News Items from The Kansas City Journal ~ Old News That's New to You from Vintage Kansas City.com

January 24, 1910

DEAD MAN'S HOARD

HIS LAST PILLOW.

FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS

IN SECURITIES IN CASHBOX

UNDER HIS HEAD.

Body of Oscar Schoen, Aged

70, Found Amid His

Savings.

With his head pillowed on a cash box containing $15,000 worth of negotiable securities, mostly government bonds and money orders, Oscar Schoen, a retired shoemaker, 70 years old, was found dead in bed in a squalid room at Missouri avenue and Main streets yesterday morning.

The old man's hand clutched a half emptied phial of morphine tablets while at his side lay a loaded 38-caliber revolver. One of the cartridges had been snapped but had failed to ignite.

Coroner Harry Czarlinsky, who was summoned, stated that death was due to morphine poisoning, whether taken as an overdose or with suicidal intent he was unable to state. He ordered the body taken to Freeman & Marshall's undertaking establishment.

MONEY ALSO IN ROOM.

Although Schoen had occupied the same room in which he was found for over two years, little or nothing was known about him by the owner of the rooming house. He was last seen alive on Thursday morning by Guy Holmes, the janitor of the premises. He told Holmes that he was feeling sick and that if it were not for the expense he would visit a doctor. He used to retire regularly at 6 o'clock every evening and rise at 8 in the morning, when he would go out and buy the daily papers, return and stay in his room. Rarely he made trips up to town.

Police headquarters was notified of the old man's death and Patrolman John P. McCauley, who was sent to investigate, made a further search of the room. Concealed behind an old stove in which Schoen had done his cooking was found $60 in bills and silver, and in an old carpetbag apparently discarded and thrown under the bed, the officer located several abstracts and deeds to Kansas City property in the vicinity of Thirty-first and Troost avenue, which are supposedly of considerable value.

WILL IN POCKETBOOK.

Schoen's last will and testament was also found in an old pocketbook. By its provisions all his property is bequeathed to relatives by the name of Goetz living in Kempsvile, Ill. Charles A. Schoen, a brother at Darlington, Ind., was named as executor. The police have telegraphed to all parties concerned.

One of the witnesses of the will was the manager of a local real estate firm, through whom Schoen had conducted his business. He stated that he know that the old man owned a great deal of property. Schoen at one time conducted a cobbler's shop at 2442 Broadway, but left there about four years ago, giving his reason for selling out and moving the fact that robberies were too common in that part of town.

Naturalization papers dated 1872 and taken out at Darlington, Ind., were found among Schoen's effects, together with several applications to different German provident associations.

Schoen had lived in Kansas City about twenty-two years. He has a sister, Mrs. Bertha H. Goetz, at Kempsville, Ill., and a niece, Mrs. Agnes Yak Shan, residing in Alaska.

Labels: Broadway, death, Dr Czarlinsky, immigrants, Main street, Missouri avenue, rooming house, Seniors, Suicide, undertakers

December 17, 1909

COURTESY SHOWN OLD AGE.

Santa Fe Has Sleeper Opened for

Old Couple's Comfort.

So that J. Bottomly, 90 years old, and his wife, 85 years old, would not have to wait about the Union depot, a sleeping car on which they had berths to California, over the Santa Fe railroad, was backed into the train shed and they were assisted to it an hour before the usual time last evening.

The couple are to spend their last days in Southern California. They have lived in Minneapolis, but recently doctors told their relatives that if the old folks desired to prolong their lives they would have to remove to a balmier climate. They arrived from Minneapolis via the Burlington road about 5 p. m. They were assisted into the depot, but the noise and drafts annoyed them.

Their train was not due to depart until 9:25 p. m., but attaches of the Santa Fe railroad thought of the special sleeper which is attached to the train here and had it backed into the train shed around 8 o'clock. The old couple were transferred to it.

Labels: California, railroad, Seniors, Union depot, visitors

December 3, 1909

CALLED ON THE POLICE TO

ARBITRATE LOVE AFFAIR.

John Kenyon of McLouth, Kas.,

Wasn't Sure of His Ground, So

Asked Advice.

Meets an Unromantic Police Sergeant.

The intervention of the police spoiled a runaway marriage yesterday. John Kenyon, a farmer of McLouth, Kas., 84 years old, walked into police headquarters yesterday morning and, producing a letter from his fiancee, Mrs. Ada Cross of Frankfort, Ind., sought the advice of Chief of Police Frank Snow as to his matrimonial affairs. The chief refused to arbitrate and advised John to return to the farm.

Kenyon left headquarters, but a few hours later returned and this time called on the desk sergeant to referee. The sergeant, a big unromantic man, thought that Kenyon was a fit charge for the police matron and after depositing his valuables, some $20 in cash and a bank book showing a healthy balance, in the office safe, Kenyon was escorted upstairs.

Kenyon went to bed, but was not permitted to rest long in peace. Mrs. Ada Cross, in company with several real estate dealers, soon appeared on the scene. They wished to pay the old man a visit and informed Captain Whitsett that Kenyon was negotiation for the purpose of a rooming house on Twelfth street opposite the Hotel Washington. The captain then took a hand in the administration of the old man's finances. Mrs. Cross, on being questioned, admitted that she was engaged to be married to Kenyon and that he had promised to indorse her note for $2,500 for the purchase of the property. She stated that if it had not been for the intervention of Walter Kenyon, the old man's son, who made a trip from McLouth for the purpose of breaking up the marriage, the couple would have appeared before a justice of the peace Sunday.

Labels: Captain Whitsett, Police Chief Snow, police headquarters, police matron, real estate, romance, Seniors

November 20, 1909

MARRIED HALF A CENTURY.

Golden Wedding Jubilee for Mr.

and Mrs. James H. Prather.

As fortunate a fifty years of married life as has ever been celebrated is that of Mr. and Mrs. James H. Prather of Clay county, who will observe the anniversary Monday afternoon and night, first at their home, three miles north of Harlem, and then at the home of their eldest daughter, Mrs. W. J. Campbell at 2618 Olive street.

During the half century since this pair became man and wife they became parents of six children, grandparents of fourteen children and great-grandparents of two children, and there has not been a divorce, a death or any great trouble in the family.

James Prather, who is now 70 years old, is living in a stately farm house on the site of a log cabin in which he was born. His father, Barrett Prather, acquired the 120 acres comprising the farm, in 1832, when it was valued at $1.25 an acre. Clay county real estate has gone booming since that date and $700 an acre is an average value now.

Mrs. Prather, who was Miss Margaret Emma Bradhurst, comes of a prominent Clay county family and was born but a few miles away from the Prather acres. She is 69 years old. Mr. and Mrs. Prather are possessed of sound bodily health and minds. Neither has experienced much sickness since their marriage. The names of the children are: Edward V. Prather, John B. Prather, Mrs. W. J. Campbell, Mrs. Oscar Westheffer, Mrs. George Barnes and Mrs. Rev. W. J. Parvin. All the children are married and every one of the descendants live within 100 miles of the farm and will be at the anniversary.

Labels: marriage, Olive street, Seniors

November 18, 1909

MOTHERLY HEART STILLED

WHEN "PEGGY" HEALY DIED.

AGED WEST BOTTOMS SQUATTER SPENT

MUCH OF HER LIFE IN WORK FOR

OTHERS.

A motherly old heart was stilled last night when Margaret Healy died in St. Joseph's hospital. She was a charity patient and left no money with which to bury herself. But in life that thought never troubled her.

"I always have friends," she used to say. "Sure, haven't I always been friendly?"

And she had been. Her friendship for all that was human was shown in her adoption of a parentless family of boys and raising the two youngest from her scanty earnings as charwoman and washwoman. It was shown, too, in her working half the night doing washing and household work for neighbors, when the mothers of families were ill, in the many acts of kindness when the stork visited neighbors or when death crossed their thresholds.

A simple, artless old woman she was, who passed her last days in the companionship of a woman who befriended her and gave her shelter. No one who knew her ever heard her moan at fate. She was as full of laughter at 75 years of age as many women in their teens, with the same keen enjoyment of life and interest in the small things of the town and her neighborhood.

