Author: Dany-145

She has it bad and how!

The Stanley Theater
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 9, 1929 | HI 41° LOW 23°

Had lunch with Bert. She was awfully ill so I brought her up to the wash room & she laid there for about ½ hour. She felt better. Katherine came in work after me & went to the Turin Grotto for dinner. From there we went to the Stanley. We had lots of fun. She told me all about Nelson. She has it bad and how!

Lunch with Bert (the woman who knows a lot about racers), two days in a row, after telling her “more than I should,” yesterday, but today Bert is ill. I wonder where lunch was that our girl had access to the wash room and a place to lay down. At work? At home? It is a work day, though we’re not sure yet what her work hours are yet.

We first met Katherine three days ago, on Sunday, when Katherine asked our girl to a show that night. Katherine is the girl in “that girl sure is in love.” Looks like she may be in love with Nelson?!

New People

Nelson: Apparently, he’s the object of Katherine’s love, or as our girl puts it, “She has it bad and how!”

New Places

Turin Grotto: There’s not much out there about this place, other than an article about how hard it is to make it in the restaurant business, and this was listed as an example along with a few others.

The Stanley: Opened February 1928 (less than a year ago for Ethel and friends), and according to Pittsburgh Music History, it offered stage shows and movies, including Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, and Cab Calloway.

Patrons entered from Seventh Avenue into the high ceiling Grand Lobby, Two staircases led to the upper lobby and the balconies. One local newspaper writer dubbed the Stanley the “movie palace version of Versailles” as the walls of the landings on two staircases in the [?] had 18-foot high mirrors decorated in the style of the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Women’s lounges were furnished with pieces in the Louis the Fifteenth style. The gentlemen’s lounge offered a club like atmosphere where one could smoke. —Pittsburgh Music History

. . . . . . . . . .

Image Credit: Stanley Theatre, Pittsburgh, PA in 1928 – Proscenium, from Charmaine Zoe’s Marvelous Melange. Cropped to fit main image requirements. Some rights reserved.

I might have told her more than I should, but I don’t care.

Pandora's Box
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TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 1929 | HI 27° LOW 16°

Had lunch with Bert. She told me a lot of things about the racers, etc., that I didn’t know before. I might have told her more than I should, but I don’t care.

Went to rehearsal. Everybody was there for a change. We had barrels of fun. Ethel came after me & waited. Walt took us home. He came down with me & didn’t leave until 12:30 – Whoopee!

Whoopee? Whoopee? I don’t know what to even say to that. Because I wonder what it means. As in how much whoopee? Like, he stayed that long and we just talked? He stayed that long and we made out? Kissed? Held hands? Had, uh, sex? What constituted “Whoopee!” in 1929 for a 20-year-old single woman? She actually remembers when women were granted the right to vote (1920). And I did some Goothing (Googling + Sleuthing) and men and women started living together in the ’20s, some with written agreements (like a prenup without the marriage). I don’t want to get overly focused on this last sentence though. I’m way more intrigued by the stuff about “racers,” and telling Bert too much? Too much about what?

New People

Bert: A woman who knows a lot about the racers. More than Ethel knows.

Ethel: OK, confusing, but this is another Ethel. We know she’s a woman who came after her/Ethel (picked her up? literally came “after” her somewhere?). She also waited, but we don’t know what she was waiting for.

Walt: Is a man who might have a car, or other transportation. Did he drop the other Ethel off too?

. . . . . . . . . .

Image Credits: Die Büchse der Pandora

I decided . . .

A quote from Alan Rickman
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. . . that I would remove the last names again. I already revealed one full name, we know the year, and we know the location. So anyone could figure out who all these people were at this point already.

This also brings up the fact that I keep changing the option for feedback off and on. On one hand, I love transparency (the latest buzzword, but a good one), and honesty, the whole idea of shared information. But I also know of two bloggers, both of whom I’ve had blog crushes on at some point in time (blog crushes are not romantic crushes, they’re where you feel like someone else knows what it’s like to be you, and the initial thrill, then of course at some point you realize no one is exactly like you, but it’s nice to know there are some similarities scattered out there), who I found myself respecting even more because they didn’t need the potential adoration. Or is fear of rejection? Well, I’m going to open it up I guess, to publish at my own discretion and go for it, until something makes me change my mind again.

