52 Ancestors Week 10: Strong Woman

Katie Sandwina, "The Lady Hercules," lifting three men
Bain News Service / Public domain

It is incredibly difficult to narrow down the topic of "Strong Woman" to a single woman in my family. In just one generation--that of my great-grandparents--it is impossible to decide. There is Great-Grandma Flora (Amos) Underwood, who left England with her husband and infant son, to travel across the ocean on a journey to America, knowing she would never see her home in England again. She left a comfortable middle-class life for the unknown world of the western U.S., living almost a pioneer existence and learning the skills along the way.

There is Great-Grandma Cora (Wade) Brosius, who raised a family of six boys and one girl in Kansas, married to a man nearly twenty years older than she was. When he died and left her with four children who were still quite young, she packed those children into a car and the five of them drove across the country to the Pacific Northwest to begin their new lives.

There is Great-Grandma Mary (Craig) Stroesser, who grew up in "the Bottoms" in Omaha, a neighborhood marked by its shanty houses and poverty, and frequently flooded by the nearby Missouri River. She went on to marry and give birth to thirteen children, suffering post-partum depression after many of them according to family lore, and suffering also the deaths of three of her sons. Although Grandma Rose, her daughter, had a strained relationship with her, it seems clear that Great-Grandma Mary was battling her own demons.

Then there is Great-Grandma Hazel (Fox) Hoyt, who, according to family lore, graduated valedictorian. Unlike my other great-grandmothers, she began to work outside the home during WWII, and continued to work after the war was over. She was a shipping clerk at Dehner Boot Company until her retirement. She was also the only great-grandmother whose lifetime overlapped my own.

Truly, I believe that you could pluck almost any woman off my family tree and, looking at her life and circumstances, come to find that she deserves the appellation of a "Strong Woman."

Craig mysteries slowly unraveling

Alex E. Proimos [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

On Monday I did the unthinkable. I accidentally left my laptop at work, so in the evening I had only my phone for genealogy. Today's smartphones are amazing, and you can download wonderful genealogy apps, but, in both screen size and flexibility, they are still inferior to a laptop. But I had to make do, so I opened up the FamilySearch app and began scrolling through my "Ancestors with Tasks" list, looking for relatives I know readily enough to easily determine if a source applies. (And, might I add, it drives my pedantic side nuts that the app calls them all "Ancestors" when most of them aren't ancestors at all, but collateral lines?)

The first few tasks I went through weren't memorable. Finally I clicked on Barney Robbinnult, my 3great-grandfather. The possible record match that popped up was a marriage license naming him as the father, and my 3great-grandmother Julia Kimmey as the mother, of the bride. The marriage took place in California in 1916, and the bride was Mattie Craig.

My 2great-grandmother was Martha (Robinault) Craig, sometimes called Mattie. Up until the moment the significance of this marriage record dawned on me, I knew only what was written in one of the articles on her first husband's, my 2great-grandfather's, murder: "For about two years [John Stephen Craig] had been separated from his wife, who is now said to be remarried and living in California." But California is a big place, Martha Craig is a common name, and I had no idea what her married name might be.

Marriage record, trimmed from the original at FamilySearch

And here was the record that would solve that mystery. She married a man named Paul Ruther. He was a painter, born in Germany, and his parents were named, too. The date was before John Craig's murder, and both parties selected "Divorced" as their marital status. That meant that somewhere there has to be a divorce record for the Craigs. But where? In California, Nebraska, or somewhere in between? My initial survey for records of that period being unsatisfactory, it occurred to me that divorces at the time often appeared in newspapers.

I knew that just searching for "John Craig" at Chronicling America would yield little; many times I had tried unsuccessfully to find his murder that way. Looking for a divorce record, the logical search terms would be "Craig divorce," so I set the search parameters to Nebraska and tried that, but found nothing of interest. I remembered having tried "Martha Craig" in the past, so I tried her nickname "Mattie Craig." Apart from being reminded that there was another Martha/Mattie Craig in Omaha at the time, apparently highly respectable and working as a schoolteacher, there was nothing of interest again. I racked my brain, thinking what would have appeared in a divorce notice in the 1910s. Unless the parties were prominent (as mine were most certainly not) or the divorce had some other special interest to the public, the notices were usually quite succinct. Just names and addresses.

So I tried their address: "Tenth and Paul." And there was the jackpot. Many of the articles that the OCR had failed to recognize as "John Craig" or "Martha Craig" or "Mattie Craig" suddenly began to appear. Their divorce has still failed to materialize, but something else did show up. The headline in the Omaha Daily Bee read "Had a Premonition He Would Be Killed," and I knew immediately what the article would be about. Here was one of the long-sought-after articles on John Craig's murder.

The article duplicated much of the information that is contained in the first article of the Omaha World Herald, which I transcribed on a former post, "A Murder in the Family." But there were a few differences. For one, this newspaper dubbed him with the nickname of "hermit expressman." Although the idea that he was an expressman who was a hermit was not new, using it as a nickname was. Secondly, this paper identified the neighbor who had last seen him alive by name. This article was also much more definite on the information about his wife having divorced him and remarried. It stated as a fact that "[h]e was divorced from his wife, who remarried and is now in California." However, the article also gave the wrong name for his son Matthew, calling him Martin instead.

A few more articles on the subject appeared in the Daily Bee for the next several days, although not a single one of them comes up in the results when searching for "John Craig." The second article in the series, "Police Believe Craig Murdered," which was published the following day, made the interesting observation that

For years John Craig conducted a little grocery store near his home, Tenth and Paul streets. He was never known to have given customers credit on purchases and is said to have made many enemies as a result. It is thought that perhaps one of these persons may have committed the deed.

This is the first I have heard of the idea that one of his customers killed him. It is also the only article I have seen that elaborates on what kind of store he ran. Knowing that he was an expressman, I had imagined his store to be more on the lines of stationery or carriage riggings. Seeing that it was a grocery store took me by surprise.

The newspaper search for "Tenth and Paul" also revealed some more color to add to the already colorful characters in the Craig family. From the articles I had already amassed from the World Herald, it was well established that they did not get along smoothly with their neighbors. The Daily Bee cemented that impression, and managed to top everything with my own 2great-grandmother, at the late date of 1906, accusing her neighbor of being a witch!

Since my search was for the location, not names, there were also many results that had nothing to do with my ancestors, but with the neighborhood in which they lived. It seems to have been an area with frequent police intervention, and one 1911 article explicitly said, "The neighborhood is regarded as a tough one by the police."

I began to be curious to see the layout of the neighborhood. The various articles had made it clear that it was near the railroad tracks, and some of the businesses mentioned made it sound like an industrial area. The Library of Congress website has a nice collection of Sanborn maps available to view for free, so I narrowed down the collection to those of Omaha, and then began scanning through them for the neighborhood. Although I have not mentioned it yet in this post, the Craigs' address was variously given as "Tenth" or "Eleventh" and "Paul" or "Nicholas," so I figured that they must have lived within in a block defined by those four streets. 

Excerpt from 1901 Sanborn map of Omaha, showing intersection of Eleventh and Nicholas.

Only two of the maps of Omaha contained that part of town, and the one dated nearest the time of John Craig's murder was published some 16 years earlier, in 1901. But there is one thing very baffling about both these maps. It is easy to see that Nicholas and Paul streets do parallel one another, and are one block apart. Likewise, Tenth and Eleventh; and they are perpendicular to Nicholas and Paul, as expected. The intersection of Nicholas and Eleventh is easy to find. But Paul street seems to fade away before it can cross Tenth! Yet multiple newspaper articles, not only in 1917, but also at the time this map was published, refer to the intersection of Tenth and Paul.

So there we have it. My Craig ancestors lived at a nonexistent street intersection. Although some of their mysteries are slowly unraveling, they only give rise to new mysteries. I guess they know how to keep a person intrigued.


Sources:

Los Angeles, California, "California, County Marriages, 1850-1952", Licenses & certificates v. 261-264 1916: 130 (image 859 of 1443), Ruther-Craig, 12 Sept 1916; digital images, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 20 May 2019).

"Craig is Found Dead; How Killed Mystery," Omaha World Herald, 22 Feb 1917, p. 1; digital images, GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com).

"Had a Premonition He Would Be Killed," Omaha Daily Bee, 23 Feb 1917, p. 7, col. 4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"Police Believe Craig Murdered," Omaha Daily Bee, 24 Feb 1917, p. 11, col. 3-4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"No Light Shed on Death Of John Craig at Inquest," Omaha Daily Bee, 26 Feb 1917, p. 5, col. 4; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers.

