Mazer Archives January 2023 Newsletter | Out of the Archives: The Bunny MacCulloch Scrapbooks
In 1959, Nancy “Bunny” Mac Culloch decided to head west. She and her partner at the time, Rita Charette, packed up their car and moved to Los Angeles, California. Bunny brought along a camera and took photos of her and Rita with friends and family before leaving Connecticut, at various stops along the way, and before arriving in LA.
These photos have been kept in a scrapbook that’s been transferred to an acid free binder, each page held in a mylar sleeve for safe keeping. Between the pages of photographs are also letters written to friends and family back east, as well as postcards from stops along the route. According to a letter written to Bunny’s mother, Los Angeles was smoggy back in 1959, too.
Bunny writes to her mother in 1959 after arriving in LA, “LA is so smoggy, hot, terrifying, spread out and confusing that neither of us are much impressed. It isn’t a paradise at all, tho most everyone tells us you have to stay a few months before you like it and then don’t want to leave.”
Bunny and Rita stayed in LA for a few months before following their friend Andy to the Grand Canyon, which Bunny oft referred to as “a big hole in the ground” when sending postcards back East. The three worked serving tourists over the summer during “the season”. Bunny and Rita worked at resorts owned by Union Pacific. Bunny in the kitchen and Rita as cabin supervisor. Andy worked at another hotel nearby. Misty the gray cat was with Bunny the whole way, making himself at home wherever they went.
Bunny and Misty
“My next book series will run as follows: Misty visits Hollywood-Misty on the Freeways- Misty at Las Vegas- and now Misty, ranger at Grand Canyon! That one certainly is a well traveled cat and none the worse for wear. He makes himself right at home wherever I am, gets in and out of the car to dig holes, in and out of motels and never gets lost or anything. And he’s just as nice as ever with his gray velvet paws and red collar. Many people have wanted to buy him in the south and West, it seems all-gray cats are quite rare. But the very idea, selling my right arm!”
Los Angeles must have grown on them, as they returned and moved to Venice in 1960. The next few years that followed show days on an empty, not-yet-developed Venice Beach, dinners, trips, holidays with friends, Bunny’s beloved avocado tree (there’s even a photo of her hugging it after arriving home from a vacation), and the home Bunny and Rita eventually purchased in Highland Park.
During this time Bunny had switched jobs again, going from medicine to operating an IBM proof machine at the Federal Reserve Bank, where she says, “I suppose I’ll be president in a month,” but lamenting the job isn’t for her; she only took it to get working. She writes her mother often about becoming a technical writer or a lab technician, and in the same breath wonders what it would be like to answer the ad for “china trimmer” in that day’s paper.
This first apartment in Venice, rented for only $65 a month (utilities included) had a Murphy bed, which Bunny says comes down from the wall “like magic” every night. Their living room was decorated with 5 lamps, a sofa, coffee tables, end tables, desk, chairs, long modern bureau, and a little bookcase. Reading about these details that might not have been remembered except for this short line in a letter makes me feel like I’m just another one of Bunny’s friends.
Here are just some of the amazing and joyful photographs this first scrapbook contains:
When they bought a home in Highland Park, there were so many pictures of the “before” and “after” renovations, showing a real love for their space. The house is down a small hill and not visible from the street, I typed the address into Google maps to see if the home is still there. It is! But only visible via satellite view. It does appear, though, that the retaining wall around the patio Bunny and Rita built together is still there! The two went on to open a laundromat together as well.
The first album, dated 1955 – 1965, ends with Rita and Bunny parting ways. A note written in later, directs those perusing the scrapbook to find the second book in the series. Spanning 1974 – 1979, it depicts Rita and Bunny’s relationship after getting back together nearly 10 years later.
The photographs are incredible and depict queer life through the 1950s and 60s. But what makes this album really special is Bunny’s searingly witty captions, written on or below each photograph; my only regret when I finished combing through each page was that I never got to meet Bunny, who died in 1989.
