While the decedent was in the employ of the defendant, no precautions were taken to warn dial painters or to prevent them from exposure to radium in the paint and radium emanation in the air of the factory workrooms.
April 11, 1927
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
I couldn’t believe it when I read the news this evening. The trial is postponed again? Truly, they are heartless.
As it drags on and on, I can’t help but wonder, perhaps, Carl, if you’ve already won. You’ve got Ethel’s name in the papers. You’ve got U.S. Radium backed against the ropes. You’ve got people from one end of the country to the other reading about yet another David standing up to that great Goliath. It’s the kind of story that heartens folks. It’s the kind that I write about.
Speaking of, have you seen The Poet and the Thief? I was one of the “soundless dozens” working on that. Not a peep in the credits, of course, but I expended many typewriter ribbons on that scenario.
So what does AL think of all this? Does she know what’s going on in the courtroom?
Sincerely,
Florrie
October 15, 1927
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
Investments? Who are you, J. D. Rockefeller? I’m strictly a shoe box–under–the–bed kind of girl (the shoe box is Buster Brown; the contents only amount to a dollar forty). I’ve never set foot in a bank. Do our kind of people invest?
Really, though, that’s an awful lot of money (if the newspapers are to be believed; no need to clarify). But Eth would’ve been happy, honestly she would’ve. Knowing that AL was set up for college or traveling or anything she wants. Whatever you choose, know that.
Affectionately,
Florrie
BILLIONS LOST AS STOCKS CRASH
Stock Values Plummet Amid Panic Selling
* * *
WALL ST. STUNNED
Stocks Hit Lowest Levels in U.S. History
LOCAL BUTCHERS OPEN SHOP
Kitchen in the Back Keeps Neighbors Fed
Local residents and neighborhood butchers Carl Wild and Henry Perry are lending a helping hand. With many in the city hit hard by the Depression, nothing goes to waste in their butcher shop. At the end of the day, unsold cuts of meat are salvaged into soup and offered gratis to any local citizen with a bowl and a need.
Mr. Wild and Mr. Perry have brought the whole neighborhood into the act. They supply the meat, while other neighborhood businesses add surplus produce and canned goods. “Stone soup,” Mr. Wild calls it, after the story he reads his daughter. “Everyone adds a little, but it matters a whole lot.”
The two men, veterans of the last war, opened the business together after being discharged from the army.
September 12, 1930
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
Things are golden here! Well, as golden as they can be when you don’t have more than two nickels to rub together. But this is L.A. A girl can get by on doughnuts and a smile.
I have a roommate now, a singer named Paulette. She has a voice like silk and owns a top hat. I met her at one of the speakeasies around here. She was up on stage and I thought she was a boy at first, but Hollywood is nothing if not full of surprises!
Have you seen Rose at Sunset? They spelled my name wrong, but it’s there in the credits!
Affectionately,
Florrie
Dear Mr. Wild,
Thank you for meeting with me this morning. Please find included Anna Louisa’s marks so far this term. She has no trouble excelling academically, as this report will show, but her classroom behavior does not meet our school standards. Even today, following our meeting, we had another incident. Anna Louisa took advantage of Miss Flanigan’s temporary absence from the classroom to perform a tap dance on the teacher’s desk. This is unacceptable and, should it continue, we will be forced to ask you to find another situation.
Sincerely,
Mr. Peter Ball, principal
McCall Street Elementary School
August 1, 1932
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear C,
Wanted to dash off a note with my new address. I’ve finally moved out of the Hollywood Studio Club! I’m in a shoe box of an apartment with a new roommate, a chorine named Lorelei. She’s from Iowa. Until we met, I didn’t know that people actually came from Iowa.
I’m trying not to look like a complete dolt and have been attempting to teach myself cooking. Do you have any of Eth’s old cookbooks you might send my way? She always used to say that just about anyone could impress with a croquette.
F
FROM THE KITCHEN OF E. W.:
Chicken Croquettes
2 cups chopped, cooked chicken
1 small chopped onion
½ teaspoon celery salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
1 to 2 cups thick white sauce
Cracker crumbs
1 egg, beaten
Stir chicken through finely chopped onion. Season with celery salt and pepper. Mix with enough white sauce to hold seasoned chicken together. Divide mixture into equal portions, allowing at least two tablespoons for each croquette. Form into cylinders. Dip each croquette into dry crumbs, then beaten egg, then again crumbs. Fry in hot, deep fat until light brown in color. Serve on plate with dollop of white sauce.
Newark Arts High School
Newark, N.J.
June 15, 1933
Anna Louisa Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Miss Wild,
We are pleased to welcome you to the Newark Arts High School for the forthcoming school year. Further communications regarding tuition, registration, and required materials will follow by mail.