Mrs. Healy was about 78 years old. She came to Kansas City several years after the war. She was twice married. Her second husband, John Healy died a year after their marriage. Never in her life had the income of her family been more than $10 a week, but she saw only rosy prisms. Her first husband was a laborer. So was the second. But there always was a bit of meat and bread for the hungry to be found in the family larder and a bit of heart left for the weak and sometimes the undeserving.

Until the flood of 1903, Mrs. Healy was a "squatter" in a shell of a home near the Loose-Wiles factory at Eighth and Santa Fe streets.

She and Mr. Healy were married in the Church of the Annunciation by Father Dalton. They lived in several places in the West Bottoms. Years after his death, Mrs. Healy became one of the great colony of "squatters," whose huts were scattered on unused ground from the Armour packing plant to the West bluffs. Mrs. Healy was known from one end of the bottoms to the other.

Mrs. Healy's home in the West bottoms was destroyed in the flood of 1903. She was forced to leave and found a home with Mrs. Ellen Hughes, a widow, at 630 Bank street, a mere lane down upon which the rear of huge factory buildings on Broadway frown. She lived with Mrs. Hughes until seven weeks ago, when Mrs. Hughes found her in her room unconscious and ill. She was taken to St. Joseph's hospital.

"Mrs. Healy was very happy here," Mrs. Hughes said last night. "We two lone women became great chums. She was great company. We used to go to 5 o'clock mass Sundays and sometimes we would walk up the hill again to the chapel at St. Joseph for high mass. I went to call her one Sunday and she didn't answer. Her door was locked, but she had left the window open. I crawled in and found her. She had fallen in a wood box.

"All the Irish knew Mrs. Healy; the McGowans, the Burnetts, the Moores, the Walshes, the Pendergasts, all of them. She'll never lack decent burying. From the time she came into my house dripping to the arms with flood water, she never lacked friends and I know she won't lack them now."

In younger days, Mrs. Healy was called "Peggy," a nickname usually given only to Irish girls of vivacious temperament. She looked on her deathbed little like that stout, buxom "Peggy" Healy that the West Bottoms knew at St. Joseph's, but the still, warn face wears the calm of good deeds done. She will rest in Mount St. Mary's cemetery at the side of her adopted son, George Traynor. The funeral arrangements are still to be made.

Labels: Bank street, churches, death, flood, hospitals, ministers, Seniors, West bottoms, women

November 8, 1909

OLD FOLKS' DAY AT

CHURCH IN ROSEDALE.

W. I. DAVIS, 65, AND WIFE, 62,

ONLY PIONEERS PRESENT.

Aggregate Age of Thirty-three Per-

sons Who Attended Is 2,280

Years -- Two Weeks' Special

Service Is Inaugurated.

ROSEDALE'S METHODIST CHURCH THIRTY YEARS AGO.

Mrs. Susan Weller, who is 90 year of age, was the oldest person to attend the old folks' reunion in the First Methodist church, Rosedale, yesterday morning. The oldest man in attendance was William S. Garrett, who is 81. The aggregate age of thirty-three persons who attended this unique gathering is 2,280 years.

The Rosedale church was organized thirty three years ago and the original enrollment showed just thirty members. Out of that original membership there were only two of the pioneers present yesterday. These were Mr. andMrs. W. I. Davis. Mr. Davis is 65 years old while his wife is 62. The husband is still active and is an engineer at the Swift packing plant.

The First Methodist Church in Rosedale as it Is Now.

FIRST METHODIST CHURCH AS IT APPEARS TODAY.

In the thirty years that the church has been in existence there have been many changes. The original church was a small frame structure which cost $1,000. The present edifice is a magnificent stone structure, which cost $25,000 and which is one of hte most imposing buildings of the kind in the state. Its membership has grown from a meager thirty to more than 250 and its debt is more than half paid.

CUSTOM IS POPULAR.

Twelve years ago the custom of holding an old folks' reunion each autumn was establisheda nd this event has proved a popular one. H. W. Gates always has supplied buggies and carriages and Amos Martin and S. B. Bell, Jr., have provided automobiles. With these the persons who are too feeble to walk to the service are taken to church.

The features of yesterday's service was a sermon by Rev. I. V. Maloney, the pastor, who took for his text: "Thou shalt come to old age like as a shock of corn cometh in the season," Job v. 26.

The church was decorated with autumn leaves and foilage and the choir rendered a special music programme.

At the church last night a two weeks' special service was inaugurated. There will be services every night, the pastor being assisted by the Rev. Marion Donleavy of Kansas City, Kas.

Labels: churches, ministers, pioneers, reunions, Rosedale, Seniors

October 28, 1909

AT AGE OF 104 YEARS

MAKES 200-MILE TRIP.

CENTENARIAN IS ACCOMPANIED

BY SON 76 YEARS OLD.

Fondness for Clay Pipe and Long

Green Leads Mrs. Indiana

Hagan to the Smok-

ing Car.

After a 200-mile railroad ride from Clarence, Shelby county, Mo., only slightly fatigued, Mrs. Indiana Hagan, 104 years old, with her baby boy, Levi Howard, 76 years old, left Kansas City last evening for Sparta, on the Blue River, where they will make their home with George Howard, the other surviving son. William Riley Howard, 52 years old, son of Levi Howard, accompanied them from Clarence to Liberty, Mo.

"I don't feel as pert today as I usually do," said Mrs. Hagan between puffs of long green from an old clay pipe, which she said was a score or more years old.

"My feet hurt me today and I had to take my shoes off. This was the longest railroad trip I ever made and it made me sort of tired. I guess I smoked a bit too much, too. I will be glad when we get to my son's home. I won't go away from there."

DOESN'T SHOW AGE.

Rawboned, almost toothless, yet with some eyesight, her face a mass of wrinkles, Mrs. Hagan does not look the age she says she is. Her age would not be readily believed were it not for her son who is with her and looks the age he says he is -- 76 years.

Mrs. Hagan was born in Washington county, Ind. After her marriage at the age of 18 she removed to Lawrence county. It was there that Levi Howard was born. He was one of four brothers and a sister, all of whom have died except his brother, George, at Sparta.

Two of the brothers died as the result of injuries received in the battle of Gettysburg. Levi and George were in the Fourteenth Indiana regiment of infantry and passed through the war without receiving injuries. After the war the entire family emigrated to Missouri. The mother remarried, and a daughter, now Mrs. Ella May Crewett, was born. Mrs. Hagan has been living until recently at this daughter's home at Clarence, Shelby county, Mo.

SHOWS PIPE COLLECTION.

Several months ago Mr. Howard, who has been living with a son at Annabelle, Macon county, decided to go to his brother's farm to recover from an attack of asthma. He broached the subject with his mother and she decided to make the trip with him. William Riley Howard, a son who lives at Liberty, Mo., accompanied them from Shelby county to his home.

"I have never had a sickness in my life," said Mrs. Hagan as she sat on the couch in the waiting room at the Union depot, refusing Matron Everingham's admonition to lie down and rest.

"My only bad habit is smoking long green. I don't like any other sort of pipe but a clay pipe, and I brought all my pipes with me. This one," she said, pointing to the one she was smoking yesterday, "is about twenty years old."

The pipe bore evidence of great age. It was colored a deep black and part of the bowl had been burned away.

Because of her fondness for her pipe, Mrs. Hagan occupied a seat in the smoker on the trip here.

Labels: depot matron, Seniors, Union depot, visitors

September 30, 1909

TWO WEDDINGS, ONE GOLDEN.

Daughter Married on Fiftieth An-

niversary of Parents.

A double wedding, one of them a golden one, took place at the home of Miss Alice Francis at 1410 Campbell street last night at half past 7 o'clock. At the same time her sister, Miss Jeanette Francis, was married to Norman H. Korte, agent for the Illinois Central at Paris, Ill, her mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. J. J. Franois of Clinton, Ill, were presented with their golden wedding gifts, and Rev. J. L. Thompson blessed their union of fifty years.

Mr. Francis is 77 years of age and his wife 68. Half a century ago yesterday they were married at Clinton, Ill.

Labels: Campbell street, ministers, Seniors, wedding

September 16, 1909

OLDEST KANSAS LANDLORDS?

Distinction Claimed for Emporia

and Downs Bonifaces.