"Manzer is Seriously Cut," Omaha daily bee, 16 July 1911, p. 5, col. 2; digital images, Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 21 May 2019), Historic American Newspapers. 

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map from Omaha, Douglas And Sarpy County, Nebraska. Sanborn Map Company, Vol. 2, 1901. Map.

Voyage on the Mauretania

By TWAM - Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums (Mauretania - Full speed ahead  Uploaded by Fæ) [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons

Recently I took advantage of a sale on the price of an annual subscription to the British Newspaper Archive, and for the past month or so have been making the most of it. I have made many discoveries and been able to nail down the dates of some events for which I previously had only approximations. And then it occurred to me to search for the ships on which some of my ancestors traveled, figuring I could find notices of the arrivals and departures in the shipping news. Though it would supply little to no new information, it would be pretty cool. And for some of the trips, that is exactly what I found. But for my great-grandmother Mary Craig’s trip with her father aboard the Mauretania, there was so much more!

First, there was the not unusual statement of delivery dates of overseas mail:

OUTGOING AMERICAN MAILS.

Letters mailed in Dundee before

1.00 a.m. Sat. 4.30 p.m.

2.50 p.m. Wed. Via Queenstown. Via So hampton.

Per str. Per str. (if specially

addressed). Due in

Date of Posting. New York.

Mar. 2, _____ K. Auguste Victoria. Mar. 10

Mar. 4, Mauretania _____ Mar. 10

(Please forgive the formatting; I could not get it to format properly for the webpage.)

By Snapshots Of The Past (Queenstown. Co. Cork Ireland) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Then, there was some extra news in the customary notice of stopping in the port of Queenstown. (Queenstown, now known as Cobh, was a frequent port of call for ships traveling between Liverpool and the United States.)

SHAMROCK FOR OVERSEAS IRISHMEN.

The Mauretania, which left Queenstown yesterday for New York, took from Queenstown 1312 sacks of mail matter, which included several thousand boxes of shamrock sent by persons in various parts of Ireland to their relatives in the United States and Canada to be worn by the recipients on St Patrick’s Day.

Another article told of a few of the famous personalities that my ancestors were traveling with. It is doubtful they would have met each other, as the celebrities were in first class and my ancestors were in steerage, but perhaps there was some stretching of necks to catch a glimpse.

DEPARTURES FOR AMERICA.

The Cunard liner “Mauretania,” sailed from the Mersey on Saturday for New York, among her passengers being Sir Edward Tennant, who has just been created a baron of the United Kingdom; Count Leo Tolstoi, son of the famous Russian; and Dr. W. T. Grenfell, the Labrador missionary who was received in audience by the King at Buckingham Palace on Friday. Dr. Grenfell, who was accompanied by his wife, will make an American tour before returning to his work in Labrador.

I must admit that the only one of these notable persons whose name is recognizable to me is Leo Tolstoi, and even his name is familiar only because he shares it with his famous father, but it is probably safe to assume that all of these names were familiar to my ancestors.

The newspapers are necessarily silent on the Mauretania for the next couple days, but when it finally docks in New York, it has a story to tell!

MAURETANIA’S ROUGH PASSAGE.

DAMAGED BY HUGE WAVES.

The Mauretania arrived at New York yesterday twelve hours late, after one of the roughest passages she has ever experienced.

The great liner encountered mountainous seas on Monday midnight, and her boat deck bulwarks were bent and twisted, and fifty feet of the forward promenade rail was destroyed by eighty-foot waves. The wheelhouse windows were smashed, and passengers flung from their berths.

Fortunately, however, beyond a few bruises, there were no casualties, and the Cunarder was able to plough her way safely through the storm.

The Shields Daily Gazette told the story in nearly the same words:

ATLANTIC STORM.

Mauretania Badly Damaged.

The Mauretania, says a “Yorkshire Post” New York telegram, arrived there yesterday morning twelve hours late, after one of the roughest passages she has ever experienced. The great liner encountered mountainous seas on Monday midnight, and her boat deck bulwarks were bent and twisted, and fifty feet of the forward promenade rail was destroyed by 80-foot waves. The wheel-house windows were smashed, and passengers flung from their berths. Fortunately, however, beyond a few bruises, there were no casualties, and the Cunarder was able to plough her way safely through the storm.

The Sheffield Daily Telegraph found other words, and supplied a little more information:

TERRIFIC GALE.

MAURETANIA POUNDED BY WAVES.

LINER’S BRIDGE WASHED.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

NEW YORK, Friday.

The Mauretania, which left Liverpool on the 4th inst., and was due here under normal conditions last night in time to discharge her passengers, did not pass Sandy Hook until this morning—12 hours behind her usual time.

The giant liner ran into a heavy westerly gale on Monday, which increased so that by Monday midnight enormous waves were reaching higher than the bridge.

The gale not only delayed the liner, but caused considerable damage.

On Monday the whole fierceness of the storm seemed turned against the ship, and frequently waves 80 feet in height swept over the weather bow and dashed up to the bridge, falling with thousands of tons weight of water on the deck.

One of the great waves caused the steel boat deck to buckle on the weather side, smashed a portion of the bulwark, and destroyed quite 50 feet of the rail on the forward promenade deck.

It seems that the voyage back to American aboard the Mauretania was much more exciting than Mary and her father John Stephen Craig had bargained for!

Citations (in order cited):

“Outgoing American Mails,” Dundee Courier, 2 Mar 1911, p. 2, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Shamrock for Overseas Irishmen,” Dundee Courier, 6 Mar 1911, p. 5, col. 2; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © D.C.Thomson & Co. Ltd. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Departures for America,” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser, 6 Mar 1911, p. 9, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Local World Limited. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Mauretania’s Rough Passage,” Nottingham Evening Post, 11 Mar 1911, p. 5, col. 3; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Local World Limited. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

“Atlantic Storm,” Shields Daily Gazette, 11 Mar 1911, p. 3, col. 1; digital images, The British Newspaper Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), With thanks to South Tyneside Libraries and Information. Digitised by Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited. All rights reserved.

“Terrific Gale,” Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 11 Mar 1911, p. 9, col. 3; digital images, The British History Archive (http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk : accessed 3 Mar 2016), Image © Johnston Press plc. Image created courtesy of THE BRITISH LIBRARY BOARD.

Thoughts on John Stephen Craig

Not long after my grandparents’, Rose Stroesser and Jack Hoyt’s, marriage they moved from the midst of their families in the Omaha, Nebraska/Council Bluffs, Iowa area halfway across the country to Oregon. Therefore, they raised their children with the knowledge of a multitude of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, but with little actual contact with that extended family.

So when we learned that a Stroesser cousin was coming to visit and wanted to meet her Hoyt cousins, we (Rose and Jack’s children and grandchildren) swooped down upon her, voracious for kinship. I was present for an evening’s potluck with the family, during which our “new” cousin posed the question: “Did you ever hear that Grandma was supposed to ride on the Titanic?”

The Titanic at the docks
See page for author [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

We all eagerly assented to our having heard that rumor before. And that set me on a course of thought which finally led to a breakthrough.

Every seasoned genealogist has heard that well-known rumor of an ancestor who was supposed to ride the Titanic but luckily didn’t—and we have all been taught to scoff at such wishful oral history. But oral history quite often contains a kernel of truth, and the trick is to tease that truth out into the open. Quite some time ago I believed I had discovered the truth of my family’s Titanic story: I found a ship’s passenger list containing two people who appeared to be my great-grandmother Mary Craig and her father John Craig. And how did this tie to the Titanic? The ship they were riding on was the Mauretania, which turned out to be the sister ship of the Lusitania. If you recall high school history class, you may remember that the sinking of the Lusitania was an impetus for the U.S. becoming involved in World War I. And if you have any understanding of human nature, you can easily see how one famous sunken ship could become confused with another when retelling an imperfectly remembered tale.

The Mauretania and the Lusitania passing one another
By UnknownAquitania at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons

You will notice I said “I believed I had discovered” and “who appeared to be my great-grandmother.” I had not been able to prove to myself that the John and Mary Craig on the passenger list were my John and Mary Craig. The evidence on the list inclined me to think that they probably were, but there just wasn’t enough information to be sure. But I had long ago laid this question aside to focus on other research objectives, and filed away my conclusions as an interesting sidenote.

However, this turned out to be a very opportune time to return my thoughts to the passenger list. My experience with the 1907 passenger list of Nicholas Stroesser revealing my great-grandfather’s pre-Omaha residence was still fairly fresh in my mind, and it struck me that perhaps like that manifest the Mauretania’s had a second page. I returned to the image on Ancestry to check. Sure enough, it had. And it contained not only the certainty I was seeking, but another much-needed piece of John Craig’s puzzle.

And now, before I address the aforementioned much-needed piece of the puzzle, I need to back up a little. John Craig is, of course, my great-great-grandfather who was an unsolved murder in Omaha. My knowledge of his life is scanty despite a number of sources: apart from those articles I have already shared concerning his death, I had some other articles (which I will undoubtedly share sometime, for they paint a portrait of a very... ornery man), some city directories, a couple censuses, and a marriage record.

However, he seemed to have fallen out of the sky to marry Martha Robbenult, because I had been utterly unable to confirm any record prior to that. Although the marriage record conveniently identified his parents and said he was born in Scotland, try looking for a James and Margaret Craig with their son John in Scotland! And then expand the search to all of England as well, because some sources give his birthplace as England. Even narrowing it down to only those of the right age, there are far too many to choose from. I needed more information.

But there, on the second page of the portion of the Mauretania’s manifest applying to John Craig, was a birthplace listed. The first one I had ever seen that specified not only the country of his birth, but the town as well: Whitehaven, England.

The Old Quay at Whitehaven
Humphrey Bolton [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

So naturally the first thing I did was to google Whitehaven. I learned that it is situated in the county of Cumberland, in the far north of England, bordering Scotland. That geographical location could explain why John Craig is sometimes described as Scottish. The next thing I did was to plug this new information into what I already knew about John Craig and search for a census record. The result was almost immediate: a household popped up in the 1881 census, and I read the list of names. There were James and Margaret—the former born in Ireland, the latter in Scotland—there was John himself, slightly older than expected but in the right range and born in Whitehaven. As my eye ran farther down the list chills ran up my spine. The next two names were Matthew and Mary, siblings here but familiar to me as the names of two of John’s own children. Perhaps these were those children’s namesakes.

I was able to locate this family in three other census years as well. Although I haven’t found the proverbial smoking gun to confirm beyond a doubt that these are indeed my 3great-grandparents, all the evidence thus far tends to support that conclusion. (When I find evidence that this Margaret’s maiden name is Mury or Murray I will finally rest easy.) In a future post I will lay out all the evidence in detail, but this post is already long enough.

Sources:

1861 census of England, Cumberland, Whitehaven registration district, Egremont ecclesiastical district, Egremont parish, folio 73, page 30-31, Household of James Craig; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 Apr 2015); citing PRO RG 9/3952.

1871 census of England, Cumberland, Egremont civil parish, folio 66, page 8-9, Household of Janes Crag; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 Apr 2015); citing PRO RG 10/5262.

1881 census of England, Cumberland, Cleator Moor, civil parish of Cleator, folio 117, page 48, Household of James Craig; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 Apr 2015); citing PRO RG 11/5191.

1891 census of England, Cumberland, Cleator Moor, civil parish of Cleator, Egremont parliamentary division, ecclesiastical parish of St. Johns, folio 91, page 19, Household of James Craig; digital images, Ancestry, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 Apr 2015); citing PRO RG 12/4317.

FamilySearch, “Iowa, County Marriages, 1838-1934,” database, FamilySearch (www.familysearch.org : accessed 5 May 2013), entry for John Stephen Craig and M. M.Robbenult’s 1886 marriage; citing Crawford, Iowa, United States, county courthouses, Iowa; Reference ID: p 60, GS Film Number: 1035129, Digital Folder Number: 004311125.

“New York, Passenger Lists, 1820-1957,” online images, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 Feb 2010), manifest, S.S. Mauretania, 10 Mar 1911, list 6, lines 18-19, John Craig and Mary Craig; citing Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at New York, New York, 1897-1957, Microfilm Publication M237, 675 rolls; Records of the U.S. Customs Service, Record Group 36; National Archives at Washington, D.C; Microfilm Roll: Roll 1637; Line: 19; Page Number: 68.

