Interview with Half-Century Constructor Lou Sabin

Today I'm delighted to publish an interview with Lou Sabin, a prolific New York Times crossword constructor of at least 137 puzzles, 108 during the pre-Shortz era and 29 under Will Shortz's editorship.  Lou is also one of the few constructors to have published in The Times for more than 50 years!  To read the interview, click here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews tab above, then scroll down.  If you'd like to read more about Lou, see this 2009 Wordplay article by XWord Info's Jim Horne and this 2011 profile by John Saccenti, "The Puzzling Pastime of Creating Crosswords."

Todd Gross: Christy Ridley Male, Not Female—Plus a Major Report on Early Female Constructor Helen Pettigrew

Christy Ridley Male, Not Female

Photo courtesy of Ancestry.com

Crossword researcher and historian Todd Gross reported a major discovery yesterday:  Pre-Shortzian constructor Christy Ridley, who published at least 54 daily puzzles under editor Eugene T. Maleska between 1981 and 1993, was male, not female.  Christy was one of several pre-Shortzian constructors with ambiguous first names and about whom we had no additional information.  Todd's finding is important both because Christy was originally erroneously coded as female in my files and because of the relatively large number of puzzles involved.

Two years ago at the 2014 American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, I reported the results of statistical tests I had done on constructor gender in the pre-Shortz and Shortz eras.  That report was a brief summary of my findings, which were detailed in a paper I wrote for a science research course.  I ran many statistical tests, some of which involved limited portions of the complete data set.  The smaller the data set, the more likely the results are to be skewed by individual data points.  Although I have not rerun the tests with this change in one constructor's gender coding, certain tests within the Maleska era would likely turn out differently enough to significantly affect some results—most notably, the proportion of puzzles Maleska published by women would have been less than the proportion published by Will Weng, but probably still not as low as in the Farrar and Shortz eras.  It is worth keeping in mind that my data set is incomplete and that the constructor names (and, consequently, genders) of many puzzles are still unknown.

In addition to the above photo, which Todd found on Ancestry.com, Todd discovered this obituary reprinted on Legacy.com:

Courtesy of The Daily News-Journal

Thanks so much again, Todd, for this very important discovery!

Early Female Constructor Helen Pettigrew

Todd also contacted me recently about his efforts to find out more about pre-Shortzian constructor Helen Pettigrew, who, according to my (incomplete) records, published one puzzle in The New York Times.  Here's Todd's report:

Helen Pettigrew was the first constructor I decided to research.  I saw the following puzzle, published in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday, July 15, 1928.

Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Times

The crossword is titled "Down in Arkansas," but there's nothing about Arkansas in the puzzle.  I asked [New York Times constructor] Joe Krozel about it (he'd mentioned an interest in crossword history); he thought maybe the constructor was from Arkansas. So I went on Ancestry.com to try to find her . . . and find her I did.  And indeed, she was born and raised, and lived nearly her entire life, in what is now Charleston in Franklin County, about 25 miles east of Ft. Smith.

Ancestry.com has a pretty thorough history for Helen:   She was born in 1894 in what is now Charleston but was unincorporated at the time.  In the 1920 Census she's listed as a teacher.  But in the 1930 Census she's listed as a sketch writer for magazines.  In the 1940 Census, she's listed with no occupation . . . but living with her father (now 83) and her mother's sister (91), so likely taking care of both of them.

Alas, I don't have any examples of her work in magazines . . . but I found some puzzles from the early 1950s published in newspapers.  I'm including two of them here, the first from November 1951; the second from April 1953.

Image courtesy of the Lethbridge Herald

Image courtesy of the

Independent Record   

I also have a couple of her crosswords from the early '70s, which fits with her one known puzzle in The New York Times published April 15, 1974.  But I'm pretty sure she was published in Simon & Schuster in at least the late '20s to early '30s, and I have a New York Herald Tribune puzzle of hers from Sunday, March 25, 1928 (the Los Angeles Times puzzle was syndicated from the New York World).

She also published several books of Bible-themed crosswords (and other puzzles) in the 1960s and '70s.  Google has links to various books; here is the cover of one published in (I believe) 1963:

Over the years (I first saw "Down in Arkansas" in 2009), I uncovered a lot of information about Ms. Pettigrew.  But I couldn't answer the question I've been pondering since I first saw that crossword:  What inspired a woman living in central Arkansas in the 1920s to try her hand at crossword construction, sending puzzles to editors thousands of miles away in New York?

Last month (April 2016), I decided to try going to Charleston for myself to see what I could uncover there.  I flew to Little Rock for Arkansas Puzzle Day and made a weeklong trip of it, including visiting Charleston.  Helen never married, and I believe there are no living Pettigrews left there.   But I did find the local library, which had a genealogy room.  And in that room, I found a book that didn't answer that question . . . but it did answer another question I'd had since I started:  What did Helen look like?

The book, titled Franklin County (Images of America) was written by Lola Shropshire and published in 2000.  Among images of various people and places in Franklin County, I found one of Helen Pettigrew, with a nice explanatory paragraph below.  It may not have answered all my questions, but it gave me nice closure.  I took several pictures of the page, to be sure I got it right.  But I needn't have bothered:  The book is in Google Books, and here is the picture of Helen with the accompanying paragraph:

Image courtesy of Arcadia Publishing

So perhaps I didn't need to make the trip.  But before I left Charleston, I took one picture that isn't in any book.  Helen passed away in 1977, about three years after the New York Times crossword was published.  She passed away in Booneville but is buried in the local cemetery in Charleston, near her father and other family members.  It isn't large, and in about 15 minutes I found her grave.  And I propped a copy of her "Down in Arkansas" puzzle next to the headstone and took this picture.

R.I.P., Helen Lyle Pettigrew (1894–1977).  You may have died alone, but you are not forgotten.

Thanks again, Todd, for all your amazing research and for the lovely picture of Helen's puzzle on her grave.

Grace Fabbroni on Her Crossword Career—Plus More Todd Gross Finds and His Interview on the L.A. Times Crossword Corner

Grace Fabbroni on Her Crossword Career

Photo courtesy of Grace Fabbroni

Recently I heard from crossword historian Todd Gross, who'd been in contact with pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era constructor Grace Fabbroni on LinkedIn.  Grace wondered why her byline had been listed as "Mrs. John Fabbroni"—a name she never went by—instead of "Grace Fabbroni."  I explained to Todd that we'd just used whatever name had been listed with the puzzles but that this new information was very helpful and we'd change all her bylines.

Todd also noted that Grace planned to send something about her crossword career, which she did—here it is:

Thanks so much again for letting me know about this, Todd, and for this wonderful reminiscence, Grace!

Frances Hansen

A couple of months ago, Todd also told me about a 2004 article (and photo) he'd found on pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era constructor Frances Hansen, who passed away some six months later.  The link worked then but unfortunately has since disappeared.  I've listed the article on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page, though, so you may be able to track it down through your local library.

Obituaries:  Eugene T. Maleska, Alex F. Black, Terry Healy, Maurice J. Teitelbaum, and Jack Jumonville

Todd also found some fascinating obituaries for editor/constructor Eugene T. Maleska and constructors Alex F. Black, Terry [Teresa] Healy, Maurice J. Teitelbaum, and Jack Jumonville, all of which you can see by clicking on the individual links here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructors page.  The Alex Black obituary also contained this photo taken by his family:

Alex F. Black (photo courtesy of the Black family)

Todd did some additional research on Jack Jumonville—here's his report:

Jack Jumonville

I went to Ancestry.com to see if I could find more about Jack Jumonville.  There's a fair amount there, including pictures from his college yearbook.  He was a member of a fairly elite club at LSU called Samurai, which means a larger than normal picture.  I'm enclosing what I found . . . the picture of young Mr. Jumonville not quite what I expected. . . . There's also a private story and a private picture of him.