Colonel H. C. Whitley, 75 years old, of Emporia, Kas., and Colonel J. H. Lipton, 82 years old, of Downs, both veterans of the civil war and two of the three honorary members of the Kansas-Missouri Hotel Men's Association, were the guests of C. L. Wild of the Sexton hotel yesterday. Colonel Lipton claims the distinction of having operated a hostelry in Kansas for a longer period than any other man in the state. He has been in the business for half a century. Colonel Whitley claims to be the next oldest in the business.

Labels: hotels, organizations, Seniors, veterans

September 12, 1909

DESPONDENT, HANGS HIMSELF.

Wm. Mann, 80, Grieved for Wife

Who Died in 1905.

Brooding over the loss of his aged wife who died February 24, 1905, William Mann, 80 years old, a pioneer farmer of Johnson county, Kas., became despondent early yesterday morning and hanged himself with a halter rope in the barn of his son, James Mann, who lives in the suburbs of Bonner Springs. The body was discovered at 10 o'clock by Harley Mann, the ten-year-old grandson. An examination made by the Wyandotte county Coroner J. A. Davis proved that life had been extinct several hours.

Mr. Mann was at one time widely known as a successful farmer of Johnson county, where he lived more than 35 years. In 1903 he moved to Bonner Springs in Wyandotte county accompanied by his only son James. There the two went into the potato raising business. Recently James Mann has been locally known as the potato king from the fact that he yearly cultivated 300 acres of the tubers, considerably more than any other farmer in the vicinity.

Labels: Bonner Springs, farmers, food, Johnson county, pioneers, Seniors, Suicide

August 22, 1909

GRANDMA CAMPBELL'S

FAMILY OF CHILDREN.

EIGHTY-SEVEN LIVING DE-

SCENDANTS -- SHE IS 84.

Anniversary of Her Birth Was Cele-

brated Yesterday -- Two Sons

Are Ministers -- Five Weigh

Over 200 Pounds Each.

Six children, twenty-eight grandchildren, fifty-two great-grandchildren and one great-great-grandchild.

The foregoing are the living descendants of Mrs. Milbra R. Campbell, whose eighty-fourth birth anniversary was celebrated yesterday at the home of her son, George W. Campbell, 728 Wabash avenue. All the five sons who attended are over six feet tall and weigh more than 200 pounds each. They are Rev. John A. Campbell of Chillicothe, Tex., Rev. W. T. Campbell of Pueblo, Col., both ministers in the Baptist church, James H., George W. and David Campbell, all engaged in the live stock commission business in this city. Mrs. E. J. Henry, the only daughter, 1221 Bales avenue, was detained at home on account of illness.

At 1 o'clock a dinner was served to the immediate relatives attending the anniversary. During the afternoon an informal reception was held for relatives and friends. A photographer took pictures of "Grandma" Campbell, as she is familiarly known, and her five stalwart sons. After that group pictures of those present, representing many generations, were taken.

FIVE GENERATIONS.

The accompanying photograph represents but four generations of the Campbell family. There are now five. This picture was taken eleven years ago and shows Mrs. Campbell, her only daughter, Mrs. Elizabeth J. Henry, her son, Charles D. Henry and the latter's daughter, Miss Dorothy J. Henry, now in her sixteenth year.

The Rev. W. T. Campbell, who is here with his four children from Pueblo, Col., where he is pastor of the First Baptist church, is not a stranger in Kansas City. He held several pastorates in this city and organized what is now known as the Olive street Baptist church. He will occupy the pulpit there this morning and tonight. Rev. Mr. Campbell was also a pastor of a church in Independence, Mo., for four years.

The ancestors of this sturdy family, in which there has been no deaths since 1864, came from Scotland and the North of Ireland. In 1836 the father and mother immigrated from Tennessee and settled among the early pioneers in Northwestern Arkansas.

IN PRICE'S RAID.

The father, who was born in 1826, served in the United States army during the Mexican war of 1847. When volunteers were being called for to stay the failing fortunes of the Confederacy he volunteered to the governor of Arkansas in 1861 and was made captain of Company D, Fourteenth Arkansas infantry. After being engaged in many battles he surrendered with his company at Fort Hudson, July 8, 1863, and was made a prisoner of war. He died shortly afterward of a disease contracted in the army.

J. H. Campbell, the oldest brother, and John A. Campbell, now a minister, enlisted in the Confederate army later on and were with General Price in most of his big fights, and with Price's raid into Missouri. John was severely wounded in the battle of the Little Blue and captured, spending the rest of the war time in a military prison at Indianapolis, Ind. J. H. Campbell served with Price until the surrender at Shreveport, La., June 9, 1865. Both brothers were in the same company.

Labels: Bales avenue, Civil War, Independence, ministers, Olive street, photographs, Seniors, Wabash avenue

August 8, 1909

MARRIAGE LICENSE TOO HIGH.

John McGinnis Complains That $2

Fee Is Excessive.

John W. McGinnis, 1617 Oak street, told the marriage license clerk yesterday that the charge of $2 for a license was excessive. He said he believed that in view of this fact the minister who married him to Mrs. Susan J. Stratton of 2009 East Eighteenth street, should charge only 50 cents.

McGinnis is an old soldier and says he has been married three times before this venture. He is 69 years of age and his bride 71.

Labels: Eighteenth street, Oak street, Seniors, veterans, wedding

August 5, 1909

AGED MAN FALLS FROM CAR.

James R. Collier, Seriously Injured,

Is Found Unconscious in Street.

Lying on the side of the car track on Troost avenue, near Twenty-sixth street, James R. Collier, 75 years of age, was found unconscious last night. Mr. Collier's skull was fractured. His condition, as announced by Dr. C. Lester Hall last night, is exceedingly dangerous.

Mr. Collier was on his way to prayer meeting at the Troost Avenue Methodist church, which he attended regularly. It is thought that he stepped from a car while it was moving.

The janitor of the church saw the man lying in the street and called the attention of Rev. Edgar McVoy, the pastor. The two investigated and found the injured man to be Mr. Collier, whom the minister quickly recognized. It was then that Dr. Hall's services were requested, and the injured man taken to his home at 23 East Twenty-ninth street.

Mr. Collier lives with his son, T. P. Collier, an engineer, at the Twenty-ninth street address. He has not been in good health for some time.

Labels: accident, churches, doctors, ministers, Seniors, Troost avenue, Twenty-ninth street, Twenty-sixth street

July 17, 1909

HAD GOOD CIVIL WAR RECORD.

Aged Applicant for Parole Says Son

Was Knighted for Bravery.

Anderson J. Barker, 69 years old, was fined $500 Wednesday for running an alleged "fake" employment agency, wore only a pair of overalls and a short-sleeved shirt when he appeared before the board of pardons and paroles yesterday for hearing on his application for parole, but despite the costume his appearance was that of a stately gentleman of the "old school."

After telling of his service to his country during the civil war, during which he was twice breveted for meritorious conduct on the field, tears streamed down his cheeks as he told of how he had reared his two sons, both of whom, he said, were heads of Y. M. C. A. organizations, one in a suburb of Chicago and the other in Calcutta, India.

"For saving the life of Lord Frazier in Calcutta on November 9 last," said the aged man, his eyes suffused with tears, "my boy Ben was made a knight by King Edward VII of England on February 9 of this year. The king also decorated him with a gold medal for bravery. My other son, Edwin, is a thirty-second degree Mason.

"I have been engaged in one business in this city for seven years. The police judge heard only the testimony of a policeman and the complainant, and said: 'Five hundred dollars.' I never committed a crime in my life."

While discussing the matter of parole, Barker said he would withdraw his application, and appeal. He did not wish to bear the stigma of having to report to the secretary every week. The board told him there was no stigma attached to a parole and promised to look into his references today, when he may be granted freedom.

Labels: Civil War, clothing, England, parole board, police court, Seniors, veterans

July 7, 1909

NEGROES MAINTAIN GUARD.

Grizzled Veterans With Springfields

Patrol Dynamite District.

Two ancient negroes, A. L. Jones and Percy Williams, last night did sentry duty in front of the row of cottages on Highland avenue, between Twenty-seventh and Twenty-eighth streets. It was in this vicinity that a house was wrecked by dynamite early Monday morning after it had been let to negroes.

