Thumper
06-20-2013, 03:05 PM
I posted something about this months ago, but in the meantime, I've been doing some research. I got interested in estate sales a while back and decided to attend one just to get a feel for what they are all about and how they work. I found one listed on Craig's List and headed out early one Saturday morning. When I pulled up to the address, I started having second thoughts. The yard was all grown up, the house was in disrepair and there was junk/trash piled EVERYWHERE outside. I parked and approached the house. I met a few people headed out as I was headed in and they were all shaking their heads. As we passed they told me I may as well just turn around and to not waste my time. Ummm, okaaay ... and I wondered WTF was going on.
I entered the house and it was very dark, hot and smelled musty. Trash and junk was piled from floor to ceiling. It looked like one of those places you see on that tv show, "Hoarders". I talked with the guy inside and found he was the nephew of an elderly lady who'd recently passed away and he was there to clean the place up so the house could be sold and it was obvious he was totally overwhelmed. NOTHING was organized and looked like nothing more than piles and piles of plastic trash bags stuffed full of who-knows-what? I was the only one who even stepped into the house ... everyone else got to the door, peered in, turned and left.
I went to the truck, grabbed my flashlight, went back in and started digging. During my exploration we began talking and eventually migrated to the garage for some "fresh air" (and daylight). It seems his uncle was a Hollywood Producer and when he retired, he and his wife moved to Florida and bought this house, where they lived until he passed away years ago. The aunt lived there alone after that and when her health failed, she was moved into a nursing home where she lived for a few years until she passed away. During this time, the house was closed up and remained empty. Sometime during that time, the roof started leaking so the inside was a real mess. A large part of the livingroom ceiling had collapsed, carpet/furniture was ruined and the drywall was covered in mildew. A real mess!
The nephew had flown in and taken a taxi to the house, so he was stuck there. His plan was to take his aunt's car, throw a battery in it and drive it home (100 miles or so) after he cleaned up the house. I took him down to grab a sammich and we came back with a cooler full of beer and ice ... then sat in the garage talking as he did a job on the beer. He said he wasn't sure what he was going to do, there was no electricity (no lights, fridge or a/c) and the house was REALLY dark. There was no running water ... he had a hose, from the neighbor's house, coming in through the bathroom window so he could fill the toilet tank and at least use the restroom. The biggest problem, there was no trash pick-up ... and he had TONS of it!
I eventually found a few interesting items and he told me I could have them as it would just be that much less he had to throw away. I thanked him and offered my utility trailer (5X10) to load up some of the trash and I'd haul it to the dump for him. The dump fees would be in exchange for the stuff he gave me. I went back home, hooked up my trailer, grabbed some tools and headed back over. I backed my trailer into the yard, dropped it, then we started working on the car to see if we could get it running. We put some fresh gas in the tank, stuck a battery in it and tried to get it going. We couldn't find the keys, so I "punched" the ignition. I think the old gas/trash in the tank rendered the fuel injectors FUBAR, so he remained "stuck".
I left the trailer that evening and told him I'd return the next day (Sunday) to pick it up as he had to head back home Tuesday. When I arrived Sunday afternoon, he had plastic trash bags stacked 10' high on that trailer! I strapped them all down, shook his hand, wished him luck and hauled all that trash back to my house. The dump is closed on Sunday, so I figured I'd take it during the week. Then a light bulb went off. I figured I'd go through the trash, separate the recyclable stuff from the trash and put as much as I could by the curb for pick-up.
Dang .. I started pulling out all sorts of "cool" stuff. I guess he simply went in and threw EVERYTHING in that house into trash bags. Granted, 99.99% of it was junk, trash or water-soaked yucky crap, but I dug out a few cool things that I put aside and eventually sold on e-Bay. Nothing major, just what I call "smalls". As I was throwing tons of paper into the recycle bin, something caught my eye. It was a letter from Joan Crawford, written to the uncle & aunt thanking them for a birthday card they'd sent. I researched it and found her stuff doesn't bring much money because she was a prolific letter-writer and her stuff wasn't all that rare. I threw it up on e-Bay and it sold immediately ... but only brought $50-$75 I think (don't really remember).
BUT ... during some more digging, I found a hand-written note from Errol Flynn! Evidently, the aunt was a school teacher in Los Angeles before she married and this note was asking her to excuse Flynn's daughter, Rory, for being late to school. I've researched the daughter and found she's still in L.A. and is a professional photographer. She's the daughter of Flynn and his second wife, Nora Eddington. (I guess he liked 'em young!)
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1924, the daughter of Jack Eddington of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office, Nora Eddington was nineteen when she met Errol Flynn in February 1943 – at the time, she was working at the courthouse where Flynn's notorious 1943 trial for statutory rape was taking place. Flynn was acquitted and they were married in 1944 in Mexico. Their daughter, Deirdre, was born on January 10, 1945. By the time their second daughter, Rory, was born in March 1947, their marriage was already essentially over. The couple were divorced in 1949, but parted on fairly amicable terms, with Eddington (now Eddington Flynn) given custody of the children. (so this is where Rory, the second child, fits in)
To make things even more interesting, the stationery Flynn wrote the note on is his personal stationery from his yacht, Zaca! Ok, now for more research! It turns out the story of the Zaca is extremely interesting itself! The yacht was even featured in a few of his films and has quite a history.
History
Few modern sailing vessels are surrounded by more myth and legend than the yacht Zaca. Launched on the eve of the Great Depression, the 118' gaff-rigged schooner has sailed through seventy years of history from one remarkable adventure to the next. Today, berthed in Monaco, Zaca remains a topic of fascination in nautical circles.
In 1929, San Francisco socialite and railroad heir Templeton Crocker hired naval architect Garland Rotch to design one of the most luxurious yachts yet constructed. This vessel was to replace a 75’ ketch that Crocker had lost the previous year during a revolution in Mexico. Rotch borrowed the lines for the second Zaca from Canada’s famed Bluenose, the fastest fishing schooner ever built, and in August of 1929 the keel was laid down alongside the Nunes Brothers boatyard in Sausalito, California.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Origin_Bluenose72_launch.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Origin_BlueNose3_sailing.jpg
To build a schooner of the size of Zaca was not an easy proposition. Designer Garland Rotch and owner Templeton Crocker looked across San Francisco Bay to Sausalito based boat builders Ernie and Antonio Nunes. The 118' feet vessel was too large to be built in the Nunes Brothers yard so, in August of 1929, the keel was laid alongside the shop — in the middle of Sausalito's Main Street. A week later, the stock market crashed. But even as the Great Depression swept the nation, construction of the new Zaca went full speed ahead.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1930_BoatYard.gif
During Zaca’s maiden voyage in 1930, Templeton Crocker met S.M. Lambert in Fiji. Lambert, a doctor in tropical medicine for the Rockefeller Foundation, entertained Crocker with tales of isolated and unexplored regions in the Solomon Islands. There, said Lambert, lived a tribe of Polynesians who, having had no contact with white men, were twenty thousand years behind modern man and the only relics of a prehistoric civilization.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1933_ZacaAnchored2.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1933_GroupSmall.jpg
With war in 1941, every seaworthy private yacht was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy. Crocker was paid just $35,000 for his beloved $350,000 schooner. Zaca was painted battleship gray, renamed IX-73, and ordered on patrol 500 miles off of Eureka, California. She once spotted a Japanese fleet sailing down the coast and her radio report had them turn tail and retreat. Zaca’s normal duty was as a radio beacon station, although she did carry two .50 caliber machine guns ‘just in case’. When she returned to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay every three weeks, her freezer was reliably full of salmon. In 1944, Zaca was replaced by a diesel patrol boat and in 1945 was decommissioned and, along with several other well-worn yachts, auctioned off.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1943_PrintSmall.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1943_ZacaGray.jpg
In 1945, Errol Flynn purchased his ‘dream ship’ Zaca from speculator Joe Rosenberg. Flynn completely refurbished her, painted her white and, in 1946, in the company of a pick-up crew, his scientist father, marine biologist Carl Hubbs, and an assortment of actors, relatives, and a documentary film crew, sailed to Acapulco on a ‘scientific expedition’ that turned into a fiasco. After everyone jumped ship in Acapulco, Flynn trained a Mexican crew and rented Zaca to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth for the filming of The Lady from Shanghai. In 1947, Zaca reappeared in Port Antonio, Jamaica, which Flynn would call home. Sailing to the Mediterranean in 1950 with a Jamaican crew, Zaca would eventually wind up at the Club Nautico in Palma de Mallorca where he and third wife Patrice Wymore would live on board.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1946_FlynnatWheel2.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1946_FlynnPat2.jpg
After Flynn’s death in 1959, Zaca stayed at her berth at the Club Nautico, the crew keeping her up with the little money Patrice could get them. The attorneys for Flynn’s Estate in the meanwhile were plotting to get rid of her. Eventually they agreed to consign her to English millionaire playboy Freddie Tinsley who promised he could sell her in France. Once in France, Tinsley stripped Zaca of everything of value and, in 1965, abandoned her in the boatyard of Bernard Voisin in Villefranche. Voisin eventually claimed Zaca for non-payment of rent. Zaca further deteriorated and turned into a ghost ship. The locals claimed there were emanations of Errol Flynn coming from the vessel and the sound of wild parties at night. This all ceased after a dual Anglican-Catholic exorcism in 1979. In 1987 English electronics mogul Phillip Coussins purchased Voisin’s boat yard just to get Zaca but the deal ended up in French courts for two years. In 1990 Coussins wound up selling a now sunken Zaca to Italian businessman Roberto Memmo.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1985_DeterioratingSmall_250.gif http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1985_VilleArticles2_475.gif
After two years of extensive rebuilding in Toulon, Zaca made her grand reappearance at Monaco’s classic Regatta in 1993. Zaca is regaled as one of the finest yachts in the world. Skipper, Bruno Dal Pias, and a regular crew of four keep Zaca busy, visiting such ports as Punta Ala, Gaeta, Capri, Cagliari, and the Aegean. Owner Roberto Memmo has Zaca again hosting world leaders, writers, movie stars and the occasional documentary filmmaker. During the summer, Zaca can be seen in person at important Regattas in the Mediterranean. In the winter she can be found in her berth in Port de Fontvieille, Monte Carlo.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Today_FullSail.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Today_ZacaWheel2.jpg
To be continued below:
I entered the house and it was very dark, hot and smelled musty. Trash and junk was piled from floor to ceiling. It looked like one of those places you see on that tv show, "Hoarders". I talked with the guy inside and found he was the nephew of an elderly lady who'd recently passed away and he was there to clean the place up so the house could be sold and it was obvious he was totally overwhelmed. NOTHING was organized and looked like nothing more than piles and piles of plastic trash bags stuffed full of who-knows-what? I was the only one who even stepped into the house ... everyone else got to the door, peered in, turned and left.
I went to the truck, grabbed my flashlight, went back in and started digging. During my exploration we began talking and eventually migrated to the garage for some "fresh air" (and daylight). It seems his uncle was a Hollywood Producer and when he retired, he and his wife moved to Florida and bought this house, where they lived until he passed away years ago. The aunt lived there alone after that and when her health failed, she was moved into a nursing home where she lived for a few years until she passed away. During this time, the house was closed up and remained empty. Sometime during that time, the roof started leaking so the inside was a real mess. A large part of the livingroom ceiling had collapsed, carpet/furniture was ruined and the drywall was covered in mildew. A real mess!
The nephew had flown in and taken a taxi to the house, so he was stuck there. His plan was to take his aunt's car, throw a battery in it and drive it home (100 miles or so) after he cleaned up the house. I took him down to grab a sammich and we came back with a cooler full of beer and ice ... then sat in the garage talking as he did a job on the beer. He said he wasn't sure what he was going to do, there was no electricity (no lights, fridge or a/c) and the house was REALLY dark. There was no running water ... he had a hose, from the neighbor's house, coming in through the bathroom window so he could fill the toilet tank and at least use the restroom. The biggest problem, there was no trash pick-up ... and he had TONS of it!
I eventually found a few interesting items and he told me I could have them as it would just be that much less he had to throw away. I thanked him and offered my utility trailer (5X10) to load up some of the trash and I'd haul it to the dump for him. The dump fees would be in exchange for the stuff he gave me. I went back home, hooked up my trailer, grabbed some tools and headed back over. I backed my trailer into the yard, dropped it, then we started working on the car to see if we could get it running. We put some fresh gas in the tank, stuck a battery in it and tried to get it going. We couldn't find the keys, so I "punched" the ignition. I think the old gas/trash in the tank rendered the fuel injectors FUBAR, so he remained "stuck".
I left the trailer that evening and told him I'd return the next day (Sunday) to pick it up as he had to head back home Tuesday. When I arrived Sunday afternoon, he had plastic trash bags stacked 10' high on that trailer! I strapped them all down, shook his hand, wished him luck and hauled all that trash back to my house. The dump is closed on Sunday, so I figured I'd take it during the week. Then a light bulb went off. I figured I'd go through the trash, separate the recyclable stuff from the trash and put as much as I could by the curb for pick-up.
Dang .. I started pulling out all sorts of "cool" stuff. I guess he simply went in and threw EVERYTHING in that house into trash bags. Granted, 99.99% of it was junk, trash or water-soaked yucky crap, but I dug out a few cool things that I put aside and eventually sold on e-Bay. Nothing major, just what I call "smalls". As I was throwing tons of paper into the recycle bin, something caught my eye. It was a letter from Joan Crawford, written to the uncle & aunt thanking them for a birthday card they'd sent. I researched it and found her stuff doesn't bring much money because she was a prolific letter-writer and her stuff wasn't all that rare. I threw it up on e-Bay and it sold immediately ... but only brought $50-$75 I think (don't really remember).
BUT ... during some more digging, I found a hand-written note from Errol Flynn! Evidently, the aunt was a school teacher in Los Angeles before she married and this note was asking her to excuse Flynn's daughter, Rory, for being late to school. I've researched the daughter and found she's still in L.A. and is a professional photographer. She's the daughter of Flynn and his second wife, Nora Eddington. (I guess he liked 'em young!)
Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1924, the daughter of Jack Eddington of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's office, Nora Eddington was nineteen when she met Errol Flynn in February 1943 – at the time, she was working at the courthouse where Flynn's notorious 1943 trial for statutory rape was taking place. Flynn was acquitted and they were married in 1944 in Mexico. Their daughter, Deirdre, was born on January 10, 1945. By the time their second daughter, Rory, was born in March 1947, their marriage was already essentially over. The couple were divorced in 1949, but parted on fairly amicable terms, with Eddington (now Eddington Flynn) given custody of the children. (so this is where Rory, the second child, fits in)
To make things even more interesting, the stationery Flynn wrote the note on is his personal stationery from his yacht, Zaca! Ok, now for more research! It turns out the story of the Zaca is extremely interesting itself! The yacht was even featured in a few of his films and has quite a history.
History
Few modern sailing vessels are surrounded by more myth and legend than the yacht Zaca. Launched on the eve of the Great Depression, the 118' gaff-rigged schooner has sailed through seventy years of history from one remarkable adventure to the next. Today, berthed in Monaco, Zaca remains a topic of fascination in nautical circles.
In 1929, San Francisco socialite and railroad heir Templeton Crocker hired naval architect Garland Rotch to design one of the most luxurious yachts yet constructed. This vessel was to replace a 75’ ketch that Crocker had lost the previous year during a revolution in Mexico. Rotch borrowed the lines for the second Zaca from Canada’s famed Bluenose, the fastest fishing schooner ever built, and in August of 1929 the keel was laid down alongside the Nunes Brothers boatyard in Sausalito, California.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Origin_Bluenose72_launch.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Origin_BlueNose3_sailing.jpg
To build a schooner of the size of Zaca was not an easy proposition. Designer Garland Rotch and owner Templeton Crocker looked across San Francisco Bay to Sausalito based boat builders Ernie and Antonio Nunes. The 118' feet vessel was too large to be built in the Nunes Brothers yard so, in August of 1929, the keel was laid alongside the shop — in the middle of Sausalito's Main Street. A week later, the stock market crashed. But even as the Great Depression swept the nation, construction of the new Zaca went full speed ahead.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1930_BoatYard.gif
During Zaca’s maiden voyage in 1930, Templeton Crocker met S.M. Lambert in Fiji. Lambert, a doctor in tropical medicine for the Rockefeller Foundation, entertained Crocker with tales of isolated and unexplored regions in the Solomon Islands. There, said Lambert, lived a tribe of Polynesians who, having had no contact with white men, were twenty thousand years behind modern man and the only relics of a prehistoric civilization.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1933_ZacaAnchored2.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1933_GroupSmall.jpg
With war in 1941, every seaworthy private yacht was requisitioned by the U.S. Navy. Crocker was paid just $35,000 for his beloved $350,000 schooner. Zaca was painted battleship gray, renamed IX-73, and ordered on patrol 500 miles off of Eureka, California. She once spotted a Japanese fleet sailing down the coast and her radio report had them turn tail and retreat. Zaca’s normal duty was as a radio beacon station, although she did carry two .50 caliber machine guns ‘just in case’. When she returned to Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay every three weeks, her freezer was reliably full of salmon. In 1944, Zaca was replaced by a diesel patrol boat and in 1945 was decommissioned and, along with several other well-worn yachts, auctioned off.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1943_PrintSmall.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1943_ZacaGray.jpg
In 1945, Errol Flynn purchased his ‘dream ship’ Zaca from speculator Joe Rosenberg. Flynn completely refurbished her, painted her white and, in 1946, in the company of a pick-up crew, his scientist father, marine biologist Carl Hubbs, and an assortment of actors, relatives, and a documentary film crew, sailed to Acapulco on a ‘scientific expedition’ that turned into a fiasco. After everyone jumped ship in Acapulco, Flynn trained a Mexican crew and rented Zaca to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth for the filming of The Lady from Shanghai. In 1947, Zaca reappeared in Port Antonio, Jamaica, which Flynn would call home. Sailing to the Mediterranean in 1950 with a Jamaican crew, Zaca would eventually wind up at the Club Nautico in Palma de Mallorca where he and third wife Patrice Wymore would live on board.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1946_FlynnatWheel2.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1946_FlynnPat2.jpg
After Flynn’s death in 1959, Zaca stayed at her berth at the Club Nautico, the crew keeping her up with the little money Patrice could get them. The attorneys for Flynn’s Estate in the meanwhile were plotting to get rid of her. Eventually they agreed to consign her to English millionaire playboy Freddie Tinsley who promised he could sell her in France. Once in France, Tinsley stripped Zaca of everything of value and, in 1965, abandoned her in the boatyard of Bernard Voisin in Villefranche. Voisin eventually claimed Zaca for non-payment of rent. Zaca further deteriorated and turned into a ghost ship. The locals claimed there were emanations of Errol Flynn coming from the vessel and the sound of wild parties at night. This all ceased after a dual Anglican-Catholic exorcism in 1979. In 1987 English electronics mogul Phillip Coussins purchased Voisin’s boat yard just to get Zaca but the deal ended up in French courts for two years. In 1990 Coussins wound up selling a now sunken Zaca to Italian businessman Roberto Memmo.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1985_DeterioratingSmall_250.gif http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/1985_VilleArticles2_475.gif
After two years of extensive rebuilding in Toulon, Zaca made her grand reappearance at Monaco’s classic Regatta in 1993. Zaca is regaled as one of the finest yachts in the world. Skipper, Bruno Dal Pias, and a regular crew of four keep Zaca busy, visiting such ports as Punta Ala, Gaeta, Capri, Cagliari, and the Aegean. Owner Roberto Memmo has Zaca again hosting world leaders, writers, movie stars and the occasional documentary filmmaker. During the summer, Zaca can be seen in person at important Regattas in the Mediterranean. In the winter she can be found in her berth in Port de Fontvieille, Monte Carlo.
http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Today_FullSail.jpg http://www.thesailingchannel.tv/zaca/images/history/Today_ZacaWheel2.jpg
To be continued below: