Pete's Log: The Box
Entry #2674, (Books, Writing, n such, Genealogy)(posted when I was 46 years old.)
My great-great-aunt Ruth Drown has her own Wikipedia page. Sadly, the thing she is notable for is peddling radionics, a pseudoscience of the early twentieth century. She created impressive-looking electronic devices with lots of knobs that would diagnose and cure ailments by tuning her patients' "natural vibrations."
Earlier today, I was reading a post by Professor Alan Jacobs in which he describes "something called The Box." It is a "techno-magical" device he has encountered in multiple mid-century works of literature, but which due to its generic description eludes him on search engines.
Something about how he described The Box triggered an instant connection in my mind. Before he even reveals the answer provided to him by a friend, my mind immediately jumped to great-great-aunt Ruth.
My great grandfather moved his family to California in 1937 to work for his sister Ruth. It took less than a year for him to become "disenchanted" with her work and move his family back to Colorado. I believe "disenchanted" was his polite way of saying he realized she was selling snake oil and wanted nothing to do with it.
Having not thought of her in perhaps a decade, I checked out her Wikipedia article and found it greatly expanded since last I looked. In fact, it lists one of her influences as Albert Abrams. And Albert Abrams, it turns out, is who Professor Jacobs' friend identified as the likely creator of The Box.