the smiling men of pasadena 4: smiles may be habit forming
The December 31, 1920 edition of the Pasadena Post spotlighted (mostly) grinning photos of the paper's staff and local businessmen. Given my penchant for going down research rabbit holes related to anything quirky I stumble upon, this series will look at some of the stories behind the smiling faces. Pasadena Post, December 31, 1920. He might be smiling out of habit but, based on the information I found about Clarke Bogardus, he may have hid plenty of pain behind that grin. At age 17 he enlisted for service in the First World War, ending up in an ambulance unit. During the Second Battle of the Marne in August 1918 he, according to his obituary, "contracted a disease from which he never fully recovered." Pasadena Post, June 5, 1920. After the war, he wrote the Post 's "Motor Gossip" column. He later established an advertising agency and was involved in Pasadena Preferred, an organization promoting local growth. By the late 1940s local papers periodically p...