Mystery “Death Ray” Inventor Lived in Toledo

One of the motivations I had for starting this blog ten years ago in 2010 was my passion for discovering people and events of the past that had been largely ignored, forgotten or assigned to the junk drawer of history.

Every now and then I spend some time sorting through that old junk drawer and without fail, I tend to find a few gems. Such was the case this week when I came upon the story of Maurice J. Francill. Born in Marion Ohio just before the start of the 20^th century, Maurice, whose given name at birth, was Francis Marion Cowgill,(he changed his name later in life) would spend most of life exploring the mystery and magic of radio. In fact, he was known as the Radio Wizard, and by the early 1920’s he was stunning audiences around the country with his ability to use radio waves to control mechanical devices. From toys to cars to trains, Maurice Francill had figured out the technology of “remote control”. Recall that in the 1920’s, most people were still wrapping their head around the remarkable new concept of listening to people speak from far off cities on a crystal radio in their living rooms.

This was big magic to most people at the time. It was a technology in its infancy and radio stations were just at the early stages of development. Toledo would not have a radio station until 1925. But here was Maurice Francill, already showing people how radio waves could not only travel through the invisible “ether” of air, but how those waves could make things move.

Local Audiences Awed By Francill’s Shows

In the February 10^th , 1923 Edition of the Coshocton Tribune, Francill was demonstrating a remote controlled automobile on the city streets of Coshocton as part of a radio exhibition that was touring the country.

The paper wrote: The machine he will demonstrate tonight is valued at ten thousand dollars and required a year to build. The machine is equipped with a radio selector which makes it possible to perform an operation request from any member of the audience, much in the same manner as if it had “mechanical brains”.

From that description it may be safe to conclude that Maurice Francill, who would later move his operations to Toledo, was the inventor, not just of remote control, but the first autonomous car. That was almost 100 years ago.

Francill would continue his demonstrations for curious eyes in a broad swath of cities and towns across the nation. In New Castle Pennsylvania in 1926 Radio Wizard Francill gave demonstrations at a car dealership of his invention showing the crowd how he could start the automobile, flash its lights, honk its horn or turn its wheel “without the touch of a human hand”. The newspaper writer reflected on what this “remote control” technology might mean for future. Francill even allowed people in the showroom to thoroughly inspect the car to make sure it wasn’t rigged with a hidden driver or wires. It wasn’t. The article also said Francill demonstrated how to fry an egg on a block of ice using this technology, but didn’t elaborate.

His amazing feats before thousands of people would be repeated maimes over from Newark Ohio to Reno Nevada with many stops in between. In Waterloo Iowa in 1927, thousands of onlookers jammed various points of the city to watch in awe as he drove a Hudson Essex down a city street, turned on a washing machine at a city laundry, and started up an ice factory with the press of a button on his 15 pound radio transmitter from a remote location. He was theRadio Wizard. His creativity for finding new applications was impressive. In 1929, In Newark,Ohio he was demonstrating at a local dairy, how his radio device could operate a mechanical milking machine for cows. He repeated the same stunt on stage at a theater in Lima in 1929, and the newspaper reported that the cow, “Duchess” was calmly brought onto the stage and Francill, was able to extract 40 pounds of milk which cascaded into the bucket like “Niagara Falls”. On that same trip to Lima he also showed how radio could be used to operate a street car, and he did it for all to see.

It is not apparent if Francill had succeeded in finding commercial uses for his new radio technology. However, because Francill was seen by many as an entertainer and not a scientist, his credentials and credibility may have been questioned as a serious inventor. Especially when considering that many of his shows also included spiritualism and Seance features. But it was hard to deny that he did have something tangible to provide audiences who marveled at his ability to drive a car, or a play a violin or milk a cow without the aid of a human hand.

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It was the stuff of the future and in the 1920’s and 30’s, the science of radio was the new frontier of possibility and Francill brought some of that “wonder” to hometown America.

As far back at 1926 in an interview with a Reno Nevada reporter, Francill said he had built a death ray machine that could stop a beating heart and wanted to try it our on a convicted murderer who was condemned to die. He said he was asking some state governors to let him try it. He was convinced that the death ray technology would be the technology of future wars when armies would be able to use them to “annihilate people by the hundreds”. He also predicted it would become a popular crime fighting tool, for it not only could kill people, but kill the engines of speeding getaway vehicles and could start distant fires. His discovery of the“death ray”, he said, was found by accident while doing other experiments. He held its technology as a closely guarded secret lest it fall into the wrong hands of amateurs.

He also would later demonstrate the use of “light rays” which he touted as a new method to broadcast voice transmission on a,beam of light. He felt this was in many ways more effective and useful than radio waves. He was prescient on that thought, but light ray technology was not new. Hardly.

It had been invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1880. In fact the use of light ray photo-phones did become an effective stealth communication during World War Two. Today’s fiber optic technology is built on the foundation of light ray technology.

Francill’s one questionable claim was his public insistence that he had a “death ray” device. In 1940 he demonstrated it to reporters and witnesses in Toledo. In February of that year he assembled a group of reporters and witnesses to his home in North Toledo. Nine men, according to the article in the Toledo Blade, watched as Francill used a “queer machine” with port holes and coils, to deliver a death ray of sorts to a rat that rose up on its “shaky haunches, ran in a few agonized circles and died.”

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The reporter, Arthur Peterson, contended that the rat was a large brown alley rat and appeared to be in good health before it was taken out of a wire cage and put into a glass case. From 15 feet away Francill’s projector was trained on the rat inther glass case and caused its sudden death. How and why did it die? What exotic technology had this Toledo inventor uncovered? Francill told the reporter he didn’t know, but he theorized that the “ray” may have deteriorated the tissue of blood and flesh and nerves.

He also demonstrated another experiment with the strange projector by projecting a ray unto a pair of beakers in which were two unidentified chemicals. When hit by the “ray” the chemicals turned from a milky white color to blue color. Francill showed the witnesses assembled at his home other examples of his shadowy science including the projection of a ray from the secret box to a shaft of steel which became very hot. He also showed a “military” invention thathe says was a thermal compound that can be ignited by water and get so hot it can eat through the side of a battle ship.

Just how long Francill lived in Toledo I have not yet determined(still working on it). I do know that he was here in the 1930’s and through part of the 50’s before he returned to his hometown of Marion where he passed away in 1974 at the age of 77.

Was he a crackpot? A conman? Or was he the real deal? Maybe a little of all three. Not sure really, but what I can ascertain by what I’ve read in the limited research I’ve done, is that he made some of his money by selling sponsors to his shows. When he demonstrated his “remote control” automobiles, it was usually underwritten and marketed by a car dealership. Or a dairy if he was milking cows, or a street car company if he was “automating” the local street cars. His draft card and selective service application in 1943 shows he was living at 1702 N. 12^th Street in Toledo, was employed by the Massachusetts Protective Association(insurance company) and was married to his wife Josephine.

I am very curious as to what Francill’s “death ray” was. If it was not a hoax, I suspect that perhaps he had stumbled into some rudimentary microwave wave technology. The use of very high frequency radio waves to heat objects, which had been discovered in the 1930’s and even featured at the 1939 World’s fair in Chicago.

Regardless, even if Maurice Francill was just a clever huckster who could harness electronics to make a quick buck, he gave Americans of all ages and walks of life a sense of wonder of the world around them, a sense of the future wonders that would eventually come to fruition. Heat the very least a futurist, and a teacher who helped spark the imagination of the country.

The Strange and Elusive Mr. MacFarland: Genoa’s Infamous “Blue Beard” Bigamist and “Hymeneal Champ”.

 

This is a story that’s been taking up space in my files for several years and I’ve been promising to fill in some blanks and share it with others. So here goes. It’s a largely forgotten but sparkling little gem of a story about a strange man who lived briefly in the Toledo area, then set out to become one of the more notorious characters of American matrimony. His name and exploits are still talked about in parts of California to this day.

Around 1911, newspapers around the nation began following the saga of Mr. Andrew Franklin MacFarland who was said to have been a resident of Genoa, Ohio at one time in the 1880’s and was in the insurance business. But it seems Andrew liked to move about the country and liked ladies and money. For MacFarland, it proved a dangerous combination of pursuits. I will begin this tale somewhere in the middle, when in September of 1911, while Andrew MacFarland was living with his wife Ella MacFarland in a Colorado Springs Colorado hotel, he was arrested and charged with embezzlement from a a woman by the name of Ethel Groom in San Francisco. Ethel was a lady whom MacFarland had married earlier that year promising her a life of wedded bliss, but she claimed in a warrant that soon after the wedding, he left her, and emptied her safety deposit box of some $10,000 in cash, then absconded with the funds and vanished. He was missing for months, only to be found in Colorado Springs Colorado by detectives who had been in hot pursuit. When captured that September day of 1911, it was reported that he was preparing to leave for a long trop with his third wife Ella, on a trip to Puerto Rico.