A Murder in the Family

I have known for most of my life that my great-great-grandfather’s death was an unsolved murder, and since adulthood have heard it said among the family that his son probably did it. Naturally, such rumors are calculated to intrigue. I have long entertained a certain morbid curiosity on the subject, but found little information on my own. The information I did have consisted in his name: John Stephen CRAIG; his estimated birth information: Apr 1859 in Scotland; his family unit: wife Martha Mulvena RUBENALL (whom he married on 26 May 1886 in Denison, Crawford, Iowa), sons Matthew, Harry, and Dewey, and daughter Mary Josephine; and the following death information: died 21 Feb 1917 on 16^th St in Omaha, Nebraska, and buried 26 Feb 1917 in the Holy Sepulchre Cemetery of the same city. Now, as for names and dates that appears fairly complete. However, I knew there was a story for this man, and one that might prove quite interesting.

Finally I gave in and sent away to the Omaha Public Library for some research on my behalf. Although the internet has been a godsend to genealogists, there are still some things that must be done offline, and this, it seemed, was one of them.

Yesterday I received the lovely, creased envelope bearing my address in my own handwriting. This was it! I was finally going to read about my ancestor’s murder in the words of the local reporter. I slit open the envelope and pulled out four sheets of paper. The first was a cover letter; the other three were articles from the Omaha World Herald in 1917.

It is an odd sensation to find oneself delighted while reading about the violent death of one’s own great-great-grandfather, but delighted I was. At last I was reading first-hand information, not family rumors that might have been exaggerated through the years. For the first time I learned which son was suspected of his death. I learned that he died near 10^th St, not on 16^th St. Perhaps most remarkable, because it was the first time I heard of it, I learned that his wife had left him and possibly remarried.

But let’s back up just a bit, and I’ll share the articles themselves with you.

The first appeared on the front page of the Evening World-Herald on the day following his death.

  

Craig is Found Dead; How Killed Mystery.

Murder or Accidentally Killed by Train, Ask Police; Investigating.

Body Found Frozen Beside Little Used Track; Well Known Expressman.

  

Mystery surrounds the death of John Craig, aged 62, an express driver, whose body was found early this morning within a short distance of his home at Tenth and Paul streets, with mortal wounds about the head.

  

“I’ll die by violence some day,” was the fatalistic remark of Craig a short time ago, and his prediction was fulfilled. He had lived in Omaha nearly forty years, and for a long time past, had led the life of a hermit in a one-room wing of the 3-room shack he called hime [sic]. There are rumors that he had considerable money. He had an express stand at Fifteenth and Harney streets, and ran a little store at Eleventh and Paul streets.

  

For about two years he had been separated from his wife, who is now said to be remarried and living in California. Two sons, Matt and Harry, live in Omaha, as well as a married daughter, Mrs. Henry Stroesser. Matt and the daughter say they have not seen their father for some time past, and have had nothing to do with him on account of family troubles. Harry, the second son, could not be found.

  

Neighbors say that Craig came home as usual about 5:30 last evening, and put away his horse. He was not seen again until his body was discovered by Ole Jackson, colored, living at 2528 Patrick avenue, and Lewis Lesslow, Tenth and Seward streets. The body lay beside a commercial spur track leading from the Union Pacific yards across Eleventh street to the rear of the T. G. Northwall company building.

  

Half a dozen large boards which Craig had evidently been carrying when he was killed lay beside the body.

  

Murder or accidental death are the two theories on which the police are working. The fact that the dead man’s clothes were not disturbed, and that about $7, his watch and some personaly [sic] papers were not taken from the pockets, would indicate that he was not killed by robbers, say the police.

  

The position of the body beside the railroad tracks leave it possible, it is added, that the man was struck by a freight car being switched in or drawn from the spur track during the night. The body was frozen stiff when found.

  

The body is at Taggart’s undertaking rooms. An inquest is considered likely.

It certainly creates an image to read that John CRAIG “had led the life of a hermit in a one-room wing of the 3-room shack he called hime [sic],” that “for about two years he had been separated from his wife,” and that his children “have had nothing to do with him on account of family troubles.” And when he is quoted as predicting “I’ll die by violence some day,” I can’t help but wish that the reporter had elaborated, if only to tell how he learned of the prediction. He couldn’t have learned it from John himself!

