of lung
4		gangrene
		gangrene stomatitis
		gas asphyxiation - suicide
		gas poisoning
2		gastric cancer
		gastric carcenoma
2		gastric carcinoma
2		gastric enteritis
3		gastric hemorrhage
2		gastric ulcer
3		gastritis
23		gastro enteritis
		gastro enteritis from ingesting poisoned candy given by a stranger
		gastro entero colitis
		gastro entritis
		gastro intestinal hemorrhage
2		gastro uteral colitis
4		gastroenteritis
4		gastro-enteritis
		gathering in throat
		gen debility
		gen paralysis
		general asthemia
136		general debility
		general debility & cardiac dilation
		general debility and premature birth
		general debility from gripp
3		general debiliy
		general deformity
2		general delility
		general dibility
5		general disability
		general paresis
		general peritonitis
		general prostration
		general senility
		general sypticemia
3		general tuberculosis
		general weakness
		generalized anterio sclerosis
		generlised sclerosis
		gereral paresis
		glomerulopathies
		goitre toxemia
		granular abscess
		gravel
		gripp and pneumonia
6		grippe
		group of diseases
2		gun shot wound
		gun shot wound by tony vergari
		haematuria
		haemofitysis
		hanged in w-b for killing cameron cool of w. pittston
		hanging
2		hanging by prison
		hardening of arteries
		hardening of kidneys
		hardening of the artery of the heart
2		head injuries
5		heart
7		heart attack
3		heart clot
		heart desease
265		heart disease
		heart disease - arterio?l?rtic
		heart disease & tumor
		heart disease, scarlet fever
		heart disease; found dead in draywagon.
		heart diseasse
101		heart failure
		heart failure - broncho pneumonia
		heart failure & dropsy
		heart failure after diphetria
		heart failure due to arterial sclerotic
		heart scrafula
24		heart trouble
		heart trouble - pneumonia
		heart trouble (didn't know exactly)
		heart trouble and miner asthma
		heart weakness
		hearth failure
		heat
2		heat exhaustion
		heat stroke
		heat stroke & heart disease
		heights; date: 1905-03-01; paper: wilkes-barre times
		hemiplegia
		hemirrhagia
		hemmorage
		hemmorage brain
		hemmorage caused by stabbing: ruled murder
		hemmorrhage caused by bullet wound
		hemophlegia
2		hemoplegia
		hemorage
		hemorahage
		hemorhage of the lungs
		hemorhagia cystitio
39		hemorrhage
		hemorrhage & stomach trouble
		hemorrhage of bowels
7		hemorrhage of lungs
2		hemorrhage of stomach
		hemorrhagic colitis
		hemorrrhage of lung
		hemorrrhage of spinal cord
		hemplaza
		hemylegia / r side
		henorrhage
		hepatic c.
		hepatic cirrhosis
		hepatic failure
		hepotics failure
		hereditary disease
3		hernia
		herniated umbilical
		hiccoughs
		hip disease
		hipatee cirrhosis of liver
		hippocratic pneumonia
		hiptoma primary
		hirschopring
		hodgkins disease
		hodgkins lymphoma
		homorrhage
		horde fever
10		hurt in mines
		hurt on railroad
		hurt on railroad [died from injuries]
		hydatios of liver
		hydrated cyst
		hydro cephilis
		hydrocephalis
		hydrocephalus
		hydrocephalus (water on the brain)
		hydrocephelas
		hydrocephilus
		hydrocephlus
		hyperneuresis
6		hypertension
		hypertensive arteriosclerosis
		hypertensive cardio-?
2		hypertensive encephalopathy
		hypertensive vascular heart disease
		hyperthemia
		hyperthoses
		hypertrophy cirrhosis of liver
		hypocephalus
		hypoglycemic coma
2		hypostatic pneumonia
		hysteria
		ibabition
		icterus menbrane
		icterus neonatalorium (jaundice)
		ilea colitis
17		ileo colitis
		ileocolitis
2		ileo-colitis
		ilio colitis
		illeus
2		imflamation of bowels
		immaturity
		in hospital
		inainition
		inanitian
		inanitiation
53		inanition
2		inantion
		inantion plus lupus
2		inauition
5		indigestion
		inf of bowels
		inf of lungs
		inf. & typhoid fever
2		inf. of bowel
4		inf. of bowels
11		inf. of lungs
		infant died at infants' home
4		infantile convulsions
		infantile diarrhea
		infantile paralysis
		infantils meningitis
		infe. rheumatism
		infection of bladder
		infection of bowells
		infection of brain
		infection of kidney
3		infection of lungs
		infestation
12		inflamation
		inflamation & croup
		inflamation & fits
		inflamation caused by sprained leg
		inflamation in head
18		inflamation of bowel
104		inflamation of bowels
		inflamation of bowels & cutting teeth
		inflamation of bowels & dysentery
		inflamation of bowels & pleurosy
		inflamation of bowels & teething
25		inflamation of brain
		inflamation of intestines
2		inflamation of kidneys
		inflamation of kungs
		inflamation of liver
408		inflamation of lungs
		inflamation of lungs & bronchitis
		inflamation of lungs & whooping cough
2		inflamation of lungs & bowels
		inflamation of lungs & consumption
		inflamation of lungs & convulsions
		inflamation of lungs & dysentery
		inflamation of lungs & liver
		inflamation of lungs & whooping cough
		inflamation of lungs and bowels
		inflamation of lungs and brain
		inflamation of lungs and old age
		inflamation of lungs, diptheria
7		inflamation of stomach
		inflamation of the bladder
2		inflamation of the bowels
8		inflamation of the brain
		inflamation of the groins
		inflamation of the kidney
		inflamation of womb
		inflamation on lungs
		inflamatory rheumatism
		inflamitory rheumatism
		inflammation bowels
11		inflammation of bowels
5		inflammation of brain
		inflammation of kidneys
14		inflammation of lungs
		inflammation of lungs & malaria
		inflammatory diarrhea
		inflammatory rhuematism
37		influenza
		influenza & pneumonia
		influenza and croup
3		influenza and pneumonia
		influenza complications
3		influenza pneumonia
		injured at oakwood mines
		injured by explosion
		injured by horse
		injured by street car
		injured falling from wagon
		injured in a fight
		injured in mine
4		injured in mines
		injured in mines; died from effects
		injured in steinheur planing mills
		injured in the mines
		injured on cars
3		injured on railroad
		injuried in mines
6		injuries
2		injuries from cave in
		injuries from fall
		injuries from falling down stairs
		injuries in mines
2		injuries received from a fall
		injuries received from assault
		injuries received in auto accident
		injuries received in mine
		injuries received in mines
		injuries received in the mines
		injuries to bus accident
		injurues
		injury at birth
		injury of back and pelvis
		injury of internal organs
		injury received from fall
2		insane
3		insanity
		insanity/apoplexy (died at retreat)
		insolation
		insufficient circulation
		int. hemorrhage
		inter cranial hemorrhage
5		intermittent fever
		internal cancer
		internal cancer supposed
		internal hem.
		internal hemorage
3		internal hemorrhage
2		internal injuries
		internal injuries - colliery accident
		internal injuries & cramps
		internal injuries caused by suicide attempt
		internal strain
		interstitial nephritis
		intestinal catanah
		intestinal catarrh
3		intestinal hemorrhage
5		intestinal nephritis
17		intestinal obstruction
		intestinal obstructions
		intestinal paralysis
		intestinal toxemia
		intra hemorrhage
		intuerruption of bowel
		inuntion
		inward convulsions
6		inward fits
		inward spasms
12		jaundice
		job accident, buried by sand
2		juliet catlin & james keithline on same line of lot record
		kicked by a cow; fracture of left tibia
		kicked by a horse
		kicked by a horse; fractured skull
23		kidney disease
		kidney disease & dropsy of brain
		kidney disease & summer complaint
		kidney infection
3		kidney trouble
		kidney, liver and heart disease
5		killed
		killed at [?] slope no.3, runaway car
		killed at dorrance shaft
		killed at empire mines
		killed at hartford breaker
2		killed at parsons
2		killed at pittston
		killed at port bowkley
		killed by a fall
		killed by a mule in the mines
		killed by accident
		killed by an axe.
		killed by an ice slide in canada
		killed by being run over
		killed by car
		killed by carriage in shaft
22		killed by cars
		killed by cars - fall of top coal
		killed by cars at ?& h breaker, mill creek
		killed by cars at franklin mines
		killed by coal car
		killed by d&h passenger train at scott st. crossing.
		killed by electric car
		killed by electric cars
		killed by explosion
		killed by explosion of mine gas
		killed by fall of coal
		killed by fall of rock
		killed by fall of rock in mines
		killed by fall of rock.
		killed by fall of stone in marble yard
		killed by fall off top coal
		killed by falling
		killed by falling down shaft
		killed by falling on icy steps
		killed by falling timber
		killed by gas
		killed by mule
		killed by piece of coal from blast
		killed by premature explosion
		killed by railroad train
		killed by rr cars (not taken)
		killed by street car
7		killed by the cars
2		killed by train
		killed by train of cars
		killed by wagon
		killed in a culm bank fire
		killed in black diamond mine
2		killed in breaker
		killed in broom factory
		killed in coal breaker
		killed in daimond breaker
		killed in engine house
		killed in fight
		killed in franklin coal mine by fall of top rock
		killed in franklin colliery
		killed in johnstown
		killed in mine accident