Here's the earlier photo of Jack from the Louisiana State University yearbook that Todd found, along with some information about the Samurai organization Jack belonged to:

Jack Jumonville in college (photo

courtesy of the Louisiana State 

University yearbook)

From the Louisiana State University Yearbook

Thanks again, Todd—it's always great to learn more about the lives and careers of these early constructors, who, in addition to their crossword talents, often had successful unrelated careers and other wide-ranging interests!

Todd Gross's Interview on the L.A. Times Crossword Corner

Finally, Todd was recently interviewed for the L.A. Times Crossword Corner!  In his interview, which you can read by clicking here, he mentions the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project and talks about his interest in crossword history and career as a constructor for The New York Times and other top publications.  Congratulations, Todd!

Interview and Visit with Guido Scarato—and Maleska's Letters

Happy New Year, everyone!  Over winter break I was delighted to receive an email from Will Shortz telling me about another pre-Shortzian constructor who'd resurfaced:  Guido Scarato.

Guido published many puzzles in The New York Times under Margaret Farrar, Will Weng, and Eugene T. Maleska, but almost all of them appeared without bylines, and many have been misplaced over the years, especially during a move from New York to California.  Guido now lives on the Monterey Peninsula in Pacific Grove, where his family has been since he was 13.  The area, which I've visited many times with my parents over the years, is a short detour from one of the routes we take between Los Angeles and Palo Alto, so it occurred to me that I might actually be able to meet Guido in person on my way back up to Stanford after the break!

I wrote to Guido and introduced myself, and before long we'd set up a time to meet.  I sent him some interview questions in advance, and you can read his responses by clicking here or on the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews tab above.  But the real treat began when we pulled up in front of his house just a few steps away from Monterey Bay.

Guido, who is also a painter and singer, had a long career as an art director for boutique advertising agencies in New York, producing campaigns for clients including Citibank, Pan Am, Nabisco, and many others; his creativity and talent are evident even from the outside of his house, whose colors are unusually vibrant for the area.  You can see a little of that in this photo of us together by his front door:

And here's a painting he did of his house and yard:

When I came inside, I was immediately greeted by his two friendly dachshunds, whom he also painted in this self-portrait:

And taking up almost the entire wall facing the entrance is this triptych of wood panels painted by Rex Clawson in 1985:

Here's an explanation of it:

And below is a closer picture of one of the chairs:

After chatting a bit with Guido and a couple of his friends who'd brought over some delicious cookies, we went into another room filled with art (as was the rest of the house—not to mention the backyard, whose fence he turned into another masterpiece and where he celebrated his 80th birthday with more than 100 friends).  There, Guido showed me his crossword puzzle dictionary, much used and very worn over the years:

Front

First page

Sample pages

We then began discussing Crossword Compiler and other construction software, which Guido had never tried but was fascinated by.  I'd brought along my laptop, so I was able to show him how it worked (and also give him a tour of XWord Info, which amazed him!).  We got so into it that we actually began constructing a puzzle together that we may eventually finish and submit somewhere!

During the course of my several hours there, Guido told me more about his constructing and also showed me some of the letters he still had from Maleska, including the latter's missive to all constructors informing them of a moratorium on puzzle submissions.  I've posted them on Scribd here—highlights include the August 82 [sic], 1988, letter, in which Maleska says Guido owes him 25 cents; the September 23, 1989, letter, at the end of which Maleska asks Guido whether he'd solved a recently published Times puzzle that reminded Maleska of Guido's current submission; and his January 19, 1990, puzzle, in which he chides Guido for "careless defining."

Guido also still has a few of his old puzzles, and one of them—June 19, 1972—was a puzzle previously identified in my database as being by "Unknown."  It was great to be able to put a name to yet another anonymous puzzle.

