Msyterious Mailgrams left by theEmpress
By Therese Wells
While wandering through Doheny Library or the Student Union during the past week, one is likely to have encountered a bizarre series of Western Union Mailgrams posted on the walls, extolling or denouncing such strange and varied topics as taxes, mental health, rat poison, chemical warfare and bribery.
These Mailgrams are as mysterious and intriguing as the elderly woman who has been seen on ocassion posting them. Close to 80 years of age, she calls herself the Virgin Empress Alexandra I, though her real name is Jeanette Petrova. She has been riding the bus from Santa Monica, where she lives alone without a telephone, to the university campus two to three times a week to post the latest of her protests.
The barrage of letters stems from a disputed strip of property, which the
warns of Taxes and Mental Health
Empress believes was purchased and improved with money removed from her trust fund in February 1976.
In June 1976, she drew up a deed declaring legal ownership of the Neilson Villa, a multimillion dollar condominium development in Santa Monica, and filed in four courts of law, including the United States Supreme Court. At that time, she claims to have paid the city light, water and sewage tax assessments for the next 20 years, as well as fire and theft insurance on the property. She reportedly has retained the registed mail receipts for these payments in a trunk in her home.
The Empress hopes to reclaim her property and the adjoining strip of land
at 3100 Neilson Way in order to construct an adjacent structure which she would call the “Empress Villa.” Flanked by a park full of trees and flowers, she plans for the buildings to serve as a “school and concert hall for the performing arts in classical ballet and classical music for the children of Santa Monica.”
Until such time as the property is turned over to her, the Empress is attempting to collect from the Condominium Assn. of the Southland, the supposed operators of the Neilson Villa, a monthly rental fee, retroactive to August 1976. Since she feels the mailing of money is unsafe, the Empress has requested the fee be paid in person.
She said she also intends to file suit
against not only the condominium association, but also against the Morley Construction Contractors and selected Santa Monica city officials on charges of “trespassing with bulldozers, grand theft, double-crossed bribery, outright robbery, forgery, extortion, fraud and related crimes.”
As penalty for these crimes, she is suggesting the maximum fine be imposed and the money allocated to finance the construction of her proposed “Empress Villa.”
A spokesman for the KABC Radio Ombudsman, a consumer advocate service, said they have been receiving correspondence from the Empress for more than a year. Investigators at the station have looked into the situation and determined that the Empress had no legal claim to either the Neilson property itself or the structures built on it.
Summer
Trojan
Volume LXXIV, Number 13
University of Southern California
Los Angeles, California
Friday, July 28, 1978
Adminstrator Dies Boating
Ex-Teacher Dies at 95
FRESHMAN FIGURINES — Freshman orientation students take time out from their activities to explore Alumni Park.
Michael J. Misshauk, an administrator at the university, and his father, Michael Sr. of Stahlstown, Pa., drowned Wednesday in a boating mishap near the elder Misshauk’s hometown.
The father and son reportedly were fishing in Donegal Lake about 50 miles east of Pittsburgh when their 12-foot boat capsized. A scuba rescue team pulled the bodies from the lake at approximately midnight.
The younger Misshauk, 37, of Culver City, was vacationing in the East. At the university, he was special assistant to the vice president of finance and associate professor of management. He had been associated with the university since 1969, having previously been associate dean of the School of Business Administration.
He is a graduate of Manhattan College, Michigan State University and Ohio State University.
Funeral services for Marc N. Goodnow, a leading figure in the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. and a faculty member of the School of Journalism 30 years, will be held at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at the Bonham Brothers Mortuary Chapel in Romona, Calif.
Burial will be at 2 p.m. at the Sunnyside Cemetary, 1095 E. Willow St., Long Beach.
Goodnow died July 24 in his hometown of Ramona at the age of 95.
A native of Salem, 111., Goodnow began his newspaper career at the age of 13 and later edited the campus newspaper at the University of Chicago and reported for the Chicago Tribune and Daily News.
He founded and edited the Gary, Indiana Tribune, when the town was a year old. “Four years in Gary,” he wrote, “was the equivalent of a lifetime in the profession, what with its unlimited variety and character of news events.”
Explore the Nile, Mars by Crossing the Street
THE COCKTAIL PARTY — Martin Lubner's oil on canvas is one of many pieces in a multicultural show at the California Museum of Science and Industry.
By Nancy Soble
Summertime boredom can *■ be remedied with a visit to the Museum of Science and x Industry, and several special
5	attractions and displays are available to the public at no
*	cost.
A trip to the future at the x Space Building can teach about expeditions to the
*	moon, airplanes to Mars and
-	other interplanetary dis-
coveries. We may be living
*	quite differently 40 years x from now as a result of the
exhaustion of the world’s j: natural gas resources, one $ exhibit shows.
S	UNERG Y, a display •S featuring many new de-
*	velopments in solar energy in homes and businesses,
$ will be available for viewing £ through Aug. 8. New dis-coveries in sun paneling, x solar collectors and solar air conditioners and heaters are | displayed and explained $; with simple, easy-to-read •S captions. Photographs of
S	homes already equipped for
solar heating and air conditioning are also shown.
Movie buffs can choose from a large selection of films, some of which include Cosmic Zoom and Riding the Big Surf. These films, along with dozens of others, appear daily in the classroom of the main museum from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Further information regarding the film program may be obtained by calling the museum at 749-0101, extension 235.
Richard Burton is featured in a British Broadcasting Co. television series of dramas entitled The Search for the Nile. The films are shown in the Jean Delacour Auditorium of Natural History every Saturday from July 22 to August 26 at 2 p.m.
Also featured are a number of youth-oriented films which, according to Lindi Luck, museum tour and activities coordinator, are multimedia productions that combine education with
entertainment. These musical films appear in the Hall of Health Theater. Shows include H20, Where Are You? and Voyage to the Disco Starship.
Those who prefer music to films can listen to a 40-piece orchestra from the Los Angeles City Bureau of Music each Sunday afternoon from 2:30 p.m. to 4:30
p.m. The orchestra specializes in pop music. Concerts are held in the western section of Exposition Park.
Children who prefer fun to learning can take part in the museum’s holiday season surprise, which supplies unique and modern playground equipment they can play on.
Located in the center of
the park is a rose garden where museum visitors can relax and view the many dif- g ferent kinds of flowers.
There is something for S everyone at the museum. Open daily, 9:30 a.m. to 5 S p.m., the publicly owned x museum is free to see.	S
(continued on page 'J	x