90		killed in mines
		killed in mines: fall of top coal
		killed in mones
3		killed in shaft
2		killed in stanton shaft
9		killed in the mines
		killed in the port blanchard mine shaft
		killed in tornado in arms of her mother, elizabeth mcginley.
		killed in wreck on lehigh valley rr
		killed of railroad
		killed on ashley planes
		killed on c.r.r. of n.j.
		killed on d&r rr
		killed on l. v. r. r.
		killed on lvrr
		killed on lvrr at midvale
		killed on railraod
17		killed on railroad
2		killed on the railroad
		killer by car
		killer on railroad
		killled by engine
		la gripp
19		la grippe
		la grippe - rheumatism
		lagrippe
		laryngeal abscess
		laryngeal croup
3		laryngeal diphtheria
		laryngismus stridulus
		laryngitis
		laryngitis & pulmonary tuberculosis
		larynxitis
		laudanum poisoning
		leakage of heart
		leaky heart
		legs cut off by cars
		leptomening
		leukemia
3		lingering illness
		listed in index, but not in lot records for lot 131
		liver
		liver & kidney disease
		liver abscess
3		liver cancer
21		liver complaint
2		liver complications
		liver complt
		liver complt.
		liver disease
2		liver trouble
95		lobar pneumonia
		lobar pneumonia - diphtheria
		lobar pneumonia following an operation
		lobar pneumonia, tongue and lung cancer
2		lock jaw
		lock jaw (a.k.a. tetanus)
3		lockjaw
		loco ataxemy
7		locomotor ataxia
		locomotor atuxia
		loomis
		lubar pneumonia
		ludwigs angina
		lung abcess
		lung abcess
2		lung cancer
		lung complaint
		lung consumption
17		lung disease
		lung embolism
9		lung fever
2		lung inflamation
6		lung trouble
		lungs poisoned by acid
		lymphatic leukemia
		maeamcus
		mal gestation
14		malaria
		malaria & typhoid
		malaria and typhoid
3		malaria fever
12		malarial fever
		malarial tuberculosis
		malarial typhoid
2		malformation
		malignant pectule
		malignant tumor
25		malnutrition
		malnutrition of spine
		malnutrtion
2		malpractice
		mania & po
2		marasinus
3		marasmas
155		marasmus
		marasmus & yellow jaundice
		marasuiris
2		marasums
		masosmus
		mastoid anscess
		mastoid operation
		measales
		measeles
		measels
		measels & croup
84		measles
		measles & diphtheria
		measles & fever
		measles & fits
3		measles & inflamation of lungs
3		measles & pneumonia
		measles & whooping cough
		measles and croup
		measles and spinal meningitis
		mediastatic emphysema
		membramous croup & whooping cough
		membramus croup
		membrane croup
12		membraneous croup
		membraneous croupe
		membraneous laryngitis
87		membranous croup
3		membranous croup & diphtheria
2		menbraneous croup
		menengitis
6		meningeal croup
		meningeal tuberculosis
42		meningitis
		meningitis (spinal)
		meningitis following pneumonia
		menningitis
		mental insufficiency
		merasmus
		merentuic trombosis
		merraeggattis
		mesentens thrombosis
		metatasis
		metistatic endometrial cancer
		miliary tuberculosis
		millary tuberculosis
77		mine accident
		mine accident at d&h coal co.
		mine accident; found dead in stanton colliery
2		mine explosion
		mine injuries
21		miners asthma
3		miners' asthma
2		miner's asthma
		miners astma
		miners consumption
2		miners' consumption
		miner's consumption
3		miscarriage
		miteorl regurgitation - gen. debility
		mitral heart disease
5		mitral insufficiency
		mitral insufficiency heart
		mitral musupation of heart
6		mitral regurgitation
		mitral regurgitation colored
		mitral stenosis
		monstrosity
		mortification
		mortuary notice; date: 1905-03-17; paper: wilkes-barre times
		mother had diabetes
		mule kick
3		mumps
2		murder
		murder - shot in heart
4		murdered
		myelitis
		myocardiac infarction
		myocardial damage
		myocardial infection
4		myocardio infarction
200		myocarditis
		myocarditis (chronic)
		myocarditis heart condition
		myocarditis heart disease
		myocardits
3		myocharditis
		myoletis
		narcotic poisoning
		nasal diphtheria
4		natural causes
		natural fever
		necrosis of spinal column
		nephriths
67		nephritis
		nephritis - chronic heart trouble
		nerve fever
		nervous attack
		nervous prostration
		nervous prosttration
		nervousness
		neuralgia
		neuralgia of heart
		neuralgia on brain
		neurosthemia
		newsboy; killed by central flyer
		nitral regrergitation
126		no cause given
2		no cause listed
2		no dates
		no entry
5		no given cause
		no information
2		none given
		not given
2		not known
		not listed
		nothing listed
		nural mitengation
		obesity
2		obstruction of bowel
3		obstruction of bowels
		obstuction of bowels
		occlusive coronary
		ocnsumption
		oedema of lungs
		of congestion
143		old age
		old age & dropsy
		old age & general debility
		old age & malarial fever
		old age & paralysis
		old age (exhaustion)
		old age and cold
		old colored woman died at city hospital
2		oleo colitis
		onthrocosis
		operation
		operation for goiter
2		organic disease
11		organic heart disease
2		organic heart disease and dropsy
		osteo colitis
		osteo sarcoma
		ovarian cyst & appendicitis
		overdose of laudanum
		overdose of laudnum
		overdose of opium
		palpitations of heart
		palpural convulsion
3		palsey
14		palsy
		pancreatic cancer
		paraletic stroke
		parallysis
114		paralysis
		paralysis - stroke
		paralysis and apoplexy
		paralysis and general debility
		paralysis following diphtheria
		paralysis following diptheria
		paralysis of brain
4		paralysis of heart
3		paralysis of insane
		paralysis of nerves
		paralytic dementia
		paralytic fit
		paralytic fits
11		paralytic stroke
		parcetic dementia
		parcoma
3		paresis
		paretic dementia
		paretic dimentia
		pectisis
		pectoris
		pediatric tuberculosis
		pelvic abscess
		pelvic cellulitis
		pemphegos
		pending (drug od)
		perferia
		perforated gastric ulcer
3		pericarditis
		periferal sepcis
		perisis
		peritonistis
51		peritonitis
		peritonitis following an operation
		peritonitis with dropsy
		peritonits
		peritonits, typhoid fever
3		pernicious anemia
		perontitis
3		perotinitis
		phbhisis pulmonalis
		phithisis
		phithisis pulmonalis
		phlebitis
7		phthesis
		phthesis puleroualis
15		phthisis
		phthisis pneumonalis
		phthisis pneumonia
7		phthisis pulmonalis
6		phthisis -tuberculosis
11		phthsis
		phthsis paresis
		phthsis pneumonia
		phthsis pulmonaris
		phthsis: complications
		phthsis; tuberculosis
		piles
		piricarditis
		pistol shot
		pistol shot wound
		pistol shot wound; suicide
		"pistol wounds through heart and face by stewart whorley, a negro, supposedly over a mulatto girl named alice wilson. see article in w-b times dated 2 july
		1894. whorley claims it was self defense."
		placenta previa
		placenta previa (during childbirth)
		pleural tuberculosis
		pleuresy
		pleuresy & pneumonia
6		pleurisy
		pleurisy of bowels
		pleuro endocarditis
7		pleuro pneumonia
		pleuropneumonia
2		pleuro-pneumonia
5		pleurosy
		pleurosy & inflamation of lungs
		plu carcinoma
		plural meningitis
		pluresy
		pluricy brights disease
		pluro-pneumonia
		plymouth disease: typhoid or malaria
		plymouth fever
		pnemonitis
		pneumatic uremia
2		pneuminia
		pneuminia whooping cough
		pneumonai
715		pneumonia
		pneumonia & cerebral meningitis
		pneumonia & general debility
		pneumonia & heart disease
		pneumonia & hepititis
		pneumonia & influenza
		pneumonia & meningitis
		pneumonia & whooping cough
		pneumonia after appendicitis
		pneumonia and croup
		pneumonia following burns
		pneumonia following measles
		pneumonia following scarlet fever
		pneumonia following whooping cough
		pneumonia inflamation
		pneumonia lagrippe
		pneumonia lober
2		pneumonitis
2		pnuemonia
		pnuemonia and inflamation of bowels
		poisioning
3		poison
		poisoned
		poisoned by paris green (an insecticide)
		poisoned by wild parsnip
		poisoning gas
		possible suicide, under investigation
		post scarletina nephritis
		postfracture hemmorrage
		potts disease
2		powder explosion
		powder explosion in mines
3		powder mill explosion
		pramature birth
2		prematire birth
20		premature
239		premature birth
		premature bitrth
		premature childbirth
		premature irth
6		prematurity
		primary anemia
		proas abacess
		probably heart disease
		prolitis
		prostate cancer
		prostatic hypestrophy
		protracted labor
		prucious anemia
		ptheisis
		ptomaine poisoning
		pueperal eclampisia
		puerperal convulsions
		puerperal eclampsia
2		puerperal fever
		puerperal infection
		puerperal lepticalnia
		pul pneumonia
4		pul tuberculosis
		pulm. tuberculosis
		pulmanary collapse
		pulminary tuberculosis
		pulmnary hemorrhage
		pulmonary ??
		pulmonary abscess
		pulmonary asthma
2		pulmonary bronchial pneumonia
2		pulmonary congestion
3		pulmonary consumption
		pulmonary disease
8		pulmonary edema
4		pulmonary embolism
		pulmonary endema
5		pulmonary hemorrhage
		pulmonary hemorrhage - mine accident
		pulmonary hemorrhage - tuberculosis
		pulmonary homorrhage
		pulmonary hypo congestion
		pulmonary infection
		pulmonary insufficiency
2		pulmonary oedema
2		pulmonary phthisis
2		pulmonary phthsis
3		pulmonary thrombosis
63		pulmonary tuberculosis
		purpora hemorrhages
		purura
		pyanemia
		pyelitis
		pyena
		pyjhlitis