Before our meeting came to a close, Guido offered to play a CD of his singing in South Pacific.  Guido has an amazing voice and has appeared in numerous musical productions, including The Sound of Music, Man of La Mancha, Oklahoma! and many others.

After I left, I was struck by how diverse Guido's interests and accomplishments were.  The pre-Shortzian constructors were (and are) remarkable for the variety and depth of their talents, and I suspect that the same holds true for some of today's constructors as well, though many of us are often too busy to do or talk about much other than crosswords.  There's a wealth and richness to the lives of these early constructors—and a willingness to share their experiences and thoughts—that seems elusive in our increasingly hurried and fragmented existences.

Thanks so much again for our wonderful afternoon, Guido!

Interview with Mary Virginia Orna—and Maleska's Edits of One of Her Puzzles

Mary Virginia Orna

It's New Year's Eve, and I have a special end-of-the-year treat:  an interview with pre-Shortzian constructor and chemistry professor Mary Virginia Orna!

I first wrote about Mary Virginia Orna back in May of 2014, after project historian Todd Gross had uncovered some interesting information about her and a number of other constructors.  According to my (incomplete) records, Mary Virginia published 28 pre-Shortzian puzzles between 1979 and 1988, and I'd been meaning to try to contact her for some time.  I finally did recently and was delighted when I heard back from her!

A professor of chemistry at The College of New Rochelle in New York, Mary Virginia has had a lifelong interest in languages.  To learn more about her, first read her fascinating article on crossword construction, "Always a Cross(ed) Word," which I've posted on Scribd, and then my interview with her by clicking on the Pre-Shortzian Constructor Interviews tab above or here.

I've also posted Eugene T. Maleska's edits of Mary Virginia's "Mayhem" puzzle, which was originally published on May 12, 1985.  Will Shortz showed them to me a couple of summers ago when I was researching pre-Shortzian constructors and let me make a copy (thanks again, Will!).  Enjoy!

Updates on Charles Erlenkotter, Betty Jorgensen, and William J. Yskamp

Project Update

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  Today I'm especially thankful for all the people who've helped out with the project and delighted to present some fascinating new information that's come in recently about several pre-Shortzian constructors—read on!

Charles Erlenkotter

A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from Donald Erlenkotter, Professor Emeritus of Management at UCLA's Anderson Graduate School of Management (and former fellow Stanford student—M.B.A., M.S., and Ph.D.!).  Charles Erlenkotter, whose February 15, 1942, puzzle was the first crossword ever published in The New York Times, was Don's great-uncle.  Don informed me that the Ancestry.com information about Charles's wife contained a couple of errors:

They give her name as Wilhemina Weinachten, whereas it should be Wilhelmina Weinacht.  In almost all records, she used the shortened version Mina.  We haven't been able to track down her death date, but it was after Charles's in 1948 and before her sister Henrietta's in 1951.

Don also enclosed this September 28, 1948, obituary from the Times, along with his current writeup on Charles, which "documents his early history with the Hamburg-American Line at San Francisco (1910–11) and as Southwestern regional manager at St. Louis (1914–17)."

Image courtesy of Donald Erlenkotter.

Image courtesy of Donald Erlenkotter.

In a follow-up e-mail, Don told me that he'd had two other great-uncles in addition to Charles—Walter and Francis—and that none of them had had any children.  Don didn't remember ever meeting Charles, though he did meet Frank once in San Francisco in the mid-1960s.  He added:

From an on-line search, I have the same set of 8 puzzles you have from the NYT.  I searched some other newspapers and turned up a dozen of his puzzles in The Washington Post.  The earliest was on 26 November 1939, and is titled "Meeting Place of the Puzzle Makers."  The last was on 9 October 1944.  Some are captioned "Daily Crossword Puzzle."

There are a number of entries for him on Ancestry.com under passenger lists.  I included one in my writeup since it had dates of birth for him and his wife.  There's another for the two of them in 1911 for their arrival from Bermuda - undoubtedly on their honeymoon.