 

San Francisco Call September 20, 1911

A scandalous article in the San Francisco Call newspaper and other papers around the nation referred to Andrew F. MacFarland as a wealthy businessman who had started an insurance company in that city. The articles took delight in providing the sordid details of his “hymeneal venturism” as they called it. For at this point in his life, MacFarland had exchanged vows with four women over the course of his 44 years. Some of the wives, however, he had not bothered to divorce or annul the nuptials before moving on to the next one. And his first marriage took place in the 1880’s near Toledo where he wed a lady by the name of Leona Maville. After the wedding, they made their home in the little village of Genoa, not far from Toledo.

Just why he was in Genoa, or what he did there is still yet to be determined, but he and Leona didn’t stay too long. They stayed long enough to have one son and left Genoa a few years later and moved to Indiana where they had more children and as best can be determined, they moved back to Toledo, where MacFarland was working as a “clerk”, per census records.

Then in about 1895, MarFarland, for whatever his reasons, deserted his wife Leona and three sons and moved to Kansas. This is where in Wyandotte Kansas in 1896, forgetting his first wife, he met and married wife number 2, Minnie Gerard. This marriage occurs despite MacFarland never having legally ended or divorced poor Leona whom he had left high and dry and destitute.

MacFarland’s second wife, Minnie, however, also turned out to be as indifferent to the laws of matrimony as was he. For MacFarland soon discovered that Minnie was married to someone else. Taking umbrage, he left her and trekked south to Oklahoma where he met future wife number three, Ella Clem. The story is told that he was able to convince her that he really wasn’t married to wife number two(Minnie Gerard of Kansas) and never bothered to mention his first marriange or family he had in Genoa from many years before. It was a tangled web indeed and MacFarland didn’t seem too vexed by it all. In a few years he moved on to California with his wife Ella. They settled in the San Diego area of Pacific Beach where they became respected citizens of the community. MacFarland, having built an insurance company as massing a tidy sum of cash built a grand home near the Hotel Balboa in 1907. The story of their lives in Pacific Beach can be found here.

MacFarland Home in Pacfic Beach

 

 

http://thewebsters.us/2014/10/31/the-macfarland-legacy/

A few years later, however, they left their home in Pacific Beach and relocated to San Francisco and carried on a life of prosperity in that region with his Pacific Life Insurance Company. Then in 1911, in a burst of sudden epiphany, MacFarland announced to Ella that he wanted to straighten everything out with his matrimonial entanglements of the past. To make it happen he asked for annulment from his wife Ella so he could be free to get an annulment from wife #2(Minnie of Kansas) and to be finally cleared from that former marriage. Ella consented but only if MacFarland would agree to remarry her immediately after the annulment from (Minnie) wife#2. (if you’re confused, I was too. Best bet read it again. We’re just getting started)

And as you might have guessed, once a lothario, always a lothario, MacFarland got his annulment from Minnie,and an annulment from Ella. But he had no intention of remarrying Ella as promised, instead he promptly traveled to Ogden Utah and married a fourth woman, Ethel Groom, one of his young stenographers.  After the wedding, they took an extended honeymoon to the East Coast and didn’t return for a month. Upon returning to California though, he was to learn that his strange behavior was now the talk of the town. The story of Andrew MacFarland’s sudden new marriage and all of his matrimonial adventures had made the front page of the newspapers and third wife Ella, now a woman scorned, was not a happy camper. She went back to court and had the annulment to Andrew rescinded, thus MacFarland was now officially a bigamist.

The case became a front page butt of jokes and comedy. The San Francisco Call newspaper published one article in March of 1911 entitled “Now Just Who Is MacFarland’s Wife?”

The article laid bare his life and his “matrimonial career”, but interestingly it left out the fact that he had been married and was still married to Leona Mavall of Toledo. MacFarland had held this secret very close to his vest over the years and it was not common knowledge.

Seemingly unrepentant, MacFarland’s folly persisted as he was able to convince wife #4(Ethel) to get an annulment so he could officially divorce wife #3(Ella) and then he and Ethel could settle down in matrimonial bliss. (What’s the saying “Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice…)

So who got fooled again?

Well once Ethel’s annulment was granted and the ink still wet on the court order, our Mr. MacFarland had a sudden and miraculous memory recovery. He rememebered he still had a legal marriage with Leona Maville with whom he had played house in Genoa Ohio back in the 1880’s. With sudden clarity of purpose, MacFarland reveals the truth to the world and grabs the first train to Toledo to reaquint himself with his old friends there, but then after a few weeks, he vanishes.

Back in San Francisco, Ethel the former wife #4, now also a scorned woman, checked her safety deposit box and found that MacFarland had appropriated the cash from it before heading for Ohio. Not only was a known liar and bigamist, he was now being called a thief.

The weeks turned to months and MacFarland was a wanted man. Just where he traveled or hid is not known, but in September of 1911 he was found by private detectives living in a hotel in Colorado Springs Colorado with his third wife Ella. To whom he was still legally wed.

MacFarland, a wealthy man believed to have a cash fortune into the six figures, voluntarily returned to San Francisco after his arrest in Colorado. He fought the embezzlement charges and a year later his case was still tied up in the courts. The furious and former fourth wide Ethel wanted what she said was her money, a wedding gift of 10,000 dollars. MacFarland claimed it was not her money, and he never gave it to her. He also claimed she was blackmailing him for another $30,000 for her to drop the charges against him. Despite this rancor, and MacFarland’s reputation, Ethel told the court she still loved him and wanted to be with him. (Wow did he have some of male magic or what? Money magic maybe?)

Finally in September of 1912, after his second trial concluded, the jury acquited MacFarland for embezzlement. The headlines and the publicity faded and it is written that MacFarland apparently gave up his wedlock wanderlust and settled down, for awhile, with wife #3 Ella.

He and Ella would eventually move back to San Diego to their luxurious home in Pacific Beach. Considered one of the grand homes of the town and stands to this day and as a landmark of Pacific Beach. But for the MacFarlands, life behind the beautiful facade of that home was a stormy one.

In August of 1918 Andrew MacFarland filed for divorce from Ella and accused her of being “cold and of an unaffectionate manner”, often denouncing him as untrue to her and wasting his money in “riotous living” when he was away from home. He denied the allegations.

Ella MacFarland’s also denied his allegations and claimed he had deserted and abandoned her. In September of 1918 a judge ruled in favor of Ella and granted her a divorce. A week later, MacFarland, now 51 years old married a 25-year-old court stenographer Carmen Kertson, and they apparently went on to lead a what was said to be a quiet life in Los Angeles.

Marriage License to Carmen Kertson, Wife #5

But even that wedded bliss did not end well. They divorced sometime in the 1930. By the 1940 census it showed him living alone in Los Angeles. He died in 1942 at the age of 75 and is buried at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles. Carmen went on to live a much longer life passing away in 1974. Census records show they may have had as many as two children together.

We do not know if he ever reconciled or acknowledged his first wife in Toledo, Leona Maville. A record search shows that he married her in Monroe County Michigan in 1884. It was appear that he was a mere 17 at the time, being born in December of 1866. According to the records I’ve reviewed they took up residence lin Genoa,had three children together before he deserted them in the 1890’s.

At that time he was using the name Frank MacFarland, not Andrew F. MacFarland. Their three sons were named Harrison, Ransalier, and Alonzo. The oldest son Harrison, born in 1884 in Genoa. Evenutally Harrison moved west, had several marriages himself over the course of his life and appears to have moved to the San Francisco area where his father was residing. Harrison also got tangled up in some unsavory behavior and ended up in San Quentin prison for passing bad checks in the early 1900’s. He died in San Francisco in 1961.

Son Harrison, born in Genoa. Prison Photo

The second son of Leona and Andrew Macfarland was Ransalier and he was born near Elkhart Indiana, later moved to California and died in Santa Barbara in 1962.

Ransalier MacFarland. Andrew on right?

The 3rd son, Alonzo was born in 1888. The 1900 census shows that he was 12 years old and living with his mother Leona and his brother Ransalier in the 300 block of Buffalo Street in North Toledo. She is listed in the census as a “washerwoman” and Ransalier was listed as a “day laborer”. Alonzo was still in school.

And one final footnote is that keeping to Andrew MacFarland’s crazy quilt world of wedlock, marriages, remarriages, and annulments. While he and Leona were on record as having been married in Whiteford Twp Michigan in 1884, they were apparently remarried in Ohio in 1892. Lucas County probate court records show they were wed again on January 2nd, 1892 in Toledo.

