Author, Journalist, Military Officer, Attorney, American Legion Leader
Born July 9, 1893, Meridian, Mississippi
Died November 15, 1951, Birmingham, Alabama
David Rosenbaum Solomon was born on July 9, 1893, in Meridian, Mississippi, to Samuel Isadore Solomon, a bookkeeper/accountant and a native of Nisstadt, Germany/Poland, and Fannie (Rosenbaum) Solomon. I'm not sure where Nisstadt is or was. It may have been Neustadt, a district in Prussia.
David R. Solomon graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor of arts degree in 1915 and a bachelor of laws degree (Ll.B.) in 1916. He practiced law in Meridian from June 1916 to January 1918. While trying to enlist in the U.S. military during the Great War, he worked as a journalist with the Washington Times. On May 24, 1918, Solomon succeeded in enlisting in the U.S. Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He served in the 33rd Field Artillery from May 24, 1918, to December 12, 1918, and was stationed at Camp Jackson, South Carolina. He did not serve overseas.
Upon returning to civilian life, Solomon relocated to Birmingham, Alabama, and that's where he spent the rest of his life. On November 1, 1920, he married Madeline Alva Hirshfield in Birmingham. He was with a firm called Leader & Ullman in that city until November 1922, when he opened his own law practice. Even then he was known as an author of magazine short stories.
The first credit by David R. Solomon listed in The FictionMags Index is a vignette called "Her Visit" in Saucy Stories, April 1917. That was in the same month in which the United States entered the Great War. Solomon's next credit, a short story called "The Pikesteps of Pindar," didn't arrive until the May 31, 1919, issue of Argosy. From then until September 1934, Solomon had stories in Argosy, The Black Mask, Cosmopolitan, The Designer and the Woman's Magazine, Detective Story Magazine, Hearst's International, Munsey's Magazine, People's Story Magazine, Top-Notch Magazine, and other titles. He had just one story in Weird Tales and two in Detective Tales, both in the first year those two magazines were in print.
It looks like David R. Solomon's younger brother, Mendel Moses Solomon, was also an author of pulp stories. Born on August 20, 1895, in Meridian, Mississippi, he enlisted on the same day as his brother, May 24, 1918. Whereas David remained stateside, Mandel served overseas with the 152nd Infantry Regiment, from October 1918 to May 1919. He was discharged on May 12, 1919. From 1922 to 1931, Mandel had stories in Argosy Allstory Weekly, Detective Story Magazine, Thrilling Detective, and Top-Notch Magazine. He also had one story in Detective Tales, "The Double Cross," in March 1923, the same month in which David R. Solomon's story "Fear" was in Weird Tales. A businessman, author, and philosopher, he died in Meridian, Mississippi, on September 30, 1954. Neither man survived his 50s.
David R. Solomon was well known in Birmingham both as an attorney and as a writer. He was associated with other Birmingham writers, too, some of whom also contributed to Weird Tales. In October 1936, he served as a judge on the board for the fifth anniversary of the Birmingham News-Age-Herald's short story department. That department was conducted by Artemus Calloway (1883-1948). The other judges were Pettersen Marzoni (1886-1939) and Edgar Valentine Smith (1875-1953). The winner of the fifth-anniversary contest was Don Elwell. The story the following week was by Howard Ellis Davis, Jr., son of Howard Ellis Davis (1883-1948), who also had a story in the first issue of Weird Tales. That one is still to come in this series.
I have a couple of more credits for David R. Solomon, "The Official Ear," a short story syndicated by the Chicago Tribune in December 1923; and a short story called "Man Shy" which was to have been turned into a movie by the Birmingham Amateur Movie Association in 1928. "His short stories delighted readers of the big slick magazines," wrote the Birmingham News, "[b]ut he loved the law more than writing entertaining fiction, so he dropped writing altogether." (1) That appears to have been in 1934. Solomon afterwards devoted himself to serving his community and his fellow veterans.
Solomon was the commander of the Birmingham post and a member of Jewish War Veterans; commander of General Gorgas Post No. 1, American Legion; and state judge advocate of the Alabama department of American Legion. He also served with the Red Cross during World War II. He died prematurely, four days after Armistice Day, on November 15, 1951, in Birmingham. His hometown paper remembered him: "This community misses David R. Solomon--and he will long be missed. For Dave Solomon was one of those rare souls with a zeal for good work and a sense of humor that sparkled the path before him" (2)
David R. Solomon's Stories in Weird Tales and Detective Tales
Weird Tales
- "Fear" (Mar. 1923)
Detective Tales
- "The Invisible Assassin" (Feb. 1923)
- "Fog" (Mar. 1923)
Notes
(1) "The doughboy's friend" in the Birmingham News, December 3, 1951, page 1.
(2) Ditto.
David R. Solomon's Story:
"Fear" is a very short story, taking up only three and a half pages in the first issue of Weird Tales. It's a pretty minor story, really just a brief tale. Once again, we have a story set in a Southern swamp. Once again, there is a conversation that begins around a campfire. Once again, we have a man and his daughter, who is named Ruth, with the mother nowhere in sight, just as in "The Thing of a Thousand Shapes." (Surely there were other names for women besides Ruth in the 1920s.) And once again, there is a recounting of a man getting snake-bitten, just as in "Hark! The Rattle!" There is a mild, possibly humorous, twist at the end of "Fear." The story is only three and half pages long. You might as well read it as skip over it.
 |
| 1922 |
Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley
No comments:
Post a Comment