		pyloric stenosis
		pyloric ulcer
		pyonephrites (probably pyelonephritis)
		pythisis - tuberculosis
5		quick consumption
		quick ocnsumption
		quinzy
		r. r. accident
		rachitis
49		railroad accident
2		railway accident
3		rectal cancer
		rectal collapse
		renal disease
2		renal dropsy
		respiratory and cardiac failure
		respiratory collapse
8		respiratory failure
		result of a stroke on dec 3
		result of delivery
		result of injuries received in a trolly car accident july 11th, 1911
		result of injury
		result of railroad accident
		result of trolly accident
		rheumatic arthritis
		rheumatic feveer
5		rheumatic fever
3		rheumatic heart
22		rheumatism
		rheumatism & dropsy
		rheumatism & pneumonia
7		rheumatism of heart
		rhumatic inflamation & typhoid fever
		rhumatic myocarditis
		rhumatism
		rhumetoid arthritis
2		ricketts
		rr accident
		run over by a wagon
9		run over by cars
		run over by cars on july 17
		run over by coal cars
		run over by d & h cars
		run over by street car
		run over by train while laying on tracks
		run over by wagon
		run ovver by train
7		rupture
		rupture bladder
		rupture of aortic aneurysm
		rupture of blood vessel
		rupture of blood vessels
		rupture of lung
		rupture of lungs
		rupture of ovarian cyst
		rupture of spine
		rupture of stomach
		rupture stomach
		ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm
		ruptured blood vessel
		ruptured liver
		ruptured sacular
		salt rheum.
4		sarcoma
		sarcoma of left ulna
		sarcoma of liver
		sarcoma of pelvis
		sarcunis
		saricoma of lung
		scald
11		scalded
		scalded by bursting of steam pipe
		scalded by explosion
		scalded by water
2		scalded in mines
		scalding
2		scalds
		scarlatania
2		scarlatina
		scarlet feaver
		scarlet feve
183		scarlet fever
4		scarlet fever & diphtheria
		scarlet fever & dropsy
		scarlet fever & heart failure
		scarlet fever & inflamation of lungs
		scarlet fever & measles
		scarlet fever & measles & diphtheria
		scarlet fever diptheltheria
		scarlet fever diptheria
		scarlet rash
		scarlet rash & dropsy
7		scarletina
		scarletina & dropsy
		scarofula
		sciatica endocarditis
2		sclerosis
7		scrofula
2		scrofulus fever
		scrofulus sore mouth
		sea poison
		senile cardiac faillure
		senile changes
		senile depepuation
		senile deterioration
		senile gangrene
		senile pneumonia
7		senility
3		septacemia
		septenemia
		septic cysts
6		septic infection
		septic meningitis
		septic peritonitis
5		septic pneumonia
3		septicaemia
16		septicemia
		septicemia - due to infected naval
		septicemia following blood poison
2		septiremia
		severe birth
		severe generalized arteriosclerosis
		severe illness
		severe sickness
10		shock
		shock - burns
		shock & concussion
		shock accidental
		shock during injury from being hit by train
		shock following absess
		shock following accident at unattended railroad crossing.
		shock following birth
		shock following injury
		shock following miscarriage
		shock following operation
		shock following railroad accident
		shock from injury
		shock received from broken leg
		shock; fractured skull from fall down stairs.
		shot
		shot by connell bros.
		shot to death murder
		sick suddenly
2		silicosis
2		sinking of home, mine cave
		sirrosis of liver
40		small pox
5		smallpox
		smothered in culm pile
		smothered in mine
		softening of brain
		sore head healed too quick
4		sore mouth
		sore throat
2		spasm
		spasmadic croup
		spasmodic
35		spasms
		spelled rasper in lot record; brought in from old point comfort
		spimal meningitis
		spina bifida
		spinabufida
		spinal & cerebro menengitis
		spinal bifida
13		spinal disease
		spinal injury
		spinal malaria
		spinal mengitis
3		spinal meningitis
3		spine disease
3		spiral meningitis
		splenic anemia
18		spotted fever
		sprain
		srterio heart disease
		ssepticemia
		stab wound
		stagnation of the blood
		starvation
		starvation in prison confinement
		statras thymicus
		status epilepticus (convulsions)
		still birth
18		still born
		still bron
		stillbirth
		stillbor
1232		stillborn
2		stillborn - premature birth
		stillborn male
		stillborn, premature birth
		stillborn: anoxia
		stomach canceer
16		stomach cancer
8		stomach trouble
		stomach trouble cold
2		stomach ulcers
		stone gall of the liver
4		strangulated hernia
8		strangulation
		strangulation - hanging
3		street car accident
		stricture
		stricture of throat
2		stroke
		stroke of paralysis
		struck by a car
		struck by lehigh valley engine
		struck by passenger train
3		struck by train