There's also an entry for him in Biography Index for 1949 - probably referencing the NYT obit.

In a subsequent e-mail, Don sent me a notice of Louise Erlenkotter's estate, as published in the January 24, 1937, New York Times:

Image courtesy of Donald Erlenkotter.

Don noted:

Unfortunately, I don't know of any photographs of Charles Erlenkotter.  Documents are scarce in my family - my grandfather, Herman Erlenkotter, was a West Point graduate and artillery officer, so the family moved frequently and didn't spend much time in NJ or NY.  He died in 1933, and the only photos I have from the family are from about 1912 into the 1920s, mostly of the children.

Don mentioned, though, that while searching for more crossword information on Charles, he'd found more of his puzzles in other papers:  34 Sunday puzzles in the Springfield Republican (Springfield, Mass.) from 1934 to 1945; 4 puzzles in the Pittsburgh Daily Post (9/21/24, 6/11/25, 7/11/25, 11/7/28); 1 in the Oakland Tribune (Oakland, Calif.; 11/5/24); 1 puzzle printed twice in The Billings Gazette (Billings, Mont.; 10/19/28 and 10/21/28); 7 puzzles in The Charleston Daily Mail (Charleston, W.Va.; 7/3/32, 12/4/32, 2/19/33, 8/6/33, 1/6/35, 3/24/35, 10/8/35) under the heading "Meeting Place of the Puzzle Makers," as also seen in The Washington Post; and 1 posthumous puzzle published on 7/4/54 in both the Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Texas) and The Daily Herald (Provo, Utah).

The Billings puzzle was preceded by this comment:

We haven't seen any puzzles by Mr. Erlenkotter, our Canadian contributor, on this page for some time.  Whenever we do, though, we feel quite pleased about it, because we know that here we have a puzzle that conforms beautifully to all rules of puzzle construction - with some original additions of Mr. Erlenkotter's own.

Have you ever noticed that these diagonally bi-symmetrical puzzles almost invariably have diagonal staircases running from the lower left-hand corner to the upper right?  There must be some strange reason for it, because there's certainly no reason why the diagonals shouldn't run downward and to the right.  Have you any theories on the subject?

Don noted that the posthumous puzzle was copyrighted by Simon & Schuster and wondered whether Simon & Schuster might still have any files on Charles.  He also wondered how puzzles were sold to newspapers:  "It looks like the contributors probably dealt with newspapers individually—there's no indication that puzzles were syndicated like comic strips, or that newspapers copyrighted them."

While researching Charles's puzzles, Don began thinking about how Charles's puzzle was chosen to be the first in the Times and came up with this very interesting theory:

Here's a crossword puzzle "mystery":  why, and how, was a puzzle by Charles Erlenkotter chosen as the first to appear inThe New York Times?  As far as I can determine, there was no advance notice in the paper that puzzles were about to appear.  They just showed up on 2/15/1942 on p. 36 of the NYT Magazine.

The Times seems to have been in something of a state of disarray about this.  It appears that they were revamping the Magazine in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the U.S. entry into WWII.  On 2/21/1942, p. 8, they describe its coming features, and below the heading "If We Want to Win This War" they include a list of features "Fashions - Food - Home Decoration - Child Care - Crossword Puzzles" followed by the announcement "Sunday in The New York Times Magazine."

The next day, p. 26, the contents IN TODAY of The New York Times Magazine conclude with "and a brand new Crossword Puzzle Page."  No mention is made of the one the previous week.

Three days later, on 2/25/1942, p. 40, we have:

So, after missing the ball originally, the NYT was trying here to make up the lost ground.