Toledo’s Good Old Days? Were they really?

I just came across a Toledo Newsbee article from January 1^st of 1931 which provided the statistics for how Toledo fared in 1930 when it came to violent deaths, such as murders, accidents, drownings and other untimely and nasty means of death. For those who like to harbor the notion that we currently live in the “worst of times”, these numbers may be eye opening, for it seems apparent that in our grandparents era of the 1920’s and 30’s, life was fraught with danger, maybe more than today.

Perhaps the most startling numbers were of those folks who died from car accidents in the city of Toledo. In one year, 1930, 120 people died as a result of car accidents. And the article points out that it was an improvement over 1929 when the toll was 121. That’s more than 2 deaths per week.  If that seems high, it is. While Toledo does record a tragic number of auto related highway deaths these days, it comes no where close to that disturbing toll. The latest stats from the Ohio State High Patrol show that in all of 2018, 33 people died from vehicle related crashes in Lucas County. About a fourth of the death toll compared to 1930.

Toledo Police Motorcyle Squad 1929

Maybe seat belts, air bags, drunk driving restrictions, training and better enforcement, and of course modern medical care, have something to so with the reduction in mortality. Consider if you will that we actually have far more cars on the street, faster speeds, and more miles driven in the city than 90 years ago.

From June of 1930, the heartbreaking story of 5 year old killed in Toledo.

It should be noted that by 1937, the auto traffic death toll in Toledo was still high at over 100, with over 1700 injured. The Toledo News Bee and the city began to recognize there were too many drunk drivers and “madmen” behind the wheel. They began efforts to raise traffic safety awareness and campaigns.

Car crashes were all too common in 1930’s.

 

The other number that jumped out at me from 1930, were the number of drownings. Forty-one(41) people died from drowning in Lucas County in 1930, and it was noted that the 1930 number doubled the 1929 number at 22 deaths by drowning. Our current numbers are always too high, but far less than 20.

The 1930 statistic on water deaths also includes the mysterious sinking of a speedboat in Lake Erie in June of that year that claimed the lives of 7 prominent Toledo men who were on their way to a picnic at Pelee Island Canada. The boat and the men were found, but the answers as to what and why happened only the water knows for sure.

And when it comes to murder, the streets seemed to be as dangerous in 1930, as they are today, 40 homicides recorded back then.  Compare that to 2018 in Toledo, when we had 41 murders recorded. About the same. Although, without the life saving emergency medical protocols and advances of the modern era, one could easily surmise the death toll would probably be much higher today than it is.

As for suicides. Depression was no stranger to our fore-bearers. 51 people in Toledo took their own lives in 1930, mostly by gunshot.

Mayhem and Domestic Violence were not rare headlines in 1930

Also of note in the autopsy of violent death were the number of people who died from burns, which was 26. And railroad accident(not auto-train collisions) sent 26 people to their graves. This was during the era when trains and trolleys laced the area and accidents were not uncommon.

In addition to these dangers of the era, 87 others in Toledo in 1930 died by industrial accidents, accidental shootings, sports injuries, falls, food poisoning, and other lurking menaces.

One of those was the new danger that had emerged during the prohibition era for people with severe alcohol addictions. With booze outlawed and not as easy to access, the desperate often met their need for alcohol by drinking whatever they could, such as highly toxic ethanol-based alcohols, or what was known as “canned heat”. Toledo recorded 12 deaths in 1930 from men and women who succumbed to that grim poison.

“The Perils of Poison” Canned Heat was

These days of course, while “canned heat” is no longer the scourge it once was, our grim statistic is the growing number of opioid deaths in Lucas County..which will easily surpass 100 this year. Hopefully some day in the not too distant future, it too be be a footnote in our long history.

The Great Stone Face of Toledo

Photo of Great Stone Face taken at Dixon Inn in Toledo circa 1920

Okay, here’s a mystery that needs an answer. Or maybe a couple. It seems that back in the 1800’s when Toledo city workers were doing some excavating along Monroe Street in the downtown area, they came across  an ancient stone carving. It was the carving of face and it appeared to those who saw it to be the face of an early Native American, or a person with “thick lips and round face”who was deemed to be one of the “ancient” pre-historic people, known as mound builders.

This little gem has come my way from a book given to me by a friend who found the 1922 book it in a garage sale near Dayton.  The book is entitled “Memories” by Dr. Cyrus Noble of Toledo who practiced medicine in the early part of the 20th century in Toledo and Wood County.

Dr. Cyrus Noble

Dr. Noble was also a poet and observer of life in the area and his poems reflect on a number of local stories that piqued his curiosity and interest.  In “Memories” he writes fondly of the famed “Indian Elm” in Maumee.  A giant among trees where Indians reportedly perched to take aim at soldiers across the Maumee River at Ft. Meigs.  Dr. Noble also waxes lyrically about a variety of topics, but the one that snared my curiosity was the story of the “Great Stone Face”. There wasn’t much of a narrative about it, but there was a photo of it, presumably where it was exhibited for years inside of the now-forgotten Dixon Inn in Toledo’s old Tenderloin District.   The Dixon Inn had been a brothel at one time, amid the clutter of  the “sin zone” but after the Tenderloin was closed down in 1918, the Dixon Inn stayed open as a hotel, inn and boarding house, and more importantly – a very strange museum.  I have written about the Dixon Inn before in the Gazette, and its odd collection of bizarre artifacts, from shrunken heads to ancient battle weapons. But the “Great Stone Face” is the stand out among the collection, for if it is truly an artifact of ancient heritage, it conjures a list of questions, the first being how it came rest 20 feet below the surface of earth in the area of downtown Toledo?  One might wonder what else is still down there to be discovered?  If there are any folks who can offer some educated speculation as to the origin of this “face” or any other information about it,  please share them with us.  My search efforts to excavate more about information regarding the “face” have turned up nothing specific, but other stories regarding carvings found in other areas of the country.

In fact, the discovery of human effigy artifacts from the “mounds” in Ohio and other Midwest sites in Illinois and the Mississippi Valley are well established, but Toledo was not known for an abundance of such mound building activity, although, there were, as I have read, some small “mounds” discovered in the downtown area near the river upon arrival of the first pioneers to the area. So how did this carving get to Toledo. It was offered by some that it could have been transported here centuries ago from another area and left with those ancients living on the Maumee River.

When looking at the photo of this particular “stone face” at the Dixon Inn, it does not resemble the others I have seen, but looks more “finished” or finely sculpted. Thus, some shades of skepticism darken my door of belief. What do you think?  Where would it have come from? How did it get to Toledo, and what ever happened to it?  I have found from a newspaper reference that it was part of the Dixon collection that was auctioned at the Dixon Inn around 1925 after the owner died.

The Great Stone Face of Toledo seems to have disappeared in the past century, leaving me to wonder whether the carving was really the product of someone perpetrating a hoax and merely had been the handiwork of a con artist or someone with a sense of history and humor.  That is certainly possible and let’s face it, the Dixon Inn was not exactly the Smithsonian.  Despite the questions and the doubts, Dr. Noble seemed convinced of its historic gravity and message  when he penned his poem in 1920, about Toledo’s Great Stone Face.

If the veil of mystery,

were rent so I could see,

I could talk to the Great Stone Face,

and it could talk to me.

To tell me of the ages past,

of all the great unknown–

and about the Master Hand

that made it in the stone,

And of the mighty ruler,

in whose image it was made,

How it t’was worshiped as a god,

through many a decade.

How before some temple door,

t’was strewn with flowers and kisses

It saw the strife of human life,

And heard its howls and Hisses;

Then watched earth drink up the blood,

of men of might and brains

It saw the traitors slay their kings

To grasp the ruler’s reins

 

For centuries this face held sway,

above some sacred mound,

until a conquering army came,

and dragged it to the ground.

Its friends, by night, had stole away

And brought it over land,

with stealth and pride,

they buried it beneath the Maumee’s sand.

Then all the history of its past

Was plunged into the dark,

No doubt t’was safely hidden there

when Noah built his ark.

 

A modern city rose Above its resting place;

Men who delved into the ground

Came to this wondrous face.

They brought it once more to light,

where the curious could gaze,

and ponder over its handiwork of men of other days.

Perhaps a thousand years from now,

when this fair city’s gone,

Art and Science once more lost,

as time keeps marching on,

and as other cities rise again,

this stone face will be found,

To prove that the greatest of all men

Now sleep beneath the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Were Wild Parrot Once Native to Ohio?

