Talk:Lora Crozetti

Identifying Lora Crozetti

This conversation on Wikipedia suggests 'Lora' may have been a nickname or pen name for Ruth.

If so (and I think this pans out), I believe she was born 18 May 1913 as Ruth Gentry Warner to Harry William Warner and Evelyn A. Dae Roberson (née Morgan), who moved from LA to Wisconsin around 1947 with her daughter Mrs. Ruth Krozetti. It looks like she went there to take care of her mom, because in the 1950 census she was back with husband Jay and daughter Jeannette M[argaret].

The 1944 LA County voter list included a Mrs Lora Ruth Crozetti, which ties the first names together.

And Shangri L'Affaires mentioned that "Introduced as '3 generations of fans' were Lora Crozetti, her Mother—Mrs Eva Roberson, and her daughter—Jeanne Crozetti."

So I think Lora Crozetti was Lora Ruth Gentry (née Warner) Crozetti (18 May 1913–24 November 1980), buried with her husband Jay Crozetti (4 August 1915–8 Nov 1952). And I think she was also the author of The Widderburn Horror.

Which... if this Ancestry family tree is accurate, means she was also the sister of Helen Finn.

This is a lot to digest. I welcome comments before any of this goes on her main page. Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 10:39, 16 March 2023 (PDT)

Wow! Impressive research! Unfortunately, I cannot see your Ancestry links (do they have any way to do sharable permalinks? Otherwise, you have to be a member). The rest seems quite valid. The Crawford connection is another clue. —Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2023 (PDT)

I've put those documents in a Google Photos album for now; not sure if they ought to stay online at that link forever, but you should be able to see them yourself, at least long enough to make copies if you want them. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:45, 16 March 2023 (PDT)

Impressive indeed, my hat off. Let me just add here that the Wikipedia discussion was based on Google Books' scan of "Luna Monthly, Issues 13-31, 1970" – alas, the main Google's indexing is not enough to find the exact issue on Fanac.org; Books claims it to be page 10, but it certainly isn't #13 (which seems to have had rather worse typesetting than that snippet). Still, identifying it "by hand", or eyeballs, shouldn't take more than a couple dozen minutes (which I don't have now).

Also, it says merely "an old LASFS member (female) under a pen name" without outing her outright; still, the connection seems persuasive. And finally, it's not really a pen name, is it? The surname Crozetti is pretty unique. But then of course she may have intended a really disguising pseudonym at first (like Rich O'Mahoney, apparently used for the 1967 WWII mmpb Merry Christmas, You Bastards), but then not used it in the end. --JVjr (talk) 06:16, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Found the news piece: Fisher Trentworth, "The Southern California Scene", in Luna Monthly (#21), February 1971, page 10. Your observation about the typesetting helped greatly, JVjr—that was only the second Luna to be typeset that way. Also, I found a marriage registration in Ancestry Library Edition that says John Finn (b. 9 Apr 1888) married Helen Warner (b. 4 Jun 1904 to Harry Warner and Eva Morgan), which confirms that Lora was Helen Finn's younger sister. They all lived together at 1473 Belmont St, Indianapolis, in the 1920 census. As for the pen name thing, I'd say she seems to have gone by Lora in real life and R. Warner-Crozetti as an author.

It also appears from the 1940 census that she was previously married to Jessie Aredondo. It lists a household in Fillmore, Ventura County, California, consisting of Jessie Aredondo, 26; his wife Lora Aredondo, 26; his daughter Margaret J Aredondo, 1; his mother-in-law Eva D Roberson, 61; his sister-in-law Helen D Finn, 36; and his nieces Dorothy N Finn, 17, and Margaret R Finn, 15. In October of the same year, Genardo Jaramillo Aredondo, who had just turned 27, registered for the draft at a different address in Fillmore, 903½ Third St, as an unemployed man married to Lora Ruth Aredondo. She must have left him soon after that; she was Ruth G Warner when she married Jay Crozetti on October 20, 1942. I've added documentation of all this to the same Google Photos album. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 07:27, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

By the way, the Ancestry family tree claims she was widowed in 1940; that incorrectly refers to a census record for a Ruth Warner who was born in Pennsylvania and had a daughter (b. 1935) named Maria. — Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 07:37, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Glad to be at least of minor help! (Strangely, the OCR of that paragraph is perfect; guess Google search engine just skipped the PDF when indexing.) Meanwhile, I was coming with two more things I forgot:

Venus #1 p30 (sadly, poorly OCR'd) gives the editor's address as "Lora Crozetti, 1542 W. 11th Street, Los Angeles 15" just like the voter listing, also from 1944, of Crozetti, Mrs Lora Ruth. (But where was Jay, in the Army?)

Yes (EDIT: Seabees were Navy; he was Army); I just uploaded the application for his headstone, which shows he served in the 1398th Engineer Construction Battalion, 2 Dec 1941–20 Oct 1945. So he would have been on Oahu. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Even more importantly, the Wikipedia contributor also linked to the Bleiler entry for Ruth G. "Lora" Warner Crozetti, LASFS member (also formerly working as a secretary, like in the list above). This clinches it – there is no way there could have been two Lora Crozettis active at the same time. You can certainly proceed to editing the article itself.

(The entry, through some mixup or coverup, attributes her 1937 marriage, and implicitly 1938 daughter, to Jay, losing the no-good G. Aredondo of the picture. By the way, did you just delete an article about him evading the draft? I saw it somewhere and can't find it in the album now. I didn't realize who the other people in the 1940 Census were, a great catch.)

Ah heck, I did, because I didn't see that as relevant to her life since it happened after she married Jay. I've restored that screenshot though. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 08:38, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

It also lists her as "full-time writer" since 1960, which certainly doesn't fit her known output. Yet she apparently never remarried, so this doesn't seem to me to be just a pretentious form of "homemaker". Might she be producing some kind of potboilers under pseudonyms she kept really secret? Or perhaps did she work for the (off-)Hollywood?

Well, there's Merry Christmas, You Bastards, which she wrote as Rich O'Mahoney. There may well be others. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:19, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

And, just out of academic interest, does LASFS still have archives/files from those times, or has Death released them sometime in their rich history? --JVjr (talk) 08:20, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Incidentally, there's another entry at ISFDB which I've submitted changes to in the hopes of getting them merged. —Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:17, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Yet again it didn't occur to me to check this as well. Reginald says "Interests: Painting, drawing, costume design", so all that cover art makes sense.

Anyway, excellent research in the article! The few details that seem problematic and phrasings that could be improved I will simply edit when I have the time (you know, tomorrow I have a big convention event and haven't done much preparation yet), but let me note here first that "in 1947 Lora moved briefly to […] Wisconsin to take care of her dying mother" seems like an over-interpretation without support in sources. The mother died at 69, but we know nothing about hear health before that – actually, not even when Lora moved; the 1947 obituary says just that "Mrs Roberson came … from [LA] … a year ago" and "died at the home of her daughter". It is most plausible that they moved together, for whatever reason, and remained living together like they were through the 40s (with Jay, as in-laws seem skipped from the obit?), but we can never know for sure, and it really doesn't matter.

Oh, and could you upload the 1950 census as well? Again, just out of curiosity; "back at home with Jay and their daughter" might create a misleading impression that they had another one together although he may have adopted her. Thanks! --JVjr (talk) 11:28, 17 March 2023 (PDT)

Style

Really a great piece of work, Bee Ostrowsky! I’ve made some minor style changes and added a line re the film made out of her book, although the respective dates are puzzling. However, IMDB has the film in 1971, same as the book. Also Richard Mahoney is credited as a costume designer so that fits, but some of his credits are after her death.

Should there be some brief indication in the article as to why her first husband was undesirable?

Normally, Fancy standards put family connections and mundane life toward the ends of articles, with fan and sf accomplishments first, but you worked them in so seamlessly, I didn’t change them. Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 13:49, 17 March 2023 (PDT)