Sincerely,
Mr. A. G. Hathaway
November 15, 1933
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
Sending you my new address. I’ve moved again, to an apartment about a square inch bigger than the last. This roommate is named Betty and she’s a cigarette girl at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. She also cooks, so no need for me to continue burning croquettes.
Things are far quieter than when I was at the Hollywood Studio Club and I’m able to get a little of my own writing done nights when Betty is at work. Still haven’t convinced anyone at the studio to give my original screenplays more than the cursoriest of looks, but they’ve put me on to the first draft of an adaptation. It’s for Paula Fredricks’ Veils of Solitude. Have you read it? I hope not, as the novel is utter drivel. But, for the time being, it’s my utter drivel and I mean to make it into something people will be willing to pay a nickel to see. The heroine is wishy-washy, but I’m adding a little starch to her spine. Joan Crawford? Maybe.
Florrie
Harold J. R. Pringle, M.D.
New York, N.Y.
June 15, 1934
Carl L. Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Re: Anna Louisa Wild
Dear Mr. Wild,
I have received the histology results from the laboratory and reviewed them along with those from the clinical examination of your daughter and I have come to the conclusion that Anna Louisa shows no signs of her mother’s illness. No radiation emanations are present. Roentgenograms show normal bone structure. Though she shows slight anemia, the levels are not out of the range for a girl of fourteen. Otherwise, she is in good physical health. She is tall for her age, with sound reflexes, and a strong pulse. I can find no medical source for the aches in her limbs that you mentioned and believe them, based on her age and level of activity, to be caused by growth and by exercise.
Please contact my office if you
wish to discuss this further, but you have nothing to worry about at the present with regards to your daughter’s health. She is a healthy, growing adolescent.
Sincerely,
Dr. H. J. R. Pringle
December 12, 1934
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
If you’ve been watching the marquee for Veils of Solitude, it was scrapped. I’ve now been put on adapting, of all things, Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself.
I wonder if they knew who they were giving the story to. It’s by Radclyffe Hall. I’d bought it the day it came out and then cried myself to sleep reading it that night. Maybe they did know and thought I could bring those tears, that loneliness, that pent-up frustration into the screenplay.
My current roommate, Evangeline, is actually a writer. I thought that would give us more in common. My last few roommates have been little more than pretty faces. But when I showed Evangeline a page I was working on, she just said, “Life is sad enough without stories like this.”
If I didn’t have you to write to, I wonder if I’d have anyone to talk to.
Florrie
The Newark Arts High School
freshman class presents a production of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Starring (in alphabetical order)
Miss Kate Barnes
Mr. Chester Floyd
Mr. Ulrich Pennbottom
Miss Gladys Woods
With (in alphabetical order)
Mr. Augustus Buck
Miss Doris Ann Streeter
Mr. Francis Tillis
Miss Elizabeth Yates
And (in alphabetical order)
Miss Vera Jean Blaine
Miss Aldona Finklestein
Miss Penelope Gainor
Miss Hazel Gibbs
Mr. Archibald Knute
Miss Ruth Prescott
Mr. Trent Valentine
Miss Anna Louisa Wild
May 15, 1935
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
I’m done with temporariness, the string of roommates and of cheap, cluttered apartments. I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life for something permanent. I haven’t found it among the former, but I have with the latter. I’ve bought an apartment, Carl! It’s not big, but it’s new and sunny and has bougainvillea bright outside my window. Best of all it’s mine.
I have Miss Ogilvy to thank for the apartment, poor sad “William” Ogilvy. Have you seen the film yet? Of course it’s much neatened up and Code-approved (the casual viewer would never see her as anything but a crop-haired tomboy), but I did my best. Of course, I cried dozens of times as I worked on the screenplay. Knowing how an “odd girl” feels, just on the edges of everything. I tried to infuse it with notes of hope. Because, C, don’t we need that, people like you and me? Permanence, hope, and a sense that we belong.
Affectionately,
Florrie
The Newark Arts High School
sophomore class presents a production of
Much Ado About Nothing
Starring (in alphabetical order)
Mr. Chester Floyd
Miss Doris Ann Streeter
Mr. Francis Tillis
Miss Gladys Woods
With (in alphabetical order)
Miss Kate Barnes
Mr. Augustus Buck
Mr. Ulrich Pennbottom
Miss Anna Louisa Wild
And (in alphabetical order)
Miss Vera Jean Blaine
Miss Aldona Finklestein
Miss Penelope Gainor
Miss Hazel Gibbs
Mr. Archibald Knute
Miss Ruth Prescott
Mr. Trent Valentine
Miss Elizabeth Yates
July 1, 1936
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
Things are swimming along here. I’ve been moved to a new desk and with a new paycheck. I don’t think anyone expected Miss Ogilvy to be as big a success as it was. As I worked on the screenplay, I thought it would be such a quiet film.