Once native to Ohio, with some sightings in Northwest Ohio

The answer might surprise you. Because the answer, according to some accounts, is -yes. The bird in question was the Carolina Parrot or parakeet(Conuropsis carolinensis), a -tropical looking bird, about the size of a robin with colorful green, yellow and orange plumage and a long sweeping tail that once flourished throughout eastern North America. Sadly, this grand bird is now extinct. The very last survivor in captivity was named Incas and died in an aviary at the Cincinnati Zoo, one hundred years ago in February of 1918, just months after his mate, Lady Jane, had passed away. It was said that Incas died of loneliness. Ironically, he died in the very same aviary cage that also housed the last Passenger pigeon, Martha, which died in 1914.  Prior to the demise of the Carolina Parrot, this brightly feathered creature populated the skies of the Southern U.S. and parts of the Midwest and Northeast in numbers that were startling and loathsome to the early settlers who viewed the bird largely as a gregarious pest. The parrots were known to decimate farmers’ crops and strip orchards of fruit. The range of this parrot was wide, with sightings from Florida and Georgia, north to New England and New York, and west to Colorado and Texas. The first sightings were in the early 1600’s in the southern states where they were most dominant. The last official sightings though took place in the 1920’s, although, unconfirmed sightings also were reported in the 1930’s.

What caused these beautiful birds to die off? Kevin Burgio, a professor of Ecology with the University of Connecticut has studied the Carolina Parakeet for years. He writes that it’s a mystery. “Scientists don’t know what really drove these parakeets to extinction. Some thought it was habitat loss. Some thought it was hunting and trapping. Some thought disease. A few even thought it was competition with non-native honey bees for tree cavities, where the parakeets would roost and nest.”

Museum Specimen Carolina Parakeet

All we know is they are gone, although we do know where they lived or were spotted over the years. And sometimes when they showed up in flocks of more than several hundreds, their presence was unsettling. In 1780, in upstate New York, a story is told that when a large flock of these aggressive, colorful and noisy birds swooped into one rural Dutch village, the townspeople reacted with fear. They had never witnessed anything like it, and thought it was a sign that the end of the world was nigh. The fear of the birds stayed with the town for years.

In Ohio, they also made people uncomfortable. In a story from a 1924 Toledo News Bee, it was conveyed as to how a flock flew over the state capital n Columbus in 1862. At least 25 of the birds swooped out of the sky across the treetops, noisy and screaming, with the brilliant colors flashing in the morning sun, they provided a rare spectacle, but also startled a group of students who took fright at the menacing flock. That Columbus sighting in July of 1862 was, according the article, the last sighting of the birds in Ohio.

The most common region where the parrots were seen in Ohio was reportedly in the thick forests around Cincinnati. Early pioneers wrote that, at times, the trees were filled with the shrieking hordes. Sycamore trees were their favorite habitat as they were fond of sycamore seeds and cockle-burr seeds as a regular diet staple. Ornithologists have speculated that the birds might have been poisonous, referencing some reports that squirrels that ate their flesh would die. There is really little known about these iconic birds. Research was limited during the time they were abundant in the United States, and it was only after they became extinct that scientist have begun a more focused investigation as to the origins, habitat, breeding, and historical accounts of what was probably the most exotic bird in our history.

So were any of these Carolina parakeets a part of Toledo’s natural history? Perhaps. James Audubon wrote of a sighting in 1806, of a flock of the parrots at the mouth of the Maumee River and Lake Erie. The source of that sighting though has not been confirmed and some scientists are unconvinced that Audubon got it right. Another sighting was reported in 1903, a few miles south of Sandusky as a resident said a parrot would come to feed in his orchard. Again, this report remains as anecdotal evidence only. There were other reports that were more convincing of the birds being seen in areas north of Cincinnati. And its speculated by some researchers that the Carolina Parakeet was probably a rare sight near Cincinnati by the 1840’s. Without more empirical data, however, the haze of time obscures the past and leaves little more than speculation. We may never know for sure if this beautiful parrot found its way to Northwest Ohio. But considering the verdant and rich landscape of heavily timbered swamps and marshes that existed here in this fertile womb of life, it is probably not wild speculation to at least imagine that those green and yellow wings once danced against the sunlight in the skies and the screaming voices of the Carolina Parakeet once echoed in the deep woods of the Great Black Swamp.

Toledo’s Unforgettable Judge Austin

Judge Austin

Prior to the creation of a Municipal Court system, Toledo, like many cities, had for years used what was called a “Police Court”. In Toledo, that court was synonymous for several decades with one man: Judge James Austin.

Judge Austin was undoubtedly one of the city’s most powerful and colorful characters of the early 1900’s.  According to some accounts, he was the compelling reason that Toledo decided to create a municipal court system of four judges and structured the city’s court system.

It was said that a “certain class of citizens was being favored by Judge Austin.” In one edition of the ‘Police Journal’ of 1922, it was noted that “he withstood the continual howl of the newspapers and the public” for his actions in court.

Despite his critics, Judge Austin remained a popular figure in the city and was reelected to his judicial post many times over, even after the city had gone to a municipal court, Judge Austin was reelected to it and named its chief judge.

Even after assuming his new role as head of the court Judge James Austin continued to create headlines.

The ‘New York Times’ carried one story from 1920, when Austin couldn’t decide the guilt or innocence of a local grocer charged with running a gambling operation and bribery. So he asked the court audience to vote on it. He handed out 34 ballots and the vote came back 27-7 in favor of acquittal.

In another infamous case, a group of southern musicians had been arrested in the city’s notorious tenderloin district for panhandling, Judge Austin decided their best punishment would be to go get their instruments and come back and give the court a make shift concert, which they did.

It was his creativity in sentencing and his reputation for leniency that often sparked the most furor, for Judge Austin was of the mindset that a jail sentence was not always the best form of punishment. He believed it did little good to sentence poor people to the workhouse for crimes that “rich people” got away with.

He was known as the “Golden Rule” judge, believing that to be fair, you had to understand what people were going through and that sometimes the heart was a better measure of punishment than laws.

In 1908, back when Toledo had a workhouse near Swan Creek and City Park known as “Duck Island”, Judge Austin found himself “guilty” of curiosity and sentenced himself to a “day” at the prison, as an inmate, to see what the experience of a prisoner is really like.

On a bitterly cold day in February of that year, Judge Austin reported to “Duck Island” and subjected himself to endure the indignities of  being just another inmate. Citizen Austin was treated no differently than others, ordered to strip and get into prison togs, march to the dining hall and was sent to a pond to cut ice for the ice boxes at the jail.

Upon his release, Austin said, he would have to do some “tall thinking” in the future before sending a man to the workhouse. This was one of the reasons that Judge Austin had earned the nickname of the “Golden Rule” judge.

Another reason for his sobriquet was that the good judge was heavily influenced by the former Toledo Mayor Samuel “Golden Rule” Jones, who also believed that poor men deserve “second chances.” Like Judge Austin, Mayor Jones believed the court should not always punish, but serve to reform. He frequently took sides in favor of keeping families together.

In one case in 1909, a young girl appeared before his court to urge the judge to “Let Papa go” after her father had been arrested for “riding the rails.” Judge Austin listened to his heart and released her father from custody.

Austin was eager to listen to children in his court. In another case when a young “newsboy” was brought before his court on an assault charge against another “newsie.” Judge Austin decided to allow the young “newsboys” to serve as the judge and jury to decide verdict and punishment.

Judge Austin’s tenure as the “Police Court Judge” began in 1908 when he took the reigns of the court and lasted on the bench for another 20 years.  Within days after taking over the police court, the Toledo News Bee reported that Austin would not send a man to jail or fine him for drunkeness explaining that the Judge thought it was a disease. And one afflicted with it can no more combat it than he could typhoid fever. It was also noted that a defendant would not be sent to the work house on a first offense, however wife beaters would be shown no mercy. Shortly after assuming the robe, the Judge sentenced a man to 60 days in jail for taking a razor “strop” to his wife for punishment of an unknown transgression.

A native of Rhode Island, and a former Board of Elections member and police court prosecutor, Austin had been in some sort of public employment in Toledo for over 30 years. He was also a Unitarian as he was the son of a Unitarian minister.

Despite his taste for the dramatic while behind the bench, he was said to be a man of modest means, and an even temper. He didn’t drive a car, but took street cars and walked to work each day.

As a writer, he was also was popular on the speaking circuit as he tried to spread his ideas on how the “Golden Rule” should be applied as a tenet of justice. He was, by today’s standards, “liberal” of thought and was friends with many in Toledo’s so called “underworld.”

Judge Austin could be harsh and stern with those who took advantage of the poor and the weak. He was also a robust voice in the anti-gun movement of that era and often opined that guns had no place in a modern society.

It also became Austin’s goal to convince the city to give up its workhouse on Duck Island and start a prison farm.

Within ten years, the prison farm in Whitehouse was built which remained opened for another eight decades before it was eventually shutdown in the 1980’s. It stood vacant for decades and was recently demolished.

