Note the stations of the California Radio Service in the left margin
Wilson was no actor. Apparently the show concerned missing persons, and he was there to recount the tale of one of his sons who disappeared sixteen years before. The cover letter to the script is signed by Robert Dillon, who likely was the host and producer of the little program---perhaps only 15 minutes long.
Robert Dillon had a long history as a screenwriter in Hollywood, mostly in the silent era but continuing again in the mid-1930s for serials, Westerns and exploitation films for Poverty Row studios. The only title most likely to be recognized today by film historians is the tasteless blackface silent Ham and Eggs at the Front (1927)---which co-featured Myrna Loy in one of her early and most thankless 'exotic roles'. Produced by Warner Brothers, it may have been the allowance for him getting a program slot at KFWB (Keep Filming Warner Brothers) in the late 1930s. At the time of this broadcast, Dillon had sold his last scenario two years before, but he was certainly qualified for spinning personal tragedies into radio entertainment.
1935
My family's version of the story of missing son Wilson Otis Felton had always been brief: As a teenager, he checked into the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco but never checked out. Great grandfather Wilson hired a private detective, but a lead was never found. Due to strikes at the docks at the time, the detective gave the one plausible exit he could think of: Otis had been shanghaied.
Of course the first question might be: What is a teenager doing checking into the St. Francis Hotel? Without going too deep into a back story worthy of a miniseries, Otis had been left under the supervision of his older brother, Jim, after their mother died and their father ran off to Mexico in 1917 to escape creditors. Since Jim was only about 16, it was hardly an ideal arrangement.
Wilson K. Felton's Mexican passport photo, 1917. Age: 50.
The discovery of this radio script does fill in a lot of voids. Apparently Jim's supervision went quite well for a couple of years, as he and Otis lived together in Las Vegas and Otis worked as a clerk at the Union Pacific depot. Then the script strays, either due to their father's hazy memory or lack of involvement, as it claims that Otis was transferred to the Union Pacific depot in Los Angeles.
Simultaneous to the discovery of the script was the one letter that survives from Otis to his bother Jim (or anyone else). It's postmarked Dec 22 1919 and speaks of loosing a job on a dredger---presumably in San Pedro Harbor. He then tried to get a job in the Los Angeles railroad yards, but had to settle for being a junior clerk again. Why he left Las Vegas and the Union Pacific in the interim will be forever unknown.
However, the letter gives an oblique view of unpleasantness:
I don't know what the trouble was, but I was "canned".
Stout went to [illegible] on the seventeenth. That night there was a poker game on the dredge. (I wasn't in on it, however.) I was sitting about two or three feet from S[illegible]tley, whistling lightly. It's always been a habit of his to cuss me out when he didn't like the way things were going, so he cussed me out there and told me I could get my time [the] next day.
Next day I phoned Russell. He only said he didn't want me on the dredge. He didn't say why.
So I came up to L.A. to go in[to] the R.R. shops. "No could do" so I got in[to] the office.
Now that's the truth, so help me God.
Jim obviously had some acquaintance or at least knowledge of these men since Otis refers to them by name, but why this letter was saved and others were not suggests that Jim may have known more about "the truth" than the letter admits to. Gambling is alluded to, but the reaction doesn't seem to be connected to it. It's more like S---tley is annoyed by Otis hovering nearby. Otis was making him nervous, as if he felt guilty by association.
The script continues with the fact that my great grandfather didn't know that Otis was in San Francisco until he received a letter from the St. Francis Hotel. How they knew to contact him was another mystery, since the script claims he registered under the name of M. Couer.
St. Francis Hotel, circa 1925
I don't know why he used that name, but he was romantic sort of boy, and maybe it seemed adventurous to him. He was only 19 years old.
So the date of his disappearance is 1923--- almost three years after the above letter.
Q: How long did he remain at the hotel?
A: That's the strange thing about the whole matter. He registered at the hotel, moved in his trunk and a couple of bags, and never was seen again. They say he had good luggage, and several good suits. After several days went by, and no sign of him, the management entered his room to investigate. They found that he never occupied the room.
Strangely, the script never gives a description of Otis but spends almost a page on his habits and scars. Either a description was told beforehand or Dillon thought Otis's habits and scars were enough.
A: [As a child] he swallowed a tube of ochre paint. His mother was an artist, and he got hold of some of her paints. It gave him lead poisoning. As a result of that poison, he acquired a habit that will help identify him. The lead poisoning left his joints rather painful, and he would close his hands into fists and bring them to-gether across his chest. Then he would press the knuckles to-gether, real hard, and he said it relieved some of the pain when he did that.
Q: That's a good point, Mr. Felton. Now, does your son carry any scars?
A: Yes. When he was in school, he went through a ring-worm epidemic. Somehow or other, it got into his hair, and was awful hard to clear up. It left several bare patches on his scalp, and he combs his hair so that they will be covered up...
Wilson Otis Felton, circa 1914
The one surviving photo of him shows this. Midst a motley crew of Imperial Valley grammar school students, his hair appears to be sporting a primitive layered look. He is also darkly and heavily freckled, and for some reason I recall being told he was a dark redhead. His mother was strawberry blonde, so it could be possible. My grandmother---his sister---had dark brown hair and was lightly freckled at most.
Otis excelled in school, particularly in composition. He won a prize for a poem he wrote at around the age of twelve. It's hard to say what he could have accomplished if he didn't have to leave school at the age of thirteen or fourteen.
Which brings us back to Otis at nineteen years of age and checking into the St. Francis Hotel: How does a railroad clerk afford good luggage and several good suits---let alone a grand hotel? Obviously he had bettered himself since the last time we heard from him, but how remains yet another mystery.
A: If the news isn't good news I want to hear it anyway.
Good suits can come from selling good bootleg liquor or having a good hand at cards. That's also a good way to end up on the bottom of San Francisco Bay. There are also certain good gentlemen who will give a young man such things in spite of his peculiar hairstyle. It could all be a clever ruse to get lost. After all, he may have just been following his poorly spelled French m. coeur---'my heart'.
What a fascinating story. Too bad we don't know the ending...but I guess that's life. We don't always have everything neatly wrapped up like in a novel.
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