The Jazz Age

Cele in the center back with friends 1929

She's about 18

It's hard to believe one's mother had a life before three children changed it. But our mother Cecelia used to give us small glimpses of her adolescence in the 1920s.

Same day

Cele is third from left.

These may be her friends from work at the phone company.

Cele on the bottom with friends at Budd Lake, New Jersey, 1930

Born in 1911, Cele was 18 when the stock market crashed in 1929. She'd been working for several years. There seems to have been some Jazz-age fun involved. The photos of her in her teens and twenties in the family album interested us very little. Where were we?

Same vacation at Budd Lake. Cele is 2nd from left.

Budd Lake is an old resort

Cele in the center

Budd Lake

One clue to the past was in the words "Arline Judge."

Arline Judge in the 1930s

This woman was a B-movie star whose giant claim to fame was 8 marriages and divorces. Arline Judge was often in the news due to various civil ceremonies, particularly a union with Yankees' owner Dan Topping. She and Lana Turner competed for the most marriages by a Hollywood star, and seem to have competed for the same men.They both married Daniel Topping's brother Bob Topping but only Arline married both Topping brothers.

Apparently Cele and Arline Judge were acquaintances as girls.

Arline Judge's biographies say she was born in February, 1912, making her six months younger than my mother. They also say she was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This is the "fact" that always made by mother snort. Apparently Arline Judge was born in Brooklyn, and it is very possible that she was not born in 1912.

Arline Judge in the movie George White Scandals.

How my mother came to know a Jazz Baby like Arline Judge I do not know.
Judge's official biographies say she went to an Ursuline Convent in Brooklyn. This probably would have made my mother snort too.

Watch a YouTube video of Arline Judge singing by clicking here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBL0OgWDEXE&feature=player_embedded