Judge Austin

Toledo Police Fleet Started with Junkers

Early TPD Car

Early 1920′ Paddy Wagon

Sidecar on Jackson St.

First New Cars 1922

1930’s Toledo Patrol Car

Motorcyle Squad 1930’s

1950’s Motorcycle Unit

Safety Car

1950’s New Fleet

Very Dirty Squad Car

Motorcycle Officer

Newer Paddy Wagon

1960’s Car Gun Training

1950’s Patrol Car

 

Police cars have taken many shapes, sizes and body styles over the decades. I think that’s one of the reasons I am so fascinated with the old ones. The new ones quite frankly don’t do much for me. With the newer Euro body types and multi-color paint schemes, I am not sure they convey the sense of authoritarian importance that the old ones had. When I was growing up, one of the first ones that I recall  in our small town was a an early 1950’s Ford, with a red gumball light on the roof and a movable hand spotlight mounted on the driver’s side. I’m not sure if the old Ford even had a police radio in it.  A black sedan with few markings and probably a flat-head V-8 under the hood.  Not many bells and whistles, but it was pretty cool. At least that’s the way I  saw it, although it was  mostly used by the night watchman to cruise the alleys and streets and keep a vigilant eye on the good order of the town while the residents slept.

I’m willing to bet there are lots of folks like me who love the old police cars.  At the Toledo Police Museum one of the big attractions has always been the 1948 Ford Paddy Wagon. Black in color, the ubiquitous “police-car black”, compete with the gumball on top, the hand controlled spotlight and a police radio. The iconic paddy wagon was a popular site for many years on the streets of Toledo used not only to patrol the streets, but a way to carry suspects back to the station or the jail, or even used for a number of years as a makeshift ambulance, to transport crime and accident victims to area hospitals.

What got me to musing about police cars today is that I noted that this week in history, in 1921, the city of Toledo was about to enter the brave new era of police cars. Real cars. Fast cars. New cars. That’s right, until January of 1921, Toledo Police officers only had a few police cars on the beat, and they were mostly discarded junk. Seven cars and four motorcycles that had been picked up over the years, as surplus, or resurrected wrecks. That’s all Toledo’s Police Department had to offer its officers and detectives who in this new century of the modern era were in a life and death struggle with bootleggers, bandits and crooks who were using the latest new muscle cars of the era.  Many were heavier and faster and could easily beat Toledo’s embarrassing “fleet”of ragged old police cars.  So on January 25th, in an effort to prove to Toledo City Council members that money was urgently needed to buy some decent cars for the “good guys”, Police Chief Herbert lined up for display all of the “tin cans”(as he called them) that were being used as the city’s crime fighting fleet. Council was so shocked by what they saw, they approved the money, about 30,000 dollars to buy 6 new high-powered “speed cars” for the department and 15 new motorcycles. Within weeks, the vehicles arrived and Toledo’s finest proudly took to the streets with the “wheels” that not only gave them some equity with the criminals on the street, but a renewed sense of pride in what they were driving.

With thanks to the Toledo Police Museum, I offer a gallery of some of Toledo’s early Police cars over the years. If you have some you would like to add, email me at Lou@Voicefornews.com.

 

 

 

 

In The Heat of History: 1936, A Summer of Discontent

Thousands of people slept on their lawns at night to keep cool

Okay. I know it’s been hot and sticky for a few days this week and so far this month we’ve seen our share of 90 or near 90 degrees days(seven, to be exact). And there is probably more on the way. Before we start to complain too loudly, we should know that “this heat ain’t nothin’”.   Not compared to 1936, when 80 years ago this month, the Toledo area, and most of the Midwest was under siege by the sizzling and deadly sun. Temperatures soared for 8 days straight well past the 100 degree mark. Toledo recorded its all-time high of 104.7 degrees.  At the old Muni airport in Lake Township, the recorded high one day was 107 degrees, while Bowling Green was burning at 110 degrees. And remember, there were few, if any air conditioners. Just electric fans. Stores couldn’t keep them in stock.

 

Office workers in St. Paul Minnesota enjoying the fan

 

 

 

 

 

 

DEATH TOLL CLIMBS

The resulting oven like temps were blamed for over 70 deaths in Toledo, including 17 patients at the Toledo State Hospital for the Insane. More victims, by the hundreds were rushed to hospitals with heat stroke and collapse. Local towns around Toledo also reported heavy casualty tolls from the broiling sun. Day after day, the toll climbed. The oppressive heat was not just dangerous for humans, but all life withered under its heavy hand. Animals and livestock by the hundreds succumbed from the assault of heat and dehydration. As a result, tallow and rendering companies found themselves working non-stop to clear the dead carcasses from the farms and fields.

STREETS AND ROADWAYS EXPLODED

The mercury rose to levels that the heat triggered numerous spontaneous combustion fires. Barns, grasses and hay blossomed with flame throughout the area. Most startling perhaps was the constant buckling many  sidewalks, streets and roadways as the asphalt boiled and the pavement ruptured. Toledo’s downtown streets were not immune to the ravages, as street level temps were recorded in excess of 110 degrees for a week of afternoons. At the Jamra’s Tobacco Company in the 500 block of Monroe Street, the thermometer recorded 119 degrees on the afternoon of July 8^th. Further out Monroe Street at the railroad viaduct near Auburn, the retaining walls buckled and heaved in the heat. Even the Toledo city bridges were affected as drawbridges were unable to close properly because of heat expansion in the closing latches. In Ottawa County, brick-paved streets were reported to be bursting in Oak Harbor on State Rt. 19 as the blistering temps caused the pavers to expand and explode. After 7 days of sweltering conditions, state highway officials said more than 550 roadways in Ohio had exploded.

LABOR AND NORMAL ACTIVITIES AFFECTED

Throughout the region many stores and numerous factories were forced to close with the mercury surpassing 100 degrees by mid afternoon. In several incidents, factory workers were reported to be overcome by heatstroke and rushed to hospitals for treatment. Construction workers were especially vulnerable and many had to put down their tools and get out of the blazing sun to seek shelter from the broiling conditions. It was reported that even the hens at local egg farms were so hot, they too stopped work and wouldn’t lay eggs.

WATERY ESCAPES PROVED DEADLY

Another consequence of the scramble to keep cool as thousands Toledo area resident turned to the relief of water. To escape the sweltering misery, they went swimming and many did not return. During this eight day period, dozens of people died from drowning as they crowded the rivers, beaches, lakes, ponds, pools and quarries. Newspapers everyday carried numerous articles about those folks, young and old swallowed forvever by the very thing they had hoped would bring them some temporary comfort.

Coney Island Beach 1936

 

Local health officials became very concerned at one point because thousands of people were so desperate they began venturing into the murky Maumee River. A river that even in 1936 was already considered a public health hazard for its stew of sewage and pollutants. Some health experts warned that long term exposure to the toxins and bacteria in the water could claim more lives than the drownings. The huge number of Toledoans that crowded the public pools was also a problem for it was feared that the filters couldn’t handle the pollution from the high number of bathers and that could also be a public health danger. Walbridge Park pool was recommended for closure, while city chemists worked to ascertain bacteria levels in the pools throughout the city.

WATER SUPPLY GREW SHORT

It wasn’t just the purity of the city’s water supply that came into question during this pressing heat wave of the 1930’s, but the supply and water pressure began dwindling. In downtown office buildings and hotels, many rooms on the upper floors of those buildings did not have water for days. Water restrictions were put in place and residents were warned not to use their lawn sprinklers or to use water needlessly. In the meantime, many residents had few options but just to do their best to move slowly and stay cool. Some began peeling off clothes, or sitting in front of fans, while others found that ice cream was an effective coolant. Ice cream parlors and beer joints in the city racked up record business. A few of the movie theaters in downtown Toledo, the Princess, the Valentine and the Rivoli all had air conditioning and were kept at a cool 70 degrees. Theater goers by the thousands flocked to what the NewsBee called the “Coolies” at these downtown venues.

TOLEDO JUST ONE SLICE OF THE SEARED LANDSCAPE

As the drought conditions began to take a firm grip on Toledo that summer of ’36, other areas of the Great Plains and the Upper Midwest were already reeling from the solar blight, dealing with crop failures and livestock starvation. From South Dakota to Texas, to the Eastern Seaboard, millions of acres of wheat and corn had been parched and lost, forest fires scorched the earth and hundreds of thousands of rural residents were left destitute and struggling. The Works Progress Administration, the WPA , reported at least 25,000 people were facing a lack of food and they were cutting red tape to get money to those affected.

