• At the corner of Eighth and Hope Streets was the Morgan Hotel. In 1929, the Panamanian Consulate could be found in the hotel's room 104.

• The first time Mother saw this wonderful edifice, at the northeast corner of Hope and Ninth Sts., she scandalized Aunt Sigrid by saying, "Oh, is this another train station?". Aunt Sigrid clapped her hand to her forehead, and said, "Oh, good gracious, no! This is our beautiful local Jewish temple—the B'nai Brith temple. The Jews are very dynamic in civic improvement here—always have been, practically back to pueblo days." Trinity Auditorium, which we saw back on Grand Avenue, is just around the corner.

• Continuing south along Hope, we passed the Scottish Rite Cathedral at 929 S. Hope Street.

• Yet another church rose above us at Eleventh and Hope Sts. This is the First Christian Church, built in 1897.

• Aunt Sigrid's place was a little south of downtown, near Hope and 12th Sts. Young Frederick Johan had this postcard made of Aunt Sigrid standing in front of her house. There is a canary in a birdcage just inside the front window, with her old piano Erasmus between it and the door. I think I wrote earlier, dear, that Aunt Sigrid used to be a singer and actress all through the West, carting this self-same piano with her, same time that Papa and his brother were working all up and down the Mississippi? Anyhow, we are having many a merry evening in the parlor, gathered around that piano.

• Like its neighboring streets Grand and Hope, Flower was largely residential, especially in the lower hundreds. Pictures are more than scarce—we must go all the way to Sixth Street before we find something to show you! The stately Hotel Snow presides over the corner of Flower Street and Sixth Street.

• Just steps from the Hotel Snow, we find the Seminole Apartments at 620 S. Flower Street. Anna gazed up at its sign, blinked twice, pursed her lips, and said, "Odd, isn't it, how you can see the sky right through the sign..." Mother sighed heavily, adding, in due course, "There are times—particular times, hear me say—at which I feel that legs are being pulled. I'm not sure if it is right legs or left legs, mind you, but legs are being pulled." "One's dresses wouldn't fit properly afterwards," Minnie fretted; "just think of all the ankle!" "They would if they snapped right back," I said; "legs are not taffy, you know." At this, the Baby screwed up his face and began to wave his arms. "Oh," said Anna, "let's do take him inside; I'm sure he doesn't want his complexion spoiled by the sun." Papa, who was hanging back a bit with Charley and young FJ, hesitated a moment, and then said, "Once upon a time, yes, once upon a time, Charley, long ago it was, I was running a family of lunatics up the river from one town to another—it seems that they all went mad sort of in concert you might say when half of them were eaten by a bear..." "Was it the upper halves or the lower halves eaten?", enquired FJ. "No, I do think it was their older halves, with a fat little young'un as a sort of dessert, as I took it. Well, anyhow, you see, as we beat along up the river, I listened to them babble and rave when I had spare moments; and..." Mother turned around and squinted at him. "Just what might you be driving at, Mr. S.?" Papa took a long draw on his cigar, looked into the distance, puffed out the smoke slowly—it made a perfect ball—and said, "Mrs. S., I do think that the sun sparkled that day just as prettily it is doing right now."

• And here is the Seminole's lobby, resplendent in Kentia Palms and brass-potted Aspidistras. "In college, I learned a song about Aspidistras!" cried Charley; however, on a sharp look from Mother, he added, "—but I forget how it goes . . . "

• The clerk at the desk glanced at Charley and said, "The Ladies' Parlor is upstairs, 'round the corner." When Charley looked at him blankly, the clerk repeated, rather sternly, "Upstairs, round the corner!" With a shrug—and a bit of a smile—Charley bolted upstairs, and presumably 'round the corner. Minnie was overcome with curiosity—it's easy to tell, because she starts digging with her tongue at a hollow in her tooth—strutted over to the desk, and said, "Pardon me, but why did you just send my brother to the Ladies' Parlor?" Now it was the clerk's turn to look blank. "Isn't he Peabody Snitt, Drawing-Room Poet?" "Sir, he may well be a poet in the drawing-room in his own way, but he certainly isn't Peabody Snitt, nor any other kind of Snitt." "Aye, that he isn't!" came a voice from the door—the unpleasant little Scotsman we had encountered in the lobby of the Hotel Stowell on Spring Street, "and that I am!" Charley was soon ejected from the parlor, much to his chagrin.

• Back to churches! The First Baptist Church was to be found on the west side of Flower Street midway between Seventh and Eighth Streets.

• Dear, as you might imagine, we became very familiar with the northwest corner of Flower and Eighth Sts. I can hear you saying right now in your liquid tones—in truth, I'm not sure what a "liquid tone" might be, but surely if it's a good thing, you have it in abundance!—I can hear you saying, "Why might that be, Ulf?" Well! This was our local Lutheran church—called the First English Lutheran Church; and we trooped off there every Sunday. Minnie confided to me that she much preferred the services back home in Swedish, as since she can barely understand two sentences in a row of Swedish, she could doze without any fear of having missed anything. I pointed out that a person could doze through English as well; but she gave me a look which stopped me flat. Note the trees off to the left in this picture; they're on the south side of Eighth Street . . .

• This place of worship had also been known as the First German Lutheran Church; we see it here from another angle, from the southeast. Eighth Street goes off west to the left; Flower Street, north to the right.

• This view shows what replaced those trees across the street from the church: the rather modest Hotel Congress, at the southwest corner of Eighth Street and Flower Street. "What it lacks in extravagance," said Mother, "the church across the street supplies in honor." "No doubt," said Charley.

• The only other picture of Flower Street which the industrious young Frederick Johan could find for us was this one of the Hotel Ritz, at 813 S. Flower Street.

• Not to be totally defeated, however, by the paucity of postcards showing Flower Street, the ingenious Frederick Johan did manage to find a card showing a view from about the corner of Flower Street and Seventh Street, looking northeast over the city. "At least," quoth he, "close enough." We see the greenery of Central Park at the center; and from there we can easily pick out the Auditorium; and we see the back of the Wright-Callender Building rising beyond the Auditorium; we can see a few yards of Grand Avenue as it approaches Seventh Street at the lower right-hand corner of the view (the State Normal School is just out of view to the left); the buildings on Bunker Hill rise at the left to look down over the city; and, deep in the picture, off towards the right, we can see the Braly Building back at Spring and Fourth rising from the flatlands to meet Bunker Hill's gaze—all in all, a wide swath of downtown Los Angeles!

Return to Grand Avenue; or on to Figueroa Street . . .