The negroes who mounted guard last night had both seen service in the civil war in the capacity of teamsters. They were armed with old regulation Springfield rifles. As they paced slowly up and down the plank sidewalk they swapped stories of war times, or kept step to "hay-foot! straw-foot!" according to a system said to have been employed by the drill masters of '61.

"Seems powerful lonely out here," said one of the sentinels, bringing his weapon to parade rest when accosted by a lone reporter in the twilight of a flickering arc lamp.

"When are you relieved?" was asked.

"Not until morning."

"Going to carry that heavy rifle around with you all the time?"

"Certainly; this is soldiering," was the answer.

No clues as to the dynamiting have been discovered by the police of No. 6 station.

Labels: Civil War, guns, Highland avenue, race, Seniors, Twenty-eighth street, Twenty-seventh street

July 6, 1909

TURNS A SOMERSAULT AT 80.

Grandpa Brueckmann's July 4th

Antics Amused the Children.

The German Baptist Sunday school, Seventeenth and Tracy, held its annual basket picnic at Budd park yesterday. A crowd of children, with hands joined, danced in a ring, while a man stood in the center and sang a German holiday song. At the end of each verse he would do something and each one in the circle had to imitate him.

With the children, and apparently enjoying himself as much as they, was Henry Brueckmann, 80 years old. He made faces, clapped his hands, pulled his neighbor's hair and did everything suggested by the leader, until the latter turned a somersault. The children all went over in a hurry, and then besieged "grandpa" to turn one. And Grandpa Breuckmann, 80 years old, did turn a somersault -- a good one, too -- much to the delight of the children. There were 140 at this picnic.

The Swedish Methodist church Sunday school, 1664 Madison street, headed by O. J. Lundberg, pastor, and the Swedish mission at Fortieth and Genessee streets, held a big basket dinner in the east end of Budd park. About 150 enjoyed themselves.

Not far from them the Swedish Baptist church Sunday school, 416 West Fourteenth street, with Rev. P. Schwartz and a delegation from a Swedish church in Kansas City, Kas., headed by Rev. Carl Sugrstrom, was holding forth about 300 strong.

There were many family and neighborhood picnics in the park.

Labels: amusement, Budd park, children, churches, Fortieth street, Fourteenth street, Genessee street, holidays, immigrants, Madison street, ministers, picnics, Seniors, Seventeenth street, Tracy avenue

June 28, 1909

GRIEF DRIVES AGED

WOMAN TO SUICIDE.

HUSBAND OF HALF A CENTURY

PROCURED DIVORCE.

Heartbroken Over This Treatment,

Mrs. Mary Robinson, 70 Years

Old, a Paralytic, Swallows

Carbolic Acid.

Heart-broken over alleged treatment by her husband to whom she had been married forty-six years, and to whom she had borne 8 children, Mrs. Mary M. Robinson, 70 years old, swallowed carbolic acid yesterday morning at 9:30 o'clock and, successfully struggling against the efforts of a physician to administer an antidote, died an hour and a half later

She lived with her son, Ernest E. Robinson, 37 years old, and father of four children, at 312 South Topping avenue.

For about three years O. G. Robinson, three years his wife's junior, worked in Tennessee. He made frequent trips to Kansas City, however.

Four weeks ago Ernest Robinson says he received a letter from his father, declaring that "he guessed he was of age," and could act as he saw fit. The letter said he had procured a divorce in the South and had married a woman from Mississippi, 32 years old, who is now with him in Kansas City.

AGED WOMAN PARALYTIC.

Already a hopeless paralytic, having used crutches for several years, the aged wife could not bear the added burden. She knew of a bottle of carbolic acid which her daughter-in-law used for household purposes, and secured it.

Although for years she could hardly raise her hand to her head, in her despair she managed to reach the bottle that lay on a shelf higher than the top of the kitchen door.

Ernest Robinson, the son, had been summoned to a neighbor's by a telephone call. Hardly had he taken down the receiver, when his little daughter who had run after him, cried out:

"Papa, grandma wants you to come quick as you can."

"ALL OVER," SHE TOLD SON.

When he reached his mother's side, she told him there was no use in sending for a doctor, "for it was all over with her." By 11 o'clock she was dead.

Her former husband was notified and went with his son to make arrangements with the undertaker.

Another son, Arthur B. Robinson, 40 years old, lives next door to his brother at 310 Topping avenue. He has three children. These two sons are the only ones of the eight children surviving.

Mrs. Robinson was born, reared and married at Jay, Mo., but for twenty-three years had lived in Missouri.

Labels: Divorce, Seniors, Suicide, Topping avenue, women

June 28, 1909

SOLDIER, SAILOR AND

THIEF, IN THE TOILS.

"BOBBY" WRIGHT, 75, SPENDS

NIGHT IN HOLDOVER.

Built Missouri Telegraph Lines in

1862, Then Was Steamboatman

and Later Noted "Hotel

Worker."

"Bobby" Wright, 75 years old, formerly soldier, sailor and now the oldest sneak thief in point of experience int he world, stayed in the city holdover last night to avoid worse trouble. Wright has been in the city several weeks, but was not picked up by the police until yesterday.

Wright confided to a visitor through the bars last night that he was born in New England, but was brought up in the South. When the civil war broke out, however, he was loyal to the Union and joined the army, becoming a private in the miners and sappers' division of the army. He was assigned to General Lyon's army in Missouri and afterwards under General Fremont.

"I put telegraph wires clear across Missouri in the year 1862," he said.

After the war he became a sailor on a merchant ship and was for ten years a steamboatman on the Mississippi river. Then his criminal tendencies became assertive and he became a professional thief, if the records kept by the police departments of many cities are to be believed.

His advent into this city was in 1882 and he has been a frequent visitor since. On almost every visit he was entertained in the city holdover, and he has frequently been convicted in the municipal court.

Wright is whitehaired, partly bald and has white whiskers. He is stooped and tall. His particular branch of thievery is known as hotel work. He walks into a hostelry, goes upstairs, and when he finds a door unlocked enters the room and makes away with all the valuables he can conceal about his person. This is the police report on Bobby Wright.

"He is one of the cleverest men in the country at his trade," said Inspector of Detectives Edward J. Boyle last night.

Labels: Civil War, crime, hotels, Inspector Boyle, Seniors, telegraph, veterans

June 23, 1909

AGED MAN'S SEARCH FOR SON.

Blind and Partially Deaf, G. E.

Keller Fails to Locate Him.

When G. E. Keller, 88 years old, blind and partially deaf, arrived in the Union depot yesterday morning, having come to Kansas City in quest of his son, Charles Keller, whom he believes to be ill and out of money, he did not know his address and a search through the directory failed to show the name. Mr. Keller came here from the state of Washington.

A letter received from the son a few weeks ago told of his illness and an operation. The boy was then living in a rooming house, and funds were sent to him at the time. The aged father lost the letter giving the son's address.

Mrs. Ollie Everingham, depot matron, asked the police to aid in the search for the boy, but at a late hour last night he had not been found.

The old man was made comfortable at the depot, where he spent the night.

Labels: depot matron, hearing impaired, missing, Seniors, Union depot, visitors, visual impairment

June 13, 1909

PET HEN TAKES A TRIP.

Precocious Fowl Entertains Travel-

ers With Tricks at Union Depot.

Much amusement was afforded patrons at the Union depot yesterday when A. E. Munden and his wife arrived at the station carrying in a basket what appeared to be an ordinary speckled hen, and later proceeded to put the chicken through a number of "stunts." The hen's principal accomplishment was "singing." The old couple were on their way to Coffeyville, Kas.

Whenever told to sing, the hen would emit a long, continuous cackle and seemed to get as much satisfaction out of it as the bystanders who stood around and applauded. Another trick of the chicken was to ruffle her feathers and scratch her head with her foot when told there were creepers on her.

The hen strutted about the corridors on the lower floor of the depot, seemingly as much at home as if she were in her own barnyard. Mr. Munden said that he had been more than a year training the chicken and it had come to be a family pet. She has never laid an egg.

Labels: animals, Seniors, Union depot

June 12, 1909

DIED NEAR THE SAME TIME.

Mrs. Spickert Lived Only Few Hours

After Husband's Death.