		struck by train 21 aug 1916
2		struck by trolley car
		structure of bile ????
		suffication
		suffocated by gas.
6		suffocation
		suffocation of gas
		suffocation or inflamation
		sugar diabetes
49		suicide
		suicide - alcoholism
2		suicide - hanging
		suicide (cut throat)
		suicide (drowning)
2		suicide by carbolic acid poisoning
		suicide by drowning; jumped from dagobert st. into susquehanna a week ago. identified by 1910 miner's certificate found in his pocket.
10		suicide by hanging
		suicide by hanging in scranton jail
		suicide by laudnum
		suicide by pistol shot wounds
		suicide by poisioning
		suicide by revolver wound
		suicide by shooting himself in the head at 87 dagobert st. spanish-american war veteran. survived by his father and 4 sisters.
		suicide by whiskey
		suicide from shotgun wound.
		suicide, bullet through roof of mouth
		suicide; jumped from the market st. bridge into the susquehanna river
		summer c ???
2		summer compalint
163		summer complaint
		summer complications
		summer croup
		summer diarrhea
		summer diarrhora
		summer dranhora
		summercomplaint
2		sun stroke
5		sunstroke
		supposed he was murdered
		susmmer complaint
		sustained fractured skull
		swelling in neck
		swelling of the larynx
		sycope
		syncope
2		syphilis
		syphilitic
		syphilitic aortitic
		systhis of nephritis
		syticemia
		tabes dorsalis (a late form of syphilis resulting in nerve damage)
		tachycardia
		taking medicine
53		teething
		teething & cholera infantum
		teething & croup
2		teething & dysentery
2		teething & fits
		teething & measles
		teething & summer complaint
		teething and fits
		teething and inflamation of brain
		teething and membranous croup
		teething cholera infantum
4		tetanus
		third degree burns
		thphoid fever
2		throat cancer
2		throat disease
		throat hemorrhage
9		thrombosis
		thyphoid fever
		thypoid pneumonia
		tibercular menengitis
		toxema
7		toxemia
		toxic gastric enteritis
		toxieosis
		traumatic meningitis
		traumatic peritonitis
		traumatic shock
		traumatic agitation ?
		trouble with spine
		tuarition
		tubercular bronchial pneumonia
8		tubercular meningitis
4		tubercular peritonitis
		tubercular pleurisy
		tubercular pneumonia
134		tuberculosis
		tuberculosis - obit says dropsy
		tuberculosis & premature birth
		tuberculosis emphysema
		tuberculosis meningitis
2		tuberculosis of lungs
		tuberculosis of rectum
		tuberculosis of skin
		tuberculosis pulmonalis
		tuberculosis, whooping cough & pneumonia
		tubicular mirentery
3		tuburcular meningitis
		tuburculer meningitis
15		tumor
		tumor & dropsy
		tumor and dropy
		tumor in brain
		tumor of bowels
2		tumor of brain
		tumor of liver
		tumor of spine
		tumor on back
		tumors
		tumors of brain
		turbercular meningitis
		turbercular pneumonia
		turmor in stomach
		tyhoid fever
		typhiod fever
3		typhoid
		typhoid and scarlet fever
		typhoid feveer
221		typhoid fever
		typhoid fever & diphtheria
		typhoid fever & kidney disease
		typhoid fever & spinal disease
		typhoid fever and heart failure
		typhoid malaria
30		typhoid pneumonia
		typhus abdominalis
3		typhus fever
		ulcer
		ulcer in throat
		ulcerated stomach
		ulceration of stomach
		ulcers on lungs
		undetermined
24		unknown
15		unknown cause
		unknown cause of death
3		unknown causes
		unknown cod
		upper gi bleed: anthracilacosia
		ur..fibrillation
9		uraemia
		uraemia convulsions
		uraemic convulsions
		uranamia
		urania poisoning
		urasma
49		uremia
		uremia & heart disease
		uremia & nephritis
3		uremia nephrosis
		uremia poisoning
3		uremic coma
3		uremic convulsions
2		uremic poisoning
2		uterine cancer
		uterine hemorrhage
		uterine sarcoma
		utero colitis
		utero hemorrhage
		uterus
		vaalvular heart disease
2		vaccination
		valoular heart trouble
		valvular disease of heart
15		valvular heart disease
		valvulitis
		vascular disease
		vascular stroke
		ventricular fibrilation
		virus pneumonia
		volivus
		vomiting blood
		water of brain
8		water on brain
2		water on the brain
2		weak heart
		weak lungs
453		weakness
		weakness & general debility
2		weakness from birth
		weakness from premature birth
		weakness; la grippe
4		weeakness
		wesogestation
90		whooping cough
		whooping cough & complications
		whooping cough & fits
2		whooping cough & pneumonia
		whooping cough & spasms
		whooping cough & weakness
		whooping cough croup
		whooping cough w/ convulsions
		whooping vough
		whoopiong cough
		wilkes-barre
		wood alcoholism
		worm fever
2		worms
		wound of brain
3		yellow jaundice

