Laura Mundo & Johnny

I've been up since 6 AM for some unknown reason and seeing as I listened to the Saucer Life podcast concerning Laura Mundo before bed I'll just assume that I was abducted over night. Haha.

The following scans and photographs in this post are a few excerpts from Laura's 1929 The Opinions of the Dignified Seniors of C. H. S. booklet and other ephemera related to her. The latter part of the title of the first piece standing for William G. Crosby High School in Belfast, Maine. I'm not exactly sure how she arrived there from her hometown of Boston but a census or two from that time range suggests that her mother re-married and her and her siblings were living with their stepfather Albert Sheain and presumably their biological mother Alberta. 

The keepsake was purchased, along with other ephemera and photographs, from the estate of a relative of Laura living in Livonia, Michigan bearing the Marxer surname. I assume that it was a granddaughter as one of the proprietors of the company performing the sale who I am well-acquainted with said that a granddaughter had come to pull other personal artifacts from the sale as is perfunctory in that sort of personal tragedy business of death and its aftermath.

I had known of Laura through researching the metro Detroit area paranormal scene and once even owned her book The Mundo UFO Report before selling it on eBay, not knowing that she'd become a focal point of my present research fancy. I have since remedied that error with a $40 re-purchase of said book which I plan to post in its entirety regardless of the effort of doing so.

When I saw the estate sale preview showing ephemera of both Laura and Otto Marxer I honestly drew a blank, having not remembered her by that name. But it intrigued me enough and a simple newspaper.com search remedied that absentmindedness and I fortuitously made a point to attend the sale despite a very busy work schedule.

Laura Charlotte Mundo is listed as class treasurer in her commencement booklet so she obviously had some social ambition. The "Opinions" booklet suggests that she also had a decent amount of friends. The book is notably written front to back.

R. C. is noted to be her crush in the back inside cover of the Our Diamond Leader booklet, under which somebody has written PUPPY LOVE and underlined it. The "R" of the crush turns out to be a 34-year-old coal worker named Ralph Closson of Searsport, Maine (see the bottom right corner of the Diamond Leader photo above) who was still living at home with his father and 17-year-old brother. 

By 1931 Laura had married Otto Marxer and in 1935 Closson married a woman named Rena Labelle. What set this course of action into place is unknown but a letter included from the estate to Otto from a Mr. and Mrs. George Beach of Sparhawk Hall in Ogunquit, Maine might lend a clue. The aforementioned "Hall" being a seaside resort. George was writing to the newlyweds who were vacationing in Switzerland (or the Fatherland as George puts it) and mentions that he had taken a job in a kitchen. Thus, one assumes that Otto had probably worked with Beach in Maine after immigrating to America from Liechtenstein in 1928. The couple eventually made it to Dearborn, Michigan where Laura and Otto lived the majority of the rest of their lives, albeit separately after 1950 or so when they divorced. Notably, Otto became a well-regarded chef and even opened his own restaurant at some point and Laura became a cult figure in the UFO scene.

Opinions of Laura are modestly placed at the back of the book showing that she had a modicum of self-awareness. The comments are standard fare though the mention of "Johnnie" in the middle of the page is curious. Mainly because the graduation booklet also shows Johnny Mundo '29 at the top with her own name at the bottom as "Miss Laura Mundo" '29. Note the quotation marks and the positioning of the names with Johnny's at the forefront and with her own playing the part of almost a pseudonym on the periphery.

I thought that she might have had a twin but she did not. What she did have was a brother named John Joseph Mundo III who was born 20 years before her and died two days into his life. Was she graduating for him as well? Was she embodying his spirit? Was she becoming him herself? This is all wild speculation except that in the podcast linked above it speaks of Laura's fascination with gender fluidity and the host quipped that he wondered who Laura knew in her life that brought the subject so close to heart. A secondary page of comments about the owner of the "Opinions" book at the front confuses the matter even more. Is Laura not the owner of her own book or a co-owner at best?

Mind you, she did have a second brother named John Henry Mundo - who will be featured later in this blog in a few photographs - but he was 13 years older than Laura and surely couldn't have been him. There is likely and unbeknownst to me phenomenon where siblings of a child who died before their own birth playact the scenario of "what-if" and wonder about and are affected by their passing. Years back I dated a woman whose older sister had died before her own birth and she had somewhat of an obsession about comparing herself to the possibilities of what her older sibling would have accomplished in relation to her own achievements. I recall her being profoundly affected by the circumstances.

There was also a passage in Laura's book, as mentioned in the podcast, about her replacement on this planet whom she was helping to ready for when she died. I know this sounds far-fetched but that's what I instantly thought of when I saw the mention of Johnnie and Johnny, having never looked at the comments in her school booklet until now. Who knows what it all means if anything. 

The reference to an "Adam's Apple" and "Typical French girl but don't c' the Spanish Part unless her dress covers it." sends waves of what in the bleep through my brain but could just be typical high school hijinks. I likely never would have thought of it in that light without having listened to the podcast first. Maybe I'll contact the guy. He did mention that somebody should write her biography. I think that I'm already inadvertently on my way.

There is a poem written amidst the pages of the "Opinions" book but I have neither attempted to decipher the three pages of cursive as of this writing, nor the other pages of opinions for other possible clues.

Laura was very active in the theater so it was not outside of her nature to be somewhat of a showman, so to speak. Part of her directing duties at the Dearborn Players' Guild included at least two paranormal related plays Lo and Behold and Noël Coward's Blythe Spirit, though both are comedies. Is the theme of the paranormal and comedy a paradox in her nature or an intended consequence of it? I must keep digging while time permits outside of writing my little "newspaper."