A Hot July in 1934...and Even Hotter at the Biograph Theatre!

Ruth (28) and Kenny Kellogg (not quite 3 years old)  returned from Ann Arbor MI on July 16, catching a bus in Ypsilanti.  They had visited John's mother, Esther Wood, and his stepfather, Guy Wood as well as seeing Dorothy Hiltner, John's sister and Sara Jane, Guy Jr., his stepsister and stepbrother.  The picture of them was taken on the Wood's front steps in Ann Arbor. I've used it before and think it's also in Pieces of a Life .  Ruth had stopped there for 5 weeks on the way back from staying with John in NYC for  month.  He was working for Sealtex on the East Coast.

It was a hot summer,which Ruth mentions time and again as she does the housework, ironing, cooking in the flat above her parents' apartment on Iowa Street in Chicago. The washing was done in the stone basement, so would have seemed much cooler. Also, she was washing and ironing John's shirts and other clothes, which meant carrying heavy boxes to the post office to mail them to New York City.

On July 22, Ruth says, "Gangster  Dillinger shot to death tonite by police & gov. men as he came out of the Biograph Theatre. Another hot day!  We got ice cream bars every day.  Played Hearts in cool breeze of porch tonite."

Ruth mentions on the 24th that it was "Hot! 105 degrees in the shade."  I wonder if she had been aware of John Dillinger.  He became a famous figure because of all of the newspaper coverage of his shady career, not to mention the movies later made about him.