Nicholas C. and Matilda Spickert, an aged couple living at 4247 Woodland avenue, died of different diseases within a few hours of the same time yesterday. The husband, who was 64 years old, died at the home at 4 o'clock in the morning. He was afflicted with cancer of the stomach. Mrs. Spickert died of a complication common to old age at the home of her only child, Mrs. Margaret Douthat, 3808 Euclid avenue, at 6 o'clock last night. She was unconscious for fourteen hours before her death.

Mr. and Mrs. Spickert came to this city form Texas twenty-five years ago and the former has for the past three years operated a s mall notion store at 4245 Woodland , next door to his dwelling.

Funeral services will be in charge of the Masons from the home of Mrs. Douthat at 2:30 o'clock Saturday afternoon. Burial in Elmwood cemetery.

Mrs. Douthat said last night that the couple had been married thirty-eight years and came to this city from Texas in a prairie schooner.

Labels: death, Euclid avenue, Seniors, Texas, Woodland avenue

May 11, 1909

OLD SOLDIER OF 65

WINS YOUTHFUL BRIDE.

HIS PROPOSAL FOLLOWED SOON

AFTER FIRST MEETING.

"My Reasons for Marrying Are Not

for Publication," Said Veteran

Porter's Young Wife -- Plan

a Fine Honeymoon.

CARRIE CLEMENTS.
27-Year-Old Bride of 67-Year-Old Civil War Veteran.

December and June were mated last night at the Hotel Moore, Ninth and Central streets, when Henry C. Porter, 65 years old, was married to Miss Carrie Clements, 27 years of age. Porter, who lost his right leg at the battle of Gettysburg, supported himself on his crutches and took the hand of his diminutive bride in his while she promised to "love, honor and obey him until death did them part."

In celebration of the occasion the old soldier wore a "boiled shirt" with a stiff collar and necktie, for the first time in thirty years.

"I've been too busy out in Colorado and New Mexico to wear city clothes," he said. "But when a man marries there are a good many changes that come into his life and it isn't too much to ask him to wear these things then."

"Ours was a short courtship but a stirring one," continued Porter, his blue eyes twinkling. "I had seen her long before I made her acquaintance and was struck by her daintiness and prettiness. I made up my mind to win her. We boarded at the same house in Pueblo and two months ago I proposed and she accepted me. It's just like other love stories except that I was in a hurry and she couldn't resist me."

BRIDE A NEW YORKER.

Miss Clements is a brunette, four feet five inches tall. She was born in Caldwell, Warren county, N. Y., and her parents and only sister live there yet. Three years ago she went to Pueblo, and was employed in a department store when the veteran met her.

"Why should a young woman like you marry an old man like Mr. Porter?" she was asked.

"That is the only question I will not answer," she replied. "I have my reasons, but they are not for publication."

Henry C. Porter enlisted in the Ninety-fifth New York volunteers at the outbreak of the civil war. He was in many battles and was orderly to General Reynolds at the battle of Gettysburg. He was a few feet behind that general when he was killed, and the next day was mowed down himself in the charge on Missionary Ridge. For several months he lay in the hospital with a lame leg, and afterwards joined a Nebraska cavalry regiment.

After the surrender at Appomatox, and the review of the troops at Washington, he found time to have his leg amputated, and then started to earn his living by his trade as a miller. He had learned this business at the age of 14 years, and at the time of his retirement several years ago had worked at it for forty years.

GROOM IS WELL-TO-DO.

Porter moved to Colorado twenty-two years ago, and has worked in Denver, Leadville, Telluride, Cripple Creek, Pueblo and Albequerque, N. M. After his retirement he lived comfortably on his pension and the income from his property. He is fairly well-to-do.

The honeymoon trip which the oddly assorted pair will take is one to be envied. Miss Clements left Pueblo for this city several days ago and took rooms at the Buck hotel. Yesterday Mr. Porter arrived, and they were married last night. Today or tomorrow they will leave for St. Louis, and after resting a few days, proceed to Chicago. Thence they will travel by easy stages to Washington. Their next stopping place will be Baltimore, and they will take ship for San Francisco at New York. Later they will make a trip through Yellowstone Park, and will then go back to Pueblo or Denver, and begin housekeeping.

"I want to be back home in time to attend the national G. A. R. convention which will be held in Salt Lake City September 7," said the soldier, saluting and marching away in a brand new pair of crutches bought for the glad occasion.

Labels: Civil War, hotels, New York, Seniors, veterans, visitors, wedding

May 7, 1909

CHEERING THRONGS

BID WESTON WELCOME.

AGED PEDESTRIAN SET HOT

PACE DURING THE DAY.

Arrived in Kansas City Fresh and

Strong With Admirers Trailing

at Heel -- Proceeds to

Kansas Today.

EDWARD PAYSON WESTON.

Cheered by thousands of people, Edward Payson Weston, the aged pedestrian, who is enroute from New York to San Francisco, swung briskly into the downtown section of Kansas City yesterday afternoon at 4:15 o'clock and reaching the Coates house at 4:45 completed the day's walk, having made twenty-nine miles from Oak Grove, his stopping place last night, to Kansas City in eight hours and thirty minutes, with ease. He was not travel worn nor weary, and walked the last few miles of the day at a terrific pace.

"It was the greatest day of the trip to date," said Weston, as he waved adieu to the crowd that followed him through the downtown streets to the doors of his hotel. "Never have I been so royally received. And never on any of my jaunts have I traveled such roads and passed through such beautiful country as I did today. I will never forget this day and the kind people of Kansas City."

IN GREAT FORM.

Greatly refreshed by ten hours sleep at Oak Grove, Weston set out from that place yesterday morning at 7:30 o'clock. In the cool, bracing morning air he reeled off the miles in great form, little like he entered Oak Grove the night before, when he was on the verge of collapse as the result of a most trying walk under a broiling sun. The trip to Independence was made without incident. With the exception of a stop for a glass of milk and another to eat some raw eggs, the veteran never broke his stride, and at 1:30 o'clock he entered the public square at Independence. Scores of people cheered him and sought to give him a more demonstrative welcome, but he dodged them and made his way to the Metropolitan hotel, a stopping place in the early days for ox teams en route from the Atlantic to the Pacific over the same route the "hiker" is following.

At the Metropolitan, Weston ate heartily a generous portion of oatmeal. Lying on a cot he talked between bites to newspaper men and Y. M. C. A. athletes who had journeyed to Independence to meet and accompany him to Kansas City. After fifty minutes of eating and resting, he arose, walked backwards down the stairs of the hotel to prevent any jar to his knees, and started rapidly for the city.

CHILDREN CHEERED HIM.

The route out of Independence was down West Maple street. On this thoroughfare is located the Central high school, and as Weston approached the school hundreds of school children were released from their studies to greet him. To the wild cheering of the boys and girls and the handclapping of the many people who lined the curbs of the street, the old man lifted his hat and bowed again and again. The short, stubby stride was broken for the first time, and the walker grasped the hand of George S. Bryant, principal of the school, a friend of years ago. A hurried greeting and adieu and Weston was again on his way. Twice between Independence and Kansas City, the old fellow was again greeted by throngs of school children, and each time he bowed his appreciation. "It does me more good than anything else to have these children greet me," he said. "It cheers me, and makes my journey easier."

The Y . M. C. A. hikers who were accompanying the old pedestrian on his entry into the city, were hustling to keep a pace when the city limits were reached at 3:12 o'clock. Weston was averaging, as he did early in the day, four miles an hour, and the pace was a little too fast for the unseasoned striders, but they struggled gamely on. At the city limits, the escort of mounted police joined the party, and it was well that this escort was provided, for along Fifteenth street and through the business section of the city the crowd that followed the pedestrian and rushed into the streets to greet him would have been uncontrollable.

Such an enthusiastic welcome as was given Weston has seldom been given an athlete in Kansas City. On every side there were cheers of "Hello, Weston," "You're all right, old boy," etc. To all of these Weston bowed his thanks. He stopped but twice, once to greet John DeWolfe, who lives near the Blue river. Weston and DeWolfe were friends thirty-nine years ago.

After reaching the Coates house Weston Hurried to his room where he changed his clothes and bathed his feet in the preparation he always uses, briny water.

LECTURES AT Y. M. C. A.

