Founded in 2017, Strange Times is a twice-monthly newsletter that explores the weirdest news of 1921, one day at a time. To get free games and the original PDFs of every article that runs in Strange Times—plus stories that didn’t make the cut—back me on Patreon.
Things I Like
Braised Fennel! My ongoing quest to learn French has led me to the wonderful world of French cooking YouTube, where I’ve been particularly charmed by these odd quick recipe videos from GourmandisesTV. They’re quite rustic, both in terms of the lighting—which makes everything look very brown—and the amount of butter and cream used, but the recipes are often quite good. Last week I made this braised fennel, which is basically a caponata, and it was excellent!
Luvcat! I’m digging the new album by Luvcat, particularly the single “Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel.” I bet they serve braised fennel there.
Dead Wake! Although I’m a little skeptical of the sheer volume of popular nonfiction that Erik Larson is able to produce, there’s no question that the dude can spin a yarn. I’m currently listening to Dead Wake, his book about the sinking of the Lusitania, and while it’s unquestionably overstuffed—did we really need two sentences analyzing the handwriting of President Wilson and Edith Gait?—it’s a good time nonetheless. I mean, until I get to the part where everyone dies.
Today we’ve got rolled down stockings, ravenous worms, and a tragic story of domestic violence in New Jersey. Weep for the dead on…
September 4, 1921
Federal troops in West Virginia accept the surrender of 400 armed miners, as labor leaders call for reform of the private armies overseeing the state’s mines.
In the aftermath of the Mingo uprising, AFL President Samuel Gompers urges workers everywhere to organize, saying, “Man today wins no victories alone.”
20,000 Cuban cigars made specially for “fashionable women’s smokers…who require something stronger than cigarettes” are shipped to London for immediate sale.
The Weather: Partly cloudy and cooler today; Monday probably showers; moderate variable winds.
I couldn’t find any information on the fiction of Louise Rosine, but apparently this story was incorporated into an episode of “Boardwalk Empire,” so that’s immortality of a kind.
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J., Sept. 3.—The New Jersey Supreme Court may be called upon to decide whether a municipality has the authority to decide that fair bathers may not appear on bathing beaches with uncovered knees. Miss Louise Rosine, a novelist, of Los Angeles, and 39 years old, emphatically declared tod ay that it was “none of the city’s darn business” whether she “rolled ‘em up or down,” and is now in the city hall. She has avowed that she will fight her arrest in the court even if it must go to the United States Supreme Court.
Miss Rosine appeared on the Virginia Avenue beach this morning with her stockings rolled below her knees. Beach Policeman Edward Shaw informed her courteously that it was against the regulations here.
“I most certainly will not roll ‘em up,” she retorted. “The city has no right to tell me how I shall wear my stockings. It is none of their darn business. I will go to jail first.”
The policeman then said he would have to take her there. As he took her by the arm she is alleged to have swung a right to the officer’s eye which nearly knocked him down. He recovered and blew his whistle. Life guards responded and Miss Rosine was taken to the jail in the patrol.
The officer, his glasses broken and his dignity ruffled, has preferred a charge of assault and battery in addition to disorderly conduct against Miss Rosine.
The famine gets worse. And worse. And worse.
RIGA, Sept. 3 (Associated Press).—A plague of worms is the latest Russian calamity in the Government of Simbrisk, the heart of the Volga famine region.
An official Moscow wireless dispatch says that in the Ardatov district of Simbirsk a swarm of worms has appeared which is devouring all vegetation. The District Land Department has sent an agriculturalist to aid in fighting them.
It is believed the worms are a variety of caterpillar, rivaling in destructiveness the grasshoppers and locusts which destroyed a large part of the poor crops in some of the other famine-stricken sections of Russia.
The official Bolshevist Rosta Agency tells of extensive epidemics of scurvy, typhus and cholera in the Tartar Republic and pictures the general famine situation as growing worse.
This story is extremely upsetting! Hell of a lede, although “instantly” is pretty definitively contradicted by the story’s second to last graf.
MADISON, N.J., Sept. 3.—John Delsaido, one-legged, recently released from jail, where he had been for beating his wife, hid behind a pig pen in the rear of his house this morning and when Mrs. Delsaido came into the yard shot her. She died instantly. Their daughter, Theresa, 10 years old, saw the tragedy from the rear porch, too terrified to call to her older brother, who was in the house.
The Delsaidos had quarreled for years. Six weeks ago the husband was sent to jail by Recorder Emil Shonedeger for nine months. After he had been in jail a month friends learned that he had been committed illegally, and he was released on an order issued by Judge Shay, who held that the Recorder could only commit Delsaido but had no power to sentence him to a long term. Judge Shay said the culprit could be rearrested on the old charge, in view of the illegality of the commitment.
This frightened Delsaido, so he stayed in Morristown, because, he told the Sheriff, he thought he would be arrested again if he went home. But this morning he came to Madison. As he was hiding behind the pig pen his wife came out with food for her pigs. Theresa came with her, but went no further than to the porch.
While the wife and mother was leaning over the rail at the sty Delsaido shot. The bullet missed his wife and she rain toward the house, screaming. A second bullet hit her. Then Delsaido leaped over the sty and fired another shot which penetrated the woman’s heart. He fired two more bullets, and then, with only a glance at his daughter, walked out to the road. His son, Bartholomew, 18 years old, ran after him, but stopped when he saw the revolver in his father’s hand.
Delsaido went down the road to his wife’s sister’s house and told her he had killed his wife. From there he went to Madison and surrendered to Chief of Police Johnson. In his pocket was another revolver, fully loaded. Delsaido used to be a laborer, but after he lost his leg peddled pencils. He was known as “one-legged John.”
