Camden Courier-Post – February 25, 1938
Fair, charming and, clever, Mrs. Rocco Palese is one of my “favorite girl friends” — this is rather an exclusive organization — to be found in South Jersey. When this charming-matron proceeded to rebuke me with the chastening rod the other day, I was obedient to the command of Camden’s fair daughter.
“The great trouble with you,” opined Mrs. Palese, who was talking with Mrs. Florence Baker, Republican state committeewoman, who is also one of the “F. G. F.” is that you don’t write enough about women.”
“Why you should have column after column about the fine women we have in Camden,” she added.
As I left the charming Mrs. Palese and the equally winsome Madame Baker it was my fortune to encounter one of the others who are ensconced in the Circle of “F. G. F.” She is Mrs. Emma E. Hyland, postmaster of Camden and for years the brave matron who carried aloft the banner of an unterrified but unwelcome Democracy.
Mrs. Hyland smiled in that manner so disarming, and in ‘her’ own diplomatic way. My thoughts meanwhile ran back to a banquet that was held a few nights before, in which the winsome Mrs. Hyland administered one verbal spanking to that glutton for punishment who writes this potpourri.
Mrs. Hyland verifies sapient remarks made by that astute counselor, Samuel P. Orlando, to wit:
“The great wonder in my mind has been that Mrs. Hyland could battle in politics the way she has and still retain her femininity to such a marked degree.”
Harmony Dwells in Democracy
The sentiments expressed so tersely but eloquently by the limb of the law named Orlando meets with my emphatic “aye.” Therefore, when Mrs. Hyland proceeded to chastise this scribe because the Mackay hinted that harmony does not does not dwell in Democracy’s tents, the lady appeared vocally ruffled as she proceeded to shoot Mackay at sunrise.
We acknowledged the lambasting, but still there lurked in our mind the same old seed “of suspicion. We recalled when Harry Moore was inducted into office as the only Governor to thrice have held that exalted office. The inauguration tickets were not profuse in the Brunner–Kelleher camp, hence we wondered why.
At the same time we remembered an innocent remark that we had read in the column of our able colleague, the cheery sprite, known as Charlie Humes. It was to the effect “that I am not supposed to bring people up here now.”
As we trudged along the streets our minds burrowed in thought and our brains (?) deeply immersed in imagination we pulled up near Broadway and Stevens street in front of the red brick building which the unrighteous now call “No Man’s Land” or more formally the Republican county headquarters.
We were startled out of our reverie by hearing a dulcet voice shouting: “My car is afire! My car is afire! I can’t put it out!”
Instantly we knew that voice. It was that of another of our “F. G. F.” in trouble, this time Mrs. Baker. Her gasoline chariot had come ablaze. She was in quandary terrific as to extinguishing the flames.
Squish! Squish! Out Goes Fire
Don’t tell me why no woman loses her head in an emergency. Out of a store came a lady; racing with a can in her hand. She was Sadye Levinsky, One of the few women pharmacists in Camden county.
Miss Levinsky knew her stuff as she also knows Mrs. Baker. Sadye went at her job in calm, matter-of-fact fashion that would have won the envy of any volunteer fireman who ever borrowed Fred Lynch’s rubber boots.
Squish! Squish! Squish! went the pump in the can. Out, pronto went the flames. Mrs. Baker was profuse in her thanks as Miss Levinsky waved the emergency treatment of the fiery chariot aside, it was all in the day’s work.
“Boy,” we were saluted. “I’ve just seen the best emotional thespian, that hasn’t made Hollywood. She’s a knockout, about the prettiest girl in this county.
“Where is this paragon,” we queried, wanting to know something about such a lady myself.
“She is in court trying to get alimony from her husband, Dr. Eppelman,” said the barrister. We trudged over to the courthouse where we met a group who were discussing the Ethel Barrymore who had just asked her dentist husband be compelled to support her and a child.
“Phew,” said Walter Keown, who was hubby’s counsel, “what an actress, what, an actress!” Now that was some tribute for we’ve seen Pete Keown in court and he can do a John Barrymore, too.
It was at that moment that a petite blonde with a face that rivaled Helen of Troy’s and could launch a thousand ships from any dock in the world came around the corner. She was fetchingly dressed and surrounded by a flotilla of males; all members of her families.
She was Mrs. Eppleman, and that lawyer’s description of her glamour and charm was a prize bit of understatement. If she can act as good as she looks they better get Carole Lombard, Lucille Ball and some of those other gals an annuity right away, for they’ll be pushed off the map.
Hardly had we sauntered away from this beauty when we encountered Mrs. Pauline Caperoon, our best bet for the prize politician among all her sex in Camden County. Pauline was as energetic, as politic and loquacious as is characteristic and we had a talkfest about certain folk and their foibles that was enriched, by the strength of Mrs. Caperoon’s vocabulary, with an added trimming of a most conservative type from the writer.
After we had chatted with Pauline and learned plenty we should know we walked away again. Just in time to see Mayor Brunner and Mrs. Kobus hiking for a train to Trenton. Of course, we knew they were just running up to see the Governor, but nothing political. We subsided.
Thus, Mrs. Palese, we feel that we have covered the ground pretty today in a single column, to bring to the attention of our readers something about women.
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