My Son Amos Has a New Book Out, Part 3

Over the years members of our family have published several books. Those items include two books related to Native American history in Alabama by my father, Amos J. Wright, Jr., a book by yours truly on crime in the Deep South and several books that featured mom's art. 

Since 2018 my son Amos Jasper Wright IV has published three books. His first, the short story collection Nobody Knows How It Got this Good, appeared that year from Livingston Press. My blog post about the book is here, Good Reads page is here and the StoryGraph page here. I also wrote about his appearance at the 2018 Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge. 

A second book, the novel Petrochemical Nocturne, was also published by Livingston Press in 2023. I also wrote about his appearance at the festival that year. My blog post about that book is here, the Good Reads page here and the StoryGraph page here. 

Now we come to his latest work, which has an official publication date of March 27. The publisher's web site describes The Battle of Danziger Bridge in this way:

"The Battle of Danziger Bridge presents a collection of interlocking stories set in contemporary New Orleans dealing with dilemmas and questions of local and national urgency. The collection deploys a mix of male and female, black and white narrative voices in humor and pathos, some of whom narrate multiple stories or reappear as characters in other stories, creating a cacophonous effect of conflicting perspectives and values. This overlapping action and character give the collection the cohesiveness of a novel."

The new book also has Good Reads and StoryGraph pages. 

Amos' author web page is at www.amosjasperwright.com

Alabama Photo: Montgomery Bookstore in 1977

I've done a lot of postings about bookstores on this blog, including a few I've never visited since they are no longer around. Many of the earlier ones are listed in this post from April 2022. In 2024 I wrote pieces about Branch Books in Hartselle and Branch Books 2 in Cullman. In March 2025 I posted an item about a "bookstore tour" of Huntsville my brother Richard and I undertook one weekend. More recently I've written about two closed bookstores, Anders Bookstore in Auburn and Eve's Books in Helena. 

Recently I was wandering around the wonderful Alabama Mosaic site and came across the photograph below. So here we are. Again. 

The photo was taken by John E. Scott in November 1977 inside a bookstore at Eastdale Mall. That mall had just opened August 3. Scott's photo shows two Goodwyn Junior High School students, Donna Kilpatrick on the right, taken for "Who's Who" section of the school yearbook. The other young lady is unidentified on the Alabama Mosaic web site. 

Could this store have been a B. Dalton Bookseller? Founded in 1966, the chain eventually had 779 stores but had liquidated the last 50 by 2010. Most of the stores were located at indoor malls. This dormant page at Yelp shows an Eastdale Mall location. 

Source:

Alabama Dept. of Archives and History 

Gail Patrick & O.R. Cohen in 1933 Newspaper Ads

I've mentioned in several recent posts that I've been perusing numerous issues of the Gadsden Times newspaper from the 1930s and 1940s saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright. She also had some old issues of the Birmingham News mixed in the batch. I'm finding lots of fascinating articles and advertisements. The two items here are ads that focus on two people with strong Alabama connections and both appeared in the News on February 16, 1933. 

I've done a number of posts on this blog about both individuals. In 2015 I wrote one of the early "film actresses from Alabama" posts about Gail Patrick. Since then I've covered a couple of her early films, "The Preview Murder Mystery" and "Murder at the Vanities" and an appearance in a radio production of "The Maltese Falcon". I also wrote about her work as Executive Producer on the classic "Perry Mason" TV series. 

Octvaus Roy Cohen [1891-1959] was a very prolific author of novels and short stories who lived in Birmingham during much of the 1920s and 1930s. He founded a group of local writers called The Loafers that included novelists Jack Bethea, James Saxon Childers and others. During those decades and beyond he published numerous short stories set in the city and featuring black characters; those stories are considered racially insensitive at best today. Cohen also published stand-alone crime novels and a series of stories about private detective Jim Hanvey. Seven of those tales were published together in 2021 in the Library of Congress' Crime Classics collection. 

I've posted twice about Cohen's books and their covers, here and here. He also had various stories and novels adapted for films. I Love You Again, a 1940 picture starring Myrna Loy and William Powell, is one of those; The Big Gamble, which happens to star Birmingham native Dorothy Sebastian is another. 

