Bill Lascher 7/27/16 Bill Lascher 7/27/16

Before and After. Wartime Chongqing as Captured by Melville Jacoby's Lens.

After spending four years with the research, writing and re-writing that shaped Eve of a Hundred Midnights, I feel sometimes as if I've lived in Melville Jacoby's shoes. At least, I feel as if I've seen the world through his eyes. As you can see in the following photos, Chongqing was a place of extensive striving and, after years and years of bombing — during his stints there in 1940 and 1941 Mel experienced 168 air raids — deeply scarred yet incredibly resilient.

Bill Lascher 11/28/12 Bill Lascher 11/28/12

Introducing "Monsieur Big-Hat"

Most of my posts about Melville Jacoby focus squarely on nonfiction. He was a journalist. I am a journalist. Though Mel worked for a time as a broadcaster and was handy with a camera, he was first and foremost a writer. So it shouldn't be terribly surprising that he dabbled in fiction a bit. I found one of those stories — "Monsieur Big-Hat" — and put it together with some photos Mel took of an air raid in Chongqing to make a short ebook that's now available online. The story describes what happens when an American correspondent meets a French diplomat as bombs fall on the Chinese wartime capital in June, 1940.

Bill Lascher 10/31/12 Bill Lascher 10/31/12

Motion Picture Treat: "When The Whole World Is So Upset"

For the first time ever, I'm able to share a movie of Melville Jacoby himself. These snippets of 16mm movies were shot in the 1930s and are accompanied by excerpts from a moving letter he wrote his mother in early 1941 about why he pursued his dangerous careert.Mel was on a boat from China bound for Manila and, eventually, to the United States. He had just finished a year's work as a stringer in China and the region of Southeast Asia then known as Indochina. There, in the city of Haiphong (a part of modern-day Vietnam), Mel had been arrested and briefly detained by the Japanese, who'd accused him of being a spy. As he traveled back to the United States, he wrote a moving letter to his Mother in which he attempted to reassure her about the risks he'd taken in the previous year. Check out the full post to see the video.

Bill Lascher 9/18/12 Bill Lascher 9/18/12

Not even pandas could spoil this honeymoon

This week's news of a panda cub's birth at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. reminds me of one of of the more comical aspects of Melville Jacoby's story. Shortly after Mel proposed to Annalee Whitmore he was transferred by TIME to Manila to cover the brewing war. After wrapping up her work with Madame Chiang's United China Relief, Annalee joined Mel and the two were married shortly before Thanksgiving, 1941. But the couple didn't end up in the Philippines unaccompanied, even after their nuptials.

"They slipped away for a two-day rainy honeymoon in a cottage on Tagaytay," wrote TIME in its May 11, 1942 obituary of Mel [Sorry for the paywalled link] . "But they were not alone; they had to see to the care & feeding of two baby giant pandas, gifts of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek en route to the U.S."

Bill Lascher 8/31/12 Bill Lascher 8/31/12

More Artifacts From a Journalist's Life: Correspondence

Though Mel spent years away from his home and family in Los Angeles, California, he was a dedicated correspondent. He wrote to his mother, Elza, and stepfather, Manfred, regularly, and also to other relatives, friends, and coworkers. Mel's letters were reflective, touchingly honest, incredibly detailed, and often quite humorous. Later, in my book about Mel's life, as well as in future blog posts, I'll quote extensively from these letters to give you more of a direct sense of what Mel wrote and how he thought. For now, I thought I'd offer a glimpse of how these letters, their envelopes, even something as simple as their return addresses invokes nostalgia for an earlier era.

Bill Lascher 8/27/12 Bill Lascher 8/27/12

Picking up where Melville Jacoby left off

This morning marks one of the most exciting moments for me as I continue to pick up where Mel was silenced. In a few hours I'll be in an apartment in Alhambra, California, meeting with George T.M. Ching, his wife, and their daughter. George was one of Mel's dear friends during his time as an exchange student at Lingnan University. At ninety-seven-years-old, it's uncertain how able George will be to really deeply reflect on Mel's life, but I'm hopeful that just the chance to share some time with someone who Mel cared strongly about, and who cared strongly about him will be valuable.