Also, it is somewhat chilling to read such a dispassionate account of the condition of the body, when the body belongs to one’s relative. I have always found such descriptions much more unsettling than the gaudiest thing that gothic literature could invent, because there seems to be such a disconnect between “the body” and the person it once was. Gothic literature, at least, preserves the horror of the viewer.

The second article appeared the following day, but by now the story has been relegated to the second page of the newspaper.

Son Held as Police Probe Craig’s Death

Official Suspicion Aroused by His Story of Whereabouts Wednesday Night.

Sees All Three Newspapers, but Ignorant of Father’s Death, He Says.

  

Harry Craig, son of John Craig, 62, recluse, who was found dead with his head mutilated in a field near his hut at Tenth and Paul streets yesterday morning, was arrested by Police Detectives Dunn and Gaughan late yesterday, and is held without bond while the police investigate further his father’s mysterious death.

  

The police declare that they have nothing tangible to connect the younger Craig with his father’s death, but his story of his whereabouts the night before aroused their suspicions.

  

Harry Craig told the detectives that he saw three newspapers yesterday, but knew nothing of his father’s death, which was prominent on the first page of all the papers.

  

He said that he left the Millard hotel, where he washes dishes, at 6:15 Wednesday evening, wandered about town, and returned at 10:30, going to bed. Craig’s roommate told the police that he did not notice Craig until a few minutes before 6 o’clock in the morning. According to the police, young Craig was at a loss to tell exactly where he had “wandered about” earlier in the evening.

  

The police are now convinced that Craig was murdered. No cars are switched at night on the tracks near which the body was found, so he could not have been killed by a passing train. The blow on his head crushed his skull badly. Money and jewelry on his person were not touched and the padlock on his shack was not broken, so robbery could not have been the motive.

  

The police learned that Harry Craig had quarreled with his father recently and that they had been seen frequently together. According to the meager information they gathered of the family, Harry Craig blamed his father for trouble between himself and his wife.

So it was Harry who was suspected of his father’s murder. I have very little information on Harry CRAIG: only that he was born in February 1893 in Omaha. I do not even have the name of his wife. These CRAIGs have been difficult to research because it is a rather common surname—and paired with common Christian names—in a densely populated area. The problem is not that I cannot find a record for Harry CRAIG, it is that I find too many records and am unable to differentiate between them.

It seems that the trouble between Harry and his wife must have been serious, since they don’t appear to be living together. The article speaks of Harry’s roommate at his home. The idea of a parent causing trouble between a child and his spouse reminds me of the family rumor regarding John’s wife, Martha. It has been said that she had more than motherly feelings toward her son-in-law, Harry STROESSER. Whether that caused problems in her daughter’s marriage, I don’t know, but I can easily see how it could. These CRAIGs are definitely turning out to be an interesting bunch.

The third, and most enigmatic, story appeared in the morning edition of the newspaper on 24 Feb 1917. It is no more than a blurb way back on page 15, and a confusing one at that:

Deny Story of Arrest.

Denial of the statement that Harry Craig, son of John Craig, the expressman whose body was found along railroad tracks near his home Thursday morning, was arrested at the Millard hotel Thursday evening, was made last night by Harry Stroesser, carpenter employed by the city, and by Matt Craig, son of the dead man and brother of the man in jail. Stroesser is a brother-in-law of the Craig boys.

What does that mean? It says that Harry STROESSER and Matt CRAIG denied the statement of Harry CRAIG’s arrest. But what are they denying about it? They can’t deny that he was arrested; he is identified as “the man in jail.” If he weren’t arrested, how would he end up in jail? Are they denying that the arrest took place at the Millard hotel or that it took place Thursday evening? The most probable assumption would be that they are disputing his identification as a suspect, but if that is the case, the reporter has expressed it dismally.

Although I have long known that it was an unsolved murder, I find it frustrating to end on a mystery. Somehow I expected at least some closure. And I can’t help but wonder if my great-great-uncle got away with murder—and even more, if his brother and my own great-grandfather were accessories after the fact.

Citations

“Craig is Found Dead; How Killed Mystery.” Evening World-Herald [Omaha] 22 Feb 1917: 1.

“Son Held as Police Probe Craig’s Death.” Evening World-Herald [Omaha] 23 Feb 1917: 2.

“Deny Story of Arrest.” Morning World-Herald [Omaha] 24 Feb 1917: 15.