And next I am posting the next entry from the diary, which will introduce two more new characters, without last names.

P.S. I am well aware of the irony (hilarity?) of stewing over decisions of whether or not to open my posts up to feedback, in that I don’t think anyone has actually ever read my blog, AT ALL. Like maybe one or two at most? Which is fine of course, I always did love my alone time.

That year, that time, their story.

~ Dany-145

In the January 2, 1929, post, “He is getting to be an awful pest,” Ethel mentioned Will and Uncle Boydie. The first of these two names included “Boyd” as well, so it was actually “Will Boyd and Uncle Boydie.” So now is when I confess I’d hadn’t yet decided whether to include last names yet in this diary blog. I’ve always wondered if it was wrong to post private writings about real people. While I doubt Ethel is still alive (she’d be 108 years old after all!), surely there are children of hers and of other people mentioned. While I don’t yet know how the diary plays out for 1929, this means that anything could—or did—happen.

And there’s always ancestry.com, which yes, I have access to and yes, I know some things, but I don’t want to know too much too soon.

So back to their names. Will Boyd and Uncle Boydie. Is Boydie a first name for the uncle? Or did he go by his cutified last name? Don’t most uncles go by their first names? Though unless he was already known as Boydie before he was an uncle, then it would make sense.

More research is in order. But, rather than find family trees, and death certificates, I want to explore these people in 1929. That year, that time, their story.

. . . . .

Image Credits: Fans watching a baseball game at Shibe Park from the rooftops of buildings across the street on North 20th street. The Library of Congress—Cropped from larger image from the Library of Congress: Watching Shibe Park, 1910 (LOC)

I nearly passed out of the picture.

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MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 1929 | HI 38° LOW 20°

About 4 P.M. my phone rang & when I answered it, it was Sadie. I nearly passed out of the picture. I hadn’t heard from her for about 2 months. She told me to go out so I went. She had the baby there & Ray was home too. I had dinner with them – Ray is getting to be an awful pain in the neck.

Two new names, Sadie and Ray. And the baby I suppose? We’ll see if the baby shows up again before adding him or her to the list of characters. I had a hard time choosing the title between “I nearly passed out of the picture,” and “She told me to go out so I went.” I find I have to read these more than once to truly understand. I first thought she was talking about Sadie having the baby, as in, gave birth to the baby, rather the the baby was simply there. Ha. I wonder if she had the baby during the two months Ethel hadn’t heard from her?

That girl sure is in love.

1920s/1930s kitchen, thanks to white wall buick.
~ Dany-145

SUNDAY, JANUARY 6, 1929 | HI: 62° LOW: 28°

Got up early & made doughnuts. They turned out pretty good too. Katherine called me up & asked me to go to a show with her Wednesday night. That girl sure is in love. Today was Communion Sunday so I went to church. After church Elmer brought me home as usual. I’m getting so tired of him, but he won’t take a hint.

Elmer, Elmer, Elmer . . . I sure hope you can get over her as I know you’re going to have to do. We’ve all known an Elmer, most of us a lot of Elmer’s (now I’ll call them all Elmer from now on). Katherine’s in love. Nice.

. . . . . .

Image Credit: 1920s/1930s kitchen from Library of Congress. Flickr: white wall buick. Some rights reserved.

He was awfully sorry it happened.

~ Dany-145

SATURDAY, JANUARY 5, 1929 | HI: 57° LOW: 27°


Met Charlie G. in the car & I told him about New Year’s Eve. He was awfully sorry it happened. He heard I was going to another party. — I went to see the parade & I saw George M. I told him about New Year’s eve too & he said he would have come for me himself if he had known. — We had lots of fun watching the parade.

What the heck happened on New Year’s Eve? Sounds like a miscommunication?