Many farms suffered catastrophic damage

 

The newspaper stories of the heatwave also reminded us that heat can make strangers of us all. “Crazy from the Heat” was not just the title of a David Lee Roth Album. In nearby Sandusky, a man reportedly went berserk from the stress of the heat and went “out of his mind”.   Police there say C.C. Lanley, 60 years old, was pushed beyond his limits of sanity. He shot his wife to death as she lie in bed, and then turned the gun on himself.

In Erie, Pennsylvania, a 40 year old man on July 18^th 1936, a few days after he had suffered heatstroke conducted a prayer service at his church and then went home and hammered to death his wife and two sons. Sam Weed then ran screaming outside and threw himself in front of a moving semi.

In Prophetstown, Illinois, about 80 miles west of Chicago, a man tried to extort the entire village of about 1000 people. Merchants of the parched community say they were ready to pay a man about $1000 cash to keep him from bombing and setting fire to their community. “We intend to pay him” said the bespectacled mayor from his grocery store, “It’s mighty dry around here and we can’t take a chance on a fire.”

The national death toll from the fierce heatwave of 1936 was about 5,000 when all was said and done, with over a billion dollars in crop losses to farmers, and hundreds of thousands taken ill during this extrordinary summer of discontent. It is was and is still considered the worst heatwave on record in U.S. history. And surprisingly it followed one of the coldest winters on record.  While Toledo saw the mercury eclipse the 104 degree mark, other cities and regions coped with even hotter conditions. Okalhoma City experienced temperatures in excess of 120 degrees, as did parts of the Dakotas. Indiana’s high temp was 116 degrees and the residents of the little burg of Mio, Michigan dealt with 112 degrees on July 13th. Seventeen states broke or equaled their all time highest heat record that July.

LIFE STILL SOMEWHAT NORMAL

But…perhaps more interesting in hindsight, as we look back at the newspaper reports of the day was how our grand parents tried to keep life in the normal zone, despite dealing with the outrageous assault and nature’s attempt to kill everything and everyone.

Many people, as it would appear, continued working, shopping, taking in events and picnics, or attending ball games. Generally going about their lives with a minimum of complaint, albiet with fewer layers of clothing, and a heavier layer of sweat. The Willow Beach Dance contest was won by a Mr. and Mrs. Howard Marvin of Defiance, hundreds of people turned out for the funeral and internment of former Toledo Congressman Warren Duffey and a crowd of city officials and businessmen turned out in 102 degree heat to inspect and tour the all-new modern New York Central “Mercury” locomotive on display at the Middlegrounds. The Lion Store had a sale on cotton frocks, a shopper’s luncheon at Petro’s in downtown Toledo was just 20 cents, and thousands of Toledoans were eagerly heading to the Stickney Avenue Showground where the Ringling Brothers Circus was featuring two shows a day. Life was hot. But life was still being lived.

Maybe it says something about our grandparents who had not yet been spoiled by the cool comfort of air conditioning and the desire to live life at a constant 72 degrees. They seemed to roll with the punches and the hard times. Yeah, it was painfully hot, but life was always hard. Don’t expect anything less.

Wonder how we, in this part of the country would deal with 110 degree temps today. Can’t help but think that life, as we know it, would stop. If our roads started blowing up, and the water supply dwindled to a trickle, and we suddenly lost our precious air conditioning? Would we have as much grit as Grandma and Grandpa who somehow seemed able and willing to forge a life and a future in the heat of hardship.

I ponder that as I sit in my comfortable air conditioned office on this 90 degree day that is too hot for me to mow the lawn.

 

Respectfully;

Lou Hebert

First American Air Hijack Attempt Happened in Ohio

According to some “official” sources the first air hijacking attempt on American soil happened on July 31, 1961 when pipeline worker Bruce Britt, Sr., boarded and attempted to commandeer a Pacific Airlines flight at the Chico Municipal Airport, in Chico, California, intending to return to his home in Smackover, Arkansas. The hijacking attempt failed, but Britt did shoot two airline employees.

But this reporter has uncovered an even earlier attempt at an airline hijacking..and it took place in Ohio and ended with tragic results.  The year was 1954, 62 years ago this week on July the 6th when a large framed 15-year-old boy, wearing a leather coast denim jeans boarded an American Airlines plane at Cleveland Hopkins airport, waving a pistol and demanded that the pilot fly the plane to Mexico.  The pilot, however, reached into high flight bag and withdrew a .38 caliber handgun and shot the young teen twice, once in the hip and once in the chest. He died about an hour later at the hospital. There were 53 passengers on board the DC-6, and they were largely unaware of what had happened until the ambulance took the boy’s body out on a stretcher. That young man was identified as Ray Kuchenmeister, a 280 pound, six-foot tall teen  who his mother said was bitter because he was too big to be considered a boy and too young to be considered a man.  His 12-year-old brother, Donald, who was outside the plane when the shooting happened said he and his brother had run away from their run down old home in suburban Parma and  just wanted to go out West and “get work as cowboys”.  The pilot, Captain William Bonnell said later, “What was I supposed to do? I had a maniac on the plane with a gun.”  The gun that the young man brandished however was later revealed to be broken and empty. The boy’s mother said it was an old broken gun that been around the house for years and she thought it had been thrown out.

“Whatever Happened to Toledo Satira?” Answers Revealed!!

 

Patricia Schmidt, “Satira” seen in here publicity photo. Credit BurlyQNell

This is indeed one of my favorite local stories and I have been hopelessly intrigued by the enigmatic tale of this largely neglected and forgotten Toledo native. So for the past few years I’ve been attempting to discover whatever happened to Satira after her 30 minutes of fame in the scandalous spotlight of notoriety some 70 years ago. I can report to you now that I have found some answers. Answers that seem to provoke even more questions.

Previously in the Toledo Gazette, my story, published 4 years ago, “Whatever Happened to Satira?” gives a basic overview of the woman and how she was thrust into the headlines. Her name was Patricia Caroline Schmidt. Born in Toledo in 1925, the daughter of John Schmidt, a Toledo pharmacist and his wife Elsie who lived in West Toledo. She was an only child. Shy, pretty and intelligent young girl who loved dancing and gymnastics.. At a young age, she became a good dancer and joined several local dance troupes both here and in Detroit. During her senior year at Toledo Devilbiss High School in 1943, her mother died after a long illness.

Patricia Schmidt senior photo Devilbiss H.S. 1943

It was a devastating blow to Patricia and after graduation she was ready to move on with her life and her desire to be a professional dancer. By 1945, she made her way to Chicago to seek her dreams of fame and fortune. However, as many young aspiring dancers have found, the competition is tough and making it to the stages of the legitimate theater isn’t easy. So Patricia found herself dancing in night clubs, on the “bump and grind” circuit trying to carve out a living with leggy black stockings and lustful stares. It was not the life Patricia Schmidt envisioned for herself. She wanted more respect, so she tried a new routine. Re-inventing herself as “Satira” she, developed an Indian-Asian look, and worked on an “exotic dance routine that was part-ballet and part Balinese strip-tease. It didn’t take long for this petite 20 year old brunette with the exotic looking face(some said slo-eyed), to draw interest with her unique performance and presence.

 

 

She had many fans, and one of them was a dry cleaner, Carl Sperry, who was 32 and married. He soon divorced his wife and offered a wedding band to the young alluring Patricia. She accepted. But the quickie post-war romance was shaky at best. Within weeks they were separated and Patricia was back on her own, and being courted by other men also mesmerized by her gyrations and smoky looks. One man, in particular loved what he saw. He was a regular at the Silver Palms night club where Satira was dancing.

The Silver palm Lounge in Chicago

 

 

His name was John Lester Mee, a Chicago attorney, from a very prominent North Shore family. He was smitten and tried several times to arrange a meeting with the lithesome young raven-haired Satira. But to no avail. While she was reluctant at first, Mee persisted and she finally agreed to meet him. They met for dinner and the emotional chemistry was mutual. Mee was a handsome, former U.S. Naval officer from World War Two, who fancied himself to be a poet and lover. He romanced the young Toledo woman with letters, verse and promises. Mee was quite talented at telling women what they wanted to hear. What he didn’t tell them though was that he was already married. To another exotic dancer in Chicago.

One of his seductive promises he made to Patricia was to get a yacht and take it to the Caribbean where Satira could dance and they could live together in romantic bliss in the tropics. And so, within months Satira left the neon Silver Palms of Chicago joined a dance and show troupe and headed south to dance under the real palm trees of the Caribbean. In December of 1946, she had made her way to Cuba and was performing at a club in Havana John Lester Mee made his way down the Mississippi with his coverted PT boat he called a “yacht” and showed up in Havana harbor. He had named the boat“Satira”. The stage was set for second act of their torrid story.