Working on an adaptation of Elizabeth Cromwell’s Such Is Love. The novel is long on descriptions of cocktail dresses, but the dialogue is smart and there isn’t a single, solitary man in the whole thing. Sorry to disappoint you…
Affectionately,
Florrie
The Newark Arts High School
junior class presents a production of
The Taming of the Shrew
Starring (in alphabetical order)
Mr. Chester Floyd
Miss Doris Ann Streeter
Mr. Francis Tillis
Miss Anna Louisa Wild
With (in alphabetical order)
Miss Aldona Finklestein
Mr. Ulrich Pennbottom
Mr. Trent Valentine
Miss Gladys Woods
And (in alphabetical order)
Miss Kate Barnes
Miss Vera Jean Blaine
Mr. Augustus Buck
Miss Penelope Gainor
Miss Hazel Gibbs
Mr. Archibald Knute
Miss Ruth Prescott
Miss Elizabeth Yates
February 7, 1937
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
I hate to see you wrapped so full of doubt. You have every right to feel vulnerable. Look at it all. How can we not? With the way we’re always on the outside, with the way we can’t be honest to anyone, sometimes not even to ourselves.
But maybe you and I have it better than most. I’m here in Hollywood, surrounded by my friends and my work, and you’re there with Hank. We have people who make us happy. And, you know, we have each other. Old friends, gold friends. Three thousand miles isn’t a match for the U.S. Postal Service.
Your dear,
F
This Certifies That
Anna Louisa Wild,
having satisfactorily completed the Course of Study prescribed by the Board of Education, is hereby declared a graduate of Newark Arts High School and is entitled to a
Diploma
Given by order of the Board of Education of Essex County in and for Newark Arts High School, Newark, New Jersey
this Fourth day of June 1938
August 12, 1938
Carl Wild
18 Daniel Street
Newark, N.J.
Dear Carl,
I know. I miss her every day. But you can’t blame AL. She said what she did because she hardly knew Eth. Really, what do you remember from before you were six? I’m not worried about AL. She’s young, she’s probably feeling faintly rebellious, but she’ll always love her mother. And, my dear friend, she’ll always love you.
Love,
F
WESTERN
UNION
NEWARK NJ
1938 OCT 1 PM 9 45
FLORENCE DANIELS=
BLAUE ENGEL APARTMENTS HOLLYWOOD CALIF=
OCT 4 6:49 PM GREYHOUND TERMINAL=
LET ME KNOW WHEN SHE ARRIVES=
I’LL WORRY THE WHOLE WAY=
C.
Chapter Twenty-One
1952
It’s dark when she pulls into Newark. Christmas Eve. It’s started snowing again, fat, lazy flakes that dot her windshield. By the time she reaches Dad’s neighborhood, the houses and street signs are covered with a fresh fall of snow. Though she’s never driven in Newark, she makes the turns automatically. This street feels like a creaking leather bike seat, that one tastes like ice cream bars, this one smells like water spraying fresh from the fire hydrant. With each block, she slips another year back in time. When she parks in front of Dad’s house, she’s Anna Louisa again.
A garland of plastic holly twines up and over the front door with a fat, red bow on top. Through the front picture window
, she sees a Christmas tree, splendid with colored lights, tinsel garland, strings of mercury glass beads, and dozens of ornaments. From between the edges of the window, she can hear Dad’s piano playing “Silent Night.”
Someone had shoveled the front path at some point, but there’s an inch of snow on it now. That was always her job as a kid. Shoveling. She’d always get distracted halfway through by the piles of snow on either side of the walk, just waiting to be jumped into. That always led to snow angels, which led to snowballs, which led to the inevitable snowman.
She’s distracted now and misses the patch of ice on the walk. Though her suitcase stays intact, her ego takes a hit. Luckily that’s all. Though she hadn’t intended to examine the snowy lawn that closely, she finds herself doing that. She pushes herself up to a kneel and shakes snow from her coat.
The front door opens. “Al?”
“Daddy!” She stands and brushes snow from the knees of her black pants.
He stands in the doorway, looking rumpled and bewildered, like he’d just woken from an impromptu nap with his Reader’s Digest. He looks older than she remembers. More gray in his hair. Reading glasses pushed up on his head. A pine-green cardigan, like something an irritable professor might wear. “What are you doing out there?”
She responds with a snowball that hits the doorframe.
“Hey!” He brushes a spatter of white from the shoulder of his cardigan. “That’s not fair!”
“Sorry,” she says without conviction.
He bends and quickly scoops up one of his own. “No you’re not.” He throws it without a hint of accuracy. Louise stands, unconcerned, as the snowball sails into a nearby bush.
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