Now, back to the Charles Erlenkotter puzzle.  Certainly the 2/15/1942 puzzle wasn't submitted in response to any call for puzzles in the NYT since there wasn't any before this date.  Surely the key here is Margaret Farrar.  I doubt that she could have used any puzzles she may have already had on hand since there would be a conflict of interest with her other employers for whom she had obtained the puzzles - Simon & Schuster, etc.  Most likely she contacted some of the puzzle constructors she knew and solicited puzzles from them specifically for the NYT.  I would bet that she knew, or knew of, Charles.  They had both been active in producing puzzles since the mid-1920s.  When Charles returned to the U.S. from Canada at the outset of WWII, it's highly plausible that he would have contacted her since she was highly visible through the Simon & Schuster puzzle books, etc.  He then could have sent her this new puzzle, and probably others as well.

Don's theory makes a lot of sense—if only we had more details on exactly what happened back then!  But at least we still have the puzzles and copies (if only digital now!) of the papers, which give us enough to make some very good guesses.

In my most recent e-mail from Don, he reported some new finds:

I've obtained some additional information for Charles from passenger arrivals and border crossings on Ancestry.com.  Have addresses for him in Irvington, NJ in 1926-1927, and in Montreal from 1928 through 1939.  He was living in the Bronx from 1942 until his death in 1948.  So far nothing on him from 1919 through 1926.

I ran across a 1943 puzzle book in the Library of Congress (not from Simon & Schuster) that lists Charles as a contributor.

Thanks so much again, Don, for all your help with this!  It not only fills in many of the gaps in what we know about Charles Erlenkotter but also brings that whole era back to life.

Betty Jorgensen

Moving on, in early October, Karen Richards of Eugene, Oregon, wrote to me about Betty Jorgensen.  Karen followed up on my October 4 update and contacted Laura Jorgensen, who works at the University of Oregon and might have been a granddaughter of Betty.  Unfortunately, although Laura's grandmother was indeed a Betty Jorgensen, she wasn't a puzzle maker.  Thanks so much anyway, Karen, for following up on this—at least we can cross that lead off our list!

William J. Yskamp

Finally, the morning of November 18 I received an e-mail from Amanda Yskamp, one of William J. Yskamp's daughters.  She had discovered the July 29, 2015, post and confirmed that we had indeed found the right person—William was her father, and he had passed away eight years ago on that very day.  Amanda noted, "He was a wonderful wordsmith, and would have been pleased to know that his legacy lives on."

Then, that evening, an e-mail arrived from Claire Yskamp, William's wife, who wrote:

Yes, that William J. Yskamp was a clever constructor of Sunday puzzles.  He stopped constructing, alas, after one of his puzzles was published erroneously by the Times under someone else's name.

I'm delighted to see that you found him and charmed to see his high school yearbook picture.

Claire also noted that the name of their oldest daughter is Lise (not Lis, as incorrectly listed in a 2003 obituary for Delia Yskamp).  In a subsequent e-mail, she wrote:

Although I met Mr. Maleska only once, at a dinner given him by New England constructors, I have many memories of his editing style.  For example, he labeled Bill's definition of Onan--"he cast his seed on the ground"--as "too seamy" for NYT solvers; and he changed it to "______ even keel."

The Times published a correction the week after the misattribution, but that didn't attach Bill's name to his puzzle. That was his last contribution to the Times.

Although Claire didn't remember when exactly that was, I checked XWord Info and dug through my records again, and the last puzzle William published in the Times was on August 4, 1985; although the puzzle itself was correct, the author and title were incorrectly listed as Bert Rosenfield and "Age 35: Aaugh!"  Bert Rosenfield's puzzle subsequently appeared eight weeks later on September 29.  If only Maleska had correctly printed the author and title of William's puzzle—who knows how many more William J. Yskamp puzzles might have appeared in the Times and been up on XWord Info today?  Thanks so much again, Claire and Amanda, for contacting me about William!

On that note, I'll sign off for now, especially since I smell the beginnings of Thanksgiving dinner!  Although I'll be busy for the next couple of weeks studying for finals, I hope to have another post up sometime in December for the holidays.