The Yacht “Satira” in Havana Harbor 1948

 

 

Contrary what perhaps Patricia Schmidt had assumed about her new lover John Mee, he was not wealthy. Despite the fact that he was attorney and was the son of a wealthy and well-to-do North Shore physician, John Mee was not given a blank check to live his life with an open bank account. He was not a worker. He was a player. His family strongly disapproved of his Bohemian lifestyle and cavalier and romantic notions. A few weeks after Mee’s arrival in Havana aboard the boat “Satira”, Mee was broke. His plans to make money by using the boat to take passengers on exotic trips sounded good but most passengers once on board the malfunctioning old boat, just wanted off. Mee’s dream was sinking quickly. And so too was his hold on Patricia. He didn’t want her dancing anymore. She had been living in one of the expensive hotels in Havana but he demanded that she come live aboard the boat with him and his boat’s co-owner Charles Jackson, an old Navy buddy. To earn money for food, he and Patricia were forced to sell off many of their belongings including some of her favorite hand-made exotic dance costumes which she used to make a living. The idyllic fantasy of living the good life was being eclipsed by stark reality. Patricia would state later that Mee’s sexual demands also began to change. That he became quick to anger and sadomasochistic. He gave her a riding crop and wanted her to hit him with it. If she wouldn’t he would hit her and leave bruises. She said he became mean and abusive, refusing to let her to leave the boat.

John Lester Mee with his wife Mary Dixon

 

 

In April of 1947, during a particularly violent argument, after she discovered that Mee was still married to another woman, Patricia wanted off the boat. She was ready to go home to Toledo. John Lester Mee would have none of it. She claimed that John shoved her as she tried to leave the boat for her own safety. When he shoved her against a desk in the cabin, she opened the drawer of the desk and found his hand gun. A .22 caliber derringer. She pointed it at him and warned him to leave her alone. When he kept approaching he, she pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through his neck. Mee was rushed to a hospital in Havana where his condition was grave and a few days later he died. Within hours, Patricia Schmidt, a frightened 21 year old woman from Toledo was arrested for murder.

The case became a media sensation. In the United States, and through the Caribbean, and even in Europe the story of love and murder aboard a yacht in Cuba was perfect tabloid material. Beautiful woman, an exotic dancer, kills her lover aboard his yacht that he named for her. She claimed self defense and there were sordid allegations by her that he was a cruel sadomasochist who was a sexual fiend. In 1947, the newspapers loved it. In Toledo, the Blade kept the story alive with regular coverage for those readers in the city who knew her and knew the family.

Patricia Schmidt behind bars at Havana Prison

 

By Autumn, the trial was underway and coverage in the U.S. and the International press was impressive. In Havana and in the Cuban enclaves of Miami, the saga of Satira was not just another news story but the fuel of fascination as this young Devilbiss High School girl-turned-femme-fatale became a sort of folk hero to many. A Spanish-language Cuban singer, Bobby Capo even recorded a song about “Patricia” which became an instant hit from Havana to Miami. Patricia was quoted in news articles saying she cried the first time she heard it as the song referred to her variously as a “beautiful swallow” or a “ little dancer who would someday dance again”. The chorus says “Your love was sincere and your pardon will come from the heavens”. As you will learn later, it came from somewhere else.

The trial publicity itself was robust. On par or rivaling other celebrity trials that we known through the years. Everyday the testimony brought out new revelations and new scandalous details. Patricia testified that John Mee was obsessed with kinky sex and wanted to force it on her. For the times, such detail was titillating. The prosecution tried to portray Patricia Schmidt as a cold blooded killer who intentionally murdered her lover. He also characterized her as a woman of loose moral values. A young nude nymph temptress who liked to cavort on the deck of the yacht “Satira” in the buff, stating that she used Havana Bay as her own “private swimming pool”. The press couldn’t get enough. The headlines and stories from the trial flourished in papers across the country.

The crime scene inside the cabin of the Yacht

Despite the intimations by the prosecutor that Patricia was a “loose” woman of low degree who enticed Mr. Mee with her suggestive charms, the defense brought forth a number of character witnesses to attest to Miss Schmidt’s honesty and good character. Some of the witnesses included people from her native Toledo, including a former grade school teacher!

Schmidt talking with her attorney inside her cell

 

In December the case finally drew to a close. And despite her emotional plea of self defense, a dramatic reenactment of the shooting and her popularity with the Cuban people, the three judge panel that heard the case decided that she was guilty of manslaughter-homicide and sentenced the 22 year old Patricia Schmidt to 15 years in prison. Considering the brutal conditions in the Cuban prisons in 1947, the prospect of such a long sentence for the young Toledo woman was daunting, but Patricia seemed ready to accept her fate. And in a letter told her father, John Schmidt in Toledo that she was preparing to serve her time.

Patricia Schmidt reenacting the shooting aboard the yacht

 

There was great sadness in many corners of the Cuban community as most felt the verdict and the sentence were unjust, A Cuban singer, Bobby Capo even recorded a song about “Patricia” which became an instant hit from Havana to Miami. Patricia was quoted in news articles saying she cried the first time she heard it as the song referred to her variously as a “beautiful swallow” or a “ little dancer who would someday dance again”. The chorus says “Your love was sincere and your pardon will come from the heavens”. A pardon did come, but not from the heavens.

In a surprise decision 10 months later, in October of 1948, the President of Cuba, Grau San Martin granted a full pardon to Patrica Schmidt and she was released from custody after serving just 18 months of a 15 year sentence. It is still not fully understood just what led to that ruling. It was stated that in some newspaper accounts that because Grau San Martin was leaving office, having been defeated in recent election he was granting pardons while he could do so and had always been interested in the case involving Patricia Schmidt.

However that call of sweet freedom came about, Patricia Caroline Schmidt, 23 years of age, left her cell at Guanabacoa women’s prison and was on her way back to her hometown of Toledo.

Patricia leaving her cell and greeting cellmates.

 

Never one to shy away from the cameras, Patrica Schmidt arrived home at Toledo’s Municipal Airport in Lake Township to the flash of cameras as she disembarked from the plane, wearing a big smile and a full length fur cape.

 

Patricia “Satira” Schmidt arriving home at Toledo Municipal Airport Oct 1948.

She said she was ready to reunite with family and friends, but her reunion in Toledo did not last long. After a week in the Glass City, Patricia departed once more. Trying to resume her previous life and perhaps capitalizing on her newfound fame, Patricia sought work on the stage as a dancer, once again using the exotic act of “Satira”. And it didn’t long for her to find work, this time billed as “ The girl who ran into a little trouble down south”. Some papers reported that she was being offered as much as $3,000 a week to perform. Rumors were rampant that she and John Lester Mee’s widow, Mary Dixon, also an exotic dancer, might team up for a tandem act. But Mary Dixon would have none of it and it never came to pass. The glare of the footlights and the newfound fame managed to last for a few years, but soon she was back to a regular grind, playing mostly small clubs in the Chicago suburbs and around the Midwest. She did manage to score some big time print as some entertainment reporters sought her out for interviews about her life and her experiences in Cuba. The famous entertainment columnist Earl Wilson even spent some time with Patricia to discuss what the future might hold for this young woman. The Milwaukee Sentinel allowed her to write a first hand account of the drama that defined her young life.

 

But, as with many meteoric careers, by the early 1950’s, the story of Satira was over. It was yesterdays news and she all but fell off the face the show biz planet. She no longer in the headlines and was no longer a headliner. By the early 1950’s, Satira the dancer vanished. It puzzled me and left many questions. Did she die young and obscure? Did she get married and get out the business. Did she come back to Toledo and settle down to a quieter and less conspicuous life in her hometown of Toledo? The answers were not easy to find. And so this is where I left the story of “Satira” four years ago on Toledo Gazette.com, as it appeared that little was known, if anything, of what had become of this young woman from Toledo captured both hearts and imaginations around the world.

Patrica Schmidt: A Life of Mysteries, Movies and Secrets.

Fast forward to 1988, 35 years later and the lost threads of Patrica Schmidt’s life were in full view for everyone to see. She was hiding. In plain sight.

Without going into the weeds as to how I managed to find those loose strands of her life that led me to some answers, suffice it to say, it took many hours of poking around old government records, obituaries, photos, newspaper clippings, a thousand Google searches, the brain picking of other history researchers, and as always, a bit of luck.

Patricia Schmidt had become Patricia Van Ingen and Patricia Van Ingen, towards the end of her life, became a movie actress. Not a major star, or celebrity, but a bit part player most notably in the roles of Native American women. Her list of motion picture and TV credits is lengthy and it is very likely that millions of Americans had seen her in various roles including a couple of stints on Dr. Quinn: Medicine Woman, or in movie roles such as Wind River (2000), or the Road Ends (1997). She was also featured in small roles in numerous TV shows such as the American Playhouse TV Series in the 1989 production of “Land of Little Rain”. Patricia also appeared as a main character in a TV episode of Rosanne in 1995.

