I love finding B'game memorabilia on eBay. I've had some amazing finds of postcards, pamphlets, automobilia (from our historic Auto Row) and the like. I thought I would share the latest one with you since it counters the idea that B'game was such a genteel place back in the day. The photo is dated August 8, 1933 from a newspaper file.
The caption on the back reads "A gay barbecue party at a fashionable Burlingame, California home ended in tragedy when Fortune Nelson Burson, 33, San Francisco orchestra leader, we found dead after an asserted fight with Richard Chilcott, 21, San Mateo College football star. The party was held at the home of Burson's fiancee, Miss Frances Biddeson, 23, daughter of Mrs. Georgia Biddeson, divorced wife of of a New York broker. Miss Biddeson witnessed the fight, and is shown here in the Biddeson garden, with Chilcott, standing at the spot where Burson died."
The 1933 City Directory puts the Biddesons at 1520 Hoover which is across from Mercy's property, but the photo seems to be looking towards Columbus and shows a lot of open space. Interesting to ponder not just the event as described but the social and geographic environment.
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