Last night Mr. Weston spoke before a large audience in the gymnasium of the Y. M. C. A. building on Wyandotte street. His remarks were confined principally to events on his present long hike, and he predicted he would arrive in San Francisco on schedule time. By 9 o'clock he was through with his lecture, and a half hour later was snugly in bed at the Coates house. He left a call for 4 o'clock this morning, and by 5 o'clock he expects to be well on his way to the West.

Weston goes from Kansas City to Lawrence, and will cover the distance over the roadbed of the Union Pacific railroad. He is due in Lawrence tonight, where he will rest until Saturday morning, when he will start out for Topeka, again taking the railroad right-of-way, by which he saves eleven miles in distance as compared with the open highway. He is scheduled to lecture in Topeka.

Weston is a most picturesque character. Clad in a white blouse that is fringed with embroidery at the neck and wrist, plaid walking trousers suspended by a broad belt and heavy shoes with gaiters, his dress does just what he wishes it to do -- attract attention. He shows his seventy years only by his wheat head and a drooping white mustache. He is of wiry build, about 5 feet 6 inches in height and weighs 140 pounds. As he walks he allows his body to weave slightly from side to side, removing to a great extent the jar of the walking. At this stage of the journey he is in excellent physical condition. Yesterday was the hardest day he has experienced on this or any other walk, according to his own statement. Barring a succession of several such days he should be able to finish his long journey on schedule time and in good condition.

Labels: California, children, Coates house, hotels, Independence, Lawrence, New York, schools, Seniors, Topeka, visitors, YMCA

April 23, 1909

CROSSED THE PLAINS

TOGETHER IN 1858.

FORMER COMRADES MEET FOR

FIRST TIME SINCE.

George W. Friend and Ferd Smith

Fought on Opposite Sides in War

and Both Were in Battle

of Lexington.

Curiosity on the part of a young man who desired to witness the meeting of two old soldiers of the same war, but who fought under different flags, last night brought together two men who crossed the plains in company in 1858, but who had not heard of each other since. George W. Friend of Anderson, Mo., and Ferd Smith of 3339 Morrill avenue were the principals in the meeting.

It was in 1858 that the men joined the same train of freighters from Kansas City to Fort Union, N. M., and drove teams of oxen and fought Indians on the plains for ninety days. On the return of the freighters to Kansas City they were disbanded and them men went back to their farms. They lost track of each other until last night.

MEET AT HOSPITAL.

An operation being necessary to save the life of his son, George W. Friend came to Kansas City several days ago and took his son to Wesley hospital. About the same time a nephew of Ferd Smith became ill and went to the hospital. The nephew met Mr. Friend and last night when his uncle called to see him the nephew introduced the old men.

"Smith, Smith. You are not the Smith from Lafayette county, are you?" Mr. Friend asked.

"Yes, I joined the Confederate army at Lexington," Smith replied.

"A man named Smith crossed the plains with me in '58," Friend remarked.

"That's me," Ex-Freighter Smith answered.

"What, are you 'Pudd' Smith?" Friend asked, and when he was told that the old soldier was the same man who crossed the plains with him, he led the way to two chairs on the veranda where there was a great talk-fest.

During the conversation the friends discovered that they were both engaged in the battle at Lexington,, one fighting for the Confederacy and the other on the side of the Union.

TRIED TO KILL EACH OTHER.

"I did my best to kill you, Friend," Smith informed his friend.

"Same here, Pete," was the rejoinder made by Friend.

The old soldiers have arranged to see each other every day while Friend is in town. The first t rip across the plains made by Friend was for Anderson & Hays of Westport, in 1857, and he freighted to Fort Union. Thereafter he crossed the plains twelve times, most of his trips being to Fort Union, although he made one to Santa Fe and another to Denver.

Mr. Friend is 71 years old and his friend of the plains is 72 years old.

Labels: Civil War, hospitals, Lexington, Seniors, veterans

April 18, 1909

OLD SOLDIER SAVES

LIFE OF A WOMAN.

KNOCKED DOWN MAN WHO

STABBED MRS. ETHEL GRAY.

George Ripley, in Mad Fit, Was

Using Knife on Keeper of Room-

ing House When Charles

Hendrickson Interfered.

The strong right arm of Charles Hendrickson, 68 years old and a member of Fighting Joe Hooker's command during the civil war, saved the life of Mrs. Ethel Gray, 25 years old, last night at 9 o'clock. Hendrickson knocked down George Ripley, an admirer of Mrs. Gray's, after he had stabbed her in the back with a dirk.

Mrs. Gray, whose husband is out of town, bought a building at 215 East Fourteenth street last week and opened it as a rooming house for men only. Hendrickson, who is a carpenter, and W. T. Huddleston, a druggist, were among the roomers.

"I have known George Ripley only a week," she said at the general hospital last night. "He made my acquaintance in a restaurant and walked home with me. He called two or three times but never made love to me until last night. When he came into the room I saw that he had been drinking and it was not long before he began making love to me in the presence of Mr. Hendrickson. I am a married woman and, of course, I paid no attention to him. Then he got angry and struck me."

Hendrickson caught the man's arm after he had landed several blows on Mrs. Gray's face. Huddleston heard the noise and came to the old soldier's assistance. Between them they quieted the man and locked him in a rear room, while Mrs. Gray ran to the drug store of Adolph Lahme at Fourteenth street and Grand avenue and telephoned the Walnut street police station for an officer.

While she was away Ripley escaped from the house by opening a window, but Hendrickson and Huddleston almost immediately discovered his absence and went to the front door to prevent him from waylaying their landlady on her return. Ripley sprang out of the alley between Grand avenue and McGee streets and Huddleston attempted to prevent him from reaching Mrs. Gray.

"This isn't your butt-in," said Ripley. Huddleston gave way and Ripley ran after Mrs. Gray. At her own doorstep he caught her and stabbed her once in the back. Then the old soldier, who was standing on the steps, stepped down and struck the would-be assassin in the face. Ripley was knocked down, but arose and rushed at the woman again. Hendrickson struck again and knocked the knife out of his hand. Then Ripley fled.

The ambulance from the Walnut street police station was called and Dr. H. A. Hamilton dressed the cut, which was in the middle of the back. The knife penetrated to the vertebra. While the physician was at work the woman told the story to officers J. S. Scott and E. M. Wallace and furnished them with a description and a picture of her assailant. Later she was removed to the general hospital, where it was said that she would recover. Ripley has not been arrested. He is about 25 years old and rooms at 1322 Wyandotte street.

Labels: Civil War, druggists, Fourteenth street, general hospital, Grand avenue, rooming house, Seniors, telephone, veterans, violence, Wyandotte street

April 4, 1909

OLD SOLDIER A BRIDEGROOM.

Abraham Vanderpool Confesses to 70,

While His Bride is 44.

Abraham Vanderpool, an old soldier of Liberty, Mo., who modestly gave his age as 70, took out a license yesterday to wed Mrs. Martha Ann Fannon of Kansas City. She confessed to 44. The marriage ceremony was performed last night at the home of Mrs. Khoves, daughter of the bride, 225 West Sixteenth street.

Labels: Liberty, Seniors, Sixteenth street, veterans, wedding

April 3, 1909

ASKED THE MAYOR FOR $300.

Aged Man Said Roosevelt Had Left

Money at the Hall for Him.

An elderly man wearing a beard that reached nearly to his waist, walked into the offices of Mayor Thomas T. Crittenden, Jr., yesterday. He could not speak English.

Through an interpreter the man's mission was learned.

"He says he is down here after that $300 you have for him," said the interpreter.

"The old man says he received a Marconi telegram this morning from Theodore Roosevelt saying he had left $300 for him with the mayor, and he wants it."

The old man was taken to Colonel Greenman. Later it was learned that he is a wealthy German and lives on Mersington. He was put in charge of relatives who explained that he has been irresponsible of late.

Labels: city hall, Col. J. C. Greenman, immigrants, Mayor Crittenden, mental health, Mersington street, President Roosevelt, Seniors, telegram

March 28, 1909

FOIL MARITAL PLANS OF

AN AGED COUPLE.

RELATIVES RUTHLESSLY BREAK

UP WEDDING FEAST.