You can read more about The Loafers in John W. Bloomer's article ""'The Loafers' in Birmingham in the Twenties", Alabama Review April 1977. 

Comments on the advertisements are below. 

Patrick, a Birmingham native, graduated from Howard College [now Samford University] and completed two years at the University of Alabama law school. In 1932 she entered a Paramount Pictures contest for the "Panther Woman" character in an upcoming film, Island of Lost Souls. She was picked as one of four finalists from the 60,000 applicants. Patrick did not win, but was offered a standard studio contract. She met with studio brass and negotiated a better contract for herself. That law school training came in handy. 

The Mysterious Rider was the second of four films she made that year, playing Mary Benton Foster. The star of the film was Kent Taylor, who made some 110 movies in his career. In one of the others in 1932 she played a secretary and the other two were uncredited bit parts, the last ones she had in a career of more than 60 films made between 1932 and 1948. She did not watch herself in a film until 1979, when she finally screened one of her most famous, My Man Godfrey [1936]. 

The Galax Theater opened on 2nd Avenue North in Birmingham before 1920, showing silent films. The theater operated until at least 1945 and was torn down in 1963; the BTNB building opened on the site the following year. 

Zane Grey published more than 90 books, most of them Western novels. The Mysterious Rider appeared in 1921. 

Here's the ad for Cohen's radio mystery. Westinghouse was once a radio and television production behemoth that merged with CBS in 2000. This page has a paragraph about The Townsend Murder Mystery, radio broadcast, information about two of Cohen's detective characters in other fiction, David Carroll and Jim Hanvey, and a bibliography of Cohen's novels. 

On that page author Jon Breen says, "In an unusual and unsuccessful experiment, Cohen’s radio serial The Townsend Murder Mystery (1933) was published in book form the same year it was broadcast coast to coast (from WJZ’s New York studios) on NBC.  However it played on the air, it doesn’t work as a print mystery."

Excerpt from the listing of radio programming in the Birmingham News for February 16, 1933. KDKA is considered the first commercially licensed radio station in the United States, beginning broadcast on November 2, 1920.

This broadcast description was included in the book, which was actually the  script. 

This radio script was published in 1933 by D. Appleton-Century. 

A photo of Octavus Roy Cohen at Getty Images includes this original caption:

"The famous writer of Negro stories has just completed an original drama for
radio. The Townsend murder mystery, an 18 week mystery serial, begins on
February 14, on a coast to coast NBC network. The drama, which will require
a cast of 40 actors will be heard three times a week."

I've seen this work described as the "First radio play published in book form" and as the "first mystery novel to revolve around radio."

Jim Reed's wonderful Reed Books & Museum of Fond Memories in Birmingham recently had this item for sale on ABE Books: 

1933: Westinghouse Brochure Promoting Radio Show THE TOWNSEND MURDER MYSTERY By Octavus Roy Cohen (creator of Amos 'n' Andy series) with Illustration of Characters from Show Plus Photos of Westinghouse Products

Apparently Cohen did work briefly on the Amos 'n' Andy radio series but he was most certainly not the "creator". 

McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs

Yes, here we are with another advertisement from the old issues of the Gadsden Times I've been going through in recent months. Saved by my paternal grandmother Rosa Mae Wright, most were from the 1930s and 1940s. She also saved a massive Etowah County centennial edition of the paper dated June 23, 1968, where I found this ad.

I wasn't familiar with the McClendon Memorial Museum in Duck Springs, so naturally I did a bit of research. This Facebook post gives a summary. Yancey McClendon was eleven years old when he died in 1963. His parents Eloise and Ralph decided to honor their only child with a museum. Over the years, as noted in the ad, a collection developed of 14,000 Indian artifacts and many other items.

Ralph died in 1989. Eloise continued to operate the museum until her death on February 11, 2002. Unfortunately, she left no will and no other provisions for the collections. An auction was held in 2003. All three family members were buried in the Duck Springs Cemetery. 

