Dear Irene

Acknowledgments

I am especially grateful to Dan Coburn for his help with airplanes; Ed and Kelly Dohring for once again providing help with medical questions (even during walks on Sanibel Island); Detective Dennis Payne of the LAPD Robbery-Homicide Division, for putting up with all kinds of pestering; Andy Rose and Debbie Arrington of the Press-Telegram for reporting insights; Robert Samoian, Deputy District Attorney for the County of Los Angeles, for help with judicial system questions; Larry Ragle, author, instructor and former Director of Forensic Sciences for Orange County; John Olguin of the Los Angeles Dodgers organization, Jack Shinar, Bill Granick, Debbie Arrington (yes, again!), and everyone else who helped with the baseball questions; Sharon Weissman for unfailing support and willingness to help; and Ken McGuire of the Los Angeles County Flood Control District, who patiently answered some strange inquiries from a mystery writer during a break in the rainy season. Special thanks are due my uncle, Robert Flynn, retired political reporter for the Evansville Press, whose work has always fascinated me, and undoubtedly influenced Irene’s choice of a career.

No small part of the information about child care and women in the workforce during World War II was gathered from my participation as a research assistant on the “Rosie the Riveter Revisited” oral history project at California State University, Long Beach, a project funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. I am indebted to Sherna Gluck, who designed and directed the project, for allowing me the remarkable privilege of interviewing women who worked in Southern California ’s aircraft factories during World War II. I am also indebted to the women themselves, whose recollections and thoughts about their lives changed my own life in ways I cannot measure.

Thanks to a great many librarians for your assistance in research and beyond, especially to those of you who work for the Long Beach Public Library, the Angelo Iacoboni Branch of the Los Angeles County Library, and the University Library of California State University, Long Beach.

As always, readers are asked to understand that while all of these individuals were of help in the research for this book, I will not allow them to take any credit for my errors.

Nancy Yost deserves thanks for so much, including insightful comments on early drafts.

My family and friends have kept me going during those times when I thought I was a goner. Tom and Marty Burke have been especially wonderful, putting up with their daughter-in-law’s oddball, PST nightowl work schedule during her visits to the East Coast. Tim remained a steadfast companion and cheerleader during days when my DNA might not have tested out to be human. Robert Hahn, Heather Harkins, and members of the Flynn family who waited for me in Cincinnati deserve my special thanks for their patience.

The people who make up a company called Simon and Schuster have given me support at every level, more than I can detail here. And Laurie Bernstein will never know how much I appreciate her guidance and encouragement, because this book would cost each reader an additional ten bucks if I were allowed the time to sit here and write about it. Will “THANKS!!” do for now?