Now Jacob Rieger, Aged 75, Is

Speeding Away From His

Intended Bride of

60 Years.

Jacob Rieger, 75 years old, who lives with his son, Alexander Rieger, a wholesale liquor dealer at 4121 Warwick boulevard, believes that at that age he is eligible to the order of benedicts. But others of Mr. Rieger's household had different opinions and as a result a pretty wedding supper was interrupted last Thursday evening at the home of the prospective bride, Mrs. Rosa Peck, 60 years old, a milliner at Sixth and Main streets. Also there is an attachment on $1,100 which Mr. Rieger had in the National Bank of Commerce and a fast train is now hurrying him to New York, where he is to remain until he has outgrown his love for the woman.

Since his wife died a year ago, Mr. Rieger, the elder, has complained of lonesomeness, but could find no one among his near relatives who would even offer a suggestion of a cure.

"It is a pity," he is said to have often remarked, "that an old man like me must stay a widower."

No one, however, paid much attention to the yearnings of the old man. He took his evening walks the same as usual and made no allusion to any woman in particular as a fit subject for his affections, and as he has for several years been a partial invalid no developments were expected.

LOVED HIM AND LIKED HIM.

Up to last Wednesday things went as usual with the old man except it was noticed he had gradually been lengthening his outdoor walks, sometimes absenting himself for hours at a time. Then the word was brought to Alexander Rieger that his father and Mrs. Peck had been to Kansas City, Kas., and obtained a marriage license.

Alexander Rieger immediately went to the telephone and called up his lawyer, Samuel Eppstein of the law firm of Eppstein, Ulmann & Miller, with offices in the Kansas City Life building.

Mr. Eppstein went to see Mrs. Peck that same afternoon in hopes of talking her out of the notion of marrying the elder Mr. Rieger. He told her that her prospective groom, through his retirement from the liquor business, was not exactly in independent circumstances, and that in addition he was suffering from chronic stomach trouble.

Mr. Eppstein is eloquent and talked long and earnestly but by all his entreaties he received a decided "no."

"I love him and I like him," was the double-barreled manner in which Mrs. Peck, in broken German accents, expressed her regard for Mr. Rieger.

"You can't take him from me," she said. "You don't know the love we have for each other, and I wouldnt give him up for $25,000," and there the argument ended.

ATTACHED HIS MONEY.

The day following was stormy, but in spite of this fact the elder Mr. Rieger took a car for downtown early in the day. No one saw him go. It was hours before his absence was noticed and the alert lawyer again notified.

Mr. Eppstein at once hurried to the Sixth and Main street millinery store. He found Mrs. Peck had closed shop and was also missing.

Before starting out to forestall the wedding Mr. Eppstein arranged for a bill of attachment on all money Mr. Rieger had on deposit at the bank. Then he took a fast automobile ride to the home of Rabbi Max Lieberman at 1423 Tracy avenue, where he suspected the marriage ceremony would be performed.

As he expected, Mr. Rieger was there arranging for the nuptuals to be solmnized at 5:30 o'clock. After a good deal of argument Mr. Rieger consented to ride in the automobile back to the home of his son.

This was at 4 o'clock. About 5 o'clock he was again missing. This looked like buisness to Mr. Eppstein and the automobile was again brought into play and headed for the millinery store.

When the door of the living apartments at the rear of the store burst opeon to admit the excited lawyer it found a large table spread with a wedding feast and several guests, relatives of the propective bride assembled.

"This wedding can't go on!" shouted Mr. Eppstein. "I have arranged with the rabbi and he will not come."

LED THE BRIDEGROOM AWAY.

"Oh, yes it will," said the bride calmly. "We'll arange for another minister, won't we, Jacob?"

"No, there is nothing doing in the marriage line," replied the lawyer. "It's all off. You see, it isn't legal because you got the license in Kansas City, Kas. That's the law, you know."

Mr. Eppstein did not wait to hear any more, but took the bridegroom by the arm and led him away.

At midnight he was placed aboard a fast train for New York. Mrs. Alexander Rieger went along for company.

Alexander Rieger has maintained a mail order trade under the name of his father, Jacob Rieger, at Fifteenth and Genesse streets for many years, the father now having no interest in the business. Mrs. Peck has been a milliner in the North End over twenty years and is said to have laid by a snug sum of money. Her husband died many years ago, leaving the business exclusively to her.

Labels: attorney, Fifteenth street, Genessee street, Kansas City Kas, Main street, ministers, New York, North end, Rabbi Lieberman, Seniors, Sixth street, Tracy avenue, wedding

March 21, 1909

BLACKSMITH 91 YEARS OLD.

McCurdy Spends Birthday Working

at the Anvil.

John G. McCurdy, the pioneer blacksmith of Independence, celebrated his 91st birthday yesterday hard at work with his hammer and anvil. Mr. McCurdy spent his early manhood making wagons and doing blacksmith work for the outfitting trade of the Southwest. He has followed his trade ever since and every day finds him at the forge. When the court house was built in Independence in the early days Mr. McCurdy made the nails. His wife died in 1874 and since that time he has been making his home with his daughter, Mrs. Lizzie Powell, 315 North Liberty street, Independence.

Labels: birthdays, blacksmiths, Independence, pioneers, Seniors

March 12, 1909

AT 103 HE BEGS A BED

AT A POLICE STATION.

Man Who Can Recall the War of

1812 Gets Shelter for Night

at Police Station No. 4.

A man so old that he can remember the war with Mexico as well as though it occurred yesterday, and dimly recall the war of 1812, wandered into No. 4 police station and gave himself up as a vagrant yesterday afternoon. He was James Forbes Foster, who lives at a rooming house at Eighteenth street and Minnesota avenue, Kansas City, Kas.

According to Foster, his age is 103 years, for he says he was born on Seneca street, Buffalo, N. Y., in 1806. He says further that his grandmother was Mercy Hutchins, a great tribal medicine woman of the Seneca Indians, and that he retains in his memory most of her medicinal traditions.

In personal appearance Foster is erect as a pine tree. His eyes, set in a very wrinkled face, are large and bright, his cheek bones high and his nose a thin, long beak. The lower part of his face is hid in a thicket of wiry whiskers a foot long, and his hair, as white as wool, covered his shoulders.

He tottered up to the sergeant's desk at the station and humbly asked if he might be allowed to sleep over night on the stone floor of a cell.

"I am awfully old," he began, "but I can still sleep anywhere. I am strong, but I am very tired. Give me the hardest piece of flooring you have got and an old coat to throw over me."

"How old are you?" he was asked.

For answer Foster produced a letter from an inside coat pocket bearing a stamp of a generation or two gone and shoved it under the lattice. "I guess from that I am about 20," he said. The letter follows:

Your Excellence: James Foster, who I know well, is a good scout for your armies, having lived among my people over 40 years. He has been West as far as the Mississippi river and so far North as the lakes in all parts. If you want a good scout, take him.
From RED JACKET.
Chief of Seneca Indians.
To President John Knox Polk, Washington, D. C.

The letter was yellow with age, and the envelope worn through in many places, although the old man had it wrapped in oilcloth. He admitted it was a copy m made from the original by the chief.

"Great Scott!" cried Captain Thomas Flahive, after he had glanced at it, "how old are you supposed to be, anyway?"

"Red Jacket, who was the only father I have ever known, told me I was born the last year of the Seneca famine, which was in 1806," was the reply.

"Did you fight in the Mexican war, as a scout?"

"No, I did not go. I knew too much about medicine, and Red Jacket concluded to keep me at home with him. As I remember, President Polk made no reply to the letter.

"In 1861 I was appointed as a spy to serve the government under President Lincoln. See that hand? President Lincoln, the greatest statesman the world ever produced, grasped it once."

In his conversation which somewhat wandered, Foster mentioned some great names in a familiar manner. He said he had dined once with General Winfield Scott, had known General Grant and Elihu Root. Lincoln he spoke of as a friend. He said he tendered his commission to the war department the day after the great emancipator was shot.

The old man speaks German, French and a strange tongue, which he said was the Seneca language. He recites Latin with the rapidity of a co-ed in her last college year and speaks intelligently of botany, chemistry and physics.

"I was educated at Notre Dame college in Montreal," he explained when asked where he accumulated all of his book knowledge. "The intentions of Red Jacket were to make a Catholic priest of me."

He was given a blanket and slept on the concrete floor of his cell much better than a younger man would have done.

