JANVIER T. LEE'S Moment of recognition

Do you have newspaper clippings that extol about a relative or friend? Little pieces of ephemera filed away that you occasionally come upon?

I have several, including one about myself, well actually a drawing I did that was published in the Honolulu Star Bulletin. Most of the others are about my dad or mother. I do have one about a friend who was a singer, one of a friend dressed in a bikini for a local department store, and one of a friend winning a prize. Someday someone will find these after I've died and simply toss them. The person featured in the clipping will find that their fleeting moment of "fame" is officially over.

This fellow, Janvier T. Lee, has probably run close to the end of his shelf life. This clipping is in the Montez Lawton scrapbook. Google his name and nothing shows up. Dig a little deeper and I find that he died on March 7, 1989 at the age of 75 in Danville, California. He was born November 11, 1913 in Nebraska. Doing a small amount of math would indicate this clipping appeared in a local San Francisco Bay Area newspaper in 1946.

The store mentioned, Lucky, was a grocery store. Several years ago it went out of business. Then another company bought what was left of it, including the signage, and opened them back up.

I'm fascinated by how much ephemera I have, including photo collections, that belonged to people originally from Nebraska. How did so much ephemera end up from Nebraska in my hands. I can't think of any other state that features as prominently in my collection.

MRS. MONTEZ LAWTON with friends

This is the only photo I have of schoolteacher Mrs. Montez Lawton (she is on the right). This is pasted in her scrapbook. No indication what the event was or when it was held. But there she sits in her fine hat smiling with Lois Raffetti and Rock LaFleche. Seriously? Rock LaFleche? That names a keeper. Has to be used in a story.

Just another image from Mrs. Montez Lawton's scrapbook. More odd and interesting things to come.

Young mister RICHARD JACOBSON, son of ELMER

Another little clipping from Mrs. Lawton's scrapbook. I'm guessing this was one of her students from Marin School in the late 1940s to early '50s.

The machinist shop in Richmond is the shipbuilding area where many of the ships for World War II were built. So it is also possible this little clipping was published during war time.

"NEEDLE IN HEART FATAL TO BABY"

This newspaper clipping is actually pasted in Mrs. Lawton's scrapbook. No explanation. It's just another odd clipping that must have meant something to her. I'm guessing this occurred in the late '40s to early '50s. Very strange and very sad.

Click on image to see it larger.

The TEACHER and the ROBBER

My friend Bert gave me an old scrapbook put together by a woman who was a teacher. The book's pages crumble beneath your fingers. In fact you hold your breath when looking at it because even a slight movement makes it crumble even more.

Inside there are birth announcements, school programs, greeting cards, and all wonders of ephemera that at one point were important to this woman. So I really can't explain why the following were floating freely stuck between two pages. What was Mrs. Lawton's connection to Donald R. Hainey? I doubt we'll ever know.