Her IMDB(International Movie Data Base) is as follows:

Wind River
Anuba

 1997 Road Ends
Mama

 1997 Promised Land (TV Series)
Theresa

– The Outrage (1997) … Theresa

 1995 Roseanne (TV Series)

– The Last Thursday in November (1995)

 1995 CBS Schoolbreak Special (TV Series)
Mrs. Kakak

– My Indian Summer (1995) … Mrs. Kakak

 1995 Siringo (TV Movie)
Buffalo Woman

 1995 3 Ninjas Knuckle Up
Indian Grandmother (uncredited)

 1994 Cheyenne Warrior (TV Movie)
Crow Woman

 1994 Harts of the West (TV Series)
Elizabeth

– Jake and Duke’s Excellent Adventure (1994) … Elizabeth

 1994 Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV Series)
Elder Grandmother

– The Abduction: Part 2 (1994) … Elder Grandmother

– The Abduction: Part 1 (1994) … Elder Grandmother

 1990 Sparks: The Price of Passion (TV Movie)
Gloria Aguilar

 1989 American Playhouse (TV Series)

– Land of Little Rain (1989)

 1989 Powwow Highway
Pueblo Woman (as Pat Van Ingen)

Was Patricia Native American?

This new Native American identity for Schmidt is at best curious, at worst, fraudulent.

With her high cheek bones and unique facial structure and dark complexion, she was able to pass easily as Native American, and while filming her last movie(Wind River) with American Indian Movement leader Russel Means she spoke to the press about the need for accuracy and authenticity in movies that deal with Native American themes. In another interview she talked about her mother’s Cherokee heritage. After considerable research I have been unable to verify through my genealogy searches that she has any Native American heritage. Her father was second generation German. Her mother, Elsie Petit, was French Canadian. Perhaps there is a link there, but I’ve been unable to ascertain it.

How did she become Patricia Van Ingen?

You may be asking yourself how and when she acquired the surname of Van Ingen? Another mystery. For I can only report that Social Security records indicate that Patrica Caroline Schmidt, born in Toledo, Ohio in 1925 to John and Elsie Schmidt, died in February of 1999 in Hollywood California under the name of Patrica Van Ingen. To this date, I have been unable to determine if Van Ingen was a married name, although it would seem to be the case, and herein lies another secret about her life for there seems to be no public record of such a marriage.

And if she was indeed married to some named Van Ingen during her life time, then she possibly married into one of the most well heeled and powerful families in the nation. And there is reason to believe that may be the case. In my research, I uncovered a passport photo and visa application of Patricia from 1960, which was taken as she was about to embark on a trip to Brazil for a month to work as a sculptor. The visa says that her last name is Van Ingen and gives her address as 1111 5^th Avenue in New York at one of the most prestigious addresses in Manhattan, overlooking the lake in Central Park. The address was the home of the Van Ingen family, one of the wealthiest families in the East. This is old-money social-register DNA and by 1960, Patricia is identified as being a member of that well-to-do family, at least according to this particular government document. If so, who was she married to? And if she was in fact married to or connected to one of these socially significant Van Ingens, would not such a union seem unlikely? For the young Toledo girl known as “Satira” would have had a “past” of ill fame. Likely to be scorned by the scions of the Manhattan social elite.

Patricia, the Artist and World Traveler

This is one of the many reasons I have been so intrigued with the story of Patricia Schmidt Van Ingen, for it seems that in every chapter of her life she provoked more questions than answers. Another arresting aspect of her life was her time spent abroad. Paris was one of her early stops and may have been the reason why she abruptly dropped out of sight in the 1950’s. I have spoken with people who knew her who say she told them that she spent much of the 1950’s and 60’s living in Paris as part of the ex-patriate American arts colony. It was in Paris where she also said she worked as a model for the famous Man Ray, an American contemporary visual artist who was also residing in Paris at that time. She was reported to have said that it was Man Ray who saw some of her artwork and suggested that she pursue her passion for art. As was noted on her visa application in 1960, Patricia Schmidt-Van Ingen defined herself at that time as a sculptor. Later she did take up painting, on the Internet I was able to find copies of several watercolor pieces. They seem to be sexually inspired and remain untitled.

Life in Old Santa Fe

These painting were, as best I can determine, were done while she was living in the arts community of Santa Fe New Mexico sometime in the 1980’s. It is where she lived in a modest bungalow and made friends with folks in the art and literary neighborhoods. One of those friends she claimed was Forest Fenn, the eccentric Santa Fe art dealer who in 1988 buried a million dollar treasure of bronze and gold somewhere in the Rocky Mountains and challenged people to find it. So far, no one has. Patricia Van Ingen said she and Fenn were very close friends and it was Fenn who helped her get a bit part in a movie that was being filmed nearby, thus launching her career as an actress. Another art dealer, I spokes with in Santa Fe said she had told him that for a part of the late 1960’s she lived in the town of Almora India at the foot of the Himalayas. At the time, Almora was a gathering place for many celebrities, including the Beatles, who wanted to meditate and find spiritual meaning of their lives.

Pat Van Ingen 1969,  Almora India

 

 

 

 

There is a picture of Patricia Van Ingen posted on the Internet, taken in 1969 in Almora India. There is little doubt in my mind that this woman is the one and only “Satira” or Toledo’s Patricia Schmidt. Just how she found herself in Almora India, and how long she lived there, is yet another battery of questions I would like answers to.

Patricia’s Legacy Continues

Another surprising twist to Patricia’s biography was revealed to me within the past few month as I learned that in Albuquerque New Mexico an annual sports festival featured the Patricia Van Ingen 5k Memorial race walk for several years. The story, as told by the Sierra Club Newsletter in New Mexico was that the organization was in dire financial straits in recent year and needed someone to step up and help them pay their bills so they could continue operating. Quietly they received notice from Patricia Van Ingen’s estate that the estate would take care of the bills for the remainder of the fiscal year, thus keeping the Sierra Club in business. As their way of showing thanks to this mysterious benefactor, the Sierra Club featured the Patricia Van Ingen 5k Memorial Race Walk in her honor in 2008 and several years thereafter.

Yes, Patricia Van Ingen does have an active estate or trust fund, and from time to time, it has given awards of money to various animal rights groups around the country in Patricia Van Ingen’s name. Just exactly who administers it is not known. At least I haven’t confirmed the name yet and my attempts to reach this person have produced no replies.

Why Was She Hiding?

Quite frankly that has been one of the biggest frustrations in determining “Whatever happened to Satira”? Answers have not been easy to come by. By accident or design, you ask? I am inclined to think the latter, for Patricia s by the late 1950’s managed to successfully conceal her past identity as Satira, the exotic dancer-turned killer and keep it buried forever. Even in her official IMDB from the film industry, there is no photo and no bio. It is blank. Curious? She also played games with her name. It changed numerous times. In the mid 1950’s she changed it to Patricia Dale for awhile, and using that name had an brief flirt with the glamour of Hollywood, when she appeared in an early TV episode of Sgt. Preston of the Yukon. Five years later, I found living in the upscale Carnegie Hill area of Manhattan using the surname of Van Ingen. And on her visa application to Brazil in 1960, she identified her father as John Dale of Toledo. His name was not Dale, but John Schmidt. Why did she lie? Was she just trying to put the ugly past behind her and move on with her life, or were there other reasons? Questions that I can’t answer, at least not yet. And it is highly likely that those people who knew her in her later life as Patricia Van Ingen, the actress and artist, may have never known the early dark chapters of her life when she was the infamous “Satira”.

As for her family and friends in the Toledo area, more dead ends. Patricia was an only child so no siblings enter the picture. Her father John Schmidt moved to California by the 1970’s to live near her after he retired from his job as an East Toledo pharmacist. He passed away many years ago. As for the Schmidt family in Toledo, she was close to her uncle Daniel Schmidt who lived in East Toledo, but he has passed and attempts to reach members of that family have also yielded no response. One might think that everyone in the Schmidt family would have been keenly aware of Patricia’s life, both during and after her worldwide notoriety in Cuba. So, it’s surprising to me that no one seems willing 60 years later to discuss it. But maybe these are the bones of the past that some families just don’t like to excavate.

Regardless of the obstacles and barricades to Patricia’s truth, I have managed to uncover at least some of the answers as to what happened to the shy little girl from West Toledo’s Belmar Street, who danced her way to infamy. While there are many other questions to be answered, I wanted to reveal what I could at this time to satisfy the curiosity of those who, like me, remain intrigued with this woman and her amazing life story.

If you have questions, please ask them. If you have answers, please provide them. We will keep this story updated as we get new information. I want to thank everyone who has helped contribute information, ideas, hints and encouragement during this journey.