He wouldn’t buy me anything to eat & I was wild.

The Aldine today, a CVS pharmacy.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 4, 1929 | HI: 39° LOW: 32°

Elmer came down about 7 P.M. & took me to a show. We went to the Aldine to see “Abie’s Irish Rose.” It was pretty good, but not what I expected. I had read the story & I was rather disappointed. After the show we walked down Chestnut Street & looked in the windows. He wouldn’t buy me anything to eat & I was wild.

Nancy CarrollTwo days ago, Elmer was very nearly a full-blown pest. Today he dropped by and you go to a show with him? The Aldine, now we can start a map of some kind. We know where home is and now where Ethel and Elmer were sitting while watching Abie’s Irish Rose at 7 P.M. on Friday night, January 4, 1929. Starring 25-year-old Nancy Carroll (see Imdb), in what was called at that time a “part talkie,“ and it ran however long “12 film reels“ is, which looks like depends on, duh, frames per second and length in feet.

OK, so WILD? She was mad. He wouldn’t buy her food and she got very angry. I wonder, did he ask her if she wanted food? Or is it that, in the early 1900s, a woman had to hope it was offered, because she shouldn’t ask?

The photo up top, by the way, is Chestnut Street now. The Aldine is now a CVS pharmacy and is the building with the red awnings on the left , before the light.

. . . . . . . . . .

Image Credits: Some rights reserved. “At the Racetrack Nancy Carroll photo – photo 5 of 12,” clamshack.

Mattie & I are putting action in our parts.

Image Credit: https://www.reddit.com/user/kirbyfood
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THURSDAY, JANUARY 3, 1929 | HI: 35° LOW: 25°

We were to begin our Gym Class tonight, but only about 6 girls showed up. – I had to go to rehearsals anyway so I wasn’t so terribly disappointed. The whole crowd wasn’t to rehearsal, but we had lot of fun anyway. Mattie  & I are putting action in our parts & its really good.

By the way, click on the image above to see the full image, it’s worth it 🙂 Heels and wooden-slat treadmill, what could go wrong?

We tend to think that we’re more into fitness today than back in the ’20s or ’30s, but we’re also a very fat and sedentary world today, and people were much slimmer back then. So maybe we know more, but we’re not doing more (and are actually doing less). I found a really great collection of photos of people working out in gyms, a lot of them of women, in the ’20s and ’30s (thank you DailyMail.com), and see that according to the author, only the more well-to-do had the money and/or time to go to gyms. Sounds about right, I wonder if Ethel is taking a class at a local school, or attending a gym with membership fees?

. . . . . . . . . .

Image Credits: Reddit

He is getting to be an awful pest.

~ Dany-145

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1929 | HI: 47° LOW: 27°

Mother went out to Aunt Lizzie’s & I went out from work & had dinner there. We staid until about 8 P.M. & then went to Laura’s to see her tree. Will & Uncle Boydie brought us home. When we got home Elmer was there with Harry. He is getting to be an awful pest.
[Note: Another interesting spelling and word: staid (origin: mid 16th cent.: archaic past participle of stay).]

A lot of new names in such a short entry: Mother, Aunt Lizzie, Laura, Will, Uncle Boydie, Elmer, and Harry. Of course for me, Elmer stands out the most as he is “an awful pest.”

In other words: So mom went to Aunt Lizzie’s, and then after work Ethel went there too. After dinner, at 8 P.M., Ethel and her mom (and Aunt Lizzie?) went to Laura’s house to see her tree. Perhaps Will and Uncle Boydie live with Laura and that’s why they drove them home? Or they were part of the collective “we” and were with them at Aunt Lizzie’s? Is “home” Ethel’s house, or her mom’s house, or Aunt Lizzie’s? Wherever home is, Elmer and Harry were there. And of course, Elmer is a pest.

Usually a boy pest, from a girl’s perspective, means he likes Ethel but he’s not taking the hint. Thank goodness Ethel brought up Elmer, more characters means more potential stories to unfold. And I love a good story.