A similar museum was Ma'Cille's Museum of Miscellanea in Gordo. This collection was maintained by Lucille House and included many thousands of Native American artifacts and various quirky items as well as others of local history interest. She died on December 31, 1999. The museum had closed in 1994 and contents auctioned in 1998. The place had been around for decades; the New York Times published an article about it 1970. In 2004 45 photographs of the museum were exhibited at the University of Alabama. 

Lucille House was the mother of prolific Alabama artist Glenn House [1931-2014]. He was also director of the Book Arts program at the University of Alabama; Dianne and I met him when we were in library school there in the early 1980s. His first graphic design job resulted in his most famous work, the Moon Winx Lodge sign. 

But I digress. Also below are photographs of a McClendon Museum postcard recently added to my collection, printed by the Scenic South Card Company in Bessemer. 

Football in Gadsden in 1908

In recent months I've gone through numerous 1930s and 1940s issues of the Gadsden Times. My grandmother Rosa Mae Wright saved these publications, especially during World War II. I found a lot of fascinating articles [and advertisements!], and this blog post features one of them. 

I've also recently enjoyed Lars Anderson's 2007 book, Carlisle Vs. Army: Jim Thorpe, Dwight Eisenhower, Pop Warner and the Forgotten Story of Football's Greatest Battle. He's written several books, lives in Birmingham and is on the University of Alabama faculty. I find early college football in the U.S. to be fascinating, and there is a lot about the game in those days in this book. Jim Thorpe, Pop Warner and the Carlisle Indians also form a number of incredible stories.

American football was a very different animal in those early days before World War I. On November 6, 1869, Rutgers and Princeton played what is considered the first intercollegiate game in the U.S. Each side had 25 players and tried to kick a round ball across the opposing team's goal; carrying or throwing the ball was not allowed. By 1872 several other schools in the northeast including Columbia and Yale began play. Over the next two decades more teams entered the sport and the rules of play and the size of the field underwent great changes, many introduced by Walter Camp such as the system of downs and the line of scrimmage. In these early years betting on games was common as were hired players who did not attend the schools. 

By the early 20th century football had become so violent that efforts began to change or ban the game. A military formation called the flying wedge had been used in that first 1869 game and caused numerous injuries and even deaths. Nineteen players died from various causes in the 1905 season alone. The forward pass was legalized in 1906 to hopefully reduce injuries, but did not catch on for some years. The flying wedge was banned about the same time. Although various conferences had already been founded, a national organization to oversee college athletics was organized in late 1905 by 62 schools that met in New York City. 

The article below, published October 29, 1940, describes Gadsden football in 1908. By that time the game had already started to develop on college campuses in the state. Auburn and Alabama fielded their first teams in 1892 and played each other initially in 1893. The rivalry paused in 1908 for many years due to arguments over player payments and other money issues. Both teams became charter members of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association when the group was organized in 1894. 

This article outlines the history of football in the Gadsden area in 1908. Former college players met and an eleven man team was proposed and a "complete schedule for the season." Possible players who attended the meeting included two former Alabama stars, two from Auburn, one from "Carolina", another from the University of Chicago and four "regarded as apt pupils of the game." The two Alabama players were selected as coaches.

Opponents would include Ninth and Seventh District schools, Jacksonville, Anniston, and "other cities in the district." Thanksgiving Day contests with Jacksonville Normal School [now Jacksonville State University] and the Seventh District Agricultural School were scheduled. 

At the time Jacksonville, captained by "a local boy", presumably one from Gadsden, was undefeated. Gadsden actually played Jacksonville in one of the Etowah County team's earliest games on November 2, 1908, and won 7 to 0 with one touchdown and a safety. At this time a touchdown gained a team five points and a safety two. The article includes the lineup of Gadsden players for that game.

The team lost its next game on November 14. "Gadsden football enthusiast" Lonnie Noojin coached the Blountsville Ninth District School to the win 20-2. A contemporary account is given in the second article below: "Gadsden Downed by Farmer Lads." The school is described in the article as Blountsville Agricultural College. 