Original file from
https://www.wilkes-barre.city/sites/wilkes-barrepa/files/uploads/wbcemeteryrecordscomplete.pdf

2018-11-032024-07-15

Heloise missed one

Readers here know I’m a big fan of advice columns in general, and of Heloise in particular. In a recent Heloise column, 13-year-old Jenna D. asked “Why are items priced at $4.99 instead of $5?”

Courtesy imgur.com / amazon.com / rather-be-shopping.com

Heloise had a good answer: “It’s based on the fact that we read [prices] from right to left. Your brain perceives the number 4 as less than 5, which it is. So we’re thinkin’ we’re getting a heck of a deal!“ God, I love Heloise. It’s like hearing from Marge Gunderson.

I’ve heard another good reason for pricing goods this way: it’s to reduce employee theft. Ever since the invention of the cash register, store owners have known that on even-dollar items, cashiers would sometimes slip the cash into their own pocket instead of ringing it up.

In the late 1800s, a manager at Sears Roebuck, or maybe Montgomery Ward depending on who you believe, came up with the idea of reducing even-dollar prices by one cent as a way to force cashiers to open the register to give change on every sale. This created a record of the sale, rang a bell to announce it, and got the cash into the proper hands.

Wikipedia article Psychological pricing gives us several other good reasons for this sometimes annoying pricing practice.

Below, the book’s title says it all – it’s a history of the cash register.

2018-11-152024-07-21

310 Fifth Avenue

Probably every commercial building in New York City has led several lives. The building at 310 Fifth Avenue, between 32nd and 33rd, is a good example. In 1927 it was an IBM showroom; in 2021 an upscale men’s hat store.

The 1927 display window featured pre-computer–era business machinery such as a time clock to track employee attendance, a parcel-post scale and meter, grinders for coffee and meat, and various types of punched card equipment.

Ninety-plus years later, this busy Manhattan neighborhood is known as Koreatown. The IBM showroom is now the nicely-fitted-out J.J. Hat Center.

Next door at 308 Fifth Avenue is the Manhattan branch of the Bank of Hope, the world’s largest Korean-American commercial bank.

On the other side, at 312 Fifth, is Gopchang Story BBQ, a Korean barbecue restaurant focusing on beef intestines. Gopchang’s intriguing intro page and delivery menu make me wish I still worked in Manhattan.

Nak gop jeongol – beef small intestine, large intestine, tripe, vegetables & octopus

2018-12-012024-07-23

Dallas

Yes, Dallas. Even sixty years later, that name brings sad memories to those who were watching television on November 22nd, 1963 and over the long weekend that followed.

From the moment we heard that shots had been fired at the President’s motorcade, then later heard Walter Cronkite’s announcement that the President was dead, we could not take our eyes off the screen.

Stunned, we watched over and over the motorcade turn into the Dealey Plaza ambush, the President be shot, Jackie reach for something, the limousine speed off to the hospital.

We watched the vigil outside the emergency room, we watched Air Force One’s return to Washington with the President’s body and the new President, we watched the thousands of mourners pass by the casket, we watched over and over Jack Ruby kill Oswald, we watched the funeral procession, we watched Jackie at the grave.

We had a Thanksgiving, winter came, we had a Christmas, then more winter.

Then, on February 9th, we watched a new band called the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.

Somehow, when we went to bed that night, we felt like everything was going to be all right.

2018-12-012024-06-30

Young Abe and the Widow

+++++
+++++
+++++
+++++

+++Abe went to the widow
+++and before he would leave her
+++he split her rails
+++and then her beaver

+++++++++++++Author unknown

2018-12-042024-07-08

Labcorp, May 17, 2019

Grumpy Cat, courtesy Bruce Glikas/FilmMagic

After checking in at Labcorp, I am called to room #3, followed by the technician. After our hellos and identity confirmation, I pass along some news from the waiting-room TV.

Me, lightly: “Hey, some sorta bad news just now on the TV.”
She, a bit wary: “Oh?”
Me: “Yeah, they just said Grumpy Cat died.”
She: “Oh no!” (looks distressed)
Me: “Yeah, plus the guy on TV said ‘Grumpy THE Cat has died.’”
She, disgusted: “He didn’t. Even. Know.”
We talk a bit more about the life of Grumpy, then she draws my blood.
As I roll down my sleeve to leave, she mentions Grumpy again.
Me, solemnly: “You will never forget where you were this day.”
She, solemnly: “Yes… in Room 3, with Paul.”

2018-12-052024-07-28

Don’t be a scab

Streetcar-strike sympathizers, 1916. Photo by Bain News Service

I have a small framed print of this photo in a prominent spot in my house. When a friend noticed it for the first time, she asked me who the girls were. I couldn’t resist, and said “Oh, that’s my Aunt Mabel and my mom helping out at a streetcar strike in New York City.”

She started to say how wonderful that was, but I told her I was only kidding – what I said was just something I liked to imagine because my Aunt Mabel and my mom were both the right age to have looked like that in 1916.

Full-size retouched photo, much crisper than the one above
(Crisp: “Pleasantly clear and sharp”)

Original image at the Library of Congresss

2018-12-122024-07-28

The Portland Vahhhse

Plinth, the original title of this article, is an odd-looking word. It means “a heavy base supporting a statue or vase.” My wife Mimi and I first became aware of the word when we were in England on vacation in 1989.

The Portland Vase, photo courtesy sylcreate.com

I know the year was 1989 because I looked up the date the newly-repaired Portland Vase (pronounced “Vahhhse” if you are British) was restored to its plinth at the British Museum.

That much-celebrated artifact, a violet-blue Roman glass urn taken from the tomb of Emperor Alexander Severus, is probably the most famous glass object in the world. Believed to date between A.D. 1 and A.D. 25, the first recorded mention of it was in 1601, as it began its travels among the collections of Pope Urban VIII, Cardinal Francesco Maria del Monte, and several noble Roman families including the Barberinis. During those years the vase was known as the Barberini Vase.

In the 1770s, it was sent to Britain in repayment of gambling debts incurred by Donna Cordelia Barberini. From there it came into the possession of the 3rd Duke of Portland, earning it the name it is known by today. After further travels, in 1810 the vase was transferred safely to the collection of the British Museum—so far so good.

But one afternoon in 1845, a drunken student named William Mulcahy threw a heavy sculpture onto the artifact’s glass case, smashing the vase to pieces (189 of them, to be precise), and precipitating years of news stories and three vase restorations. The first two restorations were unsatisfactory—as time passed, the glue yellowed and became visible. The third and most recent restoration, completed over the 1988 Christmas holiday, took nine months and used modern adhesives and methods. That restoration was pronounced a success and predicted to last 100 years.

John Doubleday around 1845 with his restoration of the Portland Vase and a watercolor of its shattered fragments

This is where Mimi and I come in. We had been wandering through the museum admiring such treasures as the Rosetta Stone, taken from the French after their 1801 defeat in Egypt, and the so-called Elgin Marbles, decorative friezes stripped from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s. We came to a room devoted to artifacts of the Roman Empire.

The Portland Vase wasn’t in the room yet, but shortly after we entered it was rolled in and placed on a plinth by a solemn procession of guards, curators and officials.

Having never heard of the Portland Vase, and knowing nothing of its history, I was curious about the object that had been brought into the room with such ceremony.

Being an American, I walked over to get a better look, ending up about three feet away. The vase was not yet enclosed in protective glass, and was truly beautiful. Its guards were not prepared for the sudden appearance of this much-too-close visitor, and froze. Could it happen again? Time stood still.

Surprisingly, no one tackled me or tried in any way to move me away from the venerated object.

After a minute or two, I finished my inspection, rejoined Mimi and we moved on.

Special thanks to restoration site sylcreate.com for their article “A restoration 144 years in the making – how the Portland Vase was restored to its Roman glory”

2018-12-142024-07-15

I’ve seen some things

“You’re not gonna believe this”

Three unrelated things I’ve seen that people seem reluctant to believe when I tell about them. Your mileage may vary.

As a child, I saw two or maybe three Civil War veterans riding in the back seat of a convertible in a patriotic parade in Bloomfield, probably on Decoration Day (now Memorial Day) 1943. I remember because I came down with measles that same day and threw up across my mother’s chenille bedspread.
I have always enjoyed watching faith healers such as Jimmy Swaggart and other noisy, lovable fakes. In the 1960s, at nine o’clock on Sunday nights on one of the local channels in Newark, there was a black preacher who practiced Faith Dentistry, although not by that name. He did the standard laying-on-of-hands, fall-backward-into-the-catchers, send-me-the-money show, but he also had testimony from those who had been cured of dental afflictions.

“…and when I woke up the next morning, my cavities was filled!”
“What were thy filled with?”
“They was filled with… SILVER!”

Google is no help tracking down this preacher or his show, so good luck to you and keep me posted.

One winter day in the early 1960s at about seven o’clock in the morning I was sitting in a bar in Dover (the Dover in Morris County) New Jersey. Don’t judge me, I was trying to stay warm until my route customer next door opened, and you can’t just walk into a business and not buy anything. Anyway, the TV news came on, and one of the first stories was about a huge explosion in Russia, much damage, thought to be a meteor strike. (I was guessing nuke accident.) Nothing about it in any of the newspapers next day, no follow-up on TV, nothing on Google now. Mysteries abound.

2018-12-252024-06-30

Foul footsteps

The Star-Spangled Banner has four verses, not that you’d know it from seeing any ball games. I have never heard verse 2, 3 or 4 sung in public. Verse 3 is especially interesting because it dumps all over that ‘band’ of dirty Redcoat bastards. It goes like this:

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Link to all four verses

John Trumbull, “The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777,” courtesy Yale University Art Gallery

2018-12-262024-08-11

400 years

The Pilgrims Going to Church, George H. Boughton, 1867
courtesy newberry.org

This Thursday was Thanksgiving, a religious and secular holiday Americans observe every year. What made this year’s Thanksgiving even more significant, although the fact was overlooked by the media, was that it marked 400 years since the Pilgrims set foot on this continent, November 11th, 1620.

Unlike the media, I am proud of those 400 years.

The Post Office hasn’t forgotten; they have a commemorative Forever stamp showing the 1620 date.