Bill Lascher 8/7/12 Bill Lascher 8/7/12

One Last Assignment One More Time

After much anticipation, last week I released a new video describing Melville Jacoby's fantastic life. It also reintroduces the work I'm doing to tell his story. Click the photo in this post or the link below to view it. I'm really proud of this video. I'd love to hear your opinion and for you to share it with anyone interested in wartime journalism, storytelling, or 1930s and 40s nostalgia. Meanwhile, I'm preparing for a trip to Southern California to meet one of Mel's friends from his time as an exchange student in China. I'm so fortunate he's still around, and willing to speak with me. I'll also be visiting my grandmother to properly review and inventory her collection of materials from and related to Mel's life. Keep reading to learn what I'm up to.

Bill Lascher 7/3/12 Bill Lascher 7/3/12

Won't You Be My Mrs. Luce?

"He was you at that stage of the game," my grandmother said. "It was a different way, but that's a story too. How does a young reporter like Bill Lascher get started?" This is how. By not letting go. Two weeks ago I completed a quarter teaching a community college class on multimedia journalism and turned in the last of two small freelance assignments on my plate. All that's left for me is what I'm doing now: throwing all that I have on the table in pursuit of this one last assignment. Everything I have, everything I can be is now focused on this account of the first Time Magazine reporter killed in the line of duty, this tale of Melville Jacoby, this story of my family's beloved cousin and this man who lived so fantastically before he died so tragically.

"He had the good luck to be on an airplane with Mrs.[Clare Booth] Luce [the wife of Time Magazine founder Henry Luce, who was also on that plane], who was impressed with him." my grandmother said. "You have to be on an airplane with someone who will be impressed with you."

Bill Lascher 7/3/12 Bill Lascher 7/3/12

I Shall Never Forget Our Friendship

"I recognize our father immediately," Susie Poon says as she stares at a weathered black and white image of a young Chinese man. is Chan Ka Yik, Melville Jacoby's roommate while the latter was an exchange student at Lingan University in Canton during the 1936-37 academic year.

Poon and her sisters, Emmy Ma and Eva Cheung, their husbands, and three generations of my own family pass ancient photos around the room. The pictures show a prized water buffalo and grinning friends on balconies, boys jumping into swimming holes and old men steering sampans, classes arranged for group photos and candid snapshots. They contrast an elaborate family compound in Guangxi with peasants toiling in the countryside. And they feature handsome young men in three-piece suits, their smiles filled with excitement, adventure and friendship crossing two cultures, two continents, and two countries.

"Mel looked like a movie star," Emmy says, echoing a sentiment many express when they see pictures of Melville Jacoby. But the star today is my grandmother, Peggy Cole, who holds court with a folder full of letters, a pile of photos, and a sheet of notes to which she refers while recounting the adventures Mel, Chan and their classmates took together. Many of the tales she shares she heard from Mel's own mouth when he returned home from his first trip to China and visited his adoring cousins. The others she pieced together from letters and memorabilia she inherited from Mel's mom, Elza. For the first time in half a century our two families connected. As we exchanged memories, new stories took shape.

Bill Lascher 6/12/12 Bill Lascher 6/12/12

A Reunion of Sorts

California, here I come, right back where I started from. In a little less than two weeks I'll hit the road for Palo Alto, California, the home of Stanford University. That's where Melville Jacoby earned his bachelor and master's degrees in the 1930s (it's also where his wife, Annalee Whitmore Jacoby Fadiman was the first female managing editor of the daily student newspaper and where other close friends, such as Shelley Smith Mydans, studied). It's a trip I've long been waiting for, and one that wouldn't be possible without the support, encouragement and financial contributions I've received since I first launched my Kickstarter campaign and then launched the current fundraising campaign. Yes, I'll be retracing Mel's footsteps and digging through archives, but I'm most excited for what might best be described as a reunion when we meet the children of Mel's best friend from his time in China ...