Another team in the area was Disque High School [1901-1924, when it became Disque Middle] coached by Prof. J.R. McClure. That team beat Gadsden Athletics 20-15 and tied Birmingham's Woodlawn 5 to 5 on November 23, 1908. On Thanksgiving Day Birmingham High School beat the Gadsden Athletics 19 to 4. 

The 1940 article and the two 1908 ones below are a good start for a history of football in Etowah County. I found the 1908 ones on Newspapers.com; I'm sure more could be located. Several of these games are noted as taking place at Elliott Park, which was just west of Alabama City. One research area that would be interesting is to search for all these names of individuals at Ancestry.com, Find-A-Grave, etc., to learn something about them. Perhaps another day....

The history of football in these early decades at the high school and self-organized levels is largely unknown. You can read more about early high school football in the state at the Alabama High School Football Historical Society. 

Gadsden Times 14 November 1908

Gadsden Times 9 December 1908

A Trip Down Memory Lane

In July 2024 our daughter Becca, her husband Josh, son Ezra and stepson Zach came to Pelham for a visit. One thing she wanted to do was take her kids to some places she remembered fondly from growing up in the area. So off we went!

For more nostalgia about Pelham, see my post "Pelham As We Knew It in 1985". 

More comments below. 

When Becca and son Amos were kids, we spent some time in the Riverchase Galleria in Hoover over the years. I would often meet Dianne and the kids there after work, and we would have a meal, ride the carousel and visit some favorite stores like the Nature Company and Disney. Once upon a time there was also a bookstore, Bookland, which operated from 1986 until 2007 and was one of four operated in the Birmingham area by Books-A-Million. Ezra and Zach seemed to enjoy their visit. 

Of course we had to eat at one of our longtime favorite Pelham restaurants, Cozumel Grill. 

We spent much of a day at the McWane Science Center exploring all the exhibits on all the floors. "Ocean Journey" in the basement with live sea creatures was especially neat. The fossil creatures were, too. 

Of course, the boys had to milk a "cow". 

We all had fun at the Lego wall. 

Naturally, Becca wanted Josh and the kids to see where she went to elementary school, which is now a retail space known as Campus 124. I've written about the history of Valley and its redevelopment in posts here in 2020, here in 2021 and here in 2015. Over the years, in addition to visits to the Beer Hog, we've enjoyed eating at the Half Shell Oyster House. 

Valhalla is a restaurant, coffee shop and gaming venue located at Campus 124. Becca, Josh, the boys and I spent a couple of Saturday hours there and had a lot of fun. You pay a fee and then pick any board games you want from their extensive selection. We managed to play two or three before we left. We arrived around 11am, and the place was not very busy; by the time we left it was packed. 

We did a walk through the new Park 124 just behind her former elementary school, where the playground used to be as she remembered. 

The park even has a babbling brook.

On the way home the gang went through Auburn and stopped at her alma mater so Josh, Ezra and Zach could see the campus. Our family has a tradition there; her parents met at the school. My parents also met at Auburn some years earlier. 

Random Alabama (3): Alabama Hospital, Inc.

Last year I posted the first two pieces in this series intended to focus on random photos or ephemera that I have laying around. The first one featured a strange Auburn University figure and the second one the business card for a state senator candidate in a 1922 election. 

Now we come to this blank stock certificate, found for me on eBay by my son Amos. At first I thought the business operated in Virginia and just had "Alabama" in its name for some reason. After all, the tiny print at the top says "Incorporated Under the Laws of the State of Virginia". 

However, this business entity was also incorporated in Alabama. I found a bare bones business listing that gives a 27 April 1927 incorporation date in the state. Also noted is that the incorporation was "withdrawn" but no date given. The legal address is "1000 Travelers Bldg. Richmond, VA". I presume that's the site shown in the postcard below. Did the Virginia incorporators have an office there?

So, what we have is "OO1" issue of 100 shares of class A common stock, never sold, in a corporation that probably never operated. I tried searching for the President on Ancestry.com, but found nothing under AW, AU or AM Dell. I'm guessing those are initials and a last name, not just a last name of Audell. 

If anyone has information about this entity, please let us know in the comments. 

Source:

Virginia Commonwealth University Library