Labels: Abraham Lincoln, Captain Flahive, Civil War, Kansas City Kas, Native Americans, No 4 police station, Seniors, vagrancy

March 2, 1909

AGED COUPLE KILLED

BY ESCAPING GAS.

FOUND IN THEIR HOME 36

HOURS AFTER DEATH.

Bodies of A. H. Tuttle, Civil War

Veteran, and His Wife, Discovered

in Residence -- Grate and

Heater Burning.

Last night, when Captain Jack Burns of fire company No. 18 entered the house of A. H. Tuttle, 2617 East Twenty-fifth street, and found an aged man and his wife both dead, Tuttle lying on his side on the floor and his wife sitting in a chair in the front room of the house. A gas grate and an overhead gas heater in the room were burning.

The first intimation of a tragedy was discovered by A. M. Weed, a solicitor for the Wells-Fargo Express Company. Captain Tuttle, as he was familiarly called, has been an employe of the express company for the past twenty-five years. When he failed to appear at the depot yesterday morning, for the first time in years, it was thought he was ill. Mr. Weed called at the house about 2:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon and failing to get a response to repeated ringing of the door bell, walked around the house. He questioned a little girl playing in the yard as to whether Tuttle lived the4re, and if she had seen either of them that day. The girl replied that she had not seen either of them since Sunday morning. Weed found the milk on the back porch and the morning papers on the front porch.

FILLED WITH GAS FUMES.

Mr. Weed returned to the office and reported to H. B. Jeffereies, assistant agent, that he suspected something wrong. Mr. Jefferies visited the house at 6 o'clock and after investigating saw the blue flame of the gas heater, which is attached to the gas jet, through a side window. He went to the front porch and putting his hand on the large plate glass window found it to be hot. He called W. W. Hunt, who lives at 2619 East Twenty-fifth street, and after a consultation sent a boy to No. 18 fire station for a ladder. Captain Burns and one of his men responded and entered the house through an upstairs window.

"As soon as I opened the window I could smell the gas fumes and the still more horrible odor of decaying human flesh," said Captain Burns. "It was necessary to light matches to see in the ho use as most of the curtains were drawn. The heat was intense. Coming down the stairs the heat was more noticeable and gas fumes made breathing difficult. In the parlor, off the reception hall, we found the old couple; Captain Tuttle lying on the floor and Mrs. Tuttle sitting in her Morris chair in front of the burning grate, her head over on her breast as if in sleep."

DEAD THIRTY-SIX HOURS.

Mr. Jefferies and Mr. Hunt went into the house and opened the doors and windows. Coroner's physician, Dr. Harry Czarlinsky, was called and declared that the death had occurred thirty-six hours earlier. He said that asphyxiation from inhaling carbon monoxide was the cause of death. Carbon monoxide is the fumes from imperfect combustion of natural gas, and is similar to that given off my burning anthracite coal.

Before noon Sunday morning Mrs. Tuttle went to a neighbor, Mrs. Jackson, at 2515 East Twenty-fifth street, and borrowed a cupful of sugar, saying she was going to make a custard pie. This was the last time she was seen alive. Other neighbors had seen the couple earlier in the day.

From the appearance of the house, those acquainted with Captain and Mrs. Tuttle declared that they had evidently just gotten up from the breakfast table. The breakfast dishes had been washed and were on the dining table, covered with a cloth. Captain Tuttle's razor, shaving brush, mug and strop were lying on the kitchen table.

W. L. Cowing, 2506 Montgall, said that Mr. and Mrs. Tuttle were to have gone with him to Shawnee Sunday afternoon to look over some land. "I saw them yesterday morning," said Mr. Cowing last night, "and they both declared they would go. When I came to the house in the afternoon I got no response to my ringing of the doorbell and concluded they had gone ahead of me."

Rev. R. P. Witherspoon, 1601 Belmot avenue, brother of Mrs. Tuttle, was called form the Gypsy Smith meeting and arrived at the house after 9 o'clock. He was shocked at the news. He said that he had never known a happier or more devoted couple.

"My sister and her husband have led an ideal life," he said, "and had it not been for neighbors and friends this thing might have gone unnoticed for days. They loved each other and everyone around them, and were loved by them in turn."

CIVIL WAR VETERAN.

Captain Tuttle served in the Sixteenth Ohio regiment of infantry in the civil war. Shortly after the war he became a director in the Missouri penitentiary at Jefferson City, where he remained several years. He afterwards went to Warrensburg, Mo., and engaged in business. Twenty-five years ago he joined the messenger service of the Wells Fargo Express Company and remained with them until his death.

Promotions came one after another, until he became money deliverer and one of the most trusted employes of the company. His superiors and associates declare that his word was as good as a bond. It is said that the company has offered several times to retire him on a pension, but that he has steadily refused, saying that he must be around and doing something or he couldn't feel right. He drew $36 a month as pension from the government.

Three sons survive the couple. They are Lloyd Tuttle, a salesman for the Ferguson-McKinney Dry Goods Company in St. Louis; Charles P. Tuttle of Coalinga, Cal., and Harry Tuttle of St. Paul, Minn. Mr. Tuttle has a brother living in Creston, O., and Mrs. Tuttle has a sister, Mrs. T. J. Claggett, Marshall, Mo., and two brothers, Charles Witherspoon, Mansfield, Tex., and the Rev. R. P. Witherspoon of this city.

The bodies were taken to Carroll-Davidson's undertaking rooms on Grand avenue. News of the deaths has been telegraphed to the sons and the funeral arrangements will await their arrival in this city.

Labels: Civil War, death, Dr Czarlinsky, Fire, Grand avenue, Jefferson City, ministers, Montgall avenue, penitentiary, Seniors, Shawnee, Twenty-fifth street, undertakers, veterans

February 28, 1909

DEATH OF A WOMAN

BORN 101 YEARS AGO.

MRS. KATHERINE QUIGLEY

NEVER NEEDED MEDICINE.

Was an Intimate Friend of Edgar

Allen Poe and the Poet's

Wife -- Was Born in

Ireland.

MRS. KATHERINE QUIGLEY.

Mrs. Katherine Quigley, 101 years old, an intimate friend of Edgar Allen Poe and his wife, died yesterday afternoon at the home of her son, John A. Quigley, 3331 Troost avenue.

Mrs. Quigley was active up until the time of her death. Possessed of a naturally strong constitution, inherited from a long line of Irish ancestors, she had never taken a doctor's prescription in her life. One of her grandfathers lived to be 108 years old, and both of her parents saw their 80th birthdays.

Her maiden name was Katherine Bradley, and she was born and reared in a small village in the North of Ireland near the River Boyne. She left there at the age of 25 because, as she told her children, there were no young men eligible for matrimony in her native place. She had wealthy relatives living in New York, and they asked her to come and live with them. She came in a ship owned by one of her uncles, and on her arrival in New York city learned to be a milliner and dressmaker. After a few years her customers included the most fashionable people of the city, and she acquired a small competence.

WHEN SHE MET THE POET.

It was at this time that she made the acquaintance of the young writer and newspaper man, Edgar Allan Poe, and his child wife, Virginia, to whom he wrote Liglia," "The Sleeper," and "Lenore," as well as many of his other great poems. Miss Bradley was a frequent visitor at the house in Fordham. Poe, she often said, was recognized by all his friends as a genius. He was not living in poverty, although he had a penchant for railing at the poor financial returns that were made for works of genius. He was a long haired, egotistical young man, liked to talk about himself and drank, but then, so did everybody else in Fordham. The wife was a lovable and beautiful young girl and when she died the heart of the poet was broken and he disappeared.

Miss Bradley married Mr. James Quigley, a drygoods merchant, in New York, in 1848. The husband died in 1861, but the widow continued to live in New York until eighteen years ago, w hen she came to this city to live with her son.

One of her sons, James A. Quigley, was the incorporator and organizer of the Clover Leaf railway lines. He died last year in New York. Another son, B. A. Quigley, formerly lived in this city and the third, John A. Quigley, is in business here. Seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren survive.

Mrs. Quigley was a Catholic. Funeral services probably will be held from St. Vincent's church, Thirty-first street and Flora avenue, tomorrow.

Labels: churches, death, Flora avenue, immigrants, New York, Seniors, Thirty-first street, Troost avenue, women