So, I went searching through that newspaper archive site you linked to,
ER - here is what I found:
THURSDAY, JUNE 27, 1918
LINK
There's my grandad, Charles Budge Diltz.
Would the above be his draft notice for The Great War? I know that he was rejected from service for having flat feet.
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1920
LINK
He was probably working on a movie - 50 bucks would be about 500 or 600 dollars today.
Note that the address,
ER, is 1455 Echo Park avenue... just two doors down from the address you posted for Elva
in an earlier post:
Perhaps the newspaper got the address wrong?
THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 1920
LINK
The above is VERY interesting to me. I've read about the film series before, but this is the first confirmation I have of it being
completed. IMAGINE,
a series of 26 MOVIES with my grandmother AS THE LEADING LADY! I would KILL to be able to see these, but they are almost certainly lost forever.
TUESDAY, MAY 24, 1921
Lastly, a somewhat ignominious entry in the family history:
LINK
Yeesh..!
Beating a cop, grandpa Charlie and great-uncle Hubert?? And a Detective Sergeant, no less! No wonder I was never told about
this particular family story!
AND NOW, A NOIRISH TALE OF POLICE CORRUPTION!
That said, the above clipping strikes me as kind of
odd. Hubert was on very good terms with the police department, and counted many officers as personal friends. Hubert became (in addition to his Hollywood work) a
bootlegger during prohibition, and by all accounts,
the police were one of his biggest customers. He also sold booze to a number of recognizable actors and actresses, directors, or whoever else he might have met through his Hollywood connections.
My father, at around the age of six or seven (so, 1928-1930) would hang out at Hubert's house on Ardmore St. My dad said that Hubert had so much money from bootlegging, he had random, tall stacks of cash just lying around the house, wrapped in twine, falling between cushions, etc. My dad said he'd never seen so much money, before or since.
On occasion, a customer would complain about the quality of the hooch. So Hubert would tell them “Well, you're one of the few people I've met in this racket smart enough to know the difference between cheap bathtub hooch and the real McCoy. I only drink the good stuff myself, but it's not easy to get. But seeing as how you're a
connoisseur like myself, I'll sell you the GOOD stuff from my personal stock - but it's gonna cost you!” The customer would agree to the higher price, Hubert would hand the bottle to my dad, and my dad would run into the back room, slap a new label on the bottle, and bring it back out. When the customer would taste the allegedly new booze, according to my dad they would
always say “AH... MUCH better!” and be happily on their way.
As I said, the cops were one of Hubert's biggest customers. Sometimes, someone would rat Hubert out and report him to the police. Shortly thereafter, Hubert would receive a telephone call, and it always went something like this:
“Hello, Hubert? This is officer O'Malley, down at the precinct. Oh yes, my wife is doing fine, very well, thank-you! Well, I hate to bother you, but - we just received a phone call from one of your neighbors, or an irate customer, I dunno - yes - so we're going to have to show up and make a fuss. You know the routine. How about in, say, two hours? Does that give you enough time to get things ready? I'm really sorry about this, you know...”
So Hubert would do what he had always done before. He would collect all but say one or two bottles. Then he and my dad would load all the rest of the booze into Hubert's truck. They'd then put the booze in Charlie's garage, then drive back to Hubert's place to wait for the cops to arrive.
Soon, two or three squad cars would arrive, sirens blaring. Of course, the cops would pretend not to know Hubert, and they would be as loud and disruptive as possible, perhaps threatening to kick in the door, whatever it took to make a suitably theatrical scene. Then they would confiscate the one or two half-empty bottles, hold them aloft for all to see, and exclaim loudly “there's no bootlegging going on here, but don't make us come back for stuff like this! We're letting you off easy this time!” Then they would smash the bottles on the curb, and drive off.
Later that evening, the same cops would return to buy their weekly supply of booze from Hubert, who went and retrieved it from Charlie's garage as soon as the police had left. “Gee, we're awfully sorry about that business earlier today, Hubert. It's the job, you know? Gotta keep up appearances - just add the cost of the bottles we smashed onto my bill. And hey, would you double my order this week, I've got the in-laws coming to stay this weekend for my wife's birthday.”
At some point, my father told grandpa Charlie about these happenings at Hubert's house, and from that point on, grandpa Charlie wouldn't allow my dad to hang out at uncle Hubert's house anymore.
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I think that the whole bridge might be an "artifact" (to borrow oldstuff's term). There's